tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072/articlesHidden women of history – The Conversation2024-02-07T19:17:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2053002024-02-07T19:17:37Z2024-02-07T19:17:37ZHidden women of history: Saint Perpetua, a young mother put to death in a Roman amphitheatre<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572119/original/file-20240130-23-f4mjgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=55%2C30%2C1946%2C1115&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mosaic depicting female saints, including Perpetua (second right) and Felicitas, in Ravenna, Italy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06046">Nick Thompson/Cult of the Saints</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 203 CE, a young, African Christian woman named Vibia Perpetua was executed in a brutal fashion. </p>
<p>She and her fellow Christians were taken to the amphitheatre of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Carthage-ancient-city-Tunisia">Carthage</a> (now in Tunisia), where they were grievously wounded by wild beasts before their throats were slit by gladiators. This horrific scene formed part of the celebrations for the birthday of <a href="https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/biographies/geta/">Caesar Geta</a>, the son of the emperor Septimius Severus.</p>
<p>The Roman imperial state did not engage in a systematic, empire-wide persecution of Christians in the early third century. However, many believers like Perpetua were denounced to local officials, who put them in prison. They were executed when they refused to make religious offerings to the Roman gods and emperors. </p>
<p>The tales of early Christian suffering are recounted in texts known as hagiographies, or accounts of saints’ lives. Perpetua’s tale stands out among these works because she may have written much of it herself.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-throwing-christians-to-the-lions-67365">Mythbusting Ancient Rome – throwing Christians to the lions</a>
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<h2>Still breastfeeding when jailed</h2>
<p>The Latin text of the Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas was discovered at the Italian monastery of Monte Cassino in the 17th century. Most of it is written by an unknown narrator, who recounts the suffering of Perpetua and her fellow martyrs so that other Christians might learn from their experiences.</p>
<p>However, eight chapters are written in the first person singular. The narrator states these chapters are the work of Perpetua herself “just as she wrote with her own hand and according to her own perception”.</p>
<p>The narrator tells us Perpetua came from a respectable family, was educated and in her early twenties when she died. Her parents were still living. The Latin used to describe Perpetua’s family and upbringing indicates they were wealthy Roman citizens. </p>
<p>Perpetua was married and had a baby boy. She was still breastfeeding when jailed. Yet her husband is not otherwise mentioned and it would be very unusual for a wealthy woman to be nursing her own baby. This suggests Perpetua may well have been of much <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2011.01661.x">lower status</a> than the narrator assumed. </p>
<p>Perpetua’s account begins after she and four other Christians, including the enslaved woman Felicitas, have been arrested by Roman authorities. </p>
<p>Across the eight chapters, Perpetua describes her relationship with family members, her father’s attempts to convince her to renounce her faith, the visions she had in prison and her treatment by Roman soldiers and officials. The final part of the tale, which includes the execution scenes described above, is told by the narrator.</p>
<p>Perpetua’s style is straightforward (but not uneducated), her narrative sometimes detailed, at other times frustratingly vague. Above all, it is deeply touching.</p>
<h2>‘I was tormented by concern for my baby’</h2>
<p>Despite being aware her Christian faith will lead to her death, separating her from her child, Perpetua expresses a deep bond with her son. “I was tormented by concern for my baby”, she writes of her initial incarceration. </p>
<p>She is later allowed to suckle her baby, who had been “weak with hunger” without his mother. She is even given permission to keep the boy with her. The presence of the child meant that, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>prison was immediately transformed into a palace for me, so that I preferred to be there than anywhere else.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After Perpetua and her fellow Christians are sentenced to die in the amphitheatre, she is filled with anguish for her child. But God intervenes. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>And just as God willed it, the baby no longer wanted my breasts nor did they cause me pain, so that I was not tortured by worry for my son nor by aching in my breasts.</p>
</blockquote>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-cruel-and-unusual-punishment-87939">Mythbusting Ancient Rome: cruel and unusual punishment</a>
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<h2>In her own words?</h2>
<p>But are they <em>her</em> words? Perpetua’s story was known to the African Christian intellectual <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tertullian">Tertullian</a>, who mentions her martyrdom in his book On the Soul, written five to ten years after her execution. This proves there was <em>a</em> Perpetua, but not that she was the author of these eight chapters.</p>
<p>Some sceptics point to the difficulty of obtaining writing materials in prison. Others observe that many martyr accounts make ambitious claims to be authentic, eyewitness narratives. </p>
<p>One important argument against such scepticism is the style of Perpetua’s Latin is quite different from the narrator’s. This could be the work of a clever male author changing his style to fit different voices, much like a modern-day novelist writing a story from different perspectives. </p>
<p>But as Perpetua’s narrative so aptly and movingly captures the female experience, the scale tips towards authenticity. </p>
<h2>Children and holy women</h2>
<p>The degree of Perpetua’s concern for and interaction with her child is unusual in accounts of Christian holy women. For example, Melania the Younger, who lived in Rome in the fifth century CE, desired to become an ascetic, which meant she needed to renounce all worldly ties, including her family. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Funerary px Marble funerary relief MET DP.</span>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a young woman, Melania." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573898/original/file-20240206-26-ewigsh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A portrait of Melania the Younger in an Eastern Orthodox illuminated manuscript (circa 1000 AD).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>When Melania’s two children died young, she interpreted this as God’s endorsement of her desire to reject the conventions of Roman marriage and motherhood. </p>
<p>Another fifth century woman, Matrona, who aspired to a religious life in Constantinople, even abandoned her family and disguised herself as a man in order to enter a monastery. Matrona entrusted her little girl to another Christian woman to raise as her own. </p>
<p>This echoes the story of the enslaved woman Felicitas, whom the narrator says was eight months pregnant when arrested with Perpetua. We do not have Felicitas’ own words, but we are told she was worried her execution and martyrdom would be delayed because of her pregnancy.</p>
<p>After the other Christian prisoners pray she will go into premature labour so she might die alongside them, Felicitas gives birth to a little girl, whom she entrusts to a member of the African Christian community. Perpetua’s own son was left in the care of her family.</p>
<p>Some Christian women rejected motherhood in favour of devoting themselves exclusively to their faith, either through martyrdom or asceticism, while others engaged in child-rearing for the good of the larger community.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-olympias-who-took-on-an-emperor-dodged-a-second-marriage-and-fought-for-her-faith-212962">Hidden women of history: Olympias, who took on an emperor, dodged a second marriage and fought for her faith</a>
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<h2>Family ties</h2>
<p>Perpetua’s tale develops this theme of Christian communities. In many early Christian texts, it is a woman’s husband who poses an obstacle to the holy path she has chosen, but in Perpetua’s narrative, it is her father.</p>
<p>She writes that her father was so worked up by the word “Christian” that “he launched himself towards me in order to tear out my eyes”, before thinking better of it and withdrawing. </p>
<p>When she is arrested, Perpetua writes,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I gave thanks to the lord because my father was not present, and I was refreshed by his absence. </p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565359/original/file-20231212-23-hji2xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Roman relief tondo with a portrait of a family, second century CE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>The father makes two further appearances in the narrative, showing his growing desperation. Visiting Perpetua in prison, he kisses her hands and prostrates himself before her feet, begging her to consider her family’s reputation. This is a typical theme of Christian hagiography, since the hero or heroine’s journey represents a rejection of the futures their family had planned for them.</p>
<p>He then confronts her during a public trial in the forum, brandishing her baby son while imploring Perpetua to make offerings to the Roman gods for the safety of the emperors and thus save herself.</p>
<p>In response, the Roman governor orders the old man to be flogged. She writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I grieved for my father’s situation as if it were me who had been beaten, I grieved for him in his wretched elderly state.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perpetua’s journey from fearing to pitying her father draws her closer to her Christian brothers and sisters, preparing her for the martyrdom that awaits. The idea of a “spiritual family” coming to take the place of a “natal family” is found throughout early Christian texts.</p>
<p>And yet the attention Perpetua’s account gives to her family and their suffering is unusual. She dwells on her concern for her son and father; her anxiety about her mother and brother and memories of another brother who died of cancer as a child.</p>
<p>It may be that this, less stylised, element of the text also reflects Perpetua’s own voice. We rarely receive such insights from hagiographies.</p>
<h2>Perpetua’s legacy</h2>
<p>The tale of Perpetua and her fellow martyrs grew in popularity in subsequent centuries. While Perpetua does not even mention Felicitas in her first-person narrative, the women became <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/849262/pdf">inseparable</a> in the Christian tradition.</p>
<p>They were venerated in Rome by the mid-fourth century. The writings of Saint Augustine show the Passion was read out in North African churches on their feast day (March 7).</p>
<p>In addition to the famous Latin text, there is also a Greek version. It probably dates to the fifth or sixth century CE, but was not known to scholars until the late 19th century, when it was discovered in Jerusalem. Since it was very rare <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article/4/3/309/110916/Doing-It-in-GreekTranslating-Perpetua">to translate Latin texts into Greek</a>, this shows Perpetua’s story was considered to be so important it needed to be made accessible to the Greek-speaking communities of the eastern empire. </p>
<p>There are also shorter, fifth-century accounts known as Acts, which abandon the first-person narrative and instead include a detailed dialogue between the Christians and the Roman governor of Africa. </p>
<p>The Acts rewrite the narrative in various ways, providing Perpetua with a husband who appears at her trial along with other members of the family. Perpetua reassures her father that devoting herself to Christ and his glory is the only way that she will truly be a “perpetual daughter”. </p>
<p>Perpetua lives today not only through Christian veneration as a saint, but through this moving first-person account. This allows us to understand the motivations and sufferings of an African woman who lived almost 2,000 years ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caillan Davenport has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meaghan McEvoy has received funding from the British Academy, Dumbarton Oaks and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.</span></em></p>Perpetua was still breastfeeding her baby son when she was thrown in jail by Roman authorities. A Latin text movingly describes her suffering.Caillan Davenport, Associate Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies, Australian National UniversityMeaghan McEvoy, Senior Lecturer in History, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129622024-01-23T18:59:24Z2024-01-23T18:59:24ZHidden women of history: Olympias, who took on an emperor, dodged a second marriage and fought for her faith<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560321/original/file-20231120-25-33mqpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=398%2C802%2C3181%2C4174&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Olympias the Deaconess. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Print by Boëtius Adamsz. Bolswert in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Olympias was born to a wealthy family in the fourth-century CE, probably in the capital city of the Roman empire: Constantinople (now Istanbul).</p>
<p>Not to be confused with the mother of Alexander the Great (who lived around 800 years earlier), this Olympias is remembered in various texts as a patron of the church and a champion of female ascetics, a determined advocate for her friends, and a faithful and dedicated Christian. </p>
<p>A sad fact about the early Christian period is that very few texts written by women survive. Olympias was well educated and acquainted with bishops and even the emperor. We know she wrote letters to some of these men, but only the men’s letters to her remain. </p>
<p>There are stories about her life as well, and some about her monastery and her bodily remains after her death, but most of these were also written by men. Nevertheless, these sources can give us insight into the life of a formidable woman who opposed the emperor and fought for her way of life and her faith.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-enheduanna-princess-priestess-and-the-worlds-first-known-author-109185">Hidden women of history: Enheduanna, princess, priestess and the world's first known author</a>
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<h2>A husband chosen</h2>
<p>When Olympias was born, in the second half of the fourth century, the Roman Empire was rapidly becoming more Christian. The emperor Constantine (306-337) had converted to Christianity in 312, legalising the religion a year later and promoting it through patronage of the church. His nephew, the emperor Julian (361-363), briefly tried to restore the empire to Roman religion (“paganism”) but his reign was short and his religious campaign unsuccessful.</p>
<p>Olympias was orphaned as a child. When she was between the ages of 12 and 15, her guardian chose a suitable husband for her. Nebridius was the prefect of the city of Constantinople, roughly equivalent to a city mayor. This was his second marriage. According to some sources, his son from his first marriage was older than Olympias. She is unlikely to have had much say in the match.</p>
<p>Olympias’s family was wealthy and she would have taken a substantial dowry with her on marrying. The law decreed Nebridius had to keep that fortune safe for her as a dowry for a second husband in case of his death. And indeed, Nebridius lived less than two years after their marriage. Olympias was now a widow and probably only about 17.</p>
<p>When she was widowed, according to an anonymous <a href="https://sourceschretiennes.org/collection/SC-13">Life of Olympias,</a> the emperor Theodosius tried to marry her off to a relative of his named Elpidius. Her extensive wealth - she owned property all over the empire including palaces in Constantinople – made her quite a catch. </p>
<p>But Olympias refused, apparently declaring </p>
<blockquote>
<p>if the Lord Jesus Christ had wanted me to live with a man, he would not have taken away my first husband.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A celibate life</h2>
<p>She told the emperor she wanted to live a celibate life as a monastic rather than marry again.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560323/original/file-20231120-29-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Olympias the deaconess.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>This, at least, is the way the Life presents it. We cannot be certain this is an accurate representation of Olympias’s interactions with the emperor. Given the life she went on to lead, it seems clear she had a particular devotion to God and a strong desire to live an ascetic, celibate life. </p>
<p>But there are other reasons in this period why a young widow might not want to marry again. Mortality rates for women in childbirth were high, as were infant mortality rates. If she married again, she might die in childbirth, or her child might die soon after. </p>
<p>There were good theological reasons to remain unmarried too. There were debates in the early church about whether a second marriage counted as adultery and many theologians encouraged women to remain a <em>univira</em> – a “one-man woman”. </p>
<p>Perhaps Olympias was also keen to maintain some financial independence. Another marriage would bring her squarely under the authority of another man. Perhaps she hoped by remaining a widow she could use her wealth as she saw fit.</p>
<p>If this was her aim, she was disappointed. When Olympias refused to marry Elpidius, the emperor Theodosius commanded the prefect of the city, Clementius, be guardian of all her possessions until Olympias turned 30. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mythbusting-ancient-rome-did-all-roads-actually-lead-there-81746">Mythbusting Ancient Rome -- did all roads actually lead there?</a>
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<h2>A determined young woman</h2>
<p>The Life gives Olympias a pithy reply in which she says she is glad to be relieved from the burden of her wealth and begs Clementius to distribute her wealth to the poor and the churches.</p>
<p>This fifth century CE text presents Olympias as a determined young woman who is not afraid to advocate for herself and fight to live her chosen way of life.</p>
<p>A few years later, Theodosius relented when he saw how dedicated Olympias was to the ascetic life, restoring her fortune. This enabled Olympias to establish a monastery or holy house for women in Constantinople. </p>
<p>She built it right next to the cathedral church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) and lived there with many other female ascetics. The proximity of the monastery to the church is likely one of the reasons that Olympias became such close friends with <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm">the bishop John Chrysostom</a>. John, who became archbishop (Patriarch) of Constantinople, was given the name “Chrysostom” (“Golden-Mouth”) because he preached fabulous sermons. Over 700 of his sermons survive.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560326/original/file-20231120-25-nu0f1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early Byzantine mosaic from the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia depicting Saint John Chrysostom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johnchrysostom.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Olympias was ordained a deaconess by the archbishop Nectarius when only around 30. (It was unusual to be made a deaconess before the age of 60.) Such a role gave Olympias the authority to act for, and on behalf of, women in the church, as the guide and protector of the women who came to join her in her holy house. </p>
<p>She used her wealth and new status as deaconess to support the poor and the works of the church, becoming a strong advocate for Chrysostom. She became a patron and friend of other bishops too.</p>
<p>When Gregory of Nyssa, theologian and bishop in Cappadocia, wrote a commentary on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Songs">Song of Songs</a>, around the year 394, he <a href="https://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pubs/061613P.front.pdf">dedicated it to Olympias</a>. She had suggested he should write it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have enjoined upon me, both in person and by your letters, a study of the Song of Songs, and I have undertaken it because it is suited to your holy life and your pure heart.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-hagia-sophia-remains-a-potent-symbol-of-spiritual-and-political-authority-143084">Why Hagia Sophia remains a potent symbol of spiritual and political authority</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An advocate for her friend</h2>
<p>When Chrysostom was sent into exile, for reasons that remain a bit unclear, he wrote regularly to Olympias. Seventeen of his letters to her survive, more than from him to any other person. She kept advocating for him and was angry with those who had deserted him. </p>
<p>Chrysostom told her Jesus’ friends had also deserted him. He was impressed by Olympias’s perseverance even under suffering – her ill health didn’t stop her from being a “tower”, a “haven” and a “wall of defence”.</p>
<p>Perhaps he was referring to the protection Olympias gave to monks who had been banished for their support of Chrysostom. When an ally was imprisoned, Chrysostom wrote to Olympias to strategise about how to get him released.</p>
<p>These actions, protecting the supporters of the exiled bishop, were ultimately Olympias’s downfall. She was persecuted, wrongfully accused of causing a fire in the city and sent into exile to Nicomedia (modern Izmit, Turkey) where she died, probably in 409.</p>
<h2>A significant figure</h2>
<p>Although she died in exile, Olympias was a significant figure who fought against the mould women were supposed to fit into, supporting a lot of people along the way. </p>
<p>The anonymous Life describes her as practising hospitality in a similar way to the Old Testament patriarch Abraham, fighting for self-control like Joseph, suffering patiently and faithfully like Job and being martyred like <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14564a.htm">the legendary early Christian, Thecla</a>.</p>
<p>In the seventh century, a woman named Sergia became the leader of Olympias’s monastery in Constantinople. Sergia <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jerome-Chrysostom-Friends-Translations-Religion/dp/0889465428">wrote about</a> finding Olympias’s bones in the wreckage of another monastery and bringing them back to her own. </p>
<p>When a later Patriarch anointed the remains, Sergia says, they bled until his hands were full of blood. </p>
<p>This rather frightening miracle had a big impact on the assembled audience. Sergia records many people were cured of diseases by Olympias’s remains after this bloody episode. </p>
<p>Such miracle stories, which seem so strange to us, show Olympias’s continued importance in the monastery she founded and the city which was her home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212962/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Gador-Whyte does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A formidable woman born in the second half of the fourth century and widowed at around 17, Olympias was not afraid to advocate for herself – or her friends.Sarah Gador-Whyte, Research Fellow in Biblical and Early Christian Studies, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127922023-09-19T20:09:52Z2023-09-19T20:09:52ZHidden women of history: disabled Australian author Dorothy Cottrell was ‘the Liane Moriarty of the Jazz Age’ but is almost unheard of here<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548710/original/file-20230918-19-b52r2q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C5%2C862%2C923&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dorothy Cottrell pictured in the Saturday Evening Post, 10 June 1950. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the late 1920s, poet <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gilmore-dame-mary-jean-6391">Mary Gilmore</a> – the woman on the A$10 note – declared she’d encountered only two instances of “genius” during her four decades in Australian literature. The first was a man who remains a household name: Henry Lawson, bush poet, author of iconic stories like The Drover’s Wife, who upon his death received a state funeral. Today, Lawson’s work is still widely taught in schools. </p>
<p>But what of Gilmore’s second genius? The writer who “wrote an Australia never before presented in prose”? This second virtuoso was a young, disabled woman and – funnily enough – she has been largely forgotten. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-leftist-feminist-poet-dame-mary-gilmore-became-aunt-mary-in-the-pms-political-narrative-176151">Friday essay: how leftist, feminist poet Dame Mary Gilmore became 'Aunt Mary' in the PM's political narrative</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the 1920s and 30s, Dorothy Cottrell (1902-1957) was an international bestselling novelist – not to mention a disability advocate, world traveller, and, disturbingly, a settler woman who effectively stole an Aboriginal child. Her short life was rich in drama and incident. But these days her works are out of print, and almost nobody knows her name. </p>
<p>Cottrell burst into the literary world in 1927 as an unknown 24-year-old from Ularunda, a remote sheep station on Bidjara land in southwest Queensland. That year, the unpublished author sent a fiction manuscript called The Singing Gold to the Ladies Home Journal, an American monthly that serialised fiction read by millions of subscribers. This was an audacious act: a complete nobody from the boondocks daring to submit her work to one of the world’s most prominent magazines. </p>
<p>But Cottrell’s gamble paid off. Barely six weeks later, she received a telegram from the Journal’s editor Barton Currie. “Glad to publish your novel in Ladies’ Home Journal and pay you 5000 dollars for all American and Canadian serial rights,” Currie wrote. </p>
<p>At the time, $5,000 was a small fortune. Currie also offered to help Cottrell find a book publisher. It was a fairy tale come true, every writer’s fantasy. At first, Cottrell didn’t believe it could be real. When the news finally sunk in, she “nearly died of joy”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=794&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548701/original/file-20230918-20486-1ivozh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1956 edition of The Singing Gold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Singing-Gold-Cottrell-Dorothy-1902-1957-Angus/30870828067/bd">Abebooks</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the Sydney press got hold of the story, Cottrell was heralded as a “new star in the world of fiction”. She was a “brilliant new comet” whose “sensational rise to fame” promised to advertise the “spirit of Australia” to the world. In the Ladies Home Journal, Cottrell’s novel was introduced to American readers as “a work of genius” unsurpassed in recent years. </p>
<p>Within a year, Cottrell and her husband Walter were on a steamship to Los Angeles, where she was given a welcome fit for a film star. Everyone wanted a piece of the prodigy from Down Under. In a testament to her celebrity, the couple were gifted five acres of land in southern California’s Lake Elsinore, where they set about building an adobe mansion. </p>
<h2>A stolen child</h2>
<p>It was a dramatic beginning, but Cottrell always had a taste for drama. A few years earlier, she’d secretly married Walter – the bookkeeper from her family’s station – then ran off with him to remote Dunk Island on the Great Barrier Reef, much to the shock and horror of her relatives. The couple spent six months on Dunk, sleeping in a rustic shack and living off coconuts and fresh-caught fish. Later, they moved to Sydney, then worked as pedlars in rural NSW. </p>
<p>These adventures provided the raw material for her novel The Singing Gold. Notably, Cottrell did all this with a significant disability. A childhood bout of polio had left Cottrell paralysed from the waist down, and thereafter she spent her days in a wheelchair. </p>
<p>Cottrell also loved cars and guns. Aged ten, she was already a crack shot with a rifle. Later, she had automobiles adjusted so she could operate the controls by hand. After buying a six-cylinder Oaklands car with her earnings from the Ladies Home Journal, she and Walter set off on a road trip throughout Queensland and the Northern Territory during winter 1927. </p>
<p>Here we encounter a distressing part of Cottrell’s story. During this road trip, while at Alexandria Downs, the writer took an Aboriginal girl from her mother. The child, called May, was six years old. Under colonial law, this was all above board. Under the government policy of the day – <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/aborigines-protection-act">protectionism</a> – taking May from her family was encouraged. </p>
<p>Cottrell sought and was given approval from the local <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/collection/featured-collections/remove-and-protect">Protector of Aboriginals</a>. In her mind, she was rescuing a vulnerable child. Today, however, it’s clear May was a member of the Stolen Generations, and Cottrell was the thief. </p>
<p>After returning to Ularunda, Cottrell was distracted by her writing, and soon lost interest in May. Female relatives stepped in to raise the child. When the writer left for California the following year, May – now renamed Barbara Cherry Lee – remained in Sydney in the care of an elderly aunt. As far as we know, May/Barbara was never reunited with her mother or Country. </p>
<h2>‘The starving writer has vanished’</h2>
<p>In 1929, with Cottrell now in California, The Singing Gold was published by Houghton Mifflin to rave reviews. The novel was an autobiographical <em>bildungsroman</em>, classic bush Australiana with a “sunburnt, hoydenish” heroine reminiscent of Sybylla in Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career (1902). The book ended up as the top six bestseller of 1929. Alongside US publication, The Singing Gold was also serialised in Australia and published in London. There was even talk of a Hollywood film adaption. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-my-brilliant-career-and-its-uncompromising-message-for-girls-today-145452">Guide to the classics: My Brilliant Career and its uncompromising message for girls today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 1930, Cottrell’s second novel hit the shelves. Tharlane was another tale of outback Australia, this time with a male protagonist. That year, the Los Angeles Times reported Cottrell’s two novels “have aroused more interest throughout the English-speaking world than have any other pair by one author in the last few years.” </p>
<p>Thanks to all this hype, Cottrell was raking in the cash. “There is very great wealth in American writing,” she reported home. She was the Liane Moriarty of the Jazz Age. </p>
<p>After this stellar beginning, Cottrell’s career hit the skids during the Great Depression. As the literary market contracted, her income plummeted. Although a critical success, Tharlane had modest sales. Walter lost his job at the local bank. By 1932, the couple had lost their Lake Elsinore home. </p>
<p>They hit the road and eventually settled in Florida, where Cottrell made a living selling short fiction to magazines. Thanks to financial troubles and health concerns, the Cottrells found it impossible to return to Australia. In 1939, they became US citizens. For the next 15 years, Florida would be their base. Yet the couple remained keen travellers and crossed the US by road on six occasions. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548702/original/file-20230918-21-o92pui.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=989&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40532082-wilderness-orphan">Goodreads</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As economic conditions improved, Cottrell once again began to earn good money. She worked with top literary agents Eric Pinker and Paul Reynolds, and comfortably supported herself and her husband with her pen. “The starving writer has vanished,” she told one correspondent, “writing today is a very well-paid trade.” </p>
<p>By the 1940s, Cottrell was a regular contributor to the Saturday Evening Post, then known as the top US literary/news magazine. In her mind, this was the ultimate sign she’d “made it”. Cottrell also published children’s fiction and in 1936 her story Wilderness Orphan was adapted for the screen by Sydney’s Cinesound studios.</p>
<h2>‘How to Wear a Wheelchair’</h2>
<p>In 1950, Cottrell published a Post feature called “How to Wear a Wheelchair” – a rare occasion in which this private woman spoke about her disability. In this piece, Cottrell challenged the stigma around disability, criticising the tendency to pity or recoil from those she called “the handicapped”.</p>
<p>In her analysis – which anticipated the “social model” of disability that emerged in the 1980s – disability was not an individual tragedy but “a fact of existence” that could be accommodated via environmental adjustments. “I have had a radiantly happy life,” she assured readers. </p>
<p>After leaving Australia in 1928, Cottrell did not return until 1954. That year, she and her husband came home to take over the family station. While in Queensland, they adopted an 11-year-old boy called Wayne. When the Cottrells returned to Florida in 1956, Wayne came with them. Tragically, Dorothy died of heart attack soon after, in June 1957. She was only 54. The next year, her widow and adoptive son made a permanent return to Queensland. </p>
<p>By the time of her death, Cottrell had been largely forgotten in her home country. The author did not receive a single obituary in the Australian press. In the 1970s, the librarian Barbara Ross – one of few researchers to study Cottrell’s work – had to fight to have her included in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. At the time, the dictionary’s internal reviewers dismissed Cottrell as a “trashy writer” who was “moreover an expatriate”. </p>
<p>This dismissal speaks volumes about the hierarchies of Australian culture. Although once hailed as a “genius” on two continents, Cottrell’s expatriatism and her success in the feminised world of commercial fiction ensured she would be sidelined by the local literary establishment. </p>
<p>She was too female, too popular, too “unAustralian” – and perhaps, too disabled – to be taken seriously. Lawson would be commemorated with a bronze statue in Sydney’s Domain, while Cottrell would remain an obscure footnote in the story of Australian literature.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212792/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yves Rees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Was international bestselling author Dorothy Cottrell too female, too popular, too ‘unAustralian’ and perhaps, too disabled, for the local literary establishment?Yves Rees, Lecturer in History, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1992092023-08-21T01:34:02Z2023-08-21T01:34:02Z‘An extraordinary dynamo’: Doris Taylor founded Meals on Wheels and helped elect Don Dunstan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543583/original/file-20230821-246711-6ttzir.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C3976%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From left: Doris Taylor, and Meals on Wheels volunteers at work.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia: A1200 – L22263, L22265, 22266</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Doris Taylor took possession of a new motorised wheelchair in 1951, she quipped: “Heaven help any bureaucrat who gets in my way now.”</p>
