Talk:Ada Cambridge

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Ada Cambridge/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: MCE89 (talk · contribs) 21:11, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Thebiguglyalien (talk · contribs) 21:43, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

I'll read over the article to determine whether it meets the good article criteria. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:43, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

MCE89, sorry for the delay. I've read the article. It's very well written and I only had a few notes about the GA criteria. I listed some other thoughts below about the article that aren't part of the good article review but might be useful to consider or to revisit later. I made some simple copyedits myself, which can be viewed at Special:Diff/1342837110; I have no objections to further changes on these. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:15, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the review and for the very helpful comments! I've started taking care of the more straightforward ones, and will work on the rest over the next couple of days. MCE89 (talk) 23:46, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@Thebiguglyalien: Thanks again for the review, I've responded to all your comments below. MCE89 (talk) 02:21, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Looks good! Ping me if you send this to WP:FAC. Assuming I didn't miss anything here, I'd support its promotion there as well. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:18, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Source review

All sources appear to be reliable.

Spot checks:

Reference #	Letter	Source	Archive	Status	Notes
After moving to Ely, Cambridge's life became increasingly centred on religion. She became a district visitor—women in the church who volunteered to assist the clergy, such as by visiting the poor and elderly—and later wrote that she had considered becoming a nun.
16		Tate 1991, pp. 29–30.		Y
The expansive parish was a farming district with a population of around 1400.
32		Tate 1991, p. 54.		Y	What wording in the source is used to verify "expansive"? Hm, looking at it again I think I was probably drawing that description from p.60, but I don't think it's really needed here. Removed "expansive". MCE89 (talk) 07:47, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
In February 1871, Ada published her first literary work written in Australia in The Sydney Mail: a romantic poem titled "From the Battlefield, Good Night".
34	c	Tate 1991, p. 57.		Y
During her period of recovery, she devoted herself to her writing.
62	a	Bradstock & Wakeling 1991, p. 57.		Y
During this period Ada's fiction began to feature explorations of the "New Woman" and women's status in society, as well as the social norms surrounding marriage.
80		Tate 1991, pp. 150, 153–154.		Y
By 1897 she was earning around £1000 per year from her writing.
85	b	Bradstock & Wakeling 1991, p. 191.		Y
In December 1909, George retired from his ministry in Williamstown. The following year he spent six months acting as a substitute priest in Carrick, Tasmania; whether Ada accompanied him to Tasmania is unknown.
102		Bradstock & Wakeling 1991, p. 195.		Y	It's ambiguous whether the source is saying George worked there for six months or if Kelly was absent for six months. If it's the latter, that's not a guarantee George started working immediately after Kelly left. The source says that George arrived in Launceston on 14 April and left on 11 October, so I think it's fair to say that he was there for six months. MCE89 (talk) 07:47, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
Cambridge's heroines were generally attractive, morally upstanding, upper-middle class young women with "ladylike" qualities.
119		Beilby & Hadgraft 1979, pp. 7, 10.		Y
120		Bradstock & Wakeling 1991, p. ix.		Y
121	a	Tate 1991, pp. 79–80.		Y
She also suggested that young women might only find the capacity for true love as they matured, after initially marrying for reasons of money or obligation.
132		Tate 1991, p. 164.		Y	Verified, but "suggested" might imply she said something instead of it being something that appeared in her work. Fair point, changed the subject to "Her novels". MCE89 (talk) 07:47, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
However, by the 1930s, her fiction began to be regarded more critically. She was dismissed as an Anglophile interested only in women's affairs.
145	b	Tate 1991, pp. 246–247.		N	The source says she was still praised in the 1930s. I'd also avoid this wording since "critical" reception can be positive. Oops, might have been a typo — that should have said 1940s (...but by the 1940s when Kate Baker was lobbying to have a memorial for her at Williamstown, her reputation had already fallen away). Fixed the date and changed the wording to "negatively". MCE89 (talk) 07:47, 1 March 2026 (UTC)
147	a	Bradstock & Wakeling 1991, p. vii.		N	Anglophile interested only in women's affairs is WP:CLOP of Anglophile and interested only in feminine concerns. I think "Anglophile" is pretty WP:LIMITED, but agree that we can do without "interested only". Rephrased slightly. MCE89 (talk) 07:47, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

