CAFFYN, Kathleen Mannington (c. 1855-1926)

novelist

was born in Tipperary, Ireland, about the year 1855. Her father, William de Vere Hunt, was a kinsman of Aubrey de Vere, the poet. Miss Hunt was educated by English and German governesses and came to London when about 21 years of age. After a short career as a nurse, she married in 1879 Stephen Mannington Caffyn, a medical practitioner, and went with him to Sydney in 1880. In 1883 they went to Melbourne where Dr Caffyn had suburban practices until 1892. Mrs Caffyn contributed a story of some sixty pages to Cooee: Tales of Australian Life by Australian Ladies, which was published in 1891, and wrote a novel A Yellow Aster, which was published in London in 1894 under the pseudonym of "Iota". Mrs Caffyn and her husband had returned to London a year or two before, but the novel was written in Australia. It had an immediate success and was quickly followed by Children of Circumstance in the same year, and by some 15 other volumes in the 20 years that followed. These included A Quaker Grandmother (1896), Anne Manleverer (1899), He for God Only (1903), and Patricia: a Mother (1903), which rank among her better novels and were very popular in their time. Mrs Caffyn had the Irishwoman's love of horses and kept up her interest in hunting and polo until her death in Italy on 6 February 1926. She was survived by a son.

Her husband, Stephen Mannington Caffyn, (1851-c. 1896), was born at Salehurst, Sussex, in 1851. In Australia he was one of the contributors to the Bulletin in its early days, and in 1889 published Miss Milne and I, a novel which ran into two or three editions. This was followed in 1890 by Poppy's Tears. He also wrote a few medical pamphlets.

The Times 10 February 1926; Who's Who, 1926; E. Morris Miller, Australian Literature; Hugh McCrae, My Father and My Father's Friends; P. Mennell, The Dictionary of Australasian Biography.