<p>Few would have dared. For while she may not have been able to walk, Taylor was no walkover. A fearless and passionate advocate for the socially disadvantaged, she refused to sit on the sidelines of society, and had a well-earned reputation for getting things done. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529063/original/file-20230530-15-ocezkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doris Taylor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Meals on Wheels SA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After witnessing poor children forced to scrounge for scraps during the <a href="https://theconversation.com/plenty-of-resilience-but-little-resistance-in-a-new-account-of-australias-great-depression-178417">Great Depression</a>, for example, she set up a soup kitchen in the local school. </p>
<p>When she realised elderly people were being institutionalised in psychiatric homes simply because they were undernourished, she founded <a href="https://mealsonwheels.org.au/">Meals on Wheels</a>. </p>
<p>And when she wanted a more radical voice in politics, she convinced a young solicitor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/dunstan-christies-and-me-growing-up-in-the-athens-of-the-south-70266">Don Dunstan</a>, to join the Australian Labor Party and stand for election in the House of Assembly seat of Norwood. She even managed his election campaign, guiding him to victory.</p>
<p>Dunstan, who would go on to become premier of South Australia, later described Taylor as “an extraordinary dynamo” and “the woman who influenced my career more profoundly than any other, except my first wife Gretel”. </p>
<p>“Doris Taylor is one of the great unsung heroines of Australia,” he wrote in his memoir, <a href="https://www.dunstan.org.au/resources/felicia-the-political-memoirs-of-don-dunstan/">Felicia</a>. “I can never record sufficiently the gratitude I owe her, as do thousands of others.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543585/original/file-20230821-239003-etnnyc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Volunteers prepare lunch in a Meals on Wheels kitchen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia: A1200, L22264</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A social conscience wakes</h2>
<p>Born on 25 July 1901 in Norwood, South Australia, Taylor was the eldest of four children of bricklayer Thomas Taylor and his wife Angelina. The family moved to Mt Gambier soon after her birth. There, aged seven, she fell from a ladder, leaving her with a bad limp. </p>
<p>Four years later, after the family had returned to Norwood, Taylor damaged her spine in another fall, leaving her paralysed. She endured several operations, spending years in hospitals encased in plaster, unable to move. But when doctors recommended placing Taylor in the Home for Incurables, her mother refused, insisting on taking her home. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529057/original/file-20230530-19-bktyo0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doris Taylor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Meals on Wheels SA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a wheelchair for the rest of her life, Taylor had only limited movement of her head, shoulders, arms and fingers. Her condition was exacerbated by painful rheumatoid arthritis that rendered her fingers stiff and twisted. She could move nothing else, Dunstan wryly noted, “except other people off their behinds”. </p>
<p>Determined to become a useful member of society, she had no time for self-pity, according to Meals on Wheels historian Michael Cudmore. “We are in the world to help each other,” she would say. </p>
<p>It was during the Great Depression that her “social conscience really awoke”. Passing by a local school, she noticed a small boy taking sandwiches from a box in the playground. The box had been placed there by well-meaning teachers so that children with excess lunch could put some aside for those who had little or none. But Taylor witnessed the shame of the child who had to publicly accept the charity of others. </p>
<p>“This child, who could not get enough lunch, was, like so many others, foraging for food,” she recalled. “And there was I gadding about the countryside thinking all was fine in the universe and that sort of tragedy had been going on almost at my front door.”</p>
<p>On Taylor’s initiative, a small soup kitchen was opened at the school, charging a penny a serve. Those who could not afford it did not pay, but every child was issued with a ticket to avoid the humiliation Taylor had observed at the sandwich box. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kate-cocks-the-pioneering-policewoman-who-fought-crime-and-ran-a-home-for-babies-but-was-no-saint-191008">Hidden women of history: Kate Cocks, the pioneering policewoman who fought crime and ran a home for babies – but was no saint</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Organising genius’</h2>
<p>She also became secretary of the Mothers’ Club at a local kindergarten, a role that always amused her (“fancy me, an old maid running the Mothers’ Club”), organising events to raise money to buy new clothes for the children and food vouchers for their families. </p>
<p>An enthusiastic member of her local branch of the ALP, Taylor served as secretary on various committees and helped to organise a house-to-house survey of local housing conditions. She also worked with trade unions, representing them on the Good Neighbour Council, set up to assist newly arrived European migrants in the post-war years. </p>
<p>An adept one-fingered typist, Taylor spent most of her days writing on a small portable typewriter and answering a telephone mounted on an arm near her bed. She was an “organising genius”, cultivating a long list of contacts in the media and politics, some of whom learnt the hard way never to underestimate her. </p>
<p>Observers marvelled at the long distances she travelled, in all weather, steering her petrol-powered wheelchair with her shoulders. </p>
<p>“Her telephone is one of the busiest in Adelaide,” a News journalist noted in 1958. “She works from 7am to 11pm, guiding and directing by phone, letter and talks at meetings and clubs.” </p>
<p>Widely and “extremely well-read” in politics, philosophy, literature and the arts, Taylor taught herself several languages, including Russian. She also found time to read twice a week to a blind ex-schoolmaster.</p>
<p>In 1952, as secretary of the West Norwood ALP sub-branch, Taylor decided Don Dunstan was the right candidate to win the seat of Norwood and achieve the radical reforms she wanted to see in South Australia. Dunstan recalled how she managed his first election campaign “in her own inimitable way”. The sitting Liberal and Country League member he defeated was Taylor’s cousin.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529064/original/file-20230530-23-fnmyth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doris Taylor managed SA Premier Don Dunstan’s first election campaign. He called her ‘one of the great unsung heroines of Australia’.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘A Home for the Aged feels quite wrong’</h2>
<p>But Taylor’s major concerns were always for the aged, the housebound and the disabled. She felt a tremendous empathy for elderly people who were being forced out of their homes and into institutions. After World War II, she joined the South Australian Pensioners’ League, becoming its public relations officer.</p>
<p>“The idea of a Home for the Aged seems quite wrong to me,” she wrote in 1955. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Any community that segregates any part or group of its people is unhealthy, unbalanced. The community needs its aged people as much as they need and want to remain a part of the community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Medical research confirmed Taylor’s suspicions that the elderly deteriorated more rapidly – mentally and physically – when undernourished. And she was “appalled” to discover that hundreds of old people committed to a local psychiatric hospital had been judged to be “quite sane” after just a few weeks of nourishing meals yet were “doomed to end their days in an overcrowded mental hospital” because they had nowhere else to go. </p>
<p>After hearing of home-based meal services operating in England and <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206443383">South Melbourne</a>, home of <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/meals-on-wheels-hit-the-road-20030624-gdvxgg.html">Australia’s first</a> (initially bike-powered) meal delivery service, Taylor struck on the concept for Meals on Wheels. On a wet afternoon in October 1953, she pitched her idea to <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131244880">a meeting</a> of 96 pensioners, paying the rent for the hall from her own pocket.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543586/original/file-20230821-233971-6dhqe6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Meals on Wheels volunteers organising a delivery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia: A1200, L22266</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Those attending were enthusiastic, contributing £5 for initial expenses. Taylor also convinced the local paper owned by a <a href="https://theconversation.com/rupert-murdoch-how-a-22-year-old-zealous-laborite-turned-into-a-tabloid-tsar-204914">young Rupert Murdoch</a> to get behind the scheme and run a subscription fund. Dunstan, by that time the newly elected member for Norwood, was enlisted to help draft the organisation’s constitution and became its first chairman.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-love-in-the-time-of-incontinence-why-young-people-dont-have-the-monopoly-on-love-or-even-sex-198416">Friday essay: love in the time of incontinence – why young people don't have the monopoly on love, or even sex</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A bold social experiment</h2>
<p>From the outset, Taylor was adamant that Meals on Wheels would not be a charity “but a social experiment” users would pay for. The <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/132054762">first Meals on Wheels kitchen</a> opened in Port Adelaide on 9 August 1954, operating from a Nissen Hut donated by a local businessman on land provided by the Port Adelaide City Council. Despite the lack of a working sink, 11 “heroic volunteers” prepared and delivered eight meals.</p>
<p>Other kitchens quickly followed at Norwood, Hindmarsh and Woodville. The organisation grew into a statewide body, providing a model for other states and countries to follow. Ten years after it began, Meals on Wheels served its millionth meal.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530031/original/file-20230605-27-l64npq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Meals on Wheels SA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Taylor devoted the rest of her life to promoting the organisation, giving regular radio broadcasts and addressing hundreds of meetings across Australia. She accomplished this all in a volunteer capacity until the state body of Meals on Wheels appointed her as a paid organiser in 1958. The following year, she was awarded an MBE. </p>
<p>Paying tribute to Taylor’s efforts on the tenth anniversary of the organisation, Advertiser journalist Stewart Cockburn observed: “She worked, she talked, she argued, she battered with a ferocity of purpose at the doors of half the leaders of the South Australian community.”</p>
<p>Doris Taylor died on 23 May 1968, aged 66 years, but her legacy lives on. Today, Meals on Wheels delivers in excess of ten million meals to more than 120,000 clients Australia-wide each year. The South Australian electorate of Taylor is also named after her. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The author’s grandmother, Lil Wendt, was a life member of the West Torrens branch of Meals on Wheels, and she has fond memories as a child visiting the kitchen and observing the adults at work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Collins receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>When Doris Taylor became paralysed, her mother was advised to put her in a Home for Incurables. Instead, Doris helped elect a reforming South Australian premier and founded a national institution.Carolyn Collins, ARC Research Fellow, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1897882023-01-17T19:02:02Z2023-01-17T19:02:02ZHidden women of history: how ‘Lady’ Williams founded a great Australian apple<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503581/original/file-20230109-5266-t9jq6l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C3982%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Image credits: State Library of Western Australia.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>On Boronia Farm, just outside Donnybrook in Western Australia, stands an 80-something-year-old apple tree (<em>Malus domestica</em>) that’s at the heart of a global industry. </p>
<p>This tree produced an apple no one had seen or tasted before, now called the Lady Williams. Without the Lady Williams, there could be no Sundowner®, no Pink Lady®, no Bravo® – apple varieties that, along with the Lady Williams, have made a enormous contribution to the global apple industry.</p>
<p>Boronia Farm’s apple tree is now listed in the register of the National Trust, but the woman behind the Lady Williams is not well known. Yet, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/boronia-farm/the-story-of-the-lady-williams-apple-told-by-bob-williams">as her son Bob remembered</a>, Maud Williams was crucial to the story of this tree and the apple it produced. </p>
<h2>A remarkable chance seedling</h2>
<p>From the 1930s, Maud, her husband Arthur and their two boys Bob and Ron worked their 12 acres of orchard, with its apples and stone fruit, and 40 cows. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498621/original/file-20221202-23-dqkqsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498621/original/file-20221202-23-dqkqsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498621/original/file-20221202-23-dqkqsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498621/original/file-20221202-23-dqkqsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498621/original/file-20221202-23-dqkqsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498621/original/file-20221202-23-dqkqsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498621/original/file-20221202-23-dqkqsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original Lady Williams apple tree at Boronia Farm, Donnybrook, State Library of Western Australia, slwa_b6831120_8.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Maud collected ideas for plants to grow, from catalogues and women’s magazines, experimenting with her taste for the unusual, <a href="https://encore.slwa.wa.gov.au/iii/encore/record/C__Rb6831120">remembers her son Ron</a>. Not content with roses and petunias, Maud was instead growing feijoas and hydrangeas. </p>
<p>With her eye for horticultural novelty, it was perhaps not surprising that she identified the very special qualities of the tree with the bright red apples that had sprung up unexpectedly next to the tank stand beside the house. </p>
<p>The fruit was firm and crisp and showed great suitability for long storage, ideal for Australia’s export market. The Williams family gathered a good price for their cases of apples grown from this tree and over time, the family propagated new trees from the original one.</p>
<p>This tree was a chance seedling, a spontaneous creation whose likely parent cultivars were Granny Smith and Rokewood. </p>
<p>Some of our most common apple varieties began as chance seedlings. But chance seedlings do not reach our supermarkets as a matter of course. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503555/original/file-20230109-21-6d5u8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lady Williams apples would not have become a popular variety without Maud Williams’ keen eye for the unusual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nadiatalent">Nadiatalent/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apples frequently produce chance seedlings. But for a chance seedling to be put into production and become known as a variety, many factors are involved, not least people who recognise distinctive apples that will have value in their contemporary context. </p>
<p>Only a select few chance seedlings are ever turned into varieties with impact in the orchard industry. For that to happen, there need to be people who make the necessary investment of care, time or funding – just as Maud did.</p>
<p>In its inconvenient location, the unfamiliar apple tree was almost cut down many a time, but it survived thanks to Maud’s protection and care. On one occasion when he almost destroyed it, Bob recalled getting a severe telling-off from his mum, who “stood it up again, bandaged it up and it took off again”. </p>
<p>Reflecting Maud’s importance in the creation of this new variety, the apple was given the name Lady Williams. This was the name that the little girl, Lynette Green, who lived on a neighbouring farm, used for Maud.</p>
<p>Maud’s recognition of the qualities of the fruit from this tree, and her initiatives to protect it, were about to enable a remarkable new phase of the Australian apple industry. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kate-cocks-the-pioneering-policewoman-who-fought-crime-and-ran-a-home-for-babies-but-was-no-saint-191008">Hidden women of history: Kate Cocks, the pioneering policewoman who fought crime and ran a home for babies – but was no saint</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Lady Williams, parent of the Pink Lady</h2>
<p>Lady Williams apples were <a href="https://www.cooksinfo.com/lady-williams-apples">introduced commercially</a> in 1968, the same year Maud died. By the early 1970s, the Lady Williams was the subject of attention at the WA Department of Agriculture and its new apple-breeding program. There, a team led by the horticulturalist John Cripps was experimenting with combinations of Lady Williams and Golden Delicious. </p>
<p>In an interview conducted as part of the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/4736514">Apples and Pears Oral History Project</a> in 2010, Cripps reflected that the cross-breeding process involved intensive manual labour, high degrees of dexterity and immense patience, a set of qualities Cripps <a href="//nla.gov.au/nla.obj-219220713/listen/1-197%7E1-266">identified in women technicians</a>.</p>
<p>In 1984, one of the over 100,000 experimental seedlings produced an attractive fruit; it was bright pink, crisp, flavoursome and long-storing. Cripps had a hand in both its names: the Cripps Pink, and its commercial name, Pink Lady®. It was the first apple variety ever to be trademarked.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="apples on an apple tree" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503538/original/file-20230109-15-xdnc3q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Pink Lady apple, a variant of the Lady Williams, was the first apple variety to be trademarked.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kerry_Raymond">Kerry Raymond/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From the same breeding program emerged the Sundowner® and more recently, in 1992, the Bravo®.</p>
<p>All the world’s Lady Williams, Pink Lady®, Sundowner® and Bravo® trees share DNA with the original tree Maud Williams had nurtured many years before. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kudnarto-the-kaurna-woman-who-made-south-australian-legal-history-185390">Hidden women of history: Kudnarto, the Kaurna woman who made South Australian legal history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Writing women’s agricultural contributions</h2>
<p>Women’s contributions to the agricultural sector have often occurred, just as Maud’s did, outside of professional roles. They do not always fit easily in conventional profiles for innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture, nor into standard narratives of Australia’s agricultural development. </p>
<p>Documenting Australian women’s activities in agricultural innovation faces considerable challenges. Making women’s activities and innovation visible in this domain is key to providing role models for the future. It will also increase the diversity of participation in Australia’s future decision-making about the lands we live and work on.</p>
<p>We may have to look and listen in different places for the histories of these women. What we know so far of Maud’s role has been gathered from interviews with her family and members of the local community of which she was part. We can also consider how our histories could become more inclusive by thinking about what constitutes participation and contribution to agricultural innovation more expansively.</p>
<p>There are many women working in the south-west orchard industry today: running the farm businesses, packing apples, testing for new varieties, leading the industry’s peak body. They are the inheritors of a dynamic industry that Maud Williams helped to create. </p>
<p><em>A <a href="https://encore.slwa.wa.gov.au/iii/encore/record/C__Rb6831120">new podcast for the State Library of Western Australia</a> delves into women’s roles in the Western Australian apple industry.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated that 30 years ago, women were not able to be recognised as farmers in their own right on the Australian census forms; however, this is not the case. This article has now been amended.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Broomhall receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She was involved in developing a podcast on Maud Williams and the Lady Williams apple for the State Library of WA.</span></em></p>Historically, women’s contributions to the agricultural sector often occurred outside of professional roles. ‘Lady’ Maud Williams, who discovered the Lady Williams apple, is one of those women.Susan Broomhall, Director, Gender and Women's History Research Centre, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910082022-11-07T19:01:42Z2022-11-07T19:01:42ZHidden women of history: Kate Cocks, the pioneering policewoman who fought crime and ran a home for babies – but was no saint<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491523/original/file-20221025-20-2serq3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C11%2C3976%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Image sources, from left: Wakefield Press, State Library South Australia.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In 1915, an unmarried, 40-year-old woman by the name of Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks was hand-picked for the role of South Australia’s first policewoman. A small number of others had taken up similar roles globally, amid growing fears for the morality of young women enjoying ever more independence in a rapidly changing world. </p>
<p>But Kate Cocks, as she called herself, was the first woman in the British Empire to enjoy the same salary as her male counterparts, and to receive the same powers of arrest. Asked if she wanted six additional policewomen in her tiny office in Adelaide’s Victoria Square, she replied: “No, give me one woman. I don’t even know what I am going to do yet.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490284/original/file-20221018-23092-uqr2y3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=616&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kate Cocks with the Women’s Police Office.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library South Australia/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Most of the time, Cocks walked the beat, patrolling railway stations, beaches and parklands for 60 hours a week in prim neck-to-ankle civilian outfits and one-and-a-half-inch heels. But Cocks was instrumental in solving several major crimes, too. </p>
<p>She received six honorary mentions (and ultimately an MBE) for resolving cases including the poisoning of children in a country town, abortion rackets, drug smuggling and a controversial sodomy case involving a prominent Adelaide hotelier and politician. </p>
<p>The staunch Methodist was known to hold all-night vigils with desperate mothers outside houses where their daughters were “living in sin”. She strode into opium dens to frogmarch young women out. And she regularly arrested “callous” fortune tellers “preying” on the wives and mothers of soldiers during World War I.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kudnarto-the-kaurna-woman-who-made-south-australian-legal-history-185390">Hidden women of history: Kudnarto, the Kaurna woman who made South Australian legal history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A childhood of drought and debt</h2>
<p>Three short biographies, drawing primarily on a series of interviews with Cocks for Adelaide’s The Advertiser after her 1935 retirement, paint the policewoman as highly empathetic – almost saintly (although she was in fact far more complex than that). They trace that empathy to a childhood of poverty, dislocation and faith. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490283/original/file-20221018-23092-y6n97j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library South Australia/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Born in Moonta in 1875 to a miner and a teacher, Cocks was two when her father swapped mining for farming in the Southern Flinders Ranges. The move was a disaster, with years of prolonged drought resulting in the family scattering across the nation to work and pay off debts. “Katie”, aged 14, was sent to finish her schooling with relatives in Victoria. </p>
<p>By 22, Cocks was a teacher and sub-matron at the Edwardstown Industrial School for neglected and delinquent children in Adelaide. As she told The Advertiser in 1936: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sheltered in a good home, I had not known anything of vice and cruelty, and I never bathed a neglected baby, or tended a sad-faced dirty child, without realising that I had been led by Providence to have my vision adjusted to see life in reality and try to alter some of its injustices.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>With the backing of mentor and State Children’s Council member <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spence-catherine-helen-4627">Catherine Helen Spence</a>, Cocks was later appointed as the state’s first full-time juvenile court probation officer, spending nine years in the role and earning respect for her hands-on, practical approach with children and their parents.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australia-became-a-nation-and-women-won-the-vote-78406">How Australia became a nation, and women won the vote</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A ‘natural pick’ to police immorality</h2>
<p>By 1915, prominent, pious and resolute in the view that prevention was better than cure, Cocks was the natural pick for the policing of immorality. Not that everyone was convinced of the need for women officers. </p>
<p>As Patricia Higgs and Christine Bettess write in <a href="https://southaustralianpolicehistoricalsociety.com/product/to-walk-a-fair-beat/">To Walk a Fair Beat: A History of the South Australian Women Police</a>, some senior members of the force believed women would be “quite useless”, and that women’s patrolling would be better aligned to “ladies connected with some philanthropical association”. </p>
<p>But the same voices who achieved world-leading suffrage rights for South Australian women were not to be drowned out. A progressive Labor government introduced legislation to change all existing Acts so that “every word of the masculine gender shall be construed as including the feminine gender”. </p>
<p>With the bill’s passage, “policeman” was suddenly a gender-neutral term, avoiding a vote on the necessity of women police – and indeed any debate over equal remuneration. </p>
<p>Cocks was not a saint. She was a complex character, both of her time and ahead of her time. She was a profoundly moralistic, staunch Methodist who loved a good perm and patronised Adelaide’s best tailors. </p>
<p>She found ways for young unmarried mothers to keep their babies, but did not believe in birth control. As she told The Advertiser in 1936: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In my opinion, a mother is the nearest thing to God upon this earth, because she, too, creates. That is why I am so opposed to all the abortive practices nowadays.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Though hailed in her biographies as “everybody’s friend”, she was not universally adored. Her nickname in some quarters was “Three Feet Apart”, because during night patrols she used a five-foot cane on any young couples not maintaining that distance.</p>
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<p>In the book <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1545">Bert Edwards: King of the West End</a>, Patricia Sumerling highlights Cocks’ unprofessionalism during a controversial sodomy case. Cocks rifled through the belongings of a prime witness to find her diaries when she wasn’t home. She also interviewed the witness alone – which wasn’t against the rules, but threw the case into doubt when the young woman later claimed that Cocks inserted additional material into her witness statement. </p>
<p>In the book To Walk a Fair Beat, it’s noted that Cocks was so evasive during the initial hearing, repeatedly claiming privilege, that the magistrate described her as “a most difficult witness”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-story-of-fook-shing-colonial-victorias-chinese-detective-94017">Friday essay: the story of Fook Shing, colonial Victoria's Chinese detective</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A complex legacy</h2>
<p>Perhaps no aspect of Cocks’ career is more complex than her legacy with the Stolen Generations and Forgotten Australians. Soon after retiring from the police force, at the age of 60, she founded a refuge that became known as the Methodist Home for Girls and Babies. </p>
<p>Around the time of her death in 1954, the home was renamed in her honour. In 2011, the Uniting Church of SA and UnitingCare Wesley Adelaide Inc (now Uniting Communities) issued an unreserved apology to mothers and children for the past practice of forced adoptions from the Kate Cocks Memorial Babies Home between 1937 and 1976.</p>
<p>In the 1987 book <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Mission_Story.html?id=A6uRAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Mission Story: The Story of the Adelaide Central Mission</a>, Ivor Bailey writes that during Cocks’ 15 years as superintendent at the home, 1,500 babies were cared for and 560 (or 37%) were adopted. Under her supervision, children could be left in the care of the home for up to three years while their mothers got themselves into a position where they could take their baby home. </p>
<p>Newspaper reports and records also confirm that some First Nations children, predominantly from the Northern Territory, were under her supervision. In 1941, Cocks told Adelaide’s Mail newspaper: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are no unwanted babies. At present I have quite 12 women who are eager to adopt little girls and five who want little boys […] but many of the girls are insistent that they keep their children.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Annual reports from the home, held by Uniting Communities, show that by 1971 – 17 years after Cocks’ death – the proportion of unmarried mothers having their babies adopted had risen to 90%. </p>
<p>When Cocks resigned from the force in 1935, Police Commissioner Brigadier-General Raymond Leane described her as “the biggest woman I have ever met”, who “never bungled anything”, despite using “the most unorthodox” methods he’d ever witnessed. </p>
<p>Kate Cocks’ legacy is complex and contradictory. But hers is a story worth telling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191008/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lainie Anderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kate Cocks, South Australia’s first policewoman, was no saint – but she helped solve major crimes including the poisoning of children, abortion rackets and drug smuggling.Lainie Anderson, PhD candidate, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1853902022-07-31T20:05:12Z2022-07-31T20:05:12ZHidden women of history: Kudnarto, the Kaurna woman who made South Australian legal history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476046/original/file-20220726-19-brhzns.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C125%2C1196%2C708&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">William Leigh/Mitchell Library New South Wales </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kudnarto, a Kaurna woman, married shepherd Thomas Adams on 27 January 1848. Theirs was the first legal marriage between an Aboriginal woman and a colonist under colonial law in South Australia. </p>
<p>The occasion was recorded by The South Australian. The bride, who took the name Mary Ann Adams, wore </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a neat gown and low boots. She wore no bonnet, but her hair was carefully dressed; and her whole appearance denoted cleanliness and comfort.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She was deemed “remarkedly good looking”, hardworking and well-tempered. Her English as she repeated her vows was clear.</p>
<p>Kudnarto was able to apply for Aboriginal reserve land for farming purposes under colonial law, so after their marriage Thomas put in an application for land on Skylogolee (Skillogalee) Creek, near Auburn in the Clare Valley.</p>
<p>In May 1848, Kudnarto (now Mary Ann Adams) acquired a license to occupy this land during her lifetime. This marriage set a precedent for other colonists to apply for Aboriginal reserve land on marrying an Aboriginal woman.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476048/original/file-20220726-10636-7m9mvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kudnarto was given a license to occupy and farm land near Auburn in the Clare Valley (pictured, as it is today).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Smith/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-wauba-debar-an-indigenous-swimmer-from-tasmania-who-saved-her-captors-126487">Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Who was Kudnarto?</h2>
<p>Who was Kudnarto, this woman who made legal history? Unfortunately we know very little about her, other than a couple of newspaper reports and her husband’s attempts to secure the land he occupied in her name. </p>
<p>Her life is also remembered in a memoir, <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=24">And the Clock Struck Thirteen</a>, by her great-great grandson, Lewis Yerloburka O'Brien. </p>
<p>She was a Kaurna woman from the area around Crystal Brook, the northernmost region of Kaurna land, which extended across the Adelaide Plains to Fleurieu Peninsula in the south. </p>
<p>All that we know of Kudnarto’s Aboriginal family is that her name indicates she was the third-born child. Her father was probably a Ngadjuri man: the one written record of this is in the journal of anthropologist Norman Tindale. Lewis O'Brien <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=24">says</a>, “I’ve always known, however, that we’ve got Ngadjuri connections because everyone in the family used to talk about them.”</p>
<p>Kudnarto’s descendants include many prominent Kaurna community members, including Gladys Elphick, best known as the founding president of the Council of Aboriginal Women of South Australia, the first Aboriginal women’s body to be formed in Australia – as well as Josie Agius, one of South Australia’s first Aboriginal health workers, and AFL footballer Michael O'Loughlin.</p>
<h2>A historic marriage</h2>
<p>Kudnarto had spent her childhood on a settler’s property, where she gained some European education. As a young teenager she met Adams, 20 years her senior, and began living with him. </p>
<p>After they had lived together for about 18 months, Adams gave notice to the Deputy Registrar’s Office that he wished to marry Kudnarto. But first they needed the approval of the Protector of Aborigines, Matthew Moorhouse.</p>
<p>He visited Kudnarto several times to find out if she was fond of Adams and wanted to marry him. Moorhouse also instructed her on her marital obligations under British law. </p>
<p>He reported to the Colonial Secretary that “she likes him better than the black men” and gave his approval for the marriage, subject to the authorisation of the Lieutenant Governor for the marriage of an underage girl, which was immediately forthcoming. </p>
<p>The local newspaper reported on the upcoming nuptials in an ironically disparaging tone, giving us one of the few descriptions of Kudnarto, a personable woman: her “fidelity, amiability of disposition, and aptitude to learn, are very remarkable, if not unprecedented.”</p>
