Cirrus@Austlit

Alice Ashton Eastmure's father had amassed considerable wealth in India (where Alice was born in Madras, now Chennai), but after returning home to England became disappointed with his investments in that country. He subsequently emigrated to Australia with his family in 1855. During her school days Alice had demonstrated a gift for writing, with her first known work dating back to 1847, when she was aged just fourteen. After arriving in Australia she took up a position as a governess with a family in Murrurundi, a town situated in the Upper Hunter Region of New South Wales. Eastmure later returned to Sydney, where she secured tutoring positions with a number of the city's leading families. Her home, from at least the mid-1860s, is believed to have been in Balmain.

While the majority of Eastmure's known works were not published until more than a quarter of a century after her death, a number had been accepted by various Australian newspapers. These were contributed under the pseudonym A.A.E.

[Source: 'Publications Received' Newcastle Herald Miners' Advocate 3 August 1921, p.9]