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Mary Jane was very involved in community activities particularly those connected with the church. One of
her favourite causes was the Wesleyan church organ fund. An accomplished organist herself, she performed in
fundraising concerts at the Town Hall. In 1895, at the age of 31, she became one of the 82 Territory women who
enrolled to vote after the franchise was granted to South Australian and Territory women in 1894. Along with the
other enrolled Territory women, she had her first opportunity to vote on 2 May 1896.
When the January 1897 cyclone devastated Palmerston, she and her husband and young daughter spent a
terrifying night sheltering with the Foelsche and Stevens families in the one dry room of the cable company’s
headquarters on the Esplanade. (Mary Jane’s sister, Rosie, married H W H Stevens.)
Two months after the birth of their second daughter, Rita, the Andrews family took six months’ leave in the
south, returning to Palmerston late in 1900. Over the next nine years Mary Jane was actively involved in the
Palmerston Rifle Club, various musical performances, church functions and services and helped pioneer the
Agricultural and Horticultural Society, at whose shows she often exhibited. She also attended fancy dress parties
and ‘book title’ parties, usually in a creative costume of some kind. Mary Jane was also involved in instigating
euchre competitions—a popular card game of the time. For many years, Mary Jane and her two daughters made
an annual visit by train to Pine Creek for a holiday. One of these holidays prompted the newspaper to suggest that
as her husband was the Railway Superintendent perhaps he would be able to arrange for special excursion fares
during the cool season to Pine Creek and thus enable many more Port Darwin residents to escape from their daily
surroundings and enjoy a holiday to the ‘little wayback township’.
The family left the Territory in July 1909 when William transferred back to South Australia and a more
temperate climate. The community held a farewell progressive euchre party for them with the ladies’ prize being
an electroplated vase. In 1911 another transfer took the family to Peterborough, South Australia.
Mary Jane died on 19 May 1932 at Mosley Street, Glenelg having been predeceased by her husband who died
of a seizure in February 1924 leaving her an estate of 2 400 Pounds. Mary Jane is buried in the Church of England
section of North Road cemetery in Adelaide with her husband and members of his family. Both her daughters
were living when she died and she left them equal shares in her estate as long as both remained unmarried.
If either daughter married, everything was to go to the unmarried daughter and if both married, it was to be divided
equally. Dorothy Charlotte died unmarried on 27 February 1971 in Adelaide. She was cremated at Centennial
Park. Rita Campbell Andrews married Albert Rodney Cook on 10 December 1938 and she died, aged 91,
on 20 October 1993. The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory received several important pieces
from her estate. One is a large silver tray with the inscription ‘Palmerston Archery Club Champion Prize Season
1888 Won by Mary Foelsche’. There is also a gold watch inscribed ‘presented to Mary Andrews by the Wesleyan
Church Port Darwin in recognition of her services as organist’.
B James