<p>There was one last hurdle to overcome: it was a condition of the marriage that Kudnarto go to the Aboriginal school in Adelaide, to be trained in domestic duties and build on the education she had already received. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476611/original/file-20220728-28819-wofa9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kudnarto’s great-great grandson, Kaurna elder and educator Lewis Yerloburka O'Brien, devotes a chapter to her in his memoir.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Provided by Wakefield Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-melanesian-indentured-labourer-annie-etinside-hailed-as-a-queensland-pioneer-on-her-death-155645">Hidden women of history: Melanesian indentured labourer Annie Etinside, hailed as a Queensland 'pioneer' on her death</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Kudnarto’s land</h2>
<p>Since the inception of the colony, sections of land in South Australia had been set aside as Aboriginal reserves, where it was anticipated Aboriginal people would farm the land. But there were continual pressures on the government to make the land available for colonists and many were leased out to them. </p>
<p>After the wedding, Adams wrote to the Protector of Aborigines, Moorhouse, requesting access to some of this land. His application was approved and sent on to Governor Robe. Moorhouse emphasised that he was representing Adams’ wife’s interests:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would therefore respectfully ask on her behalf, that she may be allowed to settle on the Section in the Skylogolee Creek and have His Excellency promise that she be allowed to remain there so long as she lives upon the Section.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Adams struggled to establish a farming enterprise. Thomas seems to have been a heavy drinker, with little training or experience managing property and he feared local people would shun him. Was he shunned because of his drinking, poverty or his Aboriginal wife? </p>
<p>After the birth of his first son Thomas (junior) in 1849, Adams wanted to find out whether Kudnarto’s children would inherit the land when she died. He was told that the original conditions for access to the land were to protect Kudnarto from desertion by her husband “with the understanding that there might be a renewal in favour of her children in case of her death”.</p>
<p>A second son, Tim, was born in 1852. Kudnarto, <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=24">taught</a> her sons “as much as she could” before she died.</p>
<p>We have very little subsequent information about Kudnarto. Her husband did illegally lease out the land while he sought work on other properties, but we do not know if Kudnarto and the children went with him, or where they lived. </p>
<p>Lewis O'Brien <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=24">suggests</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kudnarto was still getting used to living in new circumstances without her family around and no game to hunt nearby. She had to live in the confines of a house with all these strangers passing across her land - it would have been difficult for her.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476045/original/file-20220726-19-74lntf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kudnarto is still remembered today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">South Australian History Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-30-years-after-mabo-what-do-australias-battler-stories-and-their-evasions-say-about-who-we-are-187110">Friday essay: 30 years after Mabo, what do Australia's battler stories – and their evasions – say about who we are?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Witnesses to murder</h2>
<p>In August 1850, Kudnarto and Thomas Adams were called as witnesses in a murder trial. As in the reports of her marriage, Kudnarto was treated as a test case for “civilising the natives”. Her appearance and demeanour were of note. Describing her clothes and hair, it’s reported that “she certainly appeared to considerable advantage”. She spoke clearly, although “in the idiom of her tribe” and her emotional responses to the crime were noted.</p>
<p>Kudnarto died on 11 February 1855, in her early 20s. Adams and his sons lost the right to occupy the land at Skylogolee Creek. Adams could not look after his children and took them to Poonindie mission on southern Eyre Peninsula, where they lived for the next few decades. </p>
<p>Both Thomas Adams senior and junior continued to make claim to the land on Skillogalee Creek. But their many applications were unsuccessful, despite those early promises that Kudnarto’s children might have rights to the land. </p>
<p>Lewis O'Brien <a href="https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=24">reflects</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>how many times do we have to own this country before we can say it’s ours? We’re the original owners. My great, great grandmother was given back a piece of her land, only for it to be taken away again from her family when she died.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peggy Brock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kudnarto was the first Aboriginal woman to legally marry, under colonial law in South Australia. Her descendants include prominent Kaurna people like Gladys Elphick and Michael O'Loughlin.Peggy Brock, Emeritus Professor of History, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1770732022-04-11T19:56:43Z2022-04-11T19:56:43ZHidden women of history: ‘the Buzzwinker’ Ellen Miles, child convict, goldfields pickpocket and vagrant<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447995/original/file-20220223-17-fulyb6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>—Me name’s Miles; Ellen Miles, remarked an old woman at the City Court yesterday.<br></p>
<p>—And you are charged with vagrancy, stated Sergeant Eason. Can you show the Bench that you have means of support?<br></p>
<p>—'How can I support myself when I’m continually in gaol and not a shilling coming into the house? What is it at all? What are us old people to do? There is no institution in the country,’ replied Mrs Miles.<br></p>
<p>—Sergeant Eason: But the country has been keeping you for years.<br></p>
<p>—Mrs Miles: ‘What! the country supporting me. Why, I’m supporting the country. I’ve scattered my money over the colony for the last 50 years. To tell the truth, I’ve spent thousands and thousands of pounds.<br></p>
<p>Accused, who was found sitting on the hospital steps in Little Lonsdale street, late at night, with a bandage over her eye nearly as large as a pillow, was sentenced to three months, as was also a companion named Bridget Jones.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was October 1896 and the accused, Ellen Miles, was almost 70 years old. She had indeed been scattering her money across the colony for 50 years. She would live for another 20, still in and out of gaol and benevolent asylums, until she was too frail to escape the Ballarat institution where she died in 1916.</p>
<p>This was fitting, as it was the Ballarat diggers who years before had dubbed her the “Buzzwinker”, an elaboration of the cant for pickpocket. Later, a locomotive from the Phoenix foundry that moved with a “pronounced waddle” was <a href="https://railstory.org/">named Buzzwinker after her</a>. She matters to us today because hers is a rare and unmediated voice from the criminal underclass of Vandemonian women.</p>
<p>She was a child of the 1830s and lived until 1916. How aware she ever was of the Great World outside her tiny one of back lanes, brothels and bars, we have no idea, but her life spanned the history of Victoria from the discovery of gold to Gallipoli.</p>
<p>She did register to vote in 1903, but hers was an underlife as she waddled around Canvas Town, Romeo Lane, the gold fields, Collingwood – and for one mad adventure, to Adelaide, her copious skirts concealing her latest stolen goods. Wherever there was a lurk to exploit and a lark to celebrate, Ellen was there.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A town of tents against a backdrop of hills in the far distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447999/original/file-20220223-19-1lz7kpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447999/original/file-20220223-19-1lz7kpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447999/original/file-20220223-19-1lz7kpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447999/original/file-20220223-19-1lz7kpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447999/original/file-20220223-19-1lz7kpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447999/original/file-20220223-19-1lz7kpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447999/original/file-20220223-19-1lz7kpf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canvas Town, a coloured lithograph by Samuel Thomas Gill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Copyright Samuel Thomas / Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>'Notorious utterers’</h2>
<p>Her first appearance in the press had been in 1839: Ellen Miles, aged 11, was charged at the Guildhall with passing a counterfeit half-crown to a shopkeeper in Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London. Mr Field, an inspector at the Mint, said that this child was “one of three sisters, all notorious utterers”. </p>
<p>Ellen had already been in custody 30 times and sported three aliases. Her mother was dead. Her <a href="https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t18390812-2240">father claimed</a> he could not control her and that it might be an act of mercy to transport her. As predicted, her second appearance at the Old Bailey in October resulted in transportation.</p>
<p>Her sister Ruth, when before the Old Bailey herself a few months later, gave the game away: their father, Moses Miles, a costermonger (street trader), wanted all his girls transported so as to be relieved of their support. It was he who gave them the counterfeit coins to pass. His daughters had been in and out of St Pancras Workhouse since 1833, when Ellen was six. She graduated at the age of ten after 14 months in the Children’s Ward on her own. </p>
<p>It was there that she may have learnt to read and write, and it was there, among the toughest, roughest females in London, that she learned to survive. Both sisters were fierce, voluble and violent. They followed each other to Van Diemen’s Land: Ellen transported on the Gilbert Henderson in 1839, sentenced to seven years, Ruth five months later aboard the Navarino, with a sentence of 15.</p>
<p>Ellen had her first experience of solitary confinement six months after arrival. She continued to be insolent and to disobey orders. In July 1841, aged 13, she was punished for being in the company of a Richard Nichols. In May 1842, six months was added to her sentence for absconding.</p>
<h2>Wild nights behind bars</h2>
<p>Two months later in July 1842, she was convicted of riot and breaking a table in the Launceston Female Factory, together with Mary Sheriff and Catherine Lowry, two notorious members of the <a href="https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/docs/disciplineinquiry/TranscriptofInquirywithtables.pdf">“flash mob</a>, who:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>always had money, wear worked cap, silk handkerchiefs, earrings and other rings they are the greatest blackguards in the building. The other women were afraid of them. They led away the young girls by bad advice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To have a good time was to keep offending and remain under punishment in the Female Factory, where the women, once locked in at night, could sing and be as lewd as they liked. They could <a href="https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/docs/disciplineinquiry/TranscriptofInquirywithtables.pdf">dance naked and have sex</a> with other women — women they loved and women they bullied. </p>
<p>In January 1852, with her only child dead and her husband, a fellow Cockney, in tow, she was off to gold-rush Melbourne, bedecked in ribbons and ready to make her fortune from the befuddled diggers seeking sex and oblivion. Hers was a public life, lived in open sight of the world. Rarely in her long life did she have a home outside gaol.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-how-lady-swindler-alexandrina-askew-triumphed-over-the-convict-stain-169023">Hidden women of history: how 'lady swindler' Alexandrina Askew triumphed over the convict stain</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>On the town</h2>
<p>She slept where she found shelter: in corners of cottages, huts, shanties, outhouses, stables, public houses; in gutters and lanes, and on the banks of the Yarra. She ate where she could and drank whenever she could afford it.</p>
<p><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448001/original/file-20220223-15-7dtcly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/448001/original/file-20220223-15-7dtcly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448001/original/file-20220223-15-7dtcly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448001/original/file-20220223-15-7dtcly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448001/original/file-20220223-15-7dtcly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448001/original/file-20220223-15-7dtcly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/448001/original/file-20220223-15-7dtcly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1076&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The King of Terrors and His Satellites, a watercolour depiction of goldfields Victoria from 1851-1852.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">S T Gill, State Library of NSW</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
She paid for her food and drink by theft and pilfering and selling her body. Her sex life, both personal and transactional, was rarely private and often conducted in parks and back lanes.</p>
<p>She would rarely have used a privy, instead relieving herself in the street. She bathed mostly in gaol. Her clothes, probably stolen, lasted until they fell off her in rags. When she was arrested in Little Lonsdale Street, she had that bandage "the size of a pillow over one eye” and soon lost the eye completely. She sought invisibility from the law by changing her name, story and religion at whim.</p>
<p>She never admitted she was a transported convict, but claimed she had accompanied her long-deceased mother on the Gilbert Henderson. She generated criminal records under the names Buzzwinker, Ellen Watkins, Ellen Miles, Ann Myles, Ann Watkins, Ellen Burns, Ellen Grimes, Ellen Johnson and Bridget Brady. She did, at one stage, even claim Spanish birth.</p>
<p>She delivered her final words for posterity in December 1902. Charged under the name of Bridget Brady, born in Ireland and of the Catholic faith, she quickly protested her real self and her good character:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>—Bridget Brady at all. My name is Ellen Watkins and I am a decent woman.</p>
<p>Sergeant Eason — Oh we know all about you, Bridget, you’ve been convicted of all sorts of offences—nine times larceny, six times soliciting.</p>
<p>This was too much for Ellen:</p>
<p>—Soliciting is it? And I’m 82 (Laughter) Tis many a year since I was soliciting, I’m thinking. (Laughter).</p>
<p>Sergeant Eason—Yes, the record goes back over thirty years.</p>
<p>Brady (contemptuously)—Thirty grandmothers (Laughter). Why it must be full sixty years ago man. (Laughter)</p>
<p>Accused was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177073/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet McCalman AC does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Transported to Van Diemen’s Land aged 11, Ellen Miles went on to riot in Launceston’s Female Factory, seek fortune in gold-rush Victoria and live to nearly 90.Janet McCalman AC, Emeritus Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1690232021-10-21T19:10:17Z2021-10-21T19:10:17ZHidden women of history: how ‘lady swindler’ Alexandrina Askew triumphed over the convict stain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424404/original/file-20211004-25-1w9l3ox.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C1%2C885%2C592&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Skinner Prout's 1849 painting of the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart, Van Dieman's Land, where Alexandrina bore an illegitimate child.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>“A LADY SWINDLER”, gasped the Illustrated Australian News in November 1867.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It appears that for a length of time the lady has been in the habit of visiting lodging houses and inquiring for apartments […] Having agreed to take the lodgings she proceeds to pay a deposit, when, lo! on feeling in her pocket, she cries, ‘I’ve lost my purse; they have stolen my purse,’ and forthwith commences to lament and bemoan her loss, exclaiming, ‘What shall I do; what will my husband say’. </p>
<p>The lady is always accompanied by a little boy, dressed in Highland costume, whose tears mingled with sobs of his mother, are the secret of the facility with which she accomplishes her schemes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The lady swindler was Mrs Alexandrina Askew. She didn’t ask for money, loans were offered in her time of crisis. As she collected more funds, her clothes became more ladylike. </p>
<p>Outside Melbourne she would suddenly appear from the bush and de-materialise back into it afterwards. Throughout all her forays, she insisted her husband was a wealthy squatter near <a href="https://www.victorianplaces.com.au/piggoreet">Piggoreet</a> with 30,000 sheep and 900 head of cattle.</p>
<p>One conquest in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond involved the family of a coach-maker, one of whose buggies she fancied buying. They invited her to take sherry and conversation flowed: about the squatter husband, the home property.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424405/original/file-20211004-17-1flrjk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mrs Askew took particular interest in the daughter of the family, who was feeling poorly and in need of country air, prompting her to invite the daughter to travel with her to Piggoreet and stay awhile to recover her health. Such a pity it was that the new friends should miss each other the next day at Spencer Street Station.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-wauba-debar-an-indigenous-swimmer-from-tasmania-who-saved-her-captors-126487">Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An imaginary family</h2>
<p>Alexandrina, or Jemima or Alice, as she became in later life, arrived as Alexandrina Grant on the convict ship Tory in Hobart in 1845, along with 30 other Scottish women among a shipload of 170, otherwise from England. </p>
<p>She was 18, allegedly born in Inverness, and had been transported for “falsehoods, fraud and wilful imposition” in obtaining clothes.</p>
<p>Like all convicts transported by the Scottish courts, she had form. She had been convicted in Aberdeen at the age of 17 and had already served 60 days for theft, she reported also that she had done six months for “leaving my place” (that is, leaving her position as a servant while under contract). </p>
<p>When she alighted in Hobart, she recited an imaginary family to the convict clerk: her father John and her brothers William, James, Dennis, Alexander, John and Donald, plus her sister Elizabeth, all in Scotland. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427398/original/file-20211020-14-1ecb7pp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexandrina’s convict record.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is no sign of them in the census: there is no record of a Dennis Grant anywhere in Scotland before 1901. She was, in fact, a bastard child born in gaol to convict parents.</p>
<p>On the voyage out, the perceptive ship’s surgeon described Alexandrina as “orderly but precious”. Under her seven-year sentence she was frequently absent without leave, meeting men at night, and consequently bore an illegitimate child in Hobart’s <a href="https://femalefactory.org.au/">Cascades Female Factory</a> in 1849. </p>
<p>She found no-one presumably good enough to marry her, and domestic service was not to her liking (she was twice dismissed from her places of <a href="https://libraries.tas.gov.au/convict-portal/pages/convict-life.aspx">assigned service</a>), so she spent most of her sentence in the <a href="https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/F/Female%20factories.htm">female factories</a> where women were punished and put to work doing tasks such as laundry “at the tubs”. </p>
<h2>Social dysphoria</h2>
<p>Alexandrina’s story illustrates in extreme personal form the pain of perceived inferiority and stigma felt by those transported to Van Diemen’s Land: the daily humiliations of being a nobody, without a family let alone a lineage. If her secrets and lies were spectacular, they were nonetheless reflective of the desperation of the socially thwarted and ignored. </p>
<p>She felt she deserved to be a somebody, a woman of refinement, respected and deferred to – not an old lag, a former homeless woman of the town. She suffered a form of social dysphoria, born into the wrong social body. Alexandrina knew how to speak and deport herself like a lady, except her secret was that she wasn’t.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424407/original/file-20211004-13-1xjcvut.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Female Factory in Hobart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The terrible daily burden of the convict stain – of spoiled identity – meant people had to lie and withhold secrets, even from their own partners and children. </p>
<p>There were significant passages of their lives that could not be spoken of, stories that could not be recounted, memories that could not be shared. Always they had to calculate how best to obscure the missing seven or ten years of their servitude in their personal narrative.</p>
<p>Many changed their name and then had to guard against dropping the wrong name, or place of birth, or work history, let alone criminal history. Many, it seems, succeeded admirably in concealing their convict past from their families, only to be found out later by assiduous genealogists.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-catherine-hay-thomson-the-australian-undercover-journalist-who-went-inside-asylums-and-hospitals-129352">Hidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson, the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Vandemonians were expected to re-enter society at the bottom of the human ladder and remain there. Over time they might be tolerated as amusing eccentrics, or shunned as people of untrustworthy character, but either way they could not rise and blend in with those who had been received. They had crossed over to “the other side”, and there they were doomed to remain.</p>
<p>But among the convicts of Van Diemen’s Land was a clutch of women whose crimes were yearnings for things above their station: for positions, husbands, lodgings, or finery or jewellery they could not pay for. They had the good fortune to be born good-looking and intelligent and so they could be plausible and ladylike. Alexandrina was tall and attractive and spoke well.</p>
<p>They were also especially vulnerable to seduction and abandonment, and the trigger for crime was often a betrayal or desertion by a lover.</p>
<h2>A success story</h2>
<p>Why is this story worth telling beyond its poignancy? It matters because Alexandrina Grant was a success among Scottish convict women transported to Van Diemen’s Land.</p>
<p>She lived into her ninth decade; was not a conspicuous drunkard; and married a free man, William Askew, who stayed with her. They went to the gold mines at Bulldog (now Bullarook) near Piggoreet. Her swindling career forced them to relocate to Ballarat, then Echuca and finally, Sydney.</p>
<p>She bore ten children, six of whom lived into middle life; and successfully delivered and reared the illegitimate child of her second daughter under the common fiction that the child was her own. </p>
<p>Moreover, two of her daughters, including the one who had a baby out of wedlock at 16, married good providers, even if one was an eccentric Swiss-Italian, self-styled professor who dealt over the years variously in mesmerism, phrenology, homeopathy and marriage guidance. </p>
<p>Alexandrina, who died in 1913, was apparently loved. The final chapter of her life took place in Sydney, where she ran boarding houses at dubious addresses in Redfern, twice going bankrupt. Few of the 1636 Scottish women transported to Van Diemen’s Land achieved anything like this ordinary triumph over poverty, stigma and marginalisation.</p>
<p><em>Janet McCalman’s book Vandemonians is out now (MUP).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet McCalman AC receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>Deported to Australia as a convict at the age of 18, Alexandrina Askew reinvented herself as a woman of means, with a mysterious habit of misplacing her purse.Janet McCalman AC, Emeritus Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1677812021-09-23T20:03:58Z2021-09-23T20:03:58ZHidden women of history: Annie Lock was a bolshie, outspoken Australian missionary, full of contradictions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421250/original/file-20210915-27-5efapn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C775%2C1264&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Missionary Annie Lock with Enbarda (Betsy) left, and Dolly Cumming, both children from the Alice Springs area in Central Australia. Photo taken in Darwin.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander readers are advised this story contains images of people who have died.</em></p>
<p>“We have fared well out of native hands”, wrote missionary Annie Lock from Oodnadatta in South Australia in 1924. Four years later, having moved to Harding Soak north of Alice Springs, she declared the government should “give the natives food in place of their country”. </p>
<p>Lock’s recognition that white Australians had taken Aboriginal land and owed them compensation was ahead of her time, even if her idea of appropriate compensation was inadequate.</p>
<p>Born in 1876 into a Methodist sharefarming family of 14 children in South Australia’s Gilbert Valley, Lock was a practical woman with a very basic education. A dressmaker by trade, in 1903 she joined what would become the <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/family-history/family-history-sources/official-records/mission-and-reserve-records">United Aborigines Mission</a>. </p>
<p>It operated on faith lines: missionaries were unpaid and could not actively solicit donations, relying on prayer to answer all needs. Lock, like her colleagues, developed a nice line in inviting supporters to “join her in prayer” for very specific needs, such as “a nice staunch horse for £12”, hoping for a “practical” show of sympathy. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-mary-jane-cain-land-rights-activist-matriarch-and-community-builder-110186">Hidden women of history: Mary Jane Cain, land rights activist, matriarch and community builder</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>From 1903 to 1937, she lived in 10 mission camps across four states and territories. Renowned for being the “Big Boss”, she usually worked alone establishing “new work” — partly because her colleagues found her intensely uncollegial.</p>
<p>She wasn’t only out of step with many of her contemporaries in her belief Aboriginal Australians deserved compensation: she also believed Aboriginal people had a future and they could be “useful citizens” of Australia. </p>
<p>Once again, however, her view of their place in broader Australian society was narrow. She did not imagine Indigenous doctors, lawyers or politicians, but labourers, stockmen and domestic servants.</p>
<p>I first encountered Annie Lock through some of her letters in the South Australian archives. She berated government officials, demanding action and funding for (what she saw as) Aboriginal people’s interests. She was bolshie and outspoken. </p>
<p>At the time I was a young graduate student and naively thought I had uncovered a feminist heroine. I was quickly disabused: for all her intrepid and gutsy behaviour, Lock held intensely socially conservative views in line with her religious conviction.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-isabel-flick-the-tenacious-campaigner-who-fought-segregation-in-australia-114174">Hidden women of history: Isabel Flick, the tenacious campaigner who fought segregation in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A grand adventure</h2>
<p>Lock’s life was like a “girls’ own” adventure story – albeit a teetotal and highly moralistic one. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Text reads: Miss Annie Lock, the only white woman at Bonny Well." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421253/original/file-20210915-17-2wpem4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A story on Annie Lock in the Adelaide Mail, November 1932.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She made epic horse and buggy journeys across the desert, camped in the middle of nowhere with few resources and was shipwrecked in a pearling lugger. She railed against white men’s abuse of Aboriginal women, and she “rode rough-shod over rules and regulations, always managing to come out on top”, in the words of her obituary from her longsuffering mission society.</p>
<p>Many white Australians felt she went too far. She cuddled Aboriginal children, nursed the sick, and shared her campfire - even “drinking tea out of the same cup”. </p>
<p>After the <a href="https://www.commonground.org.au/learn/coniston-massacre">1928 Coniston Massacre,</a> in which a police party killed over 100 Aboriginal men, women and children in Central Australia, the Board of Enquiry, widely considered as a whitewash at the time, blamed the unrest leading to the events partly on “a woman missionary living among naked blacks, lowering their respect for whites”. </p>
<p>It was no coincidence that Lock was also one of the people who had publicised the massacre, forcing an enquiry in the first place, after Aboriginal people sought refuge in her camp and told her their horrifying tale. </p>
<p>In fact, rather than “lowering their respect” as a white woman living with Aboriginal people, Lock maintained her camp was an area of mutual respect and negotiation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They told me their laws; […] I made my rules; they kept them; I kept theirs; we had no trouble. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>At certain moments when researching her life, I found Lock seemed impressively broadminded. However, given the uneven distribution of power, the reality was not so idyllic. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-wauba-debar-an-indigenous-swimmer-from-tasmania-who-saved-her-captors-126487">Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A troublesome woman</h2>
<p>Lock was an integral part of the colonial machine, with all its patronising ethnocentricity. As a white woman, Lock was never troubled by any sense that Aboriginal people were her equals. </p>
<p>She could be dictatorial and bloody-minded, with a highly developed sense of what she saw as right and wrong, approving harsh punishment for transgressors. At the Coniston enquiry itself she was critical of those Aboriginal men who killed cattle, suggesting “a good flogging” was called for.</p>
<p>In Western Australia, she actively took children from their families and she was instrumental in establishing <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-i-am-anxious-to-have-my-children-home-recovering-letters-of-love-written-for-noongar-children-127809">Carrolup Native Settlement</a> in 1915 — a forerunner of notorious <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-26/moore-river-aboriginal-settlement-journey-into-hell-on-earth/9790658">Moore River Settlement</a> — to which Aboriginal people were removed. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-i-am-anxious-to-have-my-children-home-recovering-letters-of-love-written-for-noongar-children-127809">Friday essay: ‘I am anxious to have my children home’: recovering letters of love written for Noongar children</a>
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</p>
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<p>In South Australia in 1924, she started what became <a href="https://www.mitchamcouncil.sa.gov.au/discover/places-to-visit/colebrook-home-memorial">Colebrook Home</a>, in which Aboriginal children of mixed descent were institutionalised. </p>
<p>At Ooldea, when Lock was 58, the overworked and tired missionary let her guard slip. An Aboriginal man hit her after she punished his daughter. The daughter should be sent to Colebrook, she suggested, “to punish” him — deviating from the usual missionary script of “in the child’s best interests”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421283/original/file-20210915-13-h1hbdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Group of children at the first mission house at Oodnadatta, 1925.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of South Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But history is complicated. One elderly Aboriginal woman smiled when she told an interviewer her memories of Lock, “a real fat one”, playing rounders at Ooldea. The image of a stout middle-aged missionary hitching up her skirts and charging around the sandhills with a bunch of Aboriginal kids is hard to beat. </p>
<p>In Central Australia, some remembered her as a caring for children “on country”, saving them from being sent away. </p>
<p>Lock was consistently vocal about Aboriginal girls’ rights to be protected from white men (although she condoned Aboriginal men’s violent “punishment” of their wives). And while she was irrepressibly evangelistic, she eventually learned Christianity could work with some aspects of Aboriginal culture. Sometimes, she wrote, Aboriginal people could “teach white people a lesson”. They were “real socialist”, sharing the clothes that she gave them. She waxed lyrical about their “corroboree songs” and appreciated the authority of elder generations over the younger. </p>
<p>In 1937, aged 60 and after 35 years in the mission field, Lock suddenly retired. Certainly she had been finding her “pioneering” missionary work more of a strain, and her health had suffered, but also, she told her supporters, God was giving her a “quieter work”. Much to everyone’s amazement, this independent woman had found herself a husband. </p>
<p>She married a retired bank manager and spent the last six years of her life evangelising in a caravan around Eyre Peninsula.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old man and a woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421252/original/file-20210915-21-11ex5c2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lock surprised many by retiring and marrying in her 60s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">United Aborigines Mission</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Contradictions</h2>
<p>In uncovering the life of Annie Lock, I found a woman who was both fascinating and discomfiting. We can try and judge her motivations and actions as an individual of her time, but we cannot ignore her impact. </p>
<p>She saved people’s lives by providing food and healthcare, and a refuge from more hostile forces. She also destroyed families by removing children. She introduced Christianity, which some found a welcome way of navigating the changing world. She was one of an army of “do-gooders” whose haphazard attempts to improve the lives of Aboriginal people did not always have the result that anyone would have desired.</p>
<p>Her personal impact could be positive – some remember her as “lovely” and “motherly”. But her impact as an active participant in “protectionist” government policies, which limited Aboriginal people’s lives and movement and tore families apart, was traumatic and has endured.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Catherine Bishop is the author of Too Much Cabbage and Jesus Christ: Australia’s “Mission Girl” Annie Lock, out now with Wakefield Press</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Bishop receives funding from the Australian Research Council as a DECRA Research Fellow at Macquarie University. This project benefited from an Australian Religious History Fellowship at the State Library of NSW and an Australian Research Theology Inc travel grant.
