Ada Chesterton

Ada Chesterton or Mrs Cecil Chesterton [née Jones] (30 June 1869 – 20 January 1962) was a British socialist journalist and philanthropist. Her best known work was In Darkest London.

Chesterton was born in Dulwich in 1869. She was working in Fleet Street at the age of sixteen. She was known for writing under pseudonyms including John Keith Prothero. She met Edith Nesbit, Havelock Ellis, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Beatrice Webb, Eleanor Marx, Edith Lees and Annie Besant as a result of joining Edward Pease's Fabian Society.

She had a lifelong relationship with Cecil Chesterton who was also a journalist and the brother of GK Chesterton. She gave in to please for marriage before he left to be a soldier during the first world war. She went to work with her brother. Her husband survived being wounded but he eventually became sick with nephritis. Chesterton travelled to his bedside just before he died and she was the only family member at his funeral.

After her husband died she went to Poland funded by the Daily Express. She took a dare to live in poverty in London in 1925 lasting much longer than the few days that were expected. These newspaper articles were eventually published as her first book, In Darkest London. She created other similar books based on the success of her first book. She worked at the drama critic for her brother-in-law's journal G. K.'s Weekly and in 1941 wrote a biography about "The Chestertons".

She created the Cecil Houses which provided accommodation for women who no place to stay. They were funded thanks to the publicity that her living in poverty books created. The houses were named for her former husband.

Chesterton died in a nursing home in Croydon in 1962.

• In Darkest London