Dear Fanny: Women’s letters to and from New South Wales, 1788-1857 / Chosen and introduced by Helen Heney.

213 Pages·1985·25.158 MB·English

by  Helen Heney

Dear Fanny
This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991.
This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried
out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press.
This project aims to make past scholarly works published
by The Australian National University available to
a global audience under its open-access policy.
To the memory of my Mother, Grandfather, Father and
Brother, who gave me a sense of continuity of the past
(1837-1982)
Other books
The Chinese Camellia (1950)
The Proud Lady (1951)
Dark Moon (1953)
This Quiet Dust (1956)
In a Dark Glass: the Story of Paul Edmund Strzelecki (1961)
The Leaping Blaze (1962)
Australia’s Founding Mothers (1978)
Dear Fanny
Women’s letters to and jrom New South Wales,
1788-1857
Chosen and introduced
by
Helen Heney
H
Australian National University Press
A Division of Pergamon Press Australia
^ LIBRARY ^
Australian National University Press is a division of Pergamon Press Australia
and a member of the Pergamon Coup of Companies.
AUSTRALIA Pergamon Press (Australia) Pty Ltd, 19a Boundary
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UK. Pergamon Press Ltd, Headington Hill Hall,
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FEDERAL REPUBLIC Pergamon Press GmbH, 6242 Kronberg-Tanus,
OF GERMANY Hammerweg 6, Postfach 1305, Federal Republic of
Germany
First published in Australia 1985 by the Australian
National University Press.
Copyright © 1985 Helen Heney
Cover design by Barry Jones
Typeset in Australia by The Typographers
Printed in Australia by Macarthur Press.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing in
Publication Data
Dear Fanny
Includes index.
ISBN 0 08 029876 1 h
1. Women — Australia — History — Sources.
1. Heney, Helen, 1907 —
305.4'2'0994
Library of Congress No. 84-71360
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise
without the prior permission of Pergamon Press
(Australia) Pty Ltd.
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Foreword xiii
1 A First Fleet Convict Tells the Press 1
2 A Voice from the ‘Floating Brothel’ 2
3 Elizabeth Macarthur, the ‘Happy Pioneer’ 4
4 Mary Talbot to her Patron in England 6
5 The Romantic Bride 8
6 A Request for Money from Parramatta 9
7 Elizabeth Macarthur Puts Down Roots 9
8 Samuel Marsden’s Homesick Bride 10
9 The Rev. Richard Cobbold Introduces
Margaret Catchpole 14
10 Sarah Bird Begins her New Life 16
11 The Anxious Mrs Paterson 17
12 Enter the Real Margaret Catchpole 20
13 An Elderly Pioneer has Qualms before Sailing 22
14 Margaret Catchpole from her ‘Place of Banishment’ 23
15 Like a Great Tiger ... 25
16 Eliza Kent Joins the Rush for Exotic Birds 26
17 Mrs Macarthur Tells Piper of the Irish Rising 27
18 Another Side to D’Arcy Wentworth 29
19 Eliza Kent to Piper on Norfolk Island 30
20 Compassion Makes Strange Bedfellows 31
21 Mrsjennett Evans to Governor King 31
22 An Ex-convict Describes the Colony 33
23 Mrs Macarthur Expresses Forebodings 34
24 Bligh’s Daughter Adds her Version 35
25 Mrs Macarthur to Piper on Norfolk Island 37
26 Mrs Wills to Mrs Harding 37
27 Margaret Catchpole Chronicles Yet Another Flood 39
28 Macquarie and the Augean Stables 39
29 Mary Ann Shears to the Father of her Sons 46
30 The Ageing Margaret Catchpole to her Uncle,
William Howes 47
31 The Rev. Richard Cobbold Gives Free Range to
his Imagination 49
v
32 The Great Success Story: Mary Reibey’s
Business Style 50
33 Ann Chapman Seeks an Assigned Servant 51
34 Mrs Macarthur, Alone Again, to Piper 51
35 Mrs Macquarie Underestimates the Opposition 53
36 Background to the Hassalls: Elizabeth Hassall to