</span></em></p>I thought I had uncovered a feminist heroine, but for all her intrepid and gutsy behaviour, Lock held intensely socially conservative views in line with her religious conviction.Catherine Bishop, Postdoctoral Fellow, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1613542021-08-11T20:05:50Z2021-08-11T20:05:50ZHidden women of history: how mother of 8, Mary Anne Allen, made do on the goldfields amid gunshots, rain and sly grog<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402271/original/file-20210524-19-nfd8gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=192%2C1124%2C2324%2C1454&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">S. T. Gill, 34. Iron Bark Eagle Hawk, in Original Sketches, 1844-1866.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://search.sl.nsw.gov.au/permalink/f/1cvjue2/ADLIB110329636">Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>In February 1852, 46-year-old Mary Anne Allen set off from Melbourne for the Mt Alexander (Castlemaine) diggings with her husband <a href="https://portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/pppg5ho.htm">Reverend John Allen</a> and their eight children, the youngest aged five.</p>
<p>Histories of the Victorian gold rushes often overlook women’s presence on the goldfields in 1852. Women, children and home, however, were always part of goldfields life. </p>
<p><a href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/1ojgog/SLV_VOYAGER3649714">Mary Anne Allen’s diary</a> appears to have been written for publication. In it she observes life on the diggings, not through the lens of masculinity and mateship, but through family and home. </p>
<h2>A perilous journey</h2>
<p>Englishwoman Mary Anne and her family had arrived in Port Phillip before the gold rushes. They migrated in 1849 to deliver the word of God for Scottish evangelist and colonial enthusiast <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lang-john-dunmore-2326">John Dunmore Lang</a>. Yet two years later the family abandoned their congregation in search of gold, “dreaming of little beyond wealth and competency”.</p>
<p>On route to Mt Alexander, the family almost lost their dray over a ravine. Their son Frederick tried to “scotch the wheels” (likely wedging a stone or bar to stop them rolling) but to no avail. </p>
<p>“My little girl came running towards me”, wrote Mary Anne in her diary. “She said we expected father would have been killed but Fred’s hand was smashed and two of his fingers broken.” Disaster was averted, but it would be just the beginning of the family’s trials.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="drawing of men fighting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415132/original/file-20210809-16-aowctw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most stories of the goldfields were told through the lens of mateship and masculinity. An early illustration by S. T. Gill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLV_VOYAGER1654827&vid=MAIN&search_scope=Pictures&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US&context=L">State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Next, four bushrangers bailed up a bullock driver ahead of them. The Allen family continued cautiously forward, one of her sons armed with a gun, the second with a hatchet, a third with a club. Mary Anne’s younger children inquired anxiously, “What will they do with you Mamma?” Fortunately, fate spared Mary Anne an answer.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-catherine-hay-thomson-the-australian-undercover-journalist-who-went-inside-asylums-and-hospitals-129352">Hidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson, the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Life in the clearings</h2>
<p>Mary Anne found the new goldfields “remarkably picturesque and singularly beautiful”. The countryside was already home to miners’ mia-mias (based on <a href="https://www.noongarculture.org.au/home/">Aboriginal dwellings</a>) and hundreds of tents, scattered for miles through the still dense bush.</p>
<p>But clean drinking water was impossible to find. A German miner gave Mary Anne’s children a cup of water, milky with chalk. Another miner gave Mary Anne a loaded gun to help her protect any water they found. The family moved on to nearby Barker’s Creek, where there were fewer tents and more available water.</p>
<p>The Allen’s erected their tent and furnished it with handmade “bush bedsteads”: saplings driven into the ground and bed cases filled with dried leaves. Their table was topped with bark and the floor carpeted with the same. Mary Anne wrote that the bark decomposed rapidly in wet weather, producing an “exceedingly unpleasant” smell.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402460/original/file-20210524-13-1wri7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402460/original/file-20210524-13-1wri7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402460/original/file-20210524-13-1wri7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402460/original/file-20210524-13-1wri7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402460/original/file-20210524-13-1wri7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402460/original/file-20210524-13-1wri7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402460/original/file-20210524-13-1wri7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Winkles, ‘Interior of a digger’s tent’, c.1853.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many miners’ tents, she wrote, were lined with blankets inside and bullock hides externally to keep out the weather. Her sons built a stone fireplace with bark sides, which they topped with an old sugar cask. They put up a tarpaulin awning so the family could bake damper and roast meat without standing in the rain. Even with these precautions, mould covered everything.</p>
<h2>Living with uncertainty</h2>
<p>Families lived in fear of the dangers presented by mine shafts. The lesson was brought home for the Allen family as they watched a man trapped down a shaft. Then another man went in after him. The father of one of the men rushed forward and he too fell headlong into the mine. The whole party, Mary Anne noted disapprovingly, was the worse for “the influence of spirits”.</p>
<p>Bushfires were a frightening, yet entertaining, reality:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One small tree burnt through fell at our horses feet. We hastened onwards and when out of danger we sat and admired the grandeur of the scene.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At night, diggings glowed with fires outside every tent and lamps lit by candlewicks made from honeysuckle flowers soaked in oil. One night, as the family sat reading around their table, a gun was fired through their tent. The bullet landed on her son’s book: “So uncertain was life at Barker’s Creek”.</p>
<p>On the diggings, Sunday was not for religion but for domestic duties and domestic quarrels. Sometimes Mary Anne expected that “instant death would ensue from stabbing members of their own families”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="bark hut on goldfields" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415133/original/file-20210809-23-er9j72.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=574&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canvas and bark tents smelled terrible when wet.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/f/cjahgv/SLV_VOYAGER1671651">S. T. Gill/State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/emancipated-wenches-in-gaudy-jewellery-the-liberating-bling-of-the-goldfields-60449">Emancipated wenches in gaudy jewellery: the liberating bling of the goldfields</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Abrupt endings</h2>
<p>Living next door to a sly grog tent, Mary Anne reported: “Drunkenness, fighting, profanity and robberies were every day occurrences”. Her diary ends abruptly, to cries of murder and an aborted gold robbery.</p>
<p>She did not record whether her family found gold. Historical documents reveal the family only stayed six months on the diggings. John did not return to the church until just before his death in 1861, by which time the couple had bought a number of properties in Melbourne.</p>
<p>My doctoral research is the first time Mary Anne’s diary has been written into goldfields history. Her manuscript is entitled Mrs Allen’s Trip to the Gold Fields, suggesting she intended it for publication. Now, almost 170 years later, we can read her observations as one of many women on the diggings in early 1852. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-masters-of-the-future-or-heirs-of-the-past-mining-history-and-indigenous-ownership-153879">Friday essay: masters of the future or heirs of the past? Mining, history and Indigenous ownership</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161354/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katrina Dernelley receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.</span></em></p>Mould, dodging mine shafts, sleeping in beds of dried leaves: Mary Anne Allen’s diary offers a fascinating glimpse of family life on the goldfields in 1852.Katrina Place Dernelley, PhD Candidate in History, La Trobe University, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1615922021-06-16T20:06:09Z2021-06-16T20:06:09ZHidden women of history: Eliza Hamilton Dunlop — the Irish Australian poet who shone a light on colonial violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403693/original/file-20210601-19-1p841wt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C5%2C1662%2C1993&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Portrait of Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (no date), colour photograph of oil painting </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wollombi Endeavour Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>Eliza Hamilton Dunlop’s poem <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36861275">The Aboriginal Mother</a> was published in The Australian on December 13, 1838, five days before seven men were hanged for their part in the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/myall-creek-massacre">Myall Creek massacre</a>.</p>
<p>About 28 Wirrayaraay people died in the massacre near Inverell in northern New South Wales. Dunlop had arrived in Sydney in February, and the Irish writer was horrified by the violence she read about in the newspapers. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-achieve-reconciliation-myall-creek-offers-valuable-answers-60198">How can we achieve reconciliation? Myall Creek offers valuable answers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Moved by evidence in court about an Indigenous woman and baby who survived the massacre, Dunlop crafted a poem condemning settlers who professed Christianity but murdered and conspired to cover up their crime. It read, in part: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now, hush thee—or the pale-faced men <br>
Will hear thy piercing wail, <br>
And what would then thy mother’s tears <br>
Or feeble strength avail! <br>
<br>
Oh, could'st thy little bosom <br>
That mother’s torture feel, <br>
Or could'st thou know thy father lies <br>
Struck down by English steel <br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The poem closed evoking the body of “my slaughter’d boy … To tell—to tell of the gloomy ridge; and the stockmen’s human fire”. </p>
<p>The graphic content depicting settler violence and First Nations’ suffering made Dunlop’s poem locally notorious. She didn’t shrink from the criticism she received in Australia’s colonial press, declaring she hoped the poem would awake the sympathies of the English nation for a people who were “rendered desperate and revengeful by continued acts of outrage”. </p>
<h2>An early life as a reader</h2>
<p>Dunlop, the youngest of three children, was born Eliza Matilda Hamilton in 1796. Her father, Solomon Hamilton, was an attorney practising in Ireland, England and India. Her mother died soon after Dunlop’s birth, and she was brought up by her paternal grandmother.</p>
<p>Part of a privileged Protestant family with an excellent library, Dunlop grew up reading writers from the French Revolution and social reformers such as Mary Wollstonecraft. </p>
<p>In her teens, Dunlop published poems in local magazines. An unpublished volume of her original poetry, translations and illustrations written between 1808 and 1813 reveals her fascination with Irish mythology and European literature. She was deeply interested in the Irish language and in political campaigns to extend suffrage and education to Catholics. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403694/original/file-20210601-20-z9vo8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eliza Hamilton Dunlop, King John’s Castle on Carlingford Bay, Juvenile notebook, watercolour and ink.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Milson Family Papers – 1810, 1853–1862, State Library of New South Wales, MLMSS 7683</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1820, she travelled to India to visit her father and two brothers. The journey inspired poems about colonial locations — from the Cape Colony (now South Africa) to the Ganges River — that explored the reach and impact of the British Empire. </p>
<p>In Scotland in 1823, she married book binder and seller David Dunlop. David’s family history inspired poems such as her dual eulogy, <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60569479">The Two Graves</a> (1865), about the bloody suppression of Protestant radicals in the 1798 Rebellion, during which David’s father Captain William Dunlop had been hanged. </p>
<p>The Dunlops had five children in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, where they were engaged in political activity seeking to unseat <a href="http://www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/coleraine#footnote42_bywlbpq">absentee English landlords</a>, before leaving Ireland in 1837.</p>
<h2>Settler poetry and politics</h2>
<p>When The Aboriginal Mother was published as sheet music in 1842, set to music by the composer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Nathan">Isaac Nathan</a>, he declared “it ought to be on the pianoforte of every lady in the colony”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403695/original/file-20210601-26-4twwsf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cover of the music score of The Aboriginal Mother.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dunlop often wrote about the Irish diaspora in poems which were alternatively nostalgic and political. But she also brought her knowledge of the violence and divisiveness of colonisation, religion and ethnicity to her writing on Australia.</p>
<p>Her optimistic vision for Australian poetry encouraged colonial readers to be attentive to their environment and to recognise Indigenous culture. This reputation for sympathising with Indigenous people — and her husband’s arguments with settlers in Penrith about the treatment of Catholic convicts — were widely criticised in the press.</p>
<p>This affected David’s career as police magistrate and Aboriginal Protector: he was soon moved to a remote location. There, too, local landholders campaigned against his appointment and undermined his authority.</p>
<h2>Indigenous languages</h2>
<p>When David was posted to Wollombi in the Upper Hunter Valley, Dunlop sought to expand her knowledge of Indigenous culture, engaging with Darkinyung, Awabakal and Wonnarua people who lived in the area. </p>
<p>She attempted to learn various languages of the region, transcribing word lists, songs and poems, and acknowledging the Indigenous people who shared their knowledge with her. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406654/original/file-20210616-3839-1s27w5x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1101&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some of Dunlop’s transcription between English and the language of the Wollombi people, dated from 1840.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://indigenous.sl.nsw.gov.au/collection-items/mrs-david-milson-kamilaroi-vocabulary-and-aboriginal-songs-1840-0">State Library of New South Wales</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She wrote a suite of Indigenous-themed poems in the 1840s, publishing poems in newspapers such as <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2556288">The Eagle Chief</a> (1843) or <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12904464">Native Poetry/Nung-ngnun</a> (1848). These poems were criticised by anonymous letter writers, questioning her poetic ability, her knowledge and her choice of subject.</p>
<p>Some critics were frankly racist, refusing to accept the human emotions expressed by Dunlop’s Indigenous narrators. </p>
<p>The Sydney Herald had railed against the death sentences of the men responsible for the Myall Creek massacre, and Dunlop condemned the attitude of the paper and its correspondents. She hoped “the time was past, when the public press would lend its countenance to debase the native character, or support an attempt to shade with ridicule”.</p>
<p>Dunlop would publish with one outlet before shifting to another, finding different editors in the volatile colonial press who would support her.</p>
<h2>Poetry of protest</h2>
<p>Dunlop wrote in a sentimental form of poetry popular at the time, addressing exile, history and memory. She published around 60 poems in Australian newspapers and magazines between 1838 and 1873, but appears to have written nothing more on Indigenous themes after 1850. This popular writing also contributed to <a href="https://www.brycchancarey.com/slavery/poetry.htm">poetry of political protest</a>, galvanising readers around causes such as transatlantic anti-slavery. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-protest-poets-all-demonstrators-should-read-72254">Five protest poets all demonstrators should read</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The plight of Indigenous people under British colonialism <a href="https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/bechuana-boy">inspired many writers</a>, including “crying mother” poems that harnessed the universal appeal of motherhood.</p>
<p>Dunlop’s poems The Aboriginal Mother and <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36862585">The Irish Mother</a> are linked to this literary trend, but her experience of colonialism lent her poetry more authority than writers who sourced information about “exotic” cultures from imperial travel writing and voyage accounts.</p>
<p>In the early 1870s, Dunlop collated a selection of poetry, <a href="https://digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=FL9674377">The Vase</a>, but she was never able to publish. Family demands and financial constraints precluded it. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403696/original/file-20210601-26-g1uz66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eliza Hamilton Dunlop, Title page, ‘The Vase’, paper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of New South Wales, B1541</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dunlop died in 1880. Like many women of the time, her writing was neglected and forgotten, until it was rediscovered by the literary critic and editor Elizabeth Webby in the 1960s.</p>
<p>Webby identified Dunlop as the first Australian poet to transcribe and translate Indigenous songs, and as among the earliest to try to increase white readers’ awareness of Indigenous culture. Webby published the first collection of Dunlop’s poems in 1981.</p>
<p>Today, communities and linguists regularly use Dunlop’s transcripts for language reclamation projects in the Upper Hunter Valley. </p>
<p>Last year, 140 years after Dunlop’s death, <a href="https://muurrbay.org.au/publications-and-resources/publications/">Wanarruwa Beginner’s Guide</a> — an introduction to one language of the Hunter River area — was published. </p>
<p>At the launch, language consultant Sharon Edgar-Jones (Wonnarua and Gringai) movingly recited one of the songs Dunlop transcribed: revitalising the words of the Indigenous women and men to whom Dunlop listened, when so few white Australians were listening at all.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/collections/series-sydney-studies-in-australian-literature/products/125576">Eliza Hamilton Dunlop Writing from the Colonial Frontier</a>, edited by Anna Johnston and Elizabeth Webby, is out now through Sydney University Press.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Johnston receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT130100625). </span></em></p>Dunlop’s 1838 poem, The Aboriginal Mother, about the suffering inflicted at the Myall Creek massacre, made the new immigrant from Ireland locally notorious.Anna Johnston, Associate Professor of English Literature, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1556452021-05-19T06:02:50Z2021-05-19T06:02:50ZHidden women of history: Melanesian indentured labourer Annie Etinside, hailed as a Queensland ‘pioneer’ on her death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385377/original/file-20210220-13-1iteje0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3374%2C2268&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Annie, centre, with her children in the town of Halifax, circa 1910, forged a rich life in difficult circumstances.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>The women of the tropical north Queensland frontier were <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/journals/lilith">a varied lot</a>
and included Melanesian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/indentured-labour">indentured labourers</a> brought to work on sugar cane plantations. Annie Etinside was one of them.</p>
<p>She was brought to Halifax, a small, sleepy town bordering the banks of the Herbert River that was once a thriving port and tramway terminus for the <a href="https://digital.slq.qld.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?change_lng=en&dps_pid=IE1654744">Colonial Sugar Refining Company’s Victoria sugar plantation and mill</a>.</p>
<p>Evidence today of the indentured labourers who once toiled on the plantation is found in small signposts such as one at “The Gardens”, formerly a small Melanesian village on the outskirts of Halifax. Here lived a few families who were <a href="http://www.frangipaniarts.com.au/download/Islands-Apart.pdf?">not later repatriated to their islands</a>. </p>
<p>Far fewer women than men were recruited as indentured labourers. In 1906, when forced repatriation of these labourers began, only <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:265384">14 Melanesian women and 500 men</a> remained on the Herbert. Annie, one of those 14, did not live in The Gardens community. Her life took a very different course. </p>
<p>Available records reveal a woman of colour who defied all odds to participate in a predominantly white community. Yet Annie remains an enigma.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-wauba-debar-an-indigenous-swimmer-from-tasmania-who-saved-her-captors-126487">Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Recruitment</h2>
<p>The “frontier” is generally thought of as a masculine space. In part this is because most frontier history has been written by European men, who tended not to notice women beyond their domestic arrangements, if at all. Fleshing out the lives of pioneering frontier women is difficult enough if they are white, let alone for women of colour. </p>
<p>The first Melanesian men were brought to the Herbert River district around 1872; women came about ten years later. Annie appears to have been among them. While some islanders volunteered, others were secured against their own will <a href="http://digital.slv.vic.gov.au/view/action/singleViewer.do?dvs=1620271489567%7E110&locale=en_US&metadata_object_ratio=10&show_">by deceit and even kidnapping</a>.</p>
<p>They were paid, and at the end of the three-year indenture period could either return to their islands, re-indenture, or work freely in the sugar industry on a set wage. Following the existing record trail leaves many questions unanswered about when Annie arrived and where from. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Annie’s headstone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the Halifax cemetery, her simple headstone tells us she came from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ureparapara">Ureparapara</a> (the third largest island in the Banks group of northern Vanuatu). Yet her death certificate records her as born on “Lambue South Sea Island”. Her marriage certificate records her birth as “Burra Burra South Sea Island”. Neither of these locations can be identified, but the latter may be a corruption of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buka_Buka_Island">Buka Buka</a>.</p>
<p>A register was kept listing the names of recruited labourers and other details. The only Etinside on this register is a man brought over on November 5, 1888 from <a href="https://www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM18598">Ureparapara</a>. We don’t know if this was Annie, mistakenly recorded as a male.</p>
<p>Details of Annie’s arrival are further muddied by the information provided on her gravestone, marriage and death certificates. According to these, she was born around 1870, so would have arrived in Australia in 1881 as an 11-year-old.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-isabel-flick-the-tenacious-campaigner-who-fought-segregation-in-australia-114174">Hidden women of history: Isabel Flick, the tenacious campaigner who fought segregation in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Marriage</h2>
<p>Indentured women were employed both in fields and houses by small farmers, and on plantations. Annie’s obituary, published in the Herbert River Express, says she was first engaged as housemaid to Norwegian sugar cane farmer Johan (John) Ingebright Alm and his wife Antonia, then to <a href="https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc/8746%3C/u">an English farmer, Francis Herron and his wife Lucinda</a>. </p>
<p>By 1884, she was housemaid to George Gosling who had migrated from Britain in 1881. George was an overseer of indentured labour gangs, then farmed on leased land and in his own right, turning a piece of land called “Poverty Flat” by locals into a successful farm, Rosedale. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George and Annie Gosling, circa 1885.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albert and Rachel Garlando</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Annie married Gosling in 1898 in a civil ceremony. By this time, she had borne him two children. The children’s birth records are the first bearing the name Etenside (misspelt). At this point, Annie may have begun to feel unsafe. The <a href="https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/research-collections/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people/community-history">Aboriginal Protection and Restrictions of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897</a> had just been passed. </p>
<p>Without an official record to prove she had arrived as an indentured labourer, officials could have identified Annie as Aboriginal. This would have meant restriction of her movements and associations; her children, as mixed race and born out of wedlock, could have been taken from her.</p>
<p>The indentured labour scheme was never meant to permit Melanesian people to settle permanently in Australia. In 1901 the White Australia policy legislated to stop the scheme. From the end of 1906, all Melanesian indentured labourers were to be forcibly deported back to their islands, except for those with <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/fs-269-south-sea-islanders.pdf">exemption tickets</a>. </p>
<p>Marriage offered Annie protection. Rather than social disapproval, it seems to have met with tolerance, even if expressed in a patronising way. One Cairns newspaper described her with tongue in cheek as Gosling’s “little black duck”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Gosling’s headstone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Annie and Gosling had three more children although tragedy struck on January 17, 1905, when Gosling died of malaria at the age of 45. Annie was left with five young children, the youngest only eight days old. On Gosling’s death, Annie was recognised as his lawful widow, <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44412920">inheriting all his estate</a>. The success of his farm can be partly attributed to her. On the Herbert, small farmers depended on wives and children for all field labour, apart from cane harvesting.</p>
<p>Annie had another child in 1907, who she named Robert Gosling. She went on to marry William John Davey on February 17, 1909. But one month after their marriage, she registered the death of little Robert. Davey died on August 30, in the same year. After his death she reverted to using the name Gosling.</p>
<h2>Remarkable feats</h2>
<p>Despite her “alien” status, Annie integrated herself successfully into the largely white social fabric of Halifax, becoming a respected member of the community at a time of institutionalised racism. She participated in civic life, was registered on the electoral roll and ran a farm. </p>
<p>Her children attended the Halifax State School, her sons farmed and held jobs at the sugar mills (unusual for children of indentured labourers) and her children married Anglo-Australians, Europeans and Asians. </p>
<p>Annie’s were remarkable feats, given the prevailing racial attitudes and prohibitions regarding land ownership, education and constitutional rights. They indicate her determination to be recognised as an accountable, independent and hard-working member of society, regardless of her skin colour.</p>
<p>When Annie died on November 23, 1948 at the recorded age of 78, she was described in the Herbert River Express as a “grand old pioneer”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brought out to work on the sugar plantations, Annie was a woman of colour who defied all odds to participate in a predominantly white community.Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui, Adjunct Lecturer, James Cook UniversityClaire Brennan, Lecturer in History, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1082492021-03-28T19:02:50Z2021-03-28T19:02:50ZHidden women of history: Hélisenne de Crenne, the first French novelist to tell her own story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383955/original/file-20210212-17-1vr4m8w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C38%2C624%2C822&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vittore Carpaccio's portrait of a woman reading (1510). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.wikiart.org/en/vittore-carpaccio/the-virgin-reading-1510">Wikiart</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In this <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In 1538, a new author burst on to the literary scene in Paris. Published by Denys Janot, four new works appeared within five years by a writer known as <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095647244">Hélisenne de Crenne</a>. </p>
<p>The first was <em><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26285887?seq=1">Les Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d'amours</a></em> (The Torments of Love), a novel that depicted the disastrous consequences of an adulterous affair. </p>
<p>In 1539 came a collection of letters that explored women’s speech, education, friendship and legal rights among its topics.</p>
<p>In 1540 she published <em><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/helisenne-de-crenne-le-songe-de-madame-helisenne-1540-colette-winn-anne-larsen/10.4324/9781315861067-12">Le Songe</a></em> (The Dream), a moral and didactic work in which a woman and her lover reflected upon the perils of lust.</p>
