Ellen Davitt

Marie Antoinette Hélène Léontine (Ellen) Heseltine was born in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire in 1812.

The couple arrived in Australia on 31 July 1854 with the aim of opening a new Model School.

[2] Davitt was a sister-in-law of English writer Anthony Trollope, but appears to have had little contact with him.

[2] Although some of her early work has been lost she is now credited with having written the first Australian murder mystery with her novel Force and Fraud : A Tale of the Bush in 1865.

[2] Davitt began teaching again in 1874 but she died in extreme poverty in Fitzroy, in 1879.