Harriett W. Ponder

Harriett Winifred [H.W.] Ponder (1883, Buckinghamshire, UK — 1967, Brisbane Australia) was a reputed travel writer who wrote extensively on Cambodia, Java and the South Pacific. First published in 1936, her book about Angkor, Cambodian Glory, was almost as successful as the one by her American counterpart Helen Churchill Candee.

Through her career and personal interests, she befriended several female artists of her time, including the famous British contralto singer Clara Butt (1872−1936) — writing and publishing her autobiography in 1928 — and the Australian sculptor Daphne Mayo. In Cambodia, she described George Groslier​’s work as the founder of Ecole des Arts cambodgiens.

In recognition of her original research work, and her contributions to geographical knowledge, H.W. Ponder became a Fellow of the London Royal Geographical Society. in her later years, she lived in Brisbane (Queensland, Australia), where she published several journalistic accounts.

Publications

• [as Winifred Ponder] An Idler in the Islands, Sydney, Cornstack Publishing, 1926 [about Fiji Islands].
• Clara Butt: Her Life-story, London, G. G. Harrap, 1928, 261 pages [biography of singer Dame Clara Butt].
• Java Pageant: A Description of one of the World’s richest, most beautiful, yet little known Islands, London, Seeley, 1934; reiss. as Java Pageant : Impressions of the 1930s, Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1989, ISBN 13: 9780195889093.
• Cambodian Glory, The Mystery of the Deserted Khmer Cities and Their Vanished Splendour; and a Description of Life in Cambodia, London, Thornton Buttterworth, 1936.
• Javanese Panorama: a further account of the world’s richest island, with some intimate pictures of life among the people of its lesser known regions, London, Seeley, 1942; reiss. as Javanese Panorama: More impressions of the 1930s, Singapore, Oxford University Press, ISBN 13: 9780195889406.
• In Javanese Waters : some sidelights on a few of the countless, lovely, little known islands scattered over the Banda Sea & some glimpses of their strange & stormy history, London, Seeley, 1944.