<p>Her last known work was a translation into French prose of the first four books of Virgil’s <a href="https://www.academia.edu/43143329/_1998_H%C3%A9lisenne_de_Crennes_translation_of_the_Aeneid_the_pursuit_of_a_stile_h%C3%A9ro%C3%AFque">Aeneid</a> (1541), dedicated to the king, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-I-king-of-France">Francis I</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-virgils-aeneid-85459">Guide to the Classics: Virgil’s Aeneid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Hélisenne de Crenne was the pen name of Marguerite Briet, the daughter of a legal family from Abbeville. Few details of her life are certain, but we know that she obtained a legal separation from her husband, Philippe Fournel, Lord of Crenne, and moved to Paris, the centre of French literary activities and publishing. There she owned several properties. It appears that her son, Pierre, was a student there in 1548.</p>
<p>Hélisenne was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctv8pzd9w.13.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A229d2b299d35576fbbd95e9cea46e807">the first living woman of the century to be printed in France</a> and hers was <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095647244">the first autobiographical novel to be published in French</a>. The publication of her works was remarkable in several ways. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="line drawing of royal court scene" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383945/original/file-20210212-13-dyj6gb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration from the translation of Virgil’s verse depicts Hélisenne presenting it to the king.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15101304.r=helisenne%20de%20crenne%20eneydes?rk=21459;2">Bibliothèque nationale de France</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fornication-fluids-and-faeces-the-intimate-life-of-the-french-court-71982">Fornication, fluids and faeces: the intimate life of the French court</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Speaking out</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=vHx_DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Women represented less than 1% of all identifiable published authors in 16th-century France</a>. Female literacy and broader education was not as high as for men at the same social levels. </p>
<p>Women at court were producing sophisticated intellectual and creative works that circulated in manuscript. Print publication provided a more open and visible expression than manuscript circulation, but was limited to a more select few. Even women in powerful social positions acknowledged expectations that women should restrict their speech to the domestic sphere. </p>
<p>Most women writers provided lengthy justifications or apologies for their venture into print. Hélisenne <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=vHx_DwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT83&ots=Z0Z5o0h2Ks&dq=mention%20of%20immodest%20love%2C%20which%20according%20to%20the%20opinion%20of%20some%20shy%20women%20could%20be%20judged%20more%20worthy%20to%20be%20conserved%20in%20profound%20silence%20than%20to%20be%20published%20for%20a%20widespread%20audience.&pg=PT83#v=onepage&q=mention%20of%20immodest%20love,%20which%20according%20to%20the%20opinion%20of%20some%20shy%20women%20could%20be%20judged%20more%20worthy%20to%20be%20conserved%20in%20profound%20silence%20than%20to%20be%20published%20for%20a%20widespread%20audience.&f=false">claimed to hesitate</a> to make “mention of immodest love, which according to the opinion of some shy women could be judged more worthy to be conserved in profound silence than to be published for a widespread audience”. Nevertheless, she pressed on.</p>
<p>Rather than locate herself in a line of female authors, Hélisenne identified herself in a tradition of the male canon for her authority to write. The opening phrase of her <em>Le Songe</em> recalled none other than Cicero as her model: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…in imitation of him, the desire arose in me to relate in detail to you a dream worthy of recording.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-enheduanna-princess-priestess-and-the-worlds-first-known-author-109185">Hidden women of history: Enheduanna, princess, priestess and the world's first known author</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Small books to carry</h2>
<p>Print publication offered a woman without elite networks access to a large pool of readers, and perhaps a way to reach potential patrons at court. </p>
<p>The dedication of her translation to Francis I and her praise of his sister, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-of-Angouleme">Marguerite de Navarre</a> (another prolific author whose works appears in print over the course of the century), in her Letters suggests that Hélisenne may have hoped for their patronage.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1277&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/250622/original/file-20181214-185243-1q9dhip.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1277&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Le Songe de madame Helisenne Crenne (1541)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bibliothèque nationale de France</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The staggered release of her writings seems to have been planned to heighten their impact. Her publisher, Denys Janot, mainly published works in French, targetting a popular market and using on-trend Roman typeface rather than the heavy, old-fashioned Gothic script.</p>
<p>Most of Hélisenne’s works, like those of other female writers, were in <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/books/rarebooks/collecting-guide/understanding-rare-books/guide-book-formats.shtml">small sizes</a> such as octavo, duodecimo and sextodecimo. These were portable and cheap, unlike the larger-sized folio and quarto scholarly and religious works intended to be consulted in libraries as part of a long-lasting record, though her translation of Virgil’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12914.The_Aeneid">Aeneid</a> was produced as a folio, with extensive woodcut illustrations.</p>
<h2>A female perspective</h2>
<p>Hélisenne was one of the first women writers who sought publication of her work seemingly as a conscious contribution to contemporary popular literature. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383959/original/file-20210212-13-kbysui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348760867l/5412940.jpg">Goodreads</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Her novel, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5412940-torments-of-love">The Torments of Love</a>, involves an unusual structure, retelling the same events from the perspective of three different narrators: Hélisenne, her lover Guénélic, and Guénélic’s best friend, Quézinstra. Each section offers new insights to the overarching narrative, and each has its own distinctive tone and style.</p>
<p>The work’s balancing of elements from chivalric literature and a new emotional sensibility culminates in its conclusion as a battle between Athena and Venus over the book itself.</p>
<p>Her translation of Aeneid was equally radical, creatively embellishing the original from a female perspective with a highly sympathetic presentation of Dido’s plight and women’s loyalty in love.</p>
<p>She was very proud of her publication in the city that was the intellectual and publishing centre of France, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=yorgAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=noble+Parisian+city">saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… it is an inestimable pleasure to me to think that my books are on sale in this noble Parisian city, which is inhabited by an innumerable multitude of wonderfully learned people.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-catherine-hay-thomson-the-australian-undercover-journalist-who-went-inside-asylums-and-hospitals-129352">Hidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson, the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A commercial success</h2>
<p>Hélisenne’s work were a commercial success, going through nine editions in a short, intense period to 1560.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pencil drawing on young woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383949/original/file-20210212-23-1wfho93.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1034&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A nineteenth-century artist’s imagined Helisenne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dictionnaire-creatrices.com/static/uploadfolder/evidensse_creatrice/2017/09/CRENNE_H%C3%A9lisenne.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Torments of Love is Hélisenne’s only work to be dedicated to female readers who she called “all honest ladies”. Elsewhere, she assumed her works would be of interest to everyone, including the king. </p>
<p>A later editor did not agree. Claude Colet explained in the introduction to the 1550 edition of her works that <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=yorgAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=Claude+colet%27s+introduction">his extensive simplification of her Latinate style for young ladies</a> was “to render the obscure words or those too much like Latin into our own familiar language, so that they will be more intelligible to you”.</p>
<p>The last known evidence of this groundbreaking author is in 1552 but, in her lifetime, she had achieved a remarkable series of literary firsts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Broomhall receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The first French novelist wrote about an adulterous affair and moved to Paris after separating from her husband.Susan Broomhall, Director, Gender and Women's History Research Centre, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1463142020-11-30T19:07:15Z2020-11-30T19:07:15ZHidden women of history: Millicent Bryant, the first Australian woman to get a pilot’s licence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364194/original/file-20201019-13-1yhdmts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C794%2C835&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Clipping from Woman’s World, January, 1927. Bryant Scrapbook. Courtesy of John R. H. Bryant. </span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>Before the glamorous flyers of the 1930s like Amelia Earhart, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34035692-the-fabulous-flying-mrs-miller">“Chubby” Miller</a> and Nancy Bird Walton, another woman opened the way to the skies — and were it not for a tragic twist of fate, her name might now be just as familiar. </p>
<p>Her name was Millicent Maude Bryant, and in early 1927, she became the <a href="https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/aviation/display/22035-millicent-bryant">first woman to gain a pilot’s licence in Australia</a>. She was also first in the Commonwealth outside Britain.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Millicent Bryant c.1919. Portrait by Monte Luke." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364184/original/file-20201019-21-1mhw3a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millicent Bryant c.1919. Portrait by Monte Luke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-catherine-hay-thomson-the-australian-undercover-journalist-who-went-inside-asylums-and-hospitals-129352">Hidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson, the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A boundary-pusher who met an untimely end</h2>
<p>Millicent was born in 1878 at Oberon and grew up near Trangi in western New South Wales. Her family, the Harveys, moved to Manly for a period after a younger brother, George, contracted polio (one of the treatments was “sea-bathing”). She met and <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/353609">married</a> a public servant 15 years her senior, Edward Bryant. They had three children but the couple separated not long before Edward died in 1926. </p>
<p>Later that year, Bryant began instruction with the Australian Aero Club at Mascot in Sydney. At the time, the site of the current international airport was just a large, grassy expanse with a few buildings and hangars.</p>
<p>Bryant was accepted by the Aero Club’s chief instructor, <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/353609">Captain Edward Leggatt</a> (himself a noted first world war fighter pilot), soon after the club had opened its membership to women. </p>
<p>Even then, though, she was unusual: here was a 49-year-old mother of three taking up the challenge of flying which, in the 1920’s, was still as dangerous as it was exciting and glamorous. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Millicent Bryant with a plane and other aviators." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365329/original/file-20201025-14-1sfkekp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millicent Bryant (second from left) with other aviators beside her De Havilland Moth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided courtesy of Mary Taguchi.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She quickly progressed, ahead of two other younger, women students, and made her first solo flight in February, 1927. By this time, newspapers all around Australia were following her story, and in late March she took the test for the “A” licence that would enable her to independently fly De Havilland Moth biplanes. </p>
<p>She passed, and with the issue of her licence by the Ministry of Defence, Bryant was acclaimed as the first woman to gain a pilot’s licence in Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An image of Bryant's Aero Club training certificate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365330/original/file-20201025-13-1f3ebns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Millicent Bryant’s training certificate from the Aero Club of Australia (NSW Section). Her ‘A’ Licence was issued by the Department of Defence in April, 1927.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why, then, isn’t she better known in our day? While Bryant immediately began training for a licence to carry passengers and flew regularly in the months that followed, it was her particular misfortune to step onto the Sydney ferry <a href="https://www.sea.museum/2017/11/03/90-years-since-the-greycliffe-ferry-disaster">Greycliffe</a> on its regular 4.14pm run to Watson’s Bay on November 3, 1927. </p>
<p>Less than an hour later, she was among 40 dead after the ferry was cut in half off Bradley’s Head by the mail steamer <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/dredging-up-tragic-memories-20031205-gdhx31.html">Tahiti</a>. It was Sydney’s worst peacetime maritime disaster. Bryant was still only 49.</p>
<p>Her funeral two days later was attended by hundreds of people and accorded a remarkable aerial tribute, as the Wellington Times <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/143262879">reported</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Five aeroplanes from the Mascot aerodrome flew over the procession as it wended its way to the cemetery. As the burial service was read by the Rev. A. R. Ebbs, rector of St. Matthew’s, Manly, one of the planes descended to within about 150 feet of the grave, and there was dropped from it a wreath of red carnations and blue delphiniums … Attached to the floral tribute was a card bearing the following inscription:</p>
<p>5th November, 1927. With the deepest sympathy of the committee and members of the Australian Aero Club — N.S.W. section.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="_Greycliffe_, lifting the wreck of the ferry. The heavy lifting gear of the SHT steam sheerlegs is used to bring the hull section to the surface. From the Graeme Andrews ‘Working Harbour’ Collection, courtesy of the City of Sydney Archives." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364185/original/file-20201019-21-1ybmdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lifting the wreck of the ferry, Greycliffe. The heavy lifting gear of the SHT steam sheerlegs is used to bring the hull section to the surface.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided. Image from the Graeme Andrews ‘Working Harbour’ Collection, courtesy of the City of Sydney Archives.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A pioneer in life as well as the sky</h2>
<p>Bryant’s story quickly lapsed into obscurity. Fortunately, some 80 years later, the rediscovery in the family of a collection of letters and other writings has enabled Bryant’s life beyond her flying achievement to be rediscovered.</p>
<p>The letters were — and are still until they are added to the collection of Bryant’s papers in the National Library — held by her granddaughter, Millicent Jones of Kendall, NSW, who rediscovered them in storage at her home.</p>
<p>The main correspondence is a conversation with her second son, John, in England. It covers the period she was flying, though it only moderately expands on the flights recorded in her <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1129408">logbook</a>.</p>
<p>However, her letters and writings reveal much more about Bryant herself, her relationships, her feelings and her leisure, business and political activities. And they make it apparent that she was as much a pioneer in life as well as in the sky.</p>
<p>For one, flying was not Bryant’s only unconventional interest. She was also an entrepreneur, registering an importing company in partnership with John, who went on to become a pioneer of the Australian dairy industry.</p>
<p>She opened a men’s clothing business, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/45934857">Chesterfield Men’s Mercery</a>, in Sydney’s CBD. However, disaster struck when it was inundated with water mere weeks after opening, following a fire in the tea rooms upstairs. </p>
<p>Bryant then became a small-scale property developer, buying and building on land in Vaucluse and Edgecliffe. She’d been well tutored in this by her father, grazier Edmund Harvey (a grandfather of billionaire Gerry Harvey), whose own holdings eventually included a large part of the Kanimbla Valley west of the Blue Mountains. </p>
<p>An excellent horsewoman, Bryant was also an early motorist who had driven over 35,000 miles around NSW and who could fix her own car. She was a keen golfer and reader and even a student of Japanese at the University of Sydney.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A fragment from Bryant's letters" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364171/original/file-20201019-13-xwvd4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A key writing fragment by Millicent Bryant (c.1924).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several fragments of a family saga she planned to write, based on her own life, are among her papers. One sheet, entitled “A Life”, summarises in a series of rough notes rather more than she might have told anyone about her inner world. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Marriage – mistakes – children – despondency. Ill-health. Great desire to “live” and create things…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She notes that a trip abroad was a complete success but</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it furnished a heart interest which lasted for fourteen years until hope died owing to a marriage. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This fragment provides some background to her taking, in her forties, the unusual step at that time of leaving her marriage and family home to start life afresh with her sons.</p>
<p>This was not long before she took her first flight, probably with <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/percival-edgar-wikner-8018">Edgar Percival</a>, a family friend and later a successful aircraft designer whose planes won air races and were noted for their graceful lines.</p>
<h2>Vigour, values and conflicts</h2>
<p>Growing up in the NSW inland late in the 19th century, Bryant would have begun with a fairly traditional view of what it meant to be a wife and mother.</p>
<p>However, her early life was also “free-spirited” (as one newspaper described her upbringing) and her determination to make decisions and shape her own life put her on a collision course with gender role expectations common at the time. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="In 2006 a new memorial to Millicent Bryant was placed in Manly (now Balgowlah) Cemetery. It was dedicated by the late Nancy Bird Walton, pictured with Gaby Kennard (left) the first Australian woman to fly a single-engine plane around the world." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364193/original/file-20201019-19-u52bht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 2006 a new memorial to Millicent Bryant was placed in Manly (now Balgowlah) Cemetery. It was dedicated by the late Nancy Bird Walton, pictured with Gaby Kennard (left) the first Australian woman to fly a single-engine plane around the world, and (right) a great-great-granddaughter of Millicent Bryant, Matilda Millicent Power-Jones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Learning to fly, especially in middle age, was a breakthrough she pursued perhaps even more keenly after being denied work with the Sydney Sun newspaper solely because she was married.</p>
<p>Bryant clearly came to hold strong ideas about what a woman could and couldn’t do, and her life shows a determination to make her own path, despite confronting obstacles that are still familiar in our own time. </p>
<p>Bryant is not just a figure in aviation history. Her life — spanning the colonial period, the newly-federated nation and the tragedies of World War I — came to reflect the vigour, values and conflicts of Australia in the early 20th century.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-wauba-debar-an-indigenous-swimmer-from-tasmania-who-saved-her-captors-126487">Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Vicars is a member of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs, the peak body for the teaching and study of writing in higher education institutions. He is the author of 'Beyond the Sky: the Passions of Millicent Bryant, Aviator', published by Melbourne Books in November 2020.</span></em></p>Millicent Bryant made her first solo flight at the age of 49 in 1927. The life of this bold, unconventional woman was tragically cut short in a ferry disaster that same year.James Vicars, Sessional Lecturer, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1239092020-10-16T00:45:52Z2020-10-16T00:45:52ZHidden women of history: Kyniska, the first female Olympian<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363819/original/file-20201015-17-l27f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C46%2C255%2C414&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kyniska drawn with her horses in the Biography of Illustrious Women of Rome, Greece, and the Lower Empire, published in 1825. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/cynisca">Brooklyn Museum</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kyniska (or Cyniska), a Spartan princess, was the daughter of King Archidamus II and sister to King Agesilaus. </p>
<p>She owned a sizable estate where she bred, raised and trained horses, and in 396 BCE, when she was probably between 40 and 50 years old, she became the first woman to participate in the Olympic Games. </p>
<p>Spartan culture <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Xen.%20Const.%20Lac.%201.4&lang=original">believed</a> stronger children come from parents who were <em>both</em> strong, an unusual concept in Ancient Greek society. Spartan authorities encouraged women to train both mind and body.</p>
<p>Unlike Athens and the other Greek city-states where girls were hidden from the public and learned only domestic skills, Sparta <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Xen.%20Const.%20Lac.%201.4&lang=original">held races</a> and trials of strength for girls as well as boys. </p>
<p>Kyniska’s childhood would have been full of <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0090%3Acard%3D590">athletic training</a>: running, jumping, throwing the discus and javelin, perhaps even wrestling. </p>
<p>Spartan girls married later, allowing more years <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/24892/the-spartans-by-paul-cartledge/">in education</a>. Aristocratic girls such as Kyniska learned poetry and also trained to dance and sing competitively, so she may have even been literate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Bronze statue about the size of a hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351868/original/file-20200810-14-1cp59cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351868/original/file-20200810-14-1cp59cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351868/original/file-20200810-14-1cp59cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351868/original/file-20200810-14-1cp59cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351868/original/file-20200810-14-1cp59cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351868/original/file-20200810-14-1cp59cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351868/original/file-20200810-14-1cp59cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bronze figure of a Spartan girl running, 520-500 BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kyniska had wealth and status – but it was her ambition that made her a legend. </p>
<p>This ambition drove her to compete in the four-horse chariot race, or <em>tethrippon</em>, at the Olympics in 396 and 392 BCE. </p>
<p>Her chariot team won both times. </p>
<h2>No women allowed</h2>
<p>This feat was especially impressive because women could not even step foot on the sacred grounds of the Olympic Sanctuary during the festival. Married women were <a href="https://www.penn.museum/sites/olympics/olympicsexism.shtml">forbidden</a> on penalty of death from even attending as spectators.</p>
<p>To compete, Kyniska cleverly exploited loopholes.</p>
<p>In sports like wrestling or javelin, the victors individually competed on the field. In the chariot race, the winners were the horse owners, not the riders – who were almost always slaves. Much like with the modern Kentucky Derby or Melbourne Cup, the victors are the horse and its owner, not the rider. </p>
<p>Kyniska didn’t have to drive the chariot to win.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="An ancient Greek vase with an image of a four horse chariot." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340655/original/file-20200609-21201-1l3uyan.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340655/original/file-20200609-21201-1l3uyan.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340655/original/file-20200609-21201-1l3uyan.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340655/original/file-20200609-21201-1l3uyan.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340655/original/file-20200609-21201-1l3uyan.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340655/original/file-20200609-21201-1l3uyan.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340655/original/file-20200609-21201-1l3uyan.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chariot owners did not have to be the ones physically racing at the games to win.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/7596/attributed-to-kleophrades-painter-attic-panathenaic-amphora-greek-attic-500-480-bc/?dz=#f53c2ec7df9828ba887f19cf54ef8bbfaf857954">Getty Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In fact, chariot team owners did not even have to be physically present at Olympia during the games. Kyniska could enter her chariot team in the race without ever stepping foot on the forbidden sacred grounds. </p>
<p>But Kyniska’s role was not secret. News of an Olympic victory was carried by fast messengers to the victor’s home city, where preparations to celebrate their return were begun at once. News that a woman had won an Olympic contest would have spread quickly. </p>
<p>What motivated a Spartan royal to break through the difficult glass ceiling of male-dominated Olympic competition and culture? The scant sources we have offer different opinions. </p>
<p>The Greek writer Pausanias said Kyniska had <a href="http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=1&query=Paus.%203.8.1">personal ambitions</a> to win at Olympia, but Xenephon and the philosopher Plutarch <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43610326?seq=1">credit</a> her brother, King Agesilaus, for pressuring her to compete.</p>
<p>The answer may involve a bit of both. </p>
<h2>Her legacy</h2>
<p>Many ancient Greek women won Olympic victories after Kyniska, but none were as famous as she. </p>
<p>Kyniska erected <a href="https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias6A.html#1">at least two</a> life-size bronze statues of herself at Olympia. The inscription on a remaining fragment of her marble statue base reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kings of Sparta were my fathers and brothers. I, Kyniska, victorious at the chariot race with her swift-footed horses, erected this statue. I claim that I am the only woman in all Greece who won this crown.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kyniska relished her fame. Agesilaus may have been the catalyst, but Kyniska herself probably decided to compete – at least the second time. </p>
<p>Other women would go on to compete in the chariot races, and by the 1st century CE women were competing directly against men in foot racing events – <a href="http://services.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/classical-studies/ancient-history/sport-and-society-ancient-greece?format=PB&isbn=9780521497909">and winning</a>.</p>
<p>The fact Kyniska didn’t physically compete has caused history to discount her achievements, but this argument marginalises her larger accomplishment. Amid enormous cultural barriers, Kyniska broke gender norms and glass ceilings. </p>
<p>By boldly and proudly celebrating her trailblazing victories with commemorative statues, she transmitted this message to women across the Greek world. </p>
<p>Fuelled by Spartan pride, Kyniska’s accomplishment to be the first woman to compete, and win, in the male-only Olympics is a startling and memorable achievement that deserves a prominent place in Olympic lore.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Todd E. Caissie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After her win in 396 BC, Kyniska erected a statue of herself, reading: ‘I am the only woman in all Greece who won this crown.’Todd E. Caissie, PhD Candidate in Art History and Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies. Lecturer, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1462962020-09-24T20:00:12Z2020-09-24T20:00:12ZFriday essay: who was Jeanne Barret, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359503/original/file-20200923-16-19li03m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C373%2C3419%2C5360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A modern portrait of Jeanne Barret disguised as a man, based on the author's interpretation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Timothy Ide</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1765, a young, peasant woman left a remote corner of rural France where her impoverished family had scraped a living for generations. She set out on a journey that would take her around the world from the South American jungles and Magellan Strait to the tropical islands of the Indo-Pacific. </p>