a Spiritual Sister 53
37 Mrs Macarthur on Life at Elizabeth Farm and
Aboriginal Attacks, and Elizabeth jnr 56
Describes her own Preoccupations with the
Native People 57
38 Eliza Bent to Macquarie and the Honours of War
Paid in Cash 58
39 . . . an Honest Livelihood 60
40 The Parson’s Postbag 60
41 An Assigned Convict to her Employer, or a
Scandal Made Public 65
42 The Slightly Improbable Sarah Thornton 66
43 Cloven, Not Crested: Eliza Walsh Stands for
Sex Equality in 1821 67
44 The Embarrassments of an Employer 69
45 Elizabeth Macarthur to Miss Kingdon 69
46 Elizabeth Mitchell Presents a Conundrum to the
Colonial Secretary 71
47 Poor Sally Henry (Mrs William Bland) 72
48 The Patient Griseldas 75
49 Janet Ranken to her Sister-in-law 77
50 New Light on a First Fleet Prisoner 77
51 Sarah Lawson to her Son 79
52 Christiana Blomfield and her Mother,
Christiana Brooks, of Denham Court 79
53 Ann (Mrs Anthony) Hordern to her Mother 85
54 Eliza Bent to Piper, or Resentment Recollected 86
55 The Children Left Behind: Lucretia Hely and
Priscilla Wemyss 88
56 One of Miss Makdougall’s Many Polite Notes 89
57 The Extraordinary Case of Mrs Edwards-Lockaye-
Low Key 90
58 Napoleon’s ‘Betsey’ in Sydney Society 91
59 Eliza Darling and the Dumaresqs 92
60 The Noun of Assembly is Macleay 99
61 Harriet King to her Husband, and Mary Lethbridge
to her Mother, Mrs King snr 102
62 Mrs Macarthur’s Darkening Scene 106
63 Mrs Macquarie Keeps in Touch 108
64 Miss Penelope Lucas to John Macarthur jnr
in London 1 10
vi
65 Elizabeth Cox and Mrs Mackenzie, to Mrs Piper
on a Wedding at Clarendon 111
66 Mrs Edye Manning Chats to her Mother-in-law 114
67 Lady Parry to her Mother, Lady Stanley 117
68 Mrs Fay Dies of a Broken Heart: Mrs Arlett to
her Son-in-law, Charles Lay 119
69 Sarah Wentworth Tells of her Father’s Death 120
70 Elizabeth Fry to Marsden on the Female Convicts 122
71 ‘Judge not . . Mrs Colina McLeod to her
Husband’s Boss 123
72 Elizabeth Tells Edward the End of the Story 124
73 Mrs Sarah Suttor to her Husband George 124
74 Blaxlands, Ritchies and Dowlings, a Lively Lot,
with an Echo from Lady Brisbane 125
75 Ann Gore to Friends in England 129
76 Eliza Darling has Definite Ideas about the Colony
and its Affairs 132
77 News of the Ryries, 1838 133
78 Anne Deas Thomson to Sir Richard Bourke 135
79 Mrs A.J. King to her English Cousins 137
80 Maria Radford Answers ‘Like the Frank Good Lady
as You Are’ 140
81 Mrs Dunlop: the Aborigines and the Press 141
82 The Vineyard Daughters Go North 142
83 The N.S.W. Carpet-baggers 147
84 Susan Spencer (nee Dowling) to her Brother,
James Sheen 152
85 Mary Ogilvie to her Daughter, Ellen Bundock 153
86 Elizabeth White Robertson Leaves an Incomplete
Record 155
87 The Widow D’s Story 157
88 In Defence of Mrs Reibey’s Social Status 158
89 Lady Gipps Tries to Set the Record Straight 160
90 Mrs Ann Baker to Eliza Camfield in England and
Maria Windeyer to her Son Willie in Sydney 161
91 A Garden Enclosed: Dame Magdalen Le Clerc and
Dame M. Scholastica Gregory to their Mother
Superior in England 165
92 The Death of Mrs Broughton Shows Eleanor
Stephen (nee Bedford) as Matron 168
93 News from an Overlander 169
94 A Refugee from the Germany of 1848 Describes
Australia to her Relatives at Home 170
95 The Non-Flickering Lamp: Elizabeth Macarthur
to Edward 171
96 Mrs Henry (later Lady) Parker, to her
Brother Edward 174
vii
97 Anne Hassall to her Son James >75
98 Lady Forbes Teils James Macarthur of her
Regrets over her ‘Overdelicacy’ 178
99 Mrs Lang Presents Compliments to Mr Parkes 180
100 Three Women Write from the South 181
101 Epilogue: Two Australians Look at the Old World 185
Index 189
Illustrations
Da-ring-ha, Colebee’s wife, by Thomas Wading 5
