| Main entry | Ardagh, Alice Maud |
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| Birth place | Monmouthshire, Wales |
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| Birth date | 15 July 1861 |
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| Death date | 13 January 1936 |
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| Identifier | 0147 |
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| Birth name | Alice Maud Ardagh |
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| Alternate names | Esperance |
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| Marital status | single |
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| Religious affiliation | Anglican; Plymouth Bretheren |
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| Paid work | clerk at T. Eaton Co. (Eaton's) |
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| Biography | After the death of his first wife, Irish-born innkeeper Arthur Wellington Ardagh (c1822-c1868) married again, this time to English-born Frances Mary Neale (1823-1915). By the time the Ardaghs had left Pontypool in Monmouthshire, Wales and arrived in Ontario in the 1860s, their family had grown to include daughter Alice Maud Ardagh (1861-1936). When Arthur died, "Fanny" was left to raise eight children on her own, including three step-children. The family moved around from Whitby to Yorkville to Toronto, but by 1900, Alice was living in Barrie, Ontario where relatives had established themselves as successful practitioners of theology and medicine. She seems to have led the quiet life of a literary lady, contributing verse to periodicals such as THE CANADIAN MONTHLY and THE WEEK under the delicately equivocal pseudonym of "Esperance." She authored 3 books of fiction, that last of which was published shorted after her death, in 1936, at a currently unknown location. |
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| Other notes | Siblings: Catherine Mary Louisa Ardagh (1847-), half-sibling; Frances Mary Anne Ardagh (1849-1935), half-sibling; Arthur Augustus Stephenson Ardagh (1850-), half-sibling; Edith Kathleen Mary Ardagh (1860-); Florence Ardagh (1863-); Harry Ardagh (1865-); Frederic Ardagh (1867-). |
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| Residences | Pontypool, Monmouthshire, Wales (1861); Whitby, Ontario (1871); Yorkville, Ontario (1881); Toronto, Ontario (1891); Barrie, Ontario |
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| Geographic regions | Wales; Ontario |
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| Primary genres | poetry; fiction |
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| Books | TANGLED ENDS (1888); ON THE POTTER'S WHEEL (c1933); FOR ME TO LIVE (1936) |
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| Periodicals | CANADIAN MONTHLY; THE WEEK |
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| Other publications | Anthologized in: Harrison, CANADIAN BIRTHDAY BOOK (1887); Rand, TREASURY OF CANADIAN VERSE (1900) |
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| Father's name | Arthur Wellington Ardagh |
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| Life dates of father | hotel owner and manager (Pontypool, Wales) |
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| Father's note | c1822, Tipperary, Ireland - c1868, Canada; m. 1846 (Mary Anne Young), 1857 |
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| Mother's name | Frances Mary Neale |
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| Life dates of mother | 30 December 1823, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England - 12 January 1915, Barrie, Ontario; m. 1857 |
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| Biographical references | 1871 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada; Canadian City and Area Directories, 1819-1906 |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), p. 239 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | letter to Lighthall, Lighthall papers, Box 1 f 1, McGill University |
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| Image credits | Line drawing by Una Vernelli (Vancouver, British Columbia). |
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| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
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