Ada Elizabeth Chesterton, OBE

Publication - 1926

In Darkest London

Non-Fiction/Social History/Biography -Hardback: 255 pages – Publisher: The Devonshire Press

Occupation 1927

Founded the Central and Cecil Housing Trust (Cecil Houses). Today it is the 'Central and Cecil Housing Care Support'

Married Cecil Chesterton on 9 June 1917 at two ceremonies, the first at a register office in London and the second at Corpus Christi Church in Maiden Lane, London. Cecil Chesterton survived the war only to be taken seriously ill with nephritis shortly after the armistice. Upon hearing the news of his illness Ada, with the help of Maurice Baring, managed to arrange transport to the military hospital in France where he was being treated. She arrived just before he died, in December 1918, and was the only member of his family present when he was buried.

Following a conversation about the plight of homeless women in London, she voluntarily took to the streets for two weeks in 1925. She sold matches, begged in the street, and slept in a variety of shelters. Her account was published as In Darkest London (1926), in which she tried to convey the insight that she had gained: ‘I had experienced actual physical privations which women of the middle class may weep over, but cannot comprehend’ (p. 255). The book, which caused a sensation, called for social and political change, and was followed by further works highlighting the plight of the poor, such as Women of the Underworld (1928) and I Lived in a Slum (1936).
The impact of In Darkest London led to Ada Chesterton's involvement in raising money for houses to provide a refuge for homeless women. The first house opened in 1927 and the shelters became known as Cecil Houses. The council of reference for Cecil Houses included Gilbert Chesterton, Vincent McNabb, and H. G. Wells. Throughout her life Ada continued to pursue this philanthropic work. At the end of the Second World War she opened the Cecil Residential Club for Working Girls on Small Wages, and in 1953 she opened the Cecil Residential Club in Kensington for female pensioners.
She was the drama critic for G. K.'s Weekly and wrote two plays with Ralph Neale (one of which was a stage adaptation of The Man who was Thursday). Her many biographies included The Chestertons (1941). She always thought of herself as a journalist and enjoyed the respect of colleagues in that essentially male environment, as an intelligent, determined, and prolific writer.
Ada Chesterton was made an OBE in 1938. Formerly an agnostic, she was received into the Roman Catholic church in 1942. She died, of cerebral thrombosis and cerebral arteriosclerosis, in a nursing home at 4 Birdhurst Road, Croydon, on 20 January 1962.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography