Death of a
Pioneer
[Text from obituary written by Jan Hindmarsh (uncredited) in the local paper, The Guardian News, 21 January 1966]
[Text from obituary written by Jan Hindmarsh (uncredited) in the local paper, The Guardian News, 21 January 1966]
Mrs Selina Anne Morrison, a pioneer of the North Coast, whose memories included such notables as Sir Henry Parkes and Ned Kelly, died last month [1966] in the Macksville Hospital at the age of 88.
Many district residents will remember Mrs. Morrison as the mother of a family well respected in business and civic activities of Macksville, as a one-time president of the Ladies’ Show Committee and as an active supporter of the Church of England and a member of its Women’s Guild.
Not many are aware of her role in the opening of this and other parts of the State to civilization and progress. Not many realise the hardships that women such as she endured that we might enjoy our present standard of living.
PARKES
On May 6, 1877, when the coaches of Cobb and Co. were still a familiar sight on the dusty roads of the west, the then Selina Anne Pritchard was born in Parkes, the eighth child and only daughter of William George Pritchard and his [first] wife, Mary Ann Nash.
Following the death of her mother, she spent most of her childhood in a convent, that being considered, in the Victorian rigidity of the day to be the only proper way to rear a motherless girl.
Mrs Morrison often recalled her early life in Parkes; her memories of the Kelly girls, particularly Kate, on her frequent visits to town, and the legend that was already springing up about her more notorious brother. She never knew the infamous Ned, but, like the Man from Snowy River, his name in Parkes in those days was a household word.
Another familiar sight to the little girl was the white-bearded figure of five-times Premier, Sir Henry Parkes, after whom the town has been named.
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| 1. William George Pritchard with his first wife, Mary Ann Nash. 2. Selina with her father William George Pritchard and her stepmother/sister-in-law Elizabeth (Morrison) Pritchard. Selina referred to Elizabeth as "Auntie Lizzie". William George married Elizabeth Morrison in 1892 then Selina married Elizabeth's brother Alexander in 1895. |
At the age of 17, she married Alexander Morrison the son of John Fisher Morrison and his wife, Mary Ann Shaw at St George’s Church of England, Parkes, on February 19, 1895.
The new Mrs Morrison settled down in Parkes to bear a family of nine children, two of whom died in infancy. The remaining seven children she raised amidst constant moves and under conditions and privations difficult to imagine today. As her husband was a gold miner, the family’s many places of habitation depended on the availability of work in the mines.
The gold fever had subsided many years before, the alluvial gold had all been claimed and by the late 19th and early 20th centuries work on the goldfields was both difficult and dangerous. In those days in the mines, work and wages were precarious, there being no guarantee of the stability of either, and after five of their first seven children had survived the limited medical knowledge of the day, fresh fields of labour had to be sought elsewhere.
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| Back row: Alex Jnr, Selina, Myra, Alexander, Rene Front row: Ethel, Eva, Alma |
WYALONG
The journey to Wyalong, a long and arduous one by steam train and sulky, was only the beginning of many such moves with little breathing space in between as work was sought first on one goldfield then another. At Wyalong, the family moved into a wattle and daub hut with dirt floors; the source of milk for the growing family was a goat kept and milked by Mrs Morrison, and in these surroundings, the two youngest children were born.
The main forms of entertainment were magic lantern slides and a phonograph, the forerunner of the gramophone which used cylindrical records.
In mining areas, water had to be not only carried to the house, but softened before it could be used even for washing. Rearing children in the dust, flies and heat was a precarious occupation and infant mortality from what was then known as “wasting disease of the bowels” was extremely high. Wet sheets had to be hung on windows and doors to collect dust, cool the house and keep down disease.
HUSBAND’S ILL HEALTH
By the outbreak of the Great War, it was discovered that Mr
Morrison had contracted silicosis and continued work in the mines was out of
the question. He became a ganger on the railways, a position which
necessitated many more moves for his wife and family as the arteries of
transport stretched ever farther up and down the coast.
At Scarborough, where he was employed on the construction of
the duplication of the Illawarra line, Mrs Morrison had the task of turning a
tent into a home for her husband and seven children. Again, water had to be carried and bread had to be baked daily
in a camp oven. The company of married women was scarce and there was none
other capable of catering for the 30 men employed on the railway. Work on the railways was only a little less hazardous than
work in the mines and a near-fatal accident to Mr Morrison in his weakened
state of health added another burden to the responsibilities already being
carried by his wife.
COFFS HARBOUR
Following Mr Morrison’s recovery, work was obtained on the Naughton [sic] and Griffith railway then being laid north of Coffs Harbour.
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| Norton and Griffith railway construction - 1915-17 - timber used for sleepers all hand hewn |
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| Norton and Griffith railway construction - 1915-17 - Crowbars, picks, shovels, dynamite. Darkie the horse with trolley to take dirt, rock etc to tip at end of track |
The journey to Coffs Harbour was made on the old coastal
steamer, Fitzroy, and from the jetty
to Coramba by sulky and dray. At various places between Coffs Harbour and Glenreagh, life
for Mrs Morrison continued in much the same vein and with much the same
exactitude as at Scarborough.
