Mary Grant Bruce (Minnie Grant Bruce)

Minnie Grant Bruce was born on 24 May 1878, in Sale, Victoria, the daughter of Eyre Lewis Bruce and Mary (Minnie) Atkinson, née Whittakers. She was educated at Miss Estelle Beausire’s Ladies’ High School in Sale where she matriculated with honours in English, Botany, and History. In 1895 she was awarded first prize in the Melbourne Shakespeare Society Essay competition, after being encouraged by her French teacher to enter for it (Anderson 7). She continued to win first prize for the next two years. In 1900 she moved to Melbourne where she began working as a journalist for the Age and the Leader, and wrote articles for a number of other publications. A story which appeared as a serial for the Children’s Page in the Leader was later submitted to Ward, Lock & Co, who published the The Little Bush Maid in 1910, the first in the Billabong series. She wrote under the name of Mary as her publishers thought it was more marketable than ‘Minnie’ (ABD 452). In 1913 she visited England where she met a distant cousin, Major George Evans Bruce, whom she married in 1914, the pair living in Ireland during the war before returning to Australia. From 1927 to 1939 they lived in Ireland, Europe and England before returning to Australia in 1939. She later returned to England in 1948 and died in Sussex, England, on July 12 1958.

Bruce was best known for her Billabong series which concerns the adventures of Mr Linton and his two children, Norah and Jim, on their family property, and follows their progression to adulthood. There were fifteen titles in the series. Bruce predominantly wrote family stories. Between 1910 and 1942 Bruce wrote 38 novels during her career, and after Turner retired from writing in 1928, she became Ward, Lock & Co.’s leading author (Niall, Australia Through the Looking Glass 124-5).

Further Reading
Alexander, Alison. Billabong's Author: The Life of Mary Grant Bruce. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1979.

Links
Australian Dictionary of Biography, Online Edition: Bruce, Minnie Grant (Mary) (1878 - 1958) by Lynne Strahan
Mary Grant Bruce from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dick. London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1918. 256 pages. Illustrated J. Macfarlane, b/w frontis. & 7 b/w illus.

Dick was originally published as a serial in the Leader. Dick Lester lives on Kurrajong Station in rural Victoria with his mother whilst his father is working in England. Dick is going to be sent to school as his father wants him to grow up "straight and square", to learn to "do the decent thing". Similar motivations for sending a son to a public school are explored in Max the Sport. The first half of the story concerns his last week at home and his subsequent journey to school. At school he is introduced to two of his dormitory mates, Teddy Raine, and Willie Glass ‘Bottles’, who take him up so he is not as lonely as he might have been as a new boy. Dick warms to Melville, the Captain of the School, a "jolly good all-round man", who is down on bullying and becomes Dick’s idol. Various school incidents are shown, a first night dorm raid, bathing and midnight feasts. Dick is unique in exploring the problem of bullying in some depth. Dick discovers Barry, a new boy, crying because he has been bullied. Against the traditional schoolboy honour code of not sneaking, Teddy and Bottles make Barry confess who has been bullying him, as "bullying’s a thing this school doesn’t go in for". Barry reveals it was Bayliss and Ahearne, two older boys, and when the boys see Barry’s bruises, weals and cigarette burns, they decide to take action, forming a Committee of Public Safety and launching an attack on Bayliss and Ahearne when they catch them bullying Barry. Melville interrupts them and agrees not to tell the Doctor if Ahearne and Bayliss promise not to bully anymore. The figure of Melville, the decent School Captain and his endeavours to ensure there is a good moral atmosphere in the school is comparable to the figure of ‘Dreamy’ Howard in Jack of St. Virgil’s. Dick faces a dilemma popularly used in school stories, when he is accused of a rag. A master is hit by an ink bomb hidden in his desk and Dick remembers seeing his friend, Nugent, fiddling around with the teacher’s desk the night before. Dick himself is accused but keeps silent, wanting to shield Nugent. When a schoolmate returns from an impromptu holiday and reveals he is the culprit, Dick is cleared. Dick and Nugent make up and Dick invites Nugent, the ‘school orphan’, home with him for the holidays.

Dick’s adventures are continued in Dick Lester of Kurrajong (1920) where Dick travels to Fremantle to meet his father’s ship but is injured by a spear and faces the prospect of being crippled until he is cured by a specialist in Melbourne.