Unlike my last forgotten writer, Dulcie Deamer, today’s writer, though a prolific contributor to newspapers in her day, has slipped into the shadows. Neither Wikipedia nor the Australian dictionary of biography (ADB) contain articles for her, but the AustLit database does. As with many of my Forgotten Writers articles, I researched and posted a versions of this on the Australian Women Writers’ site.
Ruby Mary Doyle
Ruby Mary Doyle (1887-1943) wrote short stories and serialised novels, newspaper articles including travel and nature pieces, and plays, mostly publishing as Ruby Doyle or Ruby M. Doyle. Much of her writing was published in Fairfax’s weekly magazine, The Sydney Mail. By the 1930s she had, says AustLit, gained a reputation as a writer of some standing. She was also active in the Lyceum Club and the Pioneer Club in Sydney. And yet, there are no articles for her in Wikipedia or the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Doyle was born on the 20 February 1887 in Gunnedah, New South Wales, to Joseph McCormick Doyle, a bank manager for the Commercial Bank, and Annie (née Hooke). She was the first of six children. In 1935, in an article titled “The making of the writer”, Doyle wrote of how she came to writing:
As a child, when I walked through the bush, well behind the family party, every tree seemed an enchanted castle. Birds, butterflies, flowers talked, and I understood them. Imagination — that blessed gift from the gods — had come to me from every side of my family, and finally led me, whether I would or not, into the realm of writing.
According to Kingston, of the Dungog Historical Society, her first published serial was The Dragon, which appeared in The Sydney Mail from 4 June 1913, and was later published in book form as The mystery of the hills. Promoting the book form, which was published in 1919, The World’s News wrote that:
Those who love a story which is thoroughly and typically Australian and of the country will enjoy this tale of love and adventure … The “mystery” we shall not, of course, say anything about, except that it has to do with men who defy the law and have a chief, who is a man of importance. There are several love stories, and they have the usual course, and there is quite a fund of information as to how we Australians live in the country, and how we manage to enjoy ourselves there.
This little piece says much about how Australia saw itself. “How we manage to enjoy ourselves there [ie “in the country”]” suggests that Australia was well on the way to urbanisation, but fascinated by its bush self.
Further stories and serialisations appeared, including The winning of Miriam Heron in The Sydney Mail in 1918, which was published in book form by Edwards Dunlop in 1924. Announcing this new serial in 1918, The Sydney Mail wrote:
She [Doyle] has already contributed to the ‘Mail,’ and has disclosed literary and dramatic ability of a high order. It is gratifying to note that she shows no disposition to ‘write herself out.’ On the contrary, ‘The Winning of Miriam Heron’ reveals that she has mastered the art of construction, and thus gives her readers a better chance than previously to fully appreciate her literary powers.
From 1924 to 1926, Ruby travelled overseas a few times – to the United Kingdom, the continent, Canada and America – during which time she regularly submitted travel articles to the Dungog Chronicle, which, according to that paper, “were reprinted in many country papers throughout the State.”
Doyle wrote for local papers through the 1920s and 1930s. AustLit lists over 30 works of hers published over this time. She also tried her hand at playwriting. Kingston writes that her play The Family Tree came second in a competition at the Independent Theatre, Sydney, in 1933, and that the following year, The Man from Murrumbidgee, was produced at the Kursaal Theatre, also in Sydney. I believe these are the same play, given The Man from Murrumbidgee is about a status-seeking wife who tries to find “a worthy ancestor” on the family tree.
Doyle’s writing reflects the versatility of the working writer. Her short stories dealt largely with domestic subjects, while her serialised novels included historical stories about the colonial days, and romantic adventure stories. Her non-fiction focused particularly on nature, travel and local history, rather than on social or political commentary. Many of her local history pieces drew on her own family’s long history in the region, and include some delightful touches of humour. For example, she describes a pioneer family (hers it seems), coming out to Australia in 1828 with various things, including merino sheep and
rolls and rolls of beautiful silks, Mr. Hooke having an idea that he would be able to deal successfully in such merchandise. It proved only a supposition, and for the rest of her life Mrs Hooke had a marvellous collection of silks from which her dresses were made.
There is also some recognition of the original people of the land. Writing in The Sydney Mail 1931 on the town of Gresford, she says that:
Most of the homes in the vicinity bear English and Welsh names — Norwood, Clevedon, Goulston, Camyr ‘Allyn, Caergule, Penshurst, Tre vallyn, etc. The river, named Paterson by the white man, was called Yimmang by the aborigines; one of our poets has written a very beautiful poem, “Ode to the Yimmang,” in which he extols its beauty.