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Building the train line. Note the workers' bark huts behind the track. |
The most permanent form of accommodation they had was a bark hut housing the camp oven and cooking facilities plus a tent or two forming other rooms. Water still had to be carried, bread had to be baked, dampers cooked, and still the workers catered for. Sugar and flour were bought in 70lb bags, and, without ice chest or other form of refrigeration, perishables in the food line had to be brought by dray every other day from the nearest settlement.
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| Morrison home at Nana Glen. Photo taken on the day the family left for Sydney on the Newrebar. Sleeping tents have been taken down. The dining area and cooking galley remain. The cloth above Selina's head is the door. |
It was while at the Orange Trees one day that the police
arrived to arrest the two foreigners camped over the road, one of whom was the
brother of the captain of the German cruiser Emden. Memories of the exploits and capture of Emden were still
vivid, and in the tension of the times the captain’s brother was considered a
notorious and dangerous spy.
SYDNEY
In 1917 railway finances petered out at Nana Glen. All work
ceased and the family again returned to Sydney. By 1918 Mr Morrison’s health was such that he could no
longer be engaged in heavy work and the numbers of men returning from the war
did not make the position any easier. There was no invalid pension and the older members of the
family had to support their younger brother and sisters. They had not been long at Glebe Point in the comparative
comfort of facilities provided for city life when the pneumonic ‘flu reached
Sydney.
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| The Morrison family at Lombard Street Glebe |
By careful supervision in applying stringent health
regulations, Mrs Morrison helped her family survive the menace of the plague,
only to have their relief at the end of it shattered by the death of the eldest
married daughter in childbirth.
Because of Mr Morrison’s failing health and his attachment
to his daughter they left the house in Glebe with its associations with death
and moved out to Arncliffe. Here, just three months after the loss of her
daughter, Mrs Morrison lost her husband.
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| Selina at Arncliffe in 1922 |
MACKSVILLE
With the death of their father in 1920, responsibility for
the family’s welfare fell to the eldest son, who was by then a qualified motor
mechanic. He came to Macksville in 1922 to work for Mr Arthur Long, who then
had a garage in Cooper Street, where the B.G.F. Store is now. He subsequently
established his own garage on the site of Reedy’s Café and Gunn’s Dry Cleaning
and brought the family to Macksville in 1925.
Macksville, in 1925 was a far cry from the flourishing town of
today. When Mrs Morrison and her family moved into a flat above
Reid and Fotheringham’s building in River Street, the town’s electricity supply
came from Mr Mick Moran’s picture theatre and could be used only on picture
nights. There was no bridge – a punt crossed the river at the corner of River
and Princess Street where the approach still exists.
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| Construction of the traffic bridge at Macksville that replaced the punt. Pictured: Emily Joseph, Alma Hindmarsh and Mea Hindmarsh |
ACTIVE SUPPORTER
Mrs Morrison was one of those women who realizing their
civic responsibility, worked ceaselessly and tirelessly for anything which
would foster the progress of the town or any part of it in which they believed.
She was an active supporter of the Church of England and a
member of its Women’s Guild, and as such was a tireless worker for anything to
which her church called her, be it catering for balls or functions, bazaars,
street stalls, church cleaning or flower arranging. Even when age decreased her activity, she still made pot
holders and tea cosies for bazaars and stalls.
Mrs Morrison worked too for the Queen competition which
raised the astounding sum of £700 for the town’s first baths which were
established in the river opposite Reid and Fotheringham’s store. As a member of the A. and H. Ladies Auxiliary of which she
was a one-time president, Mrs Morrison joined the women who catered for the
Society’s needs in the days when the Showground was on the site of the High
School. They laboured under a tin roof with no facilities, never
knowing for how many they would be catering nor how much they would have to
cater with.
Now that death has claimed her, not only her family, but the
district and the State have lost a pioneer.
Selina with grandchildren, Jan, Ian and Marlene.
Selina Morrison
Nana Reid Honey (Lillian Maud Fotheringham) and
Nana Morrison (Selina Ann Pritchard)
Selina in Alec's car
FITTING SERVICE
The simplicity and dignity of the Church of England funeral service was a
fitting summary to an active yet simple life – a life not of extraordinary
deeds, but of ordinary duties done extraordinarily well.
Her six surviving children attended her funeral as also did
a good representation of her twenty-one grandchildren. Her pall bearers were three grandsons and one by marriage,
and the organ was played by a granddaughter who chose the simple hymns which
had guided Mrs Morrison’s life. Mrs Morrison also leaves 19 great-grandchildren.
Sons and daughters who survive her are Rene (Mrs H C Hahn)
Macksville; Alex, Macksville; Eva (Mrs Brown) Sydney; Alma (Mrs F McPhillips) Nambucca
Heads; Ethel (Mrs W C Reid) Macksville; and John, Macksville.
Funeral arrangements were by Bernard Laverty.
Source: The Guardian News, 21 January 1966.
Original and restored headstone on Selina's grave
Source: The Guardian News, 21 January 1966.