Prose review

• For concision, I suggest replacing "began to verb" with "began verbing" or "verbed" where possible. This shows up a lot throughout the article.
  • Done
• The lead says she was born into the middle class, but this isn't stated in the body.
  • Added to the body
• There are a few times health issues are mentioned without elaboration: leaving her with permanent disabilities; She suffered a breakdown; and admitted to hospital due to complications associated with her earlier miscarriage.
  • I don't think there's much more detail in the sources about her health issues, but is there anything in particular that you think the article should elaborate on?
• The article mentions including the nature of God, the hypocrisy of organised religion, and the topics of marital vows, prostitution, euthanasia, and suicide as well as anti-establishment themes including injustice, the nature of God, and sexual expression, but we don't get much information about what she said on these topics. Ideally, the article should cover the messages she was trying to deliver in her work.
  • Expanded on the themes of the collection
• I'm unsure about putting the hypocrisy of organised religion in wikivoice, which implies she's correct that it's hypocritical.
  • Fixed
• Cambridge's novels have been described – By whom?
  • Specified "literary scholars"
• There are a few instances where quotation marks are used in a way that could reasonably be interpreted as MOS:SCAREQUOTES: "ladylike", "nouveaux riche", "good breeding", and "quasi-feminist". Rather than quote them, the article should define them or explain what they mean. Or if they're not explainable, then they should probably just be removed.
  • Think I've fixed all of these

Miscellaneous thoughts:

• Be aware of MOS:SURNAME and MOS:SAMESURNAME. There's disagreement on how to apply these in situations like this where an article extensively discusses two people with the same surname. Since George isn't a major recognizeable figure who would be confused with her if "Cross" were used, I'd lean toward Cross to refer to Ada and George (or "her husband") to refer to George unless they're referred to as a pair (in which case you'd use "Ada and George" or "George and Ada").
  • I struggled a bit with this — she went by Ada Cambridge professionally throughout her life and it's the name under which she published her books and by which she is known today, so I'm not too keen on just referring to her as Cross. But Cambridge doesn't feel like an ideal choice either. Might have a bit of a think about this one
• as he travelled to minister in the far reaches of the district – I know "minister" can be a verb, but to me it reads awkwardly in this case. I won't say a change is necessary, but it's something to consider.
  • Changed to "conducted his ministry"
• This is just a style choice, but sentences sometimes flow better if they're written "This happened in year" instead of "In year this happened".
  • Done
• I wonder if half-sentence to one-sentence plot descriptions of each work would fit somewhere in the article or if that would clutter it.
  • My thinking was that she wrote so many novels with very similar plots that even a brief description of each of their plots would end up a bit cluttered and repetitive, but I think you're right that some plot information would be a nice addition. I've added some brief plot summaries of some of her more interesting/notable books.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:27, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Ada Cambridge

• ... that despite being the wife of a priest, Ada Cambridge (pictured) was a fierce critic of organised religion?

• Source: Tate, Audrey (1991). Ada Cambridge: Her Life and Work, 1844–1926. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 978-0-522-84410-8. As the wife of a Church of England clergyman in the nineteenth century who began to think for herself, she was caught in a serious conflict of loyalties, yet she had the courage to turn her back on institutional religion and follow her own spiritual path ... not to mention her angry attacks on revered institutions such as the church, which she saw as taking away individual liberty.

• ALT1: ... that despite being the wife of a priest, Ada Cambridge (pictured) often portrayed clergymen as snobbish and hypocritical in her novels? Source: [1] and [2]
• ALT2: ... that while Ada Cambridge (pictured) was often described as Australia's leading female novelist during her lifetime, her works were eventually dismissed as "romantic fiction of dubious value"? Source: Tate, Audrey (1991). Ada Cambridge: Her Life and Work, 1844–1926. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 978-0-522-84410-8. During her lifetime Ada Cambridge was frequently described as the foremost novelist of her sex in this country, and various aspects of her work were likened to names such as Thackeray, George Eliot and Charlotte Bronté. Even on her death in 1926 she could still be called the 'doyen of women writers in Australia. Then she became a victim of the force for conservatism in Australian literature that interpreted the nationalist school of the Bulletin as throwing off the 'shackles of an imported vision,' and her professional reputation was gradually replaced with a personal myth—that of a frail clergyman's wife writing romantic fiction of dubious value
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Silvius Leopold Weiss

Improved to Good Article status by MCE89 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 20 past nominations.

MCE89 (talk) 22:52, 16 March 2026 (UTC).

• Q{Q done. Hooks are fine, ALT0 seems most interesting/simple to me. No problems detected (recent GA). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:49, 17 March 2026 (UTC)