<p>Jeanne Barret (also Baret or Baré) was the first woman known to have circumnavigated the world. Abandoning her bonnet and apron for men’s trousers and coats, she disguised herself as a man and signed on as assistant to the naturalist, <a href="https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000001607">Philibert Commerson</a> on one of the ships of <a href="http://museum.wa.gov.au/exhibitions/journeys/The_Explorers/de_Bougainville.html">Louis-Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition</a> around the world. </p>
<p>During that voyage, Jeanne helped Commerson amass the largest individual natural history collection known at the time. Thousands of the plant specimens can still be found in the <a href="https://science.mnhn.fr/institution/mnhn/collection/p/item/list?full_text=commerson">herbarium</a> of the Paris natural history museum, although few bear Jeanne’s name.</p>
<p>Despite Jeanne’s singular achievement, she left no account of her journey or her life. She might have been entirely forgotten were it not for a dramatic revelation on a Tahitian beach in 1768. </p>
<p>Bougainville’s voyage famously promoted Tahiti as a utopian paradise of beautiful women and sexual freedom. But the Tahitian men were equally keen to meet European women and, despite her disguise, they swiftly identified Jeanne as one. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359512/original/file-20200923-22-h0mxe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Ducreux’s 1790 portrait of Louis Antoine de Bougainville.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This revelation caused consternation on board and Bougainville was forced to intervene. He described Jeanne’s confession briefly in <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/A_Voyage_round_the_World_Translated_by_J/HbVgAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=inauthor%3A%22Louis%20Antoine%20de%20BOUGAINVILLE%20(Count.)%22&pg=PR3&printsec=frontcover">his best-selling narrative of the voyage</a>. Having nothing but praise for her work, Bougainville ordered she be left alone to continue her work as a man. </p>
<p>Jeanne had done nothing wrong. French naval regulations did not forbid women from embarking, but there were penalties for men who brought a woman on board. Both Jeanne and Commerson insisted he was unaware of Jeanne’s ruse and that they did not know each other prior to the journey. As soon as the voyage reached French territory, the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, Jeanne and Commerson disembarked. </p>
<p>Jeanne’s adventure was soon retold in a book on <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=WPFaAAAAQAAJ&vq=bare&pg=PA752#v=onepage&q=bard&f=false">celebrated women</a> and in the philosopher Denis <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/%C5%92uvres_de_Denis_Diderot_Philosophie/96IGAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=diderot+supplement+bougainville&pg=PA353&printsec=frontcover">Diderot’s</a> famous Supplement to the Bougainville voyage. She was ultimately awarded a French naval pension for her services. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1281&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359504/original/file-20200923-14-ig2c2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1281&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An allegorical image of Jeanne by Giuseppe dall’Acqua in 1816.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The only known image of Jeanne appeared in a book of famous voyages, drawn long after her death. The image is probably allegorical. Loose sailor’s clothes represent her voyage, a bunch of flowers represents botany and the red cap presents her as Marianne, an iconic revolutionary <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2738492">symbol of liberty</a> and the new French republic. </p>
<p>In reality, a servant and botanist like Jeanne would have worn gentleman’s clothes, carrying an assortment of pins, knives, bags, weapons and papers for collecting. Plants were pressed in the field in a portable plant press.</p>
<p>Despite such early renown, details of Jeanne’s life beyond her famous voyage were scarce. For many years, little was known about her past, what happened when she left the expedition in Mauritius in 1768, how she returned to France or what she did with the rest of her life. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/women-have-been-written-out-of-science-history-time-to-put-them-back-107752">Women have been written out of science history – time to put them back</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Simplistic stereotypes</h2>
<p>Writing the biography of a woman about whom we knew so little was always going to be challenging. I found myself searching for a pre-existing model to base Jeanne on — in fiction or in history. But in literature, as in reality, women, the poor, the illiterate, the nonconformists and those from other cultures and languages are poorly represented.</p>
<p>When they appear, they are simplistic stereotypes — supporting characters for a lead role reserved for a wealthy, white man. A woman like Jeanne could be a peasant or a servant, a wife or a fallen woman — there was no conventionally acceptable opportunity for her to be an adventurer or an independent woman of her own means. She had to create that opportunity for herself.</p>
<p>Initial accounts of Jeanne focused on her work, appearance and sexual conduct. She was described as being indefatigable, an expert botanist and a beast of burden who carried heavy provisions while plant collecting. Men noted she was neither attractive nor ugly, but she behaved with “scrupulous modesty”.</p>
<p>Commerson suffered from an incapacitating leg injury during his journey, which limited his mobility. Jeanne was probably responsible for collecting most of the South American plants, of which <a href="https://plants.jstor.org/search?efq=AWh0b3BpYzooImdlb2dyYXBoeS1wbGFudHMx76O4Me-juEFtZXJpY2Fz76O4U291dGggQW1lcmljYe-juCIp&ff=ps_type__ps_repository_name_str__ps_collection_name_str&filter=people&so=ps_group_by_genus_species+asc&Query=commerson">over a thousand are still found in herbariums today</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-forgotten-german-botanist-who-took-200-000-australian-plants-to-europe-143099">Friday essay: the forgotten German botanist who took 200,000 Australian plants to Europe</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When museum scientists began posthumously publishing some of Commerson’s species descriptions, pioneering evolutionary biologist <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33495331#page/54/mode/1up">Jean Baptiste Lamarck</a> was the only one who mentioned Jeanne’s contribution and courage. She was a servant, after all, so hardly warranted acknowledgement.</p>
<p>Commerson himself rarely mentioned Jeanne. It was not until after they left the voyage that he named a plant after her: <em><a href="http://coldb.mnhn.fr/catalognumber/mnhn/p/p00391569">Baretia bonafidia</a></em> (now known as <em>Turraea rutilans</em>). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359505/original/file-20200923-16-5iqd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The isotype, or defining specimen of <em>Turraea rutilans</em>, originally named <em>Baretia bonafidia</em> by Commerson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris (France) Collection: Vascular plants (P) Specimen P00391569.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his <a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=AhhcAAAAcAAJ&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA160">description of this plant</a>, Commerson recognised her “thirst for knowledge” and that he was indebted to “her heroism, for so many plants never before harvested, all the industrious drying, so many collections of insects and shells”. </p>
<p>Nineteenth century accounts of Jeanne appeared as footnotes in the biographies of great men. Avoiding all impropriety, she was presented as Commerson’s “faithful servant”, like Crusoe’s Man Friday, or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Phileas-Fogg">Phileas Fogg’s</a> Jean Passepartout. An early biographer, <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9403403.texteImage">Paul-Antoine Cap</a> recounted a family story in which Jeanne loyally cared for Commerson on his deathbed in Mauritius and that she returned to live in his hometown in France.</p>
<p>“By way of remembrance and veneration for her former master, she left all she possessed to the natural heirs of the famous botanist,” he wrote. It was a story of boundless devotion much repeated in subsequent accounts. </p>
<h2>Partial details</h2>
<p>It has been left to female researchers to uncover the details of Jeanne’s life. Attention has shifted to Jeanne as an individual, rather than an addendum to Commerson’s or Bougainville’s story.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, a local historian from Burgundy, <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3395224f">Henriette Dussourd</a>, uncovered the parish record of Jeanne’s birth in 1740 to a poor peasant family in the town of La Comelle. She also found a declaration of pregnancy (obligatory under French law) signed by Jeanne when she was 24-years-old. When she was five months pregnant, Jeanne had fled to Paris with Commerson, travelling under a new surname, as his housekeeper.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359506/original/file-20200923-22-1vr1bjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jeanne’s birthplace La Comelle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The circumstances are suspicious. Jeanne had presumably been working as a servant for the recently widowed Commerson and they moved to Paris to escape a local scandal. Early Parisian parish records were destroyed in the Commune fires of 1871, but Dussourd suggests a son was born, left in the Foundling Home and died young.</p>
<p>Since then, I have found that Jeanne had a second son while in Paris, who appears to have died while she was away on her voyage. </p>
<p>More recently, a biography in English has attempted to fill in the gaps left in the archival record. <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/200271/the-discovery-of-jeanne-baret-by-glynis-ridley/">Glynis Ridley’s popular biography</a> has been criticised for <a href="https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2F470036a.pdf%3Forigin%3Dppub">scientific errors and speculation</a>, but her version of Jeanne’s story has propagated widely across the internet. </p>
<p>Unlike the loyal servant trope of the 19th century, Ridley utilises a modern cautionary tale to fill out Jeanne’s story – the well-rehearsed narrative that <a href="http://theamericanreader.com/green-screen-the-lack-of-female-road-narratives-and-why-it-matters/#_ftn1">adventurous women inevitably come to a sticky end</a>.</p>
<p>Ridley’s biography seeks to give Jeanne an agency that she lacked in 18th and 19th century accounts. She argues Commerson sought Jeanne’s advice as an expert herbswoman. Was an unsigned list of medicinal plants among Commerson’s archives, she asks, actually Jeanne’s work? </p>
<p>Appealing though this idea is, Commerson was, however, renowned for his medicinal teas, and herbal remedies were a staple of medical treatment at the time.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359511/original/file-20200923-20-19rkm6v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Philibert Commerson (1727-1773).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nor is there any evidence Jeanne was taught to read and write by her mother, as Ridley suggests. My archival research found her mother died when Jeanne was 15- months-old. It seems more likely Commerson taught her to write and trained her in botany.</p>
<p>More controversially, Ridley contends that the story of Jeanne’s revelation as a woman in Tahiti was a cover for a gang rape on New Ireland, off Papua New Guinea. And that Jeanne fell pregnant and gave birth to a son in Mauritius. </p>
<p>This story originates from a description by the doctor on board Jeanne’s ship, Francois Vivez. Vivez disliked Commerson and intended to publish a salacious account of his servant when he returned to France.</p>
<p>In his manuscripts, Vivez describes Jeanne being attacked by her crew mates and her gender exposed after her identification by the Tahitians. While Vivez greatly embroiders his accounts, there is enough confirmation from other journals to suggest they are based on facts. On balance, it seems likely that Jeanne was identified as a women in Tahiti and some of the crew decided to confirm this for themselves when they were next ashore.</p>
<p>But was there a rape? It is difficult to interpret these 18th century accounts, written in either French or Latin and laden with historical contexts and classical metaphors that have long since lost their associations for modern readers. </p>
<p>Bougainville had ordered that Jeanne was not to be harassed. Rape was punishable by death in the French navy. Could a naval commander tolerate such a serious crime and insubordination to go unrecorded and unpunished? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359507/original/file-20200923-24-11ogg89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359507/original/file-20200923-24-11ogg89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359507/original/file-20200923-24-11ogg89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359507/original/file-20200923-24-11ogg89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359507/original/file-20200923-24-11ogg89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359507/original/file-20200923-24-11ogg89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359507/original/file-20200923-24-11ogg89.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bougainvillea, a flower named after the French explorer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It seems unlikely. In his only comment on the subject, Commerson noted Jeanne “evaded ambush by wild animals and humans, not without risk to her life and virtue, unharmed and sound”. </p>
<p>In any case, there is no evidence that Jeanne, suffering from scurvy and malnutrition, conceived a child on the voyage, nor of the obligatory declaration of pregnancy, or a child born in Mauritius. </p>
<h2>A woman of means</h2>
<p>Jeanne’s life in Mauritius and her return to France were actually more interesting than dramatic denouements that fulfil conventional expectations. The adventurous woman did not come to a sticky end.</p>
<p>She was not the faithful servant, comforting Commerson on his death bed. She was not left “<a href="https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/discovery-jeanne-baret-story-science-high-seas-and-first-woman-circumnavigate-globe">alone, homeless, penniless</a>” after his death, waiting for a man to rescue her. She did not return to Commerson’s hometown or remember him in death.</p>
<p>The archives tell a different story. I found Jeanne was granted property in her own right in Mauritius. When Commerson died, Jeanne was running her own profitable business. She bought a license to run a lucrative bar near the port. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359502/original/file-20200923-18-zp6oad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the time she married Jean Dubernat, a soldier in a French colonial regiment, she was wealthy enough to require a pre-nuptial contract. Her husband brought 5000 livres to the marriage while Jeanne brought a house, slaves, furniture, clothes, jewellery and a small fortune of 19,500 livres – two thirds of which would remain in her control. She was a woman of means.</p>
<p>Further research by <a href="http://jeannebarret.free.fr/page1.htm">Sophie Miquel and Nicolle Maguet </a>in Dordogne, where Jeanne lived out her life after her return to France in 1775, has revealed more details. She purchased various properties including a farm, which is still recognisable today. </p>
<p>Her husband signed another legal document acknowledging these properties were shared equally with his wife. Jeanne gathered her family around her, including her orphaned niece and nephew, and ran a successful business as a landowner and trader – a far cry from her illiterate, impoverished childhood in Burgundy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/adventurous-identities-intersex-soldiers-and-cross-dressing-women-at-war-115126">Adventurous identities: intersex soldiers and cross-dressing women at war</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If we need a conventional story arc for Jeanne’s life, it should be rags-to-riches, rather than the loyal servant or road-trip tragedy. But better, surely, to construct Jeanne’s story with an objective attention to the archival record.</p>
<p>Jeanne was full of contradictions. She was a devoted aunt, yet left her own children in Paris to an unknown fate. She struggled to escape the constraints of France’s rigid class system and patriarchy, but also owned slaves. Her life does not always fit a comfortable familiar narrative structure.</p>
<p>What we do know reveals Jeanne as a confident, capable, resilient woman — neither victim nor hero but a complex, inspiring and unconventional role model. </p>
<p><em>Danielle Clode’s new biography of Jeanne Barret, In Search of the Woman who Sailed the World, is published by Picador Australia.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danielle Clode received funding from Arts SA and the Department of Premier and Cabinet South Australia to research this book which was commissioned by Pan Macmillan under their Picador imprint. </span></em></p>Fresh research casts new light on a boldly unconventional woman who cross-dressed as a man to join a French naval sea voyage.Danielle Clode, Senior Research Fellow in Creative Writing, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1329782020-03-17T18:49:40Z2020-03-17T18:49:40ZHidden women of history: Sonia Revid created public health ballet at the height of ‘dance fever’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319773/original/file-20200311-116270-1brmey.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C11%2C801%2C1112&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLV_VOYAGER1640108&vid=MAIN&search_scope=Everything&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US&context=L">Dickenson-Monteith/The Australian Performing Arts Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today’s latest medical advice is to wash our hands to the chorus of songs from the likes of <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-03-03/coronavirus-hand-washing-20-seconds-happy-birthday-10-songs">Lizzo, Gloria Gaynor or Beyoncé</a>. This is to mitigate the boredom of washing to Happy Birthday … twice! </p>
<p>Public health strategies have been linked to popular culture before. In the 1930s, it was modern dance that taught Melburnians how to perform personal hygiene. </p>
<p>Dance classes were so popular the Sun News Pictorial reported: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Doctors, Barristers, other professional men are learning or relearning dance, and there are busy classes for business and married girls, tiny toddlers, and even mothers of families, and social heavyweights.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One dance instructor, Russian immigrant Sonia Revid, specialised in the instruction of hygiene through movement. </p>
<p>Revid choreographed and performed ballets that taught audiences how to brush their teeth. She also published a pamphlet outlining the importance of personal hygiene. The City of Melbourne’s medical officer, John Dale, publicly praised Revid’s efforts and parents were advised to enrol their children in her classes. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Revid in full flight, circa 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.artscentremelbourne.com.au/#details=ecatalogue.191902">Rosa Ribush Collection/Australian Performing Arts Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Body and soul</h2>
<p>Revid had opened her dance studio in Collins Street, Melbourne, in 1933, a year after her arrival in Australia. </p>
<p>The Sonia Revid School for Art Dance and Body Culture was promoted as ensuring “physical well-being and lasting health” and provided “lessons to correct specific physical defects, such as obesity, flat feet, unshapely hands, self-consciousness and shyness”.</p>
<p>By 1936, Revid was promoting her method as not only a way to stay fit and healthy but also as means of acquiring a “consciousness of cleanliness”. </p>
<p>Revid asserted the capabilities of her practice based on the evidence of a medico-social experiment she conducted on a group of poor children in 1935. Revid wanted to see whether poor children who lived in the then “slums” of Fitzroy could learn to distinguish between hygienic and unhygienic practices through dance education. </p>
<p>Poor hygiene had been associated with a lack of social responsibility and immorality and so Revid’s published pamphlet asked through metaphor: Do Slum Children Distinguish Light From Dark?</p>
<p>From her observations, Revid <a href="https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE5149955&file=FL17214593&mode=browse">concluded</a> modern dance had a cleansing capacity – performing a sort of physical and spiritual bath. Not only did it teach children how to identify hygienic and unhygienic practices, she wrote, but imparted a more hygienic constitution.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L6ovGVCqh2o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In recent years, ballet has returned to vogue as a tool for everyday fitness.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Don’t forget to smile</h2>
<p>Emboldened by her belief in the hygienic potential of dance, Revid began to include ballets with public health messages in her performance repertoire. </p>
<p>Her 1938 ballet, Little Fool and Her Adventures, instructed audiences how to brush their teeth correctly and portrayed the painful consequences of poor dental hygiene. </p>
<p>The ballet was first performed at the University of Melbourne’s Union House Theatre and later at school halls such as at Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School, now Melbourne Girls Grammar. It was performed in four parts. Part one was an introduction to the protagonist, Little Fool, and to the themes of the ballet. </p>
<p>Little Fool Has a Toothache, the second section, told of the pain associated with dental decay. It was dramatically enhanced by a thumping musical score by the French composer, Charles Gounod, titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pOXhAF7L0I">Funeral March of a Marionette</a>. The score alluded to the serious medical consequences of poor dental hygiene. Audiences reported its repetitive rhythm reminded them of the thumping pain of a sensitive nerve.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0pOXhAF7L0I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The score has since become familiar as theme music for the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ballet’s climax was in part three: The Toothache Leaves a Mark on Little Fool – She imagines she is pursued by evil spirits. This section was ominously danced to Camille Saint-Saëns’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM">Danse Macabre</a> (known in English as Dance of Death). The choreography showed Little Fool overcome by delirium. </p>
<p>Revid’s ballet concluded with a positive message of calm vigilance. Little Fool overcame her sore tooth and departed the stage to a lively and uplifting tune. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320710/original/file-20200316-18008-123dtvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sonia Revid strikes a pose, circa 1931-47.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by Andre, Melbourne/Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lessons today</h2>
<p>Little Fool remained in Revid’s repertoire for many years, providing hygienic instruction and a cautionary public health warning to all who saw it. </p>
<p>Revid’s dance classes and her performances taught the importance of daily hygiene and kept the community informed of best practices through the fluctuating realities of Melbourne’s public health. </p>
<p>With advances in medicine and technology, such as vaccines, we often take the basics for granted, losing sight of the importance of thorough handwashing until a global pandemic reminds us of its preventive power.</p>
<p>Although hygienic instruction hasn’t been a part of popular artistic culture for a while, in 2020 Beyoncé and <a href="https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/lizzo-coronavirus-meditation/">Lizzo</a> are taking matters into their own clean hands.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Averyl Gaylor received funding from the Australian Government's Research Training Program for this research. </span></em></p>In the 1930s, it was modern dance that taught Melburnians how to perform personal hygiene. There are still lessons to be learnt from this history and the legacy of Sonia Revid.Averyl Gaylor, PhD Candidate in History and Manager, Centre for Health, Law and Society at La Trobe Law School, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1293522020-01-16T19:04:23Z2020-01-16T19:04:23ZHidden women of history: Catherine Hay Thomson, the Australian undercover journalist who went inside asylums and hospitals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310375/original/file-20200115-134772-1he8wcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C855%2C556&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover as an assistant nurse for her series on conditions at Melbourne Hospital. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-147135448/view">A. J. Campbell Collection/National Library of Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>In 1886, a year before American journalist Nellie Bly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/07/28/she-went-undercover-expose-an-insane-asylums-horrors-now-nellie-bly-is-getting-her-due/">feigned insanity</a> to enter an asylum in New York and became a household name, Catherine Hay Thomson arrived at the entrance of Kew Asylum in Melbourne on “a hot grey morning with a lowering sky”. </p>
<p>Hay Thomson’s two-part article, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6089302">The Female Side of Kew Asylum</a> for The Argus newspaper revealed the conditions women endured in Melbourne’s public institutions. </p>
<p>Her articles were controversial, engaging, empathetic, and most likely the first known by an Australian female undercover journalist.</p>
<h2>A ‘female vagabond’</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson was accused of being a spy by Kew Asylum’s supervising doctor. The Bulletin called her “the female vagabond”, a reference to Melbourne’s famed undercover reporter of a decade earlier, Julian Thomas. But she was not after notoriety. </p>
<p>Unlike Bly and her ambitious contemporaries who turned to “stunt journalism” to escape the boredom of the women’s pages – one of the few avenues open to women newspaper writers – Hay Thomson was initially a teacher and ran <a href="https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A79772">schools</a> with her mother in Melbourne and Ballarat. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310830/original/file-20200120-69568-x4hyux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hay Thomson, standing centre with her mother and pupils at their Ballarat school, was a teacher before she became a journalist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ballarat Grammar Archives/Museum Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/207826580?searchTerm=%22Catherine%20Hay%20Thomson%22&searchLimits=exactPhrase=Catherine+Hay+Thomson%7C%7C%7CanyWords%7C%7C%7CnotWords%7C%7C%7CrequestHandler%7C%7C%7CdateFrom%7C%7C%7CdateTo%7C%7C%7Csortby">1876</a>, she became one of the first female students to sit for the matriculation exam at Melbourne University, though women weren’t allowed to study at the university until 1880. </p>
<h2>Going undercover</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson’s series for The Argus began in March 1886 with a piece entitled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6087478?searchTerm=%22The%20Inner%20Life%20of%20the%20Melbourne%20Hospital%22&searchLimits=">The Inner Life of the Melbourne Hospital</a>. She secured work as an assistant nurse at Melbourne Hospital (now <a href="https://www.thermh.org.au/about/our-history">The Royal Melbourne Hospital</a>) which was under scrutiny for high running costs and an abnormally high patient death rate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310150/original/file-20200115-93792-1rli38t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doctors at Melbourne Hospital in the mid 1880s did not wash their hands between patients, wrote Catherine Hay Thomson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE1125263&mode=browse">State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Her articles increased the pressure. She observed that the assistant nurses were untrained, worked largely as cleaners for poor pay in unsanitary conditions, slept in overcrowded dormitories and survived on the same food as the patients, which she described in stomach-turning detail.</p>
<p>The hospital linen was dirty, she reported, dinner tins and jugs were washed in the patients’ bathroom where poultices were also made, doctors did not wash their hands between patients.</p>
<p>Writing about a young woman caring for her dying friend, a 21-year-old impoverished single mother, Hay Thomson observed them “clinging together through all fortunes” and added that “no man can say that friendship between women is an impossibility”.</p>
<p>The Argus editorial called for the setting up of a “ladies’ committee” to oversee the cooking and cleaning. Formal nursing training was introduced in Victoria three years later.</p>
<h2>Kew Asylum</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson’s next <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6089302">series</a>, about women’s treatment in the Kew Asylum, was published in March and April 1886. </p>
<p>Her articles predate <a href="https://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Ecavitch/pdf-library/Bly_TenDays.pdf">Ten Days in a Madhouse</a> written by Nellie Bly (born <a href="https://www.biography.com/activist/nellie-bly">Elizabeth Cochran</a>) for Joseph Pulitzer’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-York-World">New York World</a>. </p>
<p>While working in the asylum for a fortnight, Hay Thomson witnessed overcrowding, understaffing, a lack of training, and a need for woman physicians. Most of all, the reporter saw that many in the asylum suffered from institutionalisation rather than illness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310146/original/file-20200115-151844-1hs1bdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kew Asylum around the time Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/images?page=1&keyword=kew%20asylum&smt=1">Charles Rudd/State Library of Victoria</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She described “the girl with the lovely hair” who endured chronic ear pain and was believed to be delusional. The writer countered “her pain is most probably real”.</p>
<p>Observing another patient, Hay Thomson wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>She requires to be guarded – saved from herself; but at the same time, she requires treatment … I have no hesitation in saying that the kind of treatment she needs is unattainable in Kew Asylum.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The day before the first asylum article was published, Hay Thomson gave evidence to the final sitting of Victoria’s <a href="https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/papers/govpub/VPARL1886No15Pi-clxxii.pdf">Royal Commission on Asylums for the Insane and Inebriate</a>, pre-empting what was to come in The Argus. Among the Commission’s final recommendations was that a new governing board should supervise appointments and training and appoint “lady physicians” for the female wards.</p>