Ruby Doyle was regularly written up in the local Dungog Chronicle, clearly being of interest to the community. She went to England, again, in 1935, planning to be away for two or three years. On 1 March, the Dungog Chronicle,reported on a farewell for this “gifted novelist”, and named Flora Eldershaw – one half of the M. Barnard Eldershaw collaboration – as a co-guest at the event. This suggests Doyle was known to the literati of her time. Doyle died in England in 1943, having never returned home again. A small obituary appeared in various local newspapers, including The Gloucester Advocate (see under Sources). The obituary noted her three published works, but also commented on her writing overall, commenting in particular that
a keen observer of nature, she had the gift of translating her thoughts on paper in an easy readable way.
The piece I posted for the Australian Women Writers Challenge is titled “The flame” (linked below). It is an intriguing story about a disgruntled wife, and invites – particularly from modern eyes – a variety of readings. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Sources
- Miss Ruby Doyle, The Gloucester Advocate, 12 January 1943 [Accessed: 14 January 2025]
- Ruby Doyle, “The flame“, Sydney Mail, 24 July 1935 [Accessed: 3 February 2025]
- Ruby M. Doyle, AustLit [Accessed: 3 Feb 2025]
- Maureen Kingston, “Was Ruby Doyle our first local travel writer?”, Dungog Chronicle, 25 August 2021 [Accessed via the NLA eResources service: 3 February 1924]
Whispering Gums 
There is one very obvious comment to make, after reading this article, ST:
WRITE A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ABOUT HER.
🙂
Haha MR … I have thought of that … time is the big issue plus the Wikipedia guardians’ ideas about notability! Would they remove the work I did.
If they were to commit so heinous an act, I would never use Wikipedia again.
But why in the name of any god I can think of would they DO that ? – your reputation can only possibly stand you in unimpeachable stead !
Thanks MR! They don’t read blogs, and they have a strong sense of what’s “notable”! I think we should have all published writers in there – and maybe they’d accept her, maybe not. I will think about it. But, even though I’ve done the work, it takes time to enter what I’ve done here in Wikipedia form and style (reformatting the sources, citing/footnoting them against the statements I’ve made, etc. Here I just provide the sources at the end but don’t cite which one I’ve used for every bit of information.)
So interesting. I always feel that writers of the past write such visual pieces especially of Australian landscape. You really should take all of your posts and develop a book. So much information.
Thanks Pam … A book is a nice idea but I think I’m too dilettantish in my interests to apply the focus that would be needed!
“They don’t read blogs” ??? Who are they, these superior beings ? What allows them to select or deselect from all manner of background information ? What are their guidelines ? How do they themselves become among The Chosen Few ?
CRIKEY ! I just went back to the Wikipedia article about my sporting hero, Roberto Baggio. To my amazement, it’s roughly 500 times longer than it was when I edited a section therein that dealt unfairly with Roby’s infamous missed penalty in a World Cup match. It’s now a scholarly article, rife with feetnote and divided into countless sections: my editing must have long, long since vanished. In other words, it’s now professional. It used to be put together by passionate enthusiasts (i.e., awfully unprofessional). It’s now a source of reference that attracts real researchers like you.
Wikipedia has grown and developed into what it wants to be, a free, authoritative encyclopedia. But it had to start somewhere and those of us who worked on it – in my case mostly around 2007-9, were very important to getting it going. We should be proud. Did you work on others?
The thing is as I understand it that an encyclopedia is generally not a place where you share primary research – which a lot of my forgotten writers articles involve. At least that’s Wikipedia’s policy and it’s fair enough because you would need peer reviewing to ensure that that research is valid. Here is Wikipedia’s’ policy page on notability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability. Essentially, “A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject” AND “The common theme in the notability guidelines is that there must be verifiable, objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability.” IF a person was notable in their time and there was attention in independent sources (which is presumably not the newspaper that published them) then they can be notable if forgotten now. It can be a fine line. If ADB has written about them then that’s easy, they’d be notable because ADB itself only chooses notable people and the articles they do tend to cite other sources. AustLit listing the person is not such a good source because it is trying to be comprehensive rather than only list notable people. If one of our biographers up and did a biography of Doyle then that could change things, but right now, with the sources I’ve found, I think she’s borderline-to-not-notable in Wikipedia terms. (I didn’t find her in any of my Aus Lit books.)
I did, but I do not remember what they were. I always recall editing the far, far shorter article on Baggio because I was incensed by the way some dickhead had described the contentious topic. Back then there was no formal requirement of contributors – or I would never have even got in, let alone edited anything !
Anyone can still contribute but there’s faster assessment I think of what’s being produced. Partly bots I think! I’d still be doing it I reckon if I weren’t blogging.
And, don’t block me, but I don’t know who Baggio is.
“Considered by pundits to be a highly promising prospect in his youth,[341][342] Baggio later established himself as one of the best players of his generation,[251][326][343][344] and as one of Italy’s greatest players ever;[268][345] Baggio is regarded by many in the sport, including his former Milan manager Fabio Capello, as the best Italian footballer of all time,[nb 8] and by many in the sport, as one of the greatest players in the history of the game.[12][17] Italian journalist Gianni Brera, who had observed both Giuseppe Meazza and Gianni Rivera, stated that Baggio was the best Italian player he had ever seen.[26] During his time at Juventus, the club’s former chairman, Gianni Agnelli, referred to Baggio as an “artist”,[349] comparing his elegance to the painter Raffaello, while he described the emerging talent Alessandro Del Piero as Pinturicchio.[15][19] In a 2011 interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, Del Piero stated that Baggio, along with Zinedine Zidane, was the best player with whom he had ever played,[251] a view shared by Baggio’s fellow former Juventus teammate Angelo Peruzzi[350] and his former Brescia teammate Pep Guardiola in 2010,[351] as well as his former Inter teammate Javier Zanetti in 2020,[352] while Matthew Le Tissier named Baggio as his best ever opponent in 2012.[343] In 2017, Baggio’s former teammate Ravanelli instead labelled Baggio as the greatest player of all time.[18] In 1993, Giampiero Boniperti stated that he believed that Baggio was “already one of the greatest number tens ever.”[288] In 2018, Cathal Kelly of The Globe and Mail described Baggio playing in the 1994 World Cup as “the best player in the world” at the time,[353] while The Guardian described him as “[t]he definitive player of the decade”, also adding that “the 1990s belonged to Il Divin Codino”, and labelled him as “probably the finest player in the world between 1992 and 1995.”[354] In 2015, Les Carpenter of The Guardian described Baggio as “perhaps the greatest player of his time,”[355]”
Ha ha, MR, well, now I know… I presume you mean he’s a soccer player (says she, ducking!)
ST, please insert an ‘i’ before the ‘o’ in Baggio’s name ?
Done!
Thank-you !!!
AustralianWomenWriters.com is the wikipedia for everyone in the know (not as many as I’d like probably).
I’m guessing Eldershaw knew Doyle through the Fellowship of Australian Writers. Sadly, there are notices of meetings in SMH, but no notes afterwards with attendance (that I could find). I did see though that the meeting for 27 Apr 1938 was to be a social event at the Feminist Club and there would be discussion of an unpublished ms from 1843 – so they had their own forgotten writers.
Oops I saw this come through but I was – let us say – otherwise engaged preparing for a procedure and I forgot to come back to it. Our AWW stats did go up last year, Bill, though I think some of that was due to changes in how the stats are collected. However, we do have comments from, and Elizabeth has received a few emails from, students and researchers who are using the site so that’s really encouraging.
Yes, I assumed that’s how they met. And, like you I find it frustrating that there are usually meeting notices but rarely reports, unless there was a significant guest speaker.
Thanks, I didn’t know this author
No, nor did I – but I love that she made a career for herself.
I find it interesting that this author was born in the late 1800s and wrote, “that blessed gift from the gods.” That is “gods” and not God. I wonder what made her acknowledge a variety of divine beings, given she is (I’m assuming) an Anglo woman.
Interesting question Melanie, but it’s an old saying for something that’s lucky. It comes from ancient times, I think, so then it probably implied divine intervention of the “gods” but now it tends to be a way pf referring to an incredible stroke of luck. I grew up in a Christian household but no-one would have thought this saying was unusual. But, your comment suggests that it would be seen as perhaps heathenish in your neck of the woods?
Just unusual. Either you are a God person or you aren’t thanking a deity.
That’s interesting Melanie … another cultural difference!
I realise this is semantics, but it seems as though recognise is rather a generous way to describe her note that the original residents’ nomenclature was erased with colonial placenames. However, you’ve read more of the original than I have, so perhaps there is more to it. And maybe the poem itself is more significant than I’ve gathered. Anyway, I’m not saying that I expect that she should be making a Land Acknowledgement or anything like that either: I understand that she’s writing from a settler’s pov and that many settlers erased Indigenous peoples from their articles/writing entirely. The chat about Wikipedia and notability interests me. For now, I’m quite busy enough with what’s clearly notable, but in the back of my mind I’m watching to see whether some of my own potential lit subjects will make it to the “stub stage”. What an odd term! hehe
Yes Marcie you have a point semantics but I guess from my experience of reading a lot of articles in trove from the 1920s to 1930s, any reference to First Nations people’s original habitation – versus the racist comments I see feels worthy of the term recognition! That poem seems to have been written by a significant person in the colonies, John Dunmore Lang (minister, politician, historian, activist in the mid 19th century colony). He died in 1878, so the fact that she knew it says something?