Bertha Jane Grundy

Bertha Jane Grundy (24 August 1837 – 5 September 1912) was an English novelist born in Moss-side, Lancashire. She also wrote as Mrs. Leith-Adams and Mrs. R. S. de Courcey Laffan. Later in life she wrote poetry and drama, and gave practical lectures to women writers.

Personal life Bertha Jane was born on 24 August 1837 as the eldest daughter of Frederick Grundy, a solicitor, and Jane, née Beardoe. She was first married on 26 October 1859 to Andrew Leith Adams and moved with him to Malta, where the older of her two sons, the writer Francis Adams, was born.

Andrew Adams died in 1882; in 1883, Bertha married Rev. Robert Stuart de Courcy Laffan. He became Headmaster of King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon (1885–1895), Principal of Cheltenham College, Cheltenham (1895–1899) and Rector of St Stephen Walbrook, London (1899–1927). Both her sons died young, the younger Harry Beardoe of tuberculosis at Dunwich, Queensland in 1892, and the older Francis, also tubercular, by committing suicide in Margate in 1893.

Grundy's other interests, apart from her writing, included playing the piano and keeping dogs.

Bertha Jane Grundy died at her home in Eccleston Square, Pimlico, London, on 5 September 1912.

Turning later to poetry (two volumes), drama and non-fiction, she wrote several practical lectures addressed to other women writers, urging them, for instance, "to do nothing without being paid." The Prince's Feathers, 1899 Accessory After The Fact, 1899 Cruel Calumny, 1901 The Dream of Her Life, 1902 What Hector Had To Say, 1902 The Vicar of Dale End, 1906 Poems, 1907 Dreams Made Verity, 1910 The Story of the Brotherhood of Hero Dogs, 1910 A Book of Short Plays and a Memory, 1912