<h2>Suffer the little children</h2>
<p>In May 1886, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6095144/276118">An Infant Asylum written “by a Visitor”</a> was published. The institution was a place where mothers – unwed and impoverished - could reside until their babies were weaned and later adopted out. </p>
<p>Hay Thomson reserved her harshest criticism for the absent fathers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These women … have to bear the burden unaided, all the weight of shame, remorse, and toil, [while] the other partner in the sin goes scot free.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For another article, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/6099966?searchTerm=%22Among%20the%20Blind%3A%20Victorian%20Asylum%20and%20School%22&searchLimits=">Among the Blind: Victorian Asylum and School</a>, she worked as an assistant needlewoman and called for talented music students at the school to be allowed to sit exams.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/254464232?searchTerm=%22A%20Penitent%E2%80%99s%20Life%20in%20the%20Magdalen%20Asylum%22&searchLimits=">A Penitent’s Life in the Magdalen Asylum</a>, Hay Thomson supported nuns’ efforts to help women at the Abbotsford Convent, most of whom were not residents because they were “fallen”, she explained, but for reasons including alcoholism, old age and destitution.</p>
<h2>Suffrage and leadership</h2>
<p>Hay Thomson helped found the <a href="https://www.australsalon.org/130th-anniversary-celebration-1">Austral Salon of Women, Literature and the Arts</a> in January 1890 and <a href="https://ncwvic.org.au/about-us.html#est">the National Council of Women of Victoria</a>. Both organisations are still celebrating and campaigning for women. </p>
<p>Throughout, she continued writing, becoming <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_Talk_(magazine)">Table Talk</a> magazine’s music and social critic. </p>
<p>In 1899 she became editor of The Sun: An Australian Journal for the Home and Society, which she bought with Evelyn Gough. Hay Thomson also gave a series of lectures titled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145847122?searchTerm=%22catherine%20hay%20thomson%22%20and%20%22women%20in%20politics%22&searchLimits=">Women in Politics</a>. </p>
<p>A Melbourne hotel maintains that Hay Thomson’s private residence was secretly on the fourth floor of Collins Street’s <a href="https://www.melbourne.intercontinental.com/catherine-hay-thomson">Rialto building</a> around this time. </p>
<h2>Home and back</h2>
<p>After selling The Sun, Hay Thomson returned to her birth city, Glasgow, Scotland, and to a precarious freelance career for English magazines such as <a href="https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=cassellsmag">Cassell’s</a>. </p>
<p>Despite her own declining fortunes, she brought attention to writer and friend <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/carmichael-grace-elizabeth-jennings-5507">Grace Jennings Carmichael</a>’s three young sons, who had been stranded in a Northampton poorhouse for six years following their mother’s death from pneumonia. After Hay Thomson’s article in The Argus, the Victorian government granted them free passage home.</p>
<p>Hay Thomson eschewed the conformity of marriage but <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65330270?searchTerm=&searchLimits=l-publictag=Mrs+T+F+Legge+%28nee+Hay+Thomson%29">tied the knot</a> back in Melbourne in 1918, aged 72. The wedding at the Women Writer’s Club to Thomas Floyd Legge, culminated “a romance of forty years ago”. <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140219851">Mrs Legge</a>, as she became, died in Cheltenham in 1928, only nine years later.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A passionate crusader for the rights of women and children, Catherine Hay Thomson went undercover to investigate their treatment in public institutions and testified before a Royal Commission.Kerrie Davies, Lecturer, School of the Arts & Media, UNSW SydneyWilla McDonald, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1264872019-12-29T21:02:44Z2019-12-29T21:02:44ZHidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306238/original/file-20191211-95165-1rdrn0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=55%2C18%2C2975%2C2253&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Though her brave acts were acknowledged after her death, Wauba Debar's grave was later robbed in the name of "science". </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wauba_Debar%27s_grave.jpg">Tirin/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.</em></p>
<p>Aboriginal women and girls in <a href="http://tacinc.com.au/tasmanian-aboriginal-place-names/">lutruwita</a> (Tasmania or Van Diemen’s Land) were superb swimmers and divers. </p>
<p>For eons, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians">palawa</a> women of lutruwita had productive relationships with the sea and were <a href="https://archive.org/stream/papersproceeding1920roya/papersproceeding1920roya_djvu.txt">expert hunters</a>. Scant knowledge remains of these women, yet we can find fleeting glimpses of their aquatic skills. </p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wauba_Debar">Wauba Debar</a> of Oyster Bay’s <a href="https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/oyst1235">Paredarerme</a> tribe was stolen as a teenager to become, according to Edward Cotton (a <a href="https://www.utas.edu.au/library/exhibitions/quaker/index.html">Quaker</a> who settled on Tasmania’s East Coast), “a sealer’s slave and paramour”.</p>
<h2>Servitude and rescue</h2>
<p>Foreign sealers arrived on the Tasmanian coastlines in the late 18th century. The ensuing fur trade nearly destroyed the seal populations of Tasmania in a matter of two decades. </p>
<p>At the same time, life became extremely difficult for the female palawa <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/03/18/3167847.htm">population</a>. </p>
<p>Slavery was still legal in the British Empire, and so the profitability of the sealing industry was underpinned by the servitude of <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/aboriginal-society-in-north-west-tasmania-dispossession-and-genocide/oclc/225012531&referer=brief_results">palawa women</a>. </p>
<p>Sporadic raids known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/noted-works-the-black-war-29344">“gin-raiding”</a> by sealers rendered the coastlines a place of constant danger for female palawa.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306499/original/file-20191212-85376-9kzl7s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pêche des sauvages du Cap de Diemen (Natives preparing a meal from the sea). Drawn by Jean Piron in 1817. Engraving by Jacques Louis Copia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-135900794/view">National Library of Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/noted-works-the-black-war-29344">Noted works: The Black War</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Little is known of Wauba Debar other than tales of a daring rescue at sea. Though variations to her story can be found, it most frequently details her long swim and lifesaving efforts in stormy conditions. As one version <a href="http://www.storytellerspinks.com/fieldguide/14004345">tells it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The boat went under; the two men were poor swimmers, and looked set to drown beneath the mountainous grey waves. Wauba could have left them to drown, and swim ashore on her own. But she didn’t. </p>
<p>First, she pulled her husband under her arm — the man who had first captured her — and dragged him back to shore, more than a kilometre away. Wauba next swam back out to the other man, and brought him in as well. The two sealers coughed and spluttered on the Bicheno beach, but they did not die. Wauba had saved them.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Death at sea</h2>
<p>Sadly, no one was there to rescue Wauba when she needed it. Her demise during a sealing trip, was at the hands of Europeans. </p>
<p>According to a sailor’s account to <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13304124">Cotton</a>, Wauba was one of the “gins” captured to take along on a whaleboat sailing from Hobart to the Straits Islands (Furneaux Group) as “expert hunters, fishers, and divers, as in most barbarous tribes, the slaves of the men”.</p>
<p>The sailing party camped at Wineglass Bay but woke to find the women and dogs had vanished. A group set off to pursue those who’d taken them. In his 1893 <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13304124">account</a>, Cotton speculated in The Mercury newspaper on the likely cause of her death:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Wauba Debar had, I suppose, been captured in like manner … and possibly died of injuries sustained in the capture, which no doubt was not done very tenderly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The crew interred Wauba at Bicheno, and marked her grave by a slab of wood with details <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13304124">inscribed</a>. </p>
<p>Accounts differ as to when this actually took place. In 1893, elderly Bicheno residents said Wauba was buried 10 years before the date on the headstone, placing her death around 1822. </p>
<p>However, in his diary entry on 24 January 1816, Captain James Kelly described how he hauled up in <a href="https://archive.org/stream/papersproceeding1920roya/papersproceeding1920roya_djvu.txt">Waub’s Boat Harbour</a> due to the heavy afternoon swell. Considering the area was already named after her, it can be concluded that Wauba was likely buried before 1816. </p>
<p><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13304124">Cotton</a>’s report imagined her burial:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Wauba Debar did not live to be a mother of the tribe of half-bred sealers of the Straits, which became a sort of city or refuge of for bushrangers in aftertime … But she, poor soul was buried decently, perchance reverently, and I suppose other of the captured sisters would be present by the graveside on the shores of that silent nook near the beached boat.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Here lies Wauba</h2>
<p>Wauba’s reputation was such that in 1855 the public of Bicheno decided to commemorate her by erecting a railing, headstone, and footstone (paid for by public subscription) at her grave, with “Waub” carved into it. </p>
<p>John Allen, who had been granted land nearby, donated ten shillings towards the cost of the gravestone – notwithstanding his involvement in a <a href="https://eprints.utas.edu.au/23801/1/Lehman_whole_thesis.pdf">massacre</a> at Milton Farm, Great Swanport, 30 years earlier. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://archive.org/stream/papersproceeding1920roya/papersproceeding1920roya_djvu.txt">inscription</a> reads: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here lies Wauba Debar. A Female Aborigine of Van Diemen’s Land. Died June 1832. Aged 40 Years. This Stone is Erected by a few of her white friends. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether prompted by a sense of loss, guilt, or admiration, the community memorialised Wauba, and by extension, the original inhabitants of the land.</p>
<p>Yet by the late 1800s, European demand for Aboriginal physical remains for “scientific investigation” was high. In 1893, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery was determined to procure the remains of Wauba. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306256/original/file-20191211-95153-16q9mbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Waub’s Bay, Bicheno, is named after Wauba Debar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wooden-row-boats-along-jetty-picturesque-733426450">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The prevailing ethnological theories believed that the study of Australian Aboriginal people, and particularly Indigenous Tasmanians, would reveal much about the earliest stages of human development and its progress. </p>
<p>Wauba’s grave was <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/174516904?searchTerm=wauba%20debar&searchLimits=">exhumed</a>, put into a box, labelled “<a href="https://eprints.utas.edu.au/21810/1/whole_YoungFrederickDavid1995_thesis.pdf">Native Currants</a>”, and dispatched to Hobart.</p>
<p>The locals were outraged. An <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=EfVADwAAQBAJ&pg=PA322&lpg=PA322&dq=wauba+debar+remains&source=bl&ots=XDUulzL3sV&sig=ACfU3U3b1mG0MhQPW_ewWtCBRL71t193xg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjE7p7LqazmAhVPAHIKHeqXAscQ6AEwBHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=wauba%20debar%20remains&f=false">editorial</a> in the Tasmanian Mail newspaper condemned the act as “a pure case of body snatching for the purposes of gain, and nothing else” that “the name of Science is outraged at being connected with”. </p>
<h2>Snowdrops bloom</h2>
<p>Wauba’s memorial is the only known gravestone erected to a Tasmanian Aboriginal person during the 19th century, and she is the only palawa woman known to have been buried and <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/oddity-and-elegance/oclc/911839455&referer=brief_results">commemorated</a> by non-Indigenous locals.</p>
<p>In 2014, Olympic swimmer and Bicheno resident Shane Gould dedicated a fundraising <a href="http://www.shanegould.com.au/pages/devil-of-a-swim.php">swim</a> to Wauba Debar’s swimming abilities and memory. </p>
<p>The European styled memorial serves as a reminder of the more turbulent interactions between the two peoples that shaped Tasmania’s history from the 1800s onwards. </p>
<p>Wauba’s empty grave is Tasmania’s <a href="https://eprints.utas.edu.au/23801/1/Lehman_whole_thesis.pdf">smallest State Reserve</a>. Her remains were returned to the Tasmanian Indigenous community in 1985. Snowdrops are said to bloom around the grave every spring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126487/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A grave stands in Bicheno, paid for by locals in the 1800s. It stands as a testament to the lifesaving ocean feats and tragic life of Indigenous woman Wauba Debar.Megan Stronach, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyDaryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1268402019-12-03T18:36:23Z2019-12-03T18:36:23ZHidden women of history: Neaera, the Athenian child slave raised to be a courtesan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303687/original/file-20191126-112489-1t3mfb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C28%2C762%2C549&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gustave Boulanger, The Slave Market, 1886.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>The ancient worlds of Greece and Rome have perhaps never been as popular as they presently are. There are numerous television series and one-off
documentaries covering both “big picture” perspectives and stories of ordinary people.</p>
<p>Neaera was a woman from fourth century BCE Athens whose life is significant and sorrowful – worthy to be remembered – but may never feature in a glossy biopic. </p>
<p>Possibly born in Corinth, a place where she lived from at least a young age, Neaera was raised by a brothel-keeper by the name of Nicarete. </p>
<p>Her predicament was the result of her being enslaved to Nicarete. While we don’t know the reason for this, we do know that foundlings were common in antiquity. The parents of baby Neaera, for whatever reason, left her to fate – to die by exposure or be collected by a stranger. </p>
<p>From a young age, Neaera was trained by Nicarete for the life of a hetaira (a Classical Greek term for “courtesan”). It was Nicarete who also named her, giving her a typical courtesan title: “Neaera” meaning “Fresh One”. </p>
<p>Ancient sources reveal Naeara’s life in the brothel. In a legal speech by the Athenian politician and forensic orator, Apollodorus, the following description is provided:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There were seven young girls who were purchased when they were small children by Nicarete … She had the talent to recognise the potential beauty of little girls and knew how to raise them and educate them with expertise – for it was from this that she had made a profession and from this came her livelihood. </p>
<p>She called them ‘daughters’ so that, by displaying them as freeborn, she could obtain the highest prices from the men wishing to have intercourse with them. After that, when she had enjoyed the profit from their youth, she sold every single one of them …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The occasion for the passage from Apollodorus is a court case that was brought against Neaera in approximately 343 BCE. Neaera was around 50-years-old by the time of her prosecution, which took place in Athens. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-grim-reality-of-the-brothels-of-pompeii-88853">The grim reality of the brothels of Pompeii</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Trafficking and abuse</h2>
<p>The circumstances of her trial are complicated, involving the buying, selling, trafficking and abuse of Neaera from a very young age. </p>
<p>Piecing together the evidence from Apollodorus’ prosecution speech, which has come down to us with the title, “Against Neaera”, it transpires that two of her clients, who shared joint ownership of her, allowed her to buy her freedom around 376 BCE. </p>
<p>Afterwards, she moved to Athens with one Phrynion, but his brutal treatment of her saw Neaera leave for Megara, where circumstances caused her to return to sex work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303862/original/file-20191126-112517-294sqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man and a prostitute reclining on a bench during a banquet; Tondo from an Attic red-figure kylix, circa 490 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Further intrigues involving men and sex work saw Neaera eventually face trial on the charge of falsely representing herself as a free Athenian woman by pretending to be married to a citizen. </p>
<p>The charge of fraud was based on the law that a foreigner could not live as a common law “spouse” to a freeborn Athenian. The fact that Neaera also had three children, a daughter by the name of Phano, and two sons, further complicated the trial and its range of legal entanglements.</p>
<p>While we never discover the outcome of the trial, nor what happened to Neaera, the speech of the prosecutor remains, and reveals much about her life. Unfortunately, the speech of the defence is lost. </p>
<p>We do know, however, that the man with whom Neaera cohabitated, Stephanus, delivered the defence. Of course, he was not only defending Neaera – he was defending himself! Should Neaera have been found guilty, Stephanus
would have forfeited his citizenship and the rights that attended it. </p>
<p>Stephanus had a history of legal disputes with the prosecutor, Apollodorus. He also had a history of being in trouble with the law. For example, he had illegally married off Phano – not once, but twice – to Athenian citizens. Shady “get rich quick” schemes motivated such activities, and it seems that Stephanus was adept at using both his “wife” and his “daughter’ for bartering and personal profit.</p>
<p>Another accusation revealed during the trial alleged that Stephanus
arranged for Neaera to lure men to his house, engage them in sex, and then bribe them. And while Apollodorus provides no evidence for such a scam ever having taken place, judging by Stephanus’ track-record, it does not seem implausible. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-myth-of-the-ancient-greek-gay-utopia-88397">Friday essay: the myth of the ancient Greek 'gay utopia'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Remembering Neaera</h2>
<p>Reading through the long, complex and damnatory speech of Apollodorus, we risk losing sight of the woman at the centre of it. Caught amid petty politics, sex scandals, and personal vendettas is a woman who becomes peripheral to the machismo being played out in court. </p>
<p>Yet, somewhat ironically, this is the only ancient source we have that records not only Neaera and the life she was forced to lead – but the life of a hetaira from infancy, girlhood, middle-age and, ultimately, past her "use by” date.</p>
<p>Had she not been taken to court as part of the factional fighting of ancient Athens, had she not had her reputation annihilated so publicly, we would have never known about Neaera. </p>
<p>Were it not for Apollodorus and his ancient version of “slut-shaming”, Neaera’s story would have been lost.</p>
<p>But it hasn’t been lost. Somewhere, amid the male rhetoric, her story endures. Unfortunately, her voice is not preserved. All we can read in the speech, “Against Neaera” are the voices of men; her prosecutor and the witnesses he calls to the stand. </p>
<p>Ironically, these testimonies and accusations - so casually introduced in ancient Athens, but received so differently today - emphasise the inhumanity of the sex trade in an antiquity too often and too unthinkingly valorised. </p>
<p>The document known as “Against Neaera” is the only record we have of this (almost) hidden woman. It prompts us to remember. And it’s important to remember Neaera.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From a young age, Neaera was trained for the life of a hetaira, or courtesan. Her tragic story comes to us only through court documents, but she deserves to be remembered.Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1259402019-11-11T19:00:11Z2019-11-11T19:00:11ZHidden women of history: Frances Levvy, Australia’s quietly radical early animal rights campaigner<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300427/original/file-20191106-88414-it31dx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elephants destined for Wirths' circus on a ship's deck circa 1925. Early last century, Frances Levvy asked school students to write an essay on whether the exhibition of wild animals in travelling menageries was consistent with humanity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">By Sam Hood ca. 1925-ca. 1945, State Library of NSW</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-marau-taaroa-the-sydney-schooled-last-queen-of-tahiti-122539">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>We are all touched by relationships with animals — as domestic and working companions, wild inspirations, threats, or pests. </p>
<p>Some of us may know about the enduring worth of organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Fewer of us may know about the 19th century foundations for animal advocacy among ordinary women beginning, more often, to find their voice in the public sphere. </p>
<p>The life of Frances Deborah Levvy (14 November 1831–29 November 1924) is worth revisiting because her ethical, political, and journalistic contributions speak to our current concerns for the more-than-human world. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-flos-greig-australias-first-female-lawyer-and-early-innovator-119990">Hidden women of history: Flos Greig, Australia’s first female lawyer and early innovator</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A mainstay of the New South Wales’ branch of the <a href="https://colonialgivers.com/2016/09/21/womens-branch-of-the-society-for-the-prevention-of-cruelty-to-animals/">Women’s Society for the Protection of Animals</a>, Frances, with her sister Emma Clarke, founded Australia’s first Bands of Mercy. Membership of the Bands required pledging on entry: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I promise to protect all animals from ill-treatment with all my power. When I am compelled to take the life of any creature, I will spare all needless pain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Bands of Mercy were based on the Bands of Hope, formed in the United Kingdom to support the temperance movement and, like them, were formal voluntary organisations in communities. Founded in 1875, they helped young people learn about and model the humane treatment of animals, coming under the RSPCA from 1882, the same year they were introduced into the United States. It was Levvy who then introduced <a href="https://bekindexhibit.org">Bands of Mercy</a> in Australia in the mid-1880s, growing the membership from 15 to over 20,000 people over her life. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300422/original/file-20191106-88382-1xudohn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Circular Quay harbour, Sydney, Australia, undated.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stock photo ID: 544124516, uploaded 4 July 2016</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Born in Penrith, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/levvy-frances-deborah-13044">Frances was one of four children of Barnett and Sarah Levey</a>, the former a watch-maker and theatre director, both from London. When Levey died in 1837, his widow converted from Judaism to Christianity, which appears to have shaped Frances’s moral and religious outlook. On their mother’s death Frances and her sister Emma adopted the surname Levvy. After moving to Newtown in Sydney in 1874 with her sister, Frances later went to Waverley where she lived - single and focused on her mission - until her death in 1924.</p>
<p>Clues to what motivated Levvy’s lifelong dedication to the humane movement are found in The Daily Telegraph of Tuesday 30 January 1906. There, the reporter describes Levvy in ways that map onto ideas emergent at the time that women’s apparently natural propensity to nurture in the private sphere could spill into the public arena and contribute to social progress. </p>
<p>Levvy is painted as having:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a gentle, persuasive manner … intensely in earnest in her whole-hearted and disinterested wish to save our dumb [sic] friends from ill-treatment … the right woman in the right place. It is so eminently a woman’s work which she has undertaken, to inculcate gentleness and kindness in the hearts of the children of our city … </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When <a href="https://bit.ly/36mQONH">asked by the reporter</a> if she thought animals have souls, Levvy replied:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It seems to me that it is not at all improbable. There is an evident wish to believe it. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘Loving friend of dumb animals’</h2>
<p>Over several decades, Levvy effectively harnessed the printed word’s power to influence how animals were treated. She developed and edited a monthly periodical, The Band of Mercy and Humane Journal (1887–1923), which inspired offshoots such as The Band of Mercy Advocate (1887–1891).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300397/original/file-20191106-88394-1c5mtk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first edition of the Band of Mercy Advocate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">to come</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Levvy was equally adept at building community networks, and coalitions and defying moral strictures regarding the public conduct expected of “ladies”. As one report on her work (replete with deeply gendered and class-based assumptions) noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The draymen and vanmen at the wharves and the drivers at the cab stands are regularly visited by this loving friend of dumb animals, from whom they receive copies of the Band of Mercy journal. This paves the way for a little general conversation on the subject of kindness to animals, and then some particular instance is … [introduced]; a horse has gone lame or has a sore shoulder, which should be dressed with a decoction of tannin — or the flies are stinging and worrying, and it is suggested that … pennyroyal added to a pint of olive oil should be passed lightly over the horses to secure their immunity from this pest. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300396/original/file-20191106-88382-rdzgko.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A horse carriage with rider, Sydney, Australia, 1924.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stock photo ID: 1065147264, uploaded 8 November 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It has been suggested that Levvy’s “greatest capacity was for writing” and my own research shows that an astute use of the periodical press ensured her work was known and supported. The editors of Boston’s The Woman’s Journal, wrote glowingly of her work in 1888, noting her journal provided “a place of record for the good deeds done”. In 1906, it described the journal as having “the distinction of being the first newspaper of the kind in Australia”.</p>
<p>The power of the press is worth stressing here, because it underpinned growing freedoms of speech and capacities to challenge the status quo that Levvy tapped into. Debates in the press around animal protection touched on fashion (and its relationship to prescriptive forms of femininity and consumerism) and sport (with its association with betting).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300415/original/file-20191106-88414-129wbwj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">S.T. Gill, Kangaroo Hunting, The Death, from his Australian Sketchbook (1865).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Library of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeing young people as agents of change</h2>
<p>In her writing and activism, Levvy often turned to children and, through them, to women — whose power she thought should extend from private to public spheres.</p>
<p>The 1906 report in The Daily Telegraph also describes how she gave lessons on animal protection at schools. She educated boys about the most humane method of transit of stock by rail, or training a colt to harness and saddle. And she set the following essay topics for mixed sex, upper level classes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Does civilisation in any way depend on possession of animals? Give reasons, state requirements, and value of poultry-keeping, incubator, food, incidental diseases. Is it suitable work for women and girls? Bee-keeping: Requirements and value. Hives, honey-producing flowers, food in winter, etc. Is it suitable work for women and girls? Is the exhibition of wild animals in travelling menageries consistent with humanity? Give your reasons.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300426/original/file-20191106-88382-1va7jo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Six Wirths’ Circus elephants with their attendants and a Shetland pony cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge as part of a publicity stunt in 1932.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Levvy, herself, reflected in 1906 (in relation to her work on equine welfare):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The difference between now and twenty years ago … is most marked. It is hardly ever now that one sees a sore-backed, lame, miserable-looking horse in the streets. Look at the cab horses and cart horses, what fine, well-kept animals they are. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>After Levvy’s death on 24 November 1924, the former NSW Minister for Education, Joseph Carruthers, paid tribute to her and announced a school essay competition in her name. Internationally, the Bands of Mercy began to lose momentum between the world wars, and languished after 1945. Although <a href="https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/products/83132">Peter Chen has provided a detailed time-line of developments in animal welfare in Australia</a>, he does not record a date for when they ceased here. </p>
