Jump to content

Lucy Beeton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by LPascal (talk | contribs) at 05:56, 14 October 2021 (Sentence about news of her death.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Lucy Beeton (or Beadon; 14 May 1829 – 7 July 1886) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian schoolteacher and trader.

Early life and family

Beeton was born on Gun Carriage Island, part of the Furneaux Group in the eastern Bass Strait, in what was then the colony of Van Diemen's Land. She and her family also lived on Badger Island.[1]

Her father was Thomas Beeton,[a] who was descended from a London Jewish family and had been transported to Tasmania in 1817 after mutinying from the Royal Navy. After completing his sentence in 1824, he established himself as a sealer in Bass Strait.[2] He subsequently purchased an Aboriginal woman, known as Bet Smith, to be his wife. Bet Smith, whose Palawa name was Emmerenna, had been abducted from Cape Portland as a child by John Harrington, a sealer, and had been "claimed" by Thomas Tucker, another sealer, after Harrington's death in 1824, who then sold her to Beeton.[3]

In 1831, two years after Beeton was born, her father was forced to leave Gun Carriage Island so that George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines, could establish an Aboriginal-only settlement. However, Thomas Beeton then requested that his family be allowed to live with him, which was approved by the colony's Lieutenant-Governor, George Arthur. In the meantime, Robinson's settlement had been moved to Flinders Island, allowing the Beeton family to live on Gun Carriage Island. As Lucy Beeton grew older, she was taught by her father how to sail and do business, and was later sent to George Town and Launceston (on the Tasmanian mainland) to be tutored.[2]

Career and faith

During her education on mainland Tasmania, Beeton made friends with influential Church of England (now Anglican) clergy and with their help, she later established a school on both islands, petitioned the government to fund teachers and taught the local children herself.[1][4] She was respected for her faithful commitment to Christianity and for her leadership, teaching both religious and secular studies and was rewarded for her work as a teacher with a lifetime lease of Badger Island. [1] The Anglican Bishop of Tasmania, Francis Russell Nixon, wrote in 1854 that Beeton was a great lady, everyone's friend, and that she "daily gathers together the children of the sealers, and does her best to impart to them the rudiments both of secular and religious knowledge".[5]

She worked to reduce the effect of sealers preying on Bass Strait islanders and argued for compensation for Indigenous people who had been dispossessed of their lands.[2] In 1872 she invited Truganini to make her home on Badger Island but this offer was not taken up.[2]

Beeton was also well-known at the time as being a trader and businesswoman. She became known as the 'Queen of the Isles'.[6][7] In 1886 she owned her own cutter, "Bella Beeton" named after her neice, and sailed and traded in it with her brother Harry Beeton.[8] She later ran her own sheep and cattle station on Badger Island.[9] Stephen Murray-Smith called her, “the most notable personality produced by the second generation of islanders.”[10]

Lucy Beeton never married but lived with her brothers and niece in her homestead cottage on Badger Island where she welcomed many visitors and sang hymns for entrainment.[7][9] She died on Badger Island on 7 July 1886 and was buried there.[2] News of her death was brought to Launceston on the mainland on 12 July 1886 by someone who arrived on a boat from Badger Island.[11]

Legacy

Lucy Beeton Crescent in Bonner, Australian Capital Territory and the Lucy Beeton Aboriginal teacher scholarship at the University of Tasmania are named after her.[4][12]

A shell necklace made by her is held in the collection of the Tasmanian Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.[13][14]

Notes

  1. ^ Alternatively Baden, Beadon, or Beedon.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Biography - Lucy Beeton - Indigenous Australia". ia.anu.edu.au. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  2. ^ a b c d e Breen, Shayne (2005). "Beeton, Lucy (1829–1886)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
  3. ^ Nigel Prickett, "Trans-Tasman stories: Australian Aborigines in New Zealand sealing and shore whaling", in Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach, and Sue O'Connor (eds.), Terra Australis, vol. 29, June 2008, ANU Press, pp. 360–361
  4. ^ a b "Scholarships Info - University of Tasmania". Scholarships - University of Tasmania, Australia. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  5. ^ Melbourne, National Foundation for Australian Women and The University of. "Beeton, Lucy - Woman - The Australian Women's Register". www.womenaustralia.info. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  6. ^ ABC.Net from 2011
  7. ^ a b "VISIT TO THE ISLANDS IN BASS STRAITS, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT I SAW AND HEARD THERE". Launceston Examiner. 1883-03-31. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  8. ^ "(1886)". Trove. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  9. ^ a b "Letters to the Editor". Age. 1937-04-22. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  10. ^ Murray-Smith, Stephen (editor); Brownrigg, Marcus (1987). Mission to the islands; the missionary voyages in Bass Strait of Cannon Marcus Brownrigg, 1872-1885 (2nd ed.). Launceston: Foot & Playstead. p. xxvi. ISBN 0858530368. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  11. ^ "LAUNCESTON". Mercury. 1886-07-12. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  12. ^ "Geocortex Viewer for HTML5". app.actmapi.act.gov.au. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  13. ^ Xenith (2016-11-16). "Miss Beeton". Mistress of the Rough Seas. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  14. ^ "Shell Necklaces". www.utas.edu.au. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Lucy_Beeton&oldid=1049845298"