[5] Between 1881 and 1891, they made frequent, extended trips to Europe, her mother's principal purpose being to find a financially and socially suitable husband for her daughter.

[9] She married Major Arthur Galsworthy (1860–1923) on 30 April 1891 in Kensington, London, having met him the previous winter, probably in Biarritz, France.

[19][20][21][22][23] While Arthur was away at war, Ada left the marital home and lived alone at Campden House Chambers, Kensington,[24] while John took a flat in nearby Aubrey Walk.

[26] Ada and John continued their relationship discreetly for a further three years, often staying at a farmhouse called Wingstone in the village of Manaton, Dartmoor.

[30] After divorce papers were served, Ada and John travelled around Italy, Germany and Austria from January to August 1905.

[37] Ada and John's marriage developed into "almost a mother-son relationship: an ailing mother cared for and protected by an utterly devoted son, a situation which their childlessness bolstered.

[39] A year later, such was the strength of their feelings about their loss, they moved away from Addison Road where memories of Chris were unavoidable, to Adelphi Terrace.

[40] This change also coincided with the start of regular overseas travels, mostly by train or car, as Ada was a "disastrously bad sailor".

When she discovered that Muriel Elliot, a fellow piano student she had met while travelling through Europe with her mother, was homeless following a London bombing raid, Galsworthy offered her a home.

She regularly suffered from bronchitis, asthma, rheumatism and head colds, which she and John often elevated to the level of "the 'Flu", incapacitating her for weeks.

[58] In 1869, she stayed at the same hotel in Munich as Franz Liszt who was in the city for the world premiere of Wagner's Das Rheingold, which she also attended.

[59] Once married, she and John travelled extensively, visiting Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic (the former Czechoslovakia), Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, USA, Canada, Brazil, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and South Africa.

[61] They would travel to watch the first night performances of John's plays,[62] or in search of "more permanent health" of Ada, who had a "tendency to bronchial delicacy in the winter.

[65] In 1914 she signed an open letter from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in support of the Importation of Plumage Prohibition Bill.

[66] In 1925 she signed an appeal, written by the Managing Editor of the periodical Animals, asking for financial support for the cat artist Louis Wain so that he could afford better accommodation than the lunatic asylum for paupers to which he had been committed.

[73] In November 1916, wanting to do more, they travelled to France to join an Hôpital Benevole, the Establissement de L'Assistance Aux Convalescents Militaires Français, at Matouret in Die, Drôme, owned by their friend Dorothy Allhusen.

[77] They spent the rest of the war at Wingstone, making occasional trips to London, sometimes sharing a basement with J. M. Barrie and his family during air raids.

"[90] Galsworthy's previous unhappy marriage inspired John's novel The Man of Property (1906), which began the series of books that became known as The Forsyte Saga.

This is why I super-dedicate the whole of it to one without whose instigation, sympathy, interest and criticism, my obscure inner necessity might never have pushed through the mufflement of circumstance and made me a writer – such as I am."

(1921)[92] She regularly edited his writing[93][94] and was solely responsible for his public and private correspondence, as well as creating the first three typescripts from his handwritten manuscripts.

[97] After he died she oversaw the posthumous completion of several volumes for which she wrote the forewords, recounted memories or simply gathered and inscribed extracts.

He also shared drafts of his own writing with her, including The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes, seeking her opinion.

[108] She encouraged Ralph Hale Mottram (1883–1971), son of the trustee of her marriage settlement to Arthur, to write poetry, under the pen name J.

[113] Of this she wrote, "I do not think he was greatly interested, for he knew only too well I should rightly have been in a low class the Conservatorium, working my way up like the rest of the music-students.

"[114] In Over The Hills And Far Away she recounts "the most fine-spun, delicate of musical flirtations" whilst staying in a hotel room two doors away from a young German Prince.

They both had pianos installed in their sitting-rooms and spent time sharing musical ideas through the walls, "I would give out a theme, then pause; very soon the young neighbour would start improvising in a masterly manner.