<p>Levvy was of her time. She was, for example, deeply immersed in the progressive, democratising, and evangelical impulses that marked the 19th century. </p>
<p>But she was, I think, also ahead of her time, being among those women who understood and used the power of the press for socially transformative ends, and who recognised that young people are not citizens in waiting but active and influential agents for change. </p>
<p>At a time when the treatment of both animals and children was often questionable, and often based on narrow ideas of them as property, her actions and ideas were quietly radical and highly effective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elaine Stratford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Born in 1831, at a time when animals were widely regarded as property, Frances Levvy used the power of the press and the passion of children to advocate for their welfare.Elaine Stratford, Professor, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1224022019-09-23T20:04:57Z2019-09-23T20:04:57ZHidden women of history: Leila Waddell, Australian violinist, philosopher of magic and fearless rebel<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293513/original/file-20190923-23784-x2l2ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C2%2C1845%2C2781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Leila Waddell performing during the Rites of Eleusis.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Leila Waddell (1880-1932) was a country girl from Bathurst, NSW, who entered the world stage as an acclaimed violinist - and left it having influenced magical practice into the 21st century.</p>
<p>Her early life focused on music. She studied violin and joined the Sydney music scene, teaching genteel girls at some of Sydney’s most prestigious schools. Her concert performances earned her a devoted following. She favoured composers such as <a href="https://www.wieniawski.com/life_and_creation.html">Wieniawski</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Vieuxtemps">Vieuxtemps</a>, and soon gained a reputation as one of Australia’s leading violinists.</p>
<p>Waddell left Australia as part of a touring orchestra in 1908, and found herself in London. Here she was introduced to New Zealand author (and cellist) <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/katherine-mansfield">Katherine Mansfield</a> at a concert. They became firm friends, and regulars in a Bohemian society centred around the Cafe Royal. </p>
<p>As well as musicians, poets and artists, the cafe attracted members of London’s magical orders. It was likely here that Wadell first met the magician Aleister Crowley, who liked to distribute samples of the hallucinogenic drug <a href="http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/peyote.asp">peyote</a> at parties. The meeting opened the door into another world.</p>
<h2>Sex, drugs and violins</h2>
<p>Within a short time Waddell and Crowley became lovers. Waddell began studying magic as part of Crowley’s order, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4">A .‘.A .’.</a> (Astrum Argentum), in which she was known as Sister Agatha. Crowley, however, called her Laylah, his Scarlet Woman. In his magical universe, the role of the Scarlet Woman was a sort of anti-Virgin Mary who transgressed the boundaries of feminine virtue by wallowing in excess. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290457/original/file-20190902-175673-3n1nyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photo of Leila Waddell on the cover of Crowley’s The Book of Lies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Waddell is often relegated to a character in Crowley’s life. But if we assess her life on its own terms, we see a brilliant musician, a philosopher of magic, and a rebel who was unafraid to take risks and be true to herself.</p>
<p>Crowley was experimenting with using sex in rituals. He was interested in how heightened emotions could be harnessed for magical outcomes, such as achieving transcendental states or summoning otherworldly beings.</p>
<p>The moment of orgasm, he believed, focused the magician’s will and increased their power. As a poet and playwright, Crowley was also exploring rituals as theatrical performances, where the audience were co-practitioners. </p>
<p>Crowley was entranced by Waddell’s musical prowess. Together, they began devising magical rituals which combined music, poetry and dance. The idea came about during a weekend at the house of Crowley’s disciple Guy Marston (who believed that married English women could be induced to masturbate by the sound of tom-tom drums).</p>
<p>Waddell’s extensive experience as a performer was a key part of bringing this idea to fruition. The result was the Rites of Eleusis: musical theatre redefining magic for the new era of <a href="https://www.mdc.edu/wolfson/academic/artsletters/art_philosophy/humanities/history_of_modernism.htm">modernism</a></p>
<h2>Democratising ecstasy</h2>
<p>The Rites had seven parts, each associated with a planet or celestial body. Waddell composed original music for them, as well as drawing on her favourite composers. The purpose was to enable the audience to attain spiritual ecstasy.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="100%" height="300" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/72865152&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true"></iframe>
<figcaption>Digital version of Waddell’s composition Thelema - a Tone Testament, by Phil Legard.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first performances were tested before small groups, enhanced by drug-laced “libations”. A journalist, describing Waddell’s playing, wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once again the figure took the violin, and played […] so beautifully, so gracefully, and with such intense feeling, that in very deed most of us experienced that Ecstasy which Crowley so earnestly seeks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In October 1910, the Rites were ready for the public. The venue was Caxton Hall in London. The audience was encouraged to dress in the appropriate colour for each Rite, such as violet for Jupiter, russet for Mars. </p>
<p>Waddell played her violin, Crowley’s disciple Victor Neuburg danced, and Crowley intoned his turgid paeans to the god Pan. The hall was in semi-darkness. The performances were filled with sexual symbolism, but no sex magic took place on stage.</p>
<p>The critics were not very kind to the public Rites of Eleusis, but most agreed Waddell’s virtuosity was a highlight. </p>
<h2>‘Consciousness exalted into music’</h2>
<p>The Great Beast and the Scarlet Woman had a prolific creative life. Both contributed to The Equinox, a publication devoted to Crowley’s circle. Other contributors included Katherine Mansfield, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/prichard-katharine-susannah-8112">Katherine Susannah Pritchard</a> and the Irish writer Frank Harris.</p>
<p>After the Rites of Eleusis, Crowley embarked on writing a book which many consider his most significant work. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123659.Magick">Magick: Liber ABA, Book 4</a> was a collaborative effort between Crowley, A.‘.A.’. member Mary Desti, and Waddell. In <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/chap19.htm">Part III</a>, they reflected on the lessons learnt from the Rites of Eleusis. </p>
<p>They concluded that an audience of initiates would more effectively channel magical power than the general public. As for the music, it should be composed specifically for the ritual - indicating that Waddell’s own compositions had hit the mark. The book was published in The Equinox in 1912.</p>
<p>Waddell booked a concert tour to the US. She had planned to buy her passage on the ill-fated Titanic, but just missed out on a ticket. Her narrow escape was widely reported in Australian newspapers. After completing this engagement, she returned to Europe to tour with the Ragged Ragtime Girls, a violin group managed by Crowley. She continued her magical studies in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_Templi_Orientis">Ordo Templi Orientis</a>, an order with a strong focus on sex magic.</p>
<h2>Revolution</h2>
<p>The First World War interrupted the idyll of sex, magic and music. Ireland was under British rule, and many Irish nationalists saw the war as an opportunity to fight for independence. As the daughter of <a href="https://www.dochara.com/the-irish/food-history/the-irish-potato-famine-1846-1850/">Irish famine</a> refugees, Waddell was sympathetic. In New York she joined a secret revolutionary group under the name of “L. Bathurst”. </p>
<p>Crowley arrived in New York in 1914, purportedly on a mission to discredit Germany by spreading absurd propaganda. This was the impetus for an extraordinary stunt.</p>
<p>At dawn on the morning of 3 July 1915, Waddell, Crowley and a party of Irish revolutionaries sailed down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty, with the intention of declaring Irish independence and war on England.</p>
<p>But the guards wouldn’t let them land. Crowley made an impassioned speech, which no-one could hear from the prow of the boat, then tore up his passport and threw it in the river. Waddell played the rebel anthem <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wearing_of_the_Green">The Wearing of the Green</a> to accompany the Declaration of Independence.</p>
<p>The following year the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising">Easter Rising</a>, an armed rebellion which aimed to overthrow English rule in Ireland, was brutally suppressed in Dublin. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290460/original/file-20190902-175663-1bpalyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1205&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aleister Crowley in the garments of the Ordo Templi Orientis in 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Crowley left New York for the West Coast, while Waddell continued to tour, write and socialise. She was friends with writers like Rebecca West and Theodore Dreiser, and regularly attended salons held by Frank Harris, who had not yet attained notoriety as the author of the sexually explicit <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_and_Loves">My Life and Loves</a>.</p>
<p>While touring US cities, she played lunch time concerts in factories, organised by the YMCA. The venues were barns, sheds, and gardens, and the audiences were mostly male migrant workers. The men sang along with the arias and would give her wildflower posies. She loved this experience and considered it the greatest work of her career.</p>
<p>Already a seasoned writer, Waddell came to wider notice with her memoir of Katherine Mansfield, who died in 1923. Details are murky, but it seems this led to contracts for a novel and a book of short stories with a London publisher. Crowley, meanwhile, had set up a magical Abbey in Sicily with his new Scarlet Woman. It was time to move on.</p>
<h2>Return to the Antipodes</h2>
<p>In 1924 Waddell returned to Australia as her father was very ill. The prodigal violinist was greeted enthusiastically, and quickly became immersed in concerts, touring, and radio appearances. She resumed her earlier career teaching violin to affluent schoolgirls. If Sydney society remembered her association with Crowley, dubbed “the wickedest man in the world” by the press, it did not dim their eagerness for her music.</p>
<p>However, soon she became ill herself from uterine cancer. Her books were never finished. She died in 1932 and was buried next to her parents in Sydney.</p>
<p>The Rites of Eleusis are still performed today by Crowleyites across the world, including the <a href="http://www.otoaustralia.org.au/">Ordo Templi Orientis</a> in Australia. In 2015, Wadell was celebrated as one of Bathurst’s favourite daughters at the town’s 200th anniversary. From country to city to world and other-world, her life was truly a magical journey.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Gorman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leila Waddell entered the world stage as an acclaimed violinist - and left it having influenced magical practice into the 21st century.Alice Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1225392019-09-11T20:06:41Z2019-09-11T20:06:41ZHidden women of history: Marau Ta'aroa, the Sydney-schooled ‘last Queen of Tahiti’<p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-prince-fatafehi-tuipelehake-1087278.html">Tongan Princes</a> to the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-masiofo-noue-tamasese-1533503.html">daughters of Sāmoan political leaders</a>, elite Australian schools have long been considered desirable locations for the children of high-ranking Pacific families. One such student was a young Tahitian named Joanna Marau Ta‘aroa who attended <a href="https://archivesonline.uow.edu.au/nodes/view/2269#idx13735">Sydney Ladies’ College</a> from 1869 to 1873.</p>
<p>While easily <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/29536822">“mistaken for a Spaniard”</a> on the streets of downtown Sydney, the young Marau was in fact the second youngest daughter of an aristocratic Tahitian mother, Ari‘i Taimai, and a wealthy Englishman of Jewish descent, Alexander Salmon. (The pair, who had married in 1842, had nine children, all of whom enjoyed a cosmopolitan upbringing, speaking English and being educated overseas.)</p>
<p>Although little is known about her time in Sydney, other than an abiding memory of ice-cold baths and unpleasant Australian mutton, Marau’s Australian education was cut short at the age of 14 when she was summoned home to marry Prince Ari‘i-aue. Her marriage to the alcoholic future king, who was some 22 years her senior, saw her written into the history books as “the last Queen of Tahiti”.</p>
<h2>An unhappy match</h2>
<p>By all accounts, Marau’s royal wedding was a spectacular affair, with a fusion of Polynesian and European style festivities continuing across Papeete, the Tahitian capital, for two days. However, unlike that of her parents, her marriage was far from a love match.</p>
<p>It was a strategic alliance between the Pōmare family – who had always struggled to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the Tahitian public – and her mother’s Teva dynasty, who were more readily recognised as the true holders of chiefly power and prestige.</p>
<p>But in Marau’s words, her husband’s behaviour “quickly became impossible to tolerate”. Allegedly suffering from syphilis, tuberculosis and occasionally pneumonia, the prince’s predilection for rum before noon was legendary. </p>
<p>Despite the kindness shown to her by his mother Queen Pōmare IV, palace life was far from happy for Marau. She found herself spending more and more time at her mother’s home in Papara, where she occupied herself reading, learning Tahitian embroidery and unravelling the secrets of her family’s land. </p>
<p>After the death of the Queen, she was briefly encouraged to return to her prince’s side to ascend the throne in September 1877. However, less than two years later, the now-Queen Marau accepted a royal pension of 300 francs per month and moved out permanently. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1433&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291381/original/file-20190908-175700-2tmwqn.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1433&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Marau, 1879, photographer unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collection du Musée de Tahiti et des îles – Te Fare Manaha</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Children shut out</h2>
<p>While the pair did not officially divorce until January 1888, from 1879 onward they would appear together only at official ceremonies where neither would talk to the other. However, Marau would not let these personal circumstances get in the way of living a life befitting of royalty. </p>
<p>In 1884 she took to Europe – without the King’s blessing – where she was “received and celebrated all over”, often finding herself in homes and palaces of elite Parisian families. Wearing old-style Tahitian dresses, Marau would attend the theatre most nights, where she revelled in the limelight as any 25-year-old guest of honour would do. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, back in Tahiti, her husband felt that press reports of his wife’s reception by the French political class “offended our dignity and insulted us as people”. This was perhaps a little rich coming from somebody who just four years earlier had ceded sovereignty over Tahiti and its dependencies to the French for a sizeable pension in return. (Famed American historian Henry Adams would write that he “now gets drunk on the proceeds, $12,000 a year”.)</p>
<p>For Queen Marau, the tip of the iceberg was the King’s refusal to recognise her two daughters, Teri‘i (born in 1879) and Takau (born in 1887), as his own.</p>
<p>Though they eventually took the Pōmare name – the third, Ernest, who arrived several months after the divorce proceedings, was never officially recognised – all three children were shut out of the royal inheritance. After Pōmare V’s refusal to recognise the third child, Marau famously snapped back that none of them belonged to him anyway. </p>
<h2>‘True old-goldishness’</h2>
<p>In the months preceding the death of Pomare V in June 1891, Queen Marau played host to Henry Adams and his artist-friend John La Farge. Bored and growing increasingly critical of colonial Papeete, the pair’s fortunes changed upon meeting Marau and her brother Tati Salmon at Papara. Of Marau, Adams wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If she was once handsome, certainly her beauty is not what attracts men now. What she has is a face strongly marked and decidedly intelligent, with a sub-expression of recklessness, or true old-goldishness … One feels the hundred generations of chiefs who are in her, without one commoner except the late Salmon, her deceased parent. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Finding her “still showy, very intelligent, musical, deep in native legends and history, and quite energetic”, Marau became the perfect conduit between Adams and her ageing mother. In turn, this enabled the pair to work on the production of the <a href="http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/marua/title.html">Memoirs of Arii Tamai (1901)</a>. A history of pre-colonial Tahiti from the perspective of the Teva family, it is now regarded as a canonical text in Tahitian ethnography.</p>
<h2>A dominant public figure</h2>
<p>With most scholars tending to lose interest in Marau’s life at this point, it would be tempting to end our story here with the Queen living out the rest of her years “hard-up” on a measly government pension. </p>
<p>But the reality was that she remained a dominant public figure until her death in February 1935.</p>
<p>When massive phosphate deposits were discovered on the nearby island of Makatea in 1907, Marau frustrated the progress of an Anglo-French consortium by using her influence to sign contracts with local landowners, despite knowing she lacked the means to exploit the mineral herself.</p>
<p>While the intervention netted her a tidy payment of 75,000 francs and an ongoing royalty of 37 and a half centimes per ton of phosphate extracted, victory was even sweeter as the man behind the phosphate operation was her ex-husband’s lawyer, Auguste Goupil, chief architect of the plan to write her children out of their royal inheritance. </p>
<p>Finally, just as the stories of Ari‘i Taimai were collected and written down by a younger, energetic Marau, her own daughter Takau did the same for her mother in her dotage (eventually published in 1971 as <a href="https://books.openedition.org/sdo/227?lang=en">Memoires de Marau Taaroa</a>). As modern and tumultuous as her life may have been, the <em>Memoires</em> also portrays someone who never lost her grounding in ancient Tahitian culture. </p>
<p>Nothing reflects this better than Marau’s grand tomb at Uranie cemetery just outside of Papeete. Her tomb, taking the form of the grand Teva-family <em>marae</em>, <a href="https://www.tahitiheritage.pf/marae-mahaiatea-papara/">Mahaiatea</a>, it is a tribute to one of Tahiti’s greatest cultural and spiritual monuments.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291378/original/file-20190908-175710-1p49iua.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tomb of Queen Marau, Uranie Cemetery, Tahiti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Nicholas Hoare, 2018</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This monument to the Tahitian god ‘Oro, consecrated by the famous <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/tupaia">Tupaia</a> between 1766-8, had been destroyed in 1865 by a European planter in order to construct a bridge. The bridge itself was soon washed away by flood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122539/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Hoare receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship . </span></em></p>She left Sydney Ladies’ College at 14 to marry an alcoholic future king. But the life of Queen Marau deserves to be written outside the shadow of her royal husband.Nicholas Hoare, PhD Candidate in Pacific History, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1201582019-08-13T20:15:32Z2019-08-13T20:15:32ZHidden women of history: Eleanor Anne Ormerod, the self taught agricultural entomologist who tasted a live newt<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287310/original/file-20190808-144883-13jfgr6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1912%2C2653&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>Insects have always been intimately connected with agriculture. Pest insects can cause <a href="http://www.agriculture.gov.au/pests-diseases-weeds/locusts/about/history#locusts-as-pests">tremendous damage</a>, while helpful insects like <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080915122725.htm">pollinators</a> and predators provide free services. The relatively young field of agricultural entomology uses knowledge of insect ecology and behaviour to help farmers protect their crops.</p>
<p>One of the most influential agricultural entomologists in history was an insatiably curious and fiercely independent woman named Eleanor Anne Ormerod. Although she lacked formal scientific training, Ormerod would eventually be hailed as the “Protectress of British Agriculture”. </p>
<p>Eleanor was born in 1828 to a wealthy British family. She did not attend school and was instead tutored by her mother on subjects thought to increase her marriageability: languages, drawing and music. </p>
<p>Like most modern entomologists, Eleanor’s interest in insects started when she was a child. In her <a href="https://archive.org/details/eleanorormerodll00ormerich/page/n9">autobiography</a>, she tells of how she once spent hours observing water bugs swimming in a small glass. When one of the insects was injured, it was immediately consumed by the others. </p>
<p>Shocked, Eleanor hurried to tell her father about what she had seen but he dismissed her observations. Eleanor writes that while her family tolerated her interest in science, they were not particularly supportive of it.</p>
<p>Securing an advantageous marriage was supposed to be the primary goal of wealthy young women in Eleanor’s day. But her father was reclusive and disliked socialising; as a result, the family didn’t have the social connections needed to secure marriages for the children. Of Ormerod’s three sisters, none would marry. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287308/original/file-20190808-144878-1l22gtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=737&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ormerod as a young woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Ormerod daughters were relatively fortunate; their father gave them enough money to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Their status as wealthy unmarried women gave them the freedom to pursue their interests free from domestic responsibilities and the demands of husbands or fathers. For Eleanor, this meant time to indulge her scientific curiosity.</p>
<h2>Foaming at the mouth</h2>
<p>Ormerod’s first scientific publication was about the poisonous secretions of the Triton newt. After testing the poison’s effects on an unfortunate cat, she decided to test it on herself by putting the tail of a live newt into her mouth. The unpleasant effects – which included foaming at the mouth, oral convulsions and a headache – were all carefully described in her <a href="https://www.caudata.org/triturus/ormerod.html">paper</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=215&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287315/original/file-20190808-144878-12w34an.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Triton newt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Omerod’s first foray into agricultural entomology came in 1868, when the Royal Horticultural Society asked for help creating a collection of insects both helpful and harmful to British agriculture. She enthusiastically answered the call and spent the next decade collecting and identifying insects on the society’s behalf. </p>
<p>In the process, she developed specialist skills in insect identification, behaviour and ecology. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-flos-greig-australias-first-female-lawyer-and-early-innovator-119990">Hidden women of history: Flos Greig, Australia’s first female lawyer and early innovator</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>During her insect-collecting trips, Ormerod spoke with farmers who told her of their many and varied pest problems. She realised that farmers were in need of science-based advice for protecting their crops from insect pests.</p>
<p>Yet most professional entomologists of the time were focused on the collection and classification of insects; they had little interest in applying their knowledge to agriculture. Ormerod decided to fill the vacant role of “agricultural entomologist” herself.</p>
<p>In 1877, Ormerod self-published the first of what was to become a series of 22 <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/45536#page/12/mode/1up">annual reports</a> that provided guidelines for the control of insect pests in a variety of crops. Each pest was described in detail including particulars of its appearance, behaviour and ecology. The reports were aimed at farmers and were written in an easy-to-read style. </p>
<h2>An early form of crowdsourcing</h2>
<p>Ormerod wanted to create a resource that would help farmers all over Britain. She quickly realised this task would require more information than she could possibly collect on her own. So Ormerod turned to an early version of crowdsourcing to obtain data. </p>
<p>She circulated questionnaires throughout the countryside asking farmers about the pests they observed, and the pest control remedies they had tried.</p>
<p>Whenever possible, she conducted experiments or made observations to confirm information she received from her network of farmers. Each of her reports combined her own work with that of the farmers and labourers she corresponded with. The resulting reports cemented Ormerod’s reputation.</p>
<p>Ormerod was invited to give lectures at colleges and institutes throughout Britain. She lent her expertise to pest problems in places as far afield as New Zealand, the West Indies and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Descriptions-Injurious-Insects-Africa-Identifications/dp/1163759996">South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>In recognition of her service, she was awarded an honorary law degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1900 - the first women in the university’s history to receive the honour. Such was her fame that acclaimed author Virginia Woolf later wrote a <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/miss-ormerod/oclc/40148951">fictionalised account</a> of Ormerod’s life called Miss Ormerod.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=876&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287314/original/file-20190808-144855-waaxp4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1100&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virginia Woolf wrote a book about Ormerod.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While she undoubtedly contributed to the rise of agricultural entomology as a scientific field, Ormerod’s legacy is complicated by her vocal support of a dangerous insecticide known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_green">Paris Green</a>. Paris Green was an arsenic-derived compound initially used as a paint (hence the name).</p>
<p>Although Paris Green was used extensively in North America, it was relatively unheard of in Britain. Ormerod made it her mission to introduce this new advance to British farmers. So strongly did she believe in its crop-saving power, she joked about wanting the words, “She brought Paris Green to Britain,” engraved on her tombstone. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287311/original/file-20190808-144843-bjh53s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tin of Paris Green paint.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, Paris Green is a “broad spectrum” insecticide that kills most insects, including pollinators and predators. The loss of predators in the crop ecosystem gives free rein to pests, creating a vicious cycle of dependence on chemical insecticides. </p>
<p>Paris Green also has serious human health impacts, some of which were recognised even in Ormerod’s day. The fact that arsenic was a <a href="https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/an-everyday-poison">common ingredient</a> in all manner of products - including medicines - may partly explain why Ormerod seems to have underestimated the danger of Paris Green to human and environmental health.</p>
<p>Ormerod’s steadfast promotion of Paris Green seems naïve in retrospect. But the late 1800’s was a time of tremendous optimism about the power of science to solve the world’s problems. </p>
<p>Paris Green and other insecticides allowed farmers to cheaply and effectively protect their crops – and thus their livelihoods. In fact, less than 50 years after Ormerod’s death, chemist Paul Muller won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT">infamous (and environmentally catastrophic) insecticide DDT. </a> When viewed in light of the “pesticide optimism” of her time, Ormerod’s enthusiasm about Paris Green is easier to understand.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Ormerod wasn’t just an insecticide evangelist. Her reports gave recommendations for a variety of pest control methods such as the use of exclusion nets and the manual removal of pests. These and other environmentally friendly techniques now form the core of modern “integrated pest management”, the gold standard for effective and sustainable pest control.</p>
<p>Eleanor Ormerod was devoted to the cause of protecting agriculture at a time when few “serious” entomologists were interested in applying their knowledge to agriculture. She recognised that progress in agricultural entomology could only happen when entomologists worked in close partnership with farmers.</p>
<p>She continued working and lecturing to within weeks of her death in 1901; in all of her years of service, she was never paid.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120158/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tanya Latty receives funding from the Australian Research Council, The Branco Weiss Foundation and AgriFutures Australia. She is affiliated with The Australian Entomological Society.
</span></em></p>One of the most influential agricultural entomologists in history was an insatiably curious and fiercely independent woman named Eleanor Anne Ormerod. She never went to school - nor was she paid for her work.Tanya Latty, Senior Lecturer, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.