Elizabeth (Mrs Samuel) Marsden {nee Fristan)
in her wedding dress 11
Elizabeth Marsden in old age 11
Notice of Escape of Margaret Catchpole 15
Elizabeth (Mrs William) Paterson 18
Margaret Catchpole 20
Holograph letter from Ipswich gaol by Margaret Catchpole 21
Esther Abrahams (Mrs George Johnston), First Fleet convict 43
Mary Ann (Mrs John) Piper 47
Elizabeth (Mrs Rowland) Hassall 54
Dr Bland’s house 73
Christiana (Mrs Richard) Brooks, by Augustus Earle 81
Eliza (Lady) Darling with her children, by John Linnell 93
Elizabeth (Mrs Alexander) Macleay, after John Hopner 101
The King Family 103
Harriet Mary (Lady) Dowling 126
Anna Josepha (Mrs Philip Gidley) King 138
Anna Maria (Mrs Hannibal) Macarthur 143
Catherine (Mrs Patrick) Leslie 145
Emmie (Mrs George) Leslie 145
Annie (Mrs G.C.) Wickham 145
The Lowe home at Coogee 149
Government House, Parramatta, 1843 150
Mrs Mary Ogilvie 153
Maria (Mrs Richard) Windeyer 162
Elizabeth (Mrs John) Macarthur 172
Anne (Mrs Thomas) Hassall 176
The Prisoner of Gisore, sketch by Adelaide Ironside 187
viii
Preface
When I finished my first hook on Australian women, Australia 's Founding
Mothers, 1 found that I missed their company—those tough, cunning,
courageous and vulnerable pioneers whose basic purpose was survival.
And, like the amateur watchmender who found himself with one clock
and enough pieces for another, 1 had among my references some which
proved a gold mine, out of which I have tried to quarry an Australian ‘first’
—a collection of letters chosen from so rich a lode that I was forced to
limit myself arbitrarily to letters basically to and from women in New
South Wales and to a period as long as Victoria’s reign. In so doing 1 made
a discovery which made me extend it by two slightly later letters, which
rounded off the sequence.
Letters are a special branch of literature, and Australia still has much to
add to Rachel Henning’s unconscious masterpiece. So far as 1 know, there
is not yet a comprehensive anthology, so I did not have far to search for
material to include; indeed the real problem was the quantity that had to
be omitted. But this, I hope, will point the way for others to delve into the
big family records such as the Hassall Papers or the Darling-Dumaresq
Papers, not to mention the long years of Elizabeth Macarthur’s corres­
pondence with friends and relations and absent sons.
Letters are the most vivid form of writing, the expression of a need too
urgent to be suppressed. My writers, no matter by what passion they were
moved—love, hatred, spite, interest, excitement, wonder, revenge, or
simply an axe to grind—had to get their feelings on paper. No wonder the
result makes fascinating reading, from the first woman prisoner’s com­
plaint to the rapture of Adelaide Ironside discovering the artistic stimulus
of the old world and Elise Breton, onlooker at a private ball of Queen
Victoria, who found her most welcome compliment that of being recog­
nised as an Australian. In that short span of time—1788-1856—something
new had come into being; and here are the steps. These were the women
who put down roots and found a sense of identity—that comfort women
now seem in danger of losing.
Of the work itself, I am grateful to Patricia Croft for her skill in
shortening and compressing the introductions and references and explan­
ations that are intended to sketch the background of each letter and its
writer, so that the original writers make a stronger impact. To add still
more to this, I have left the letters untouched, with misspellings, word
omissions, and gaps where too frequent readings has turned a fold into a
tear, or too eager breaking of the seal has damaged the text; and above all,
1 have let stand the punctuation and capitalisation in use at the time.