Early Years
Ursula was born in Surrey, England on 6 October 1874. Her parents returned to New Zealand in 1876, settling in Rangiora, close to Richard Bethell’s sheep station Pahau Pastures. After her father’s death (when she was 10 years old), the family moved to Christchurch where she attended Christchuch Girls’ High School. In 1889, at the age of 15, she was sent to England to continue her education at Miss Soulsby’s School for Girls in Oxford, then at a boarding school in Switzerland. In 1892 she returned briefly to New Zealand, setting a pattern of travel that would continue for the next 30 years. Although English by birth, Ursula Bethell spent much of her life travelling between England and New Zealand. Her work expresses an awareness of the conflict between her English origins and sympathies and her New Zealand (Pākehā) community.
Ursula began to write and sketch at a young age. The collection contains 75 watercolours, drawings, and sketches, most of which were produced by Bethell as a young woman in the latter part of the 19th century. These works shed light on a lesser known aspect of her creativity. A large part of the collection is diaristic in nature, providing an insightful painted record of Bethell’s travels as a young woman
Her papers include a manuscript of poems left unfinished when she died, grouped under the heading By the River Ashley. It commemorates the author’s childhood in Rangiora, mingled with her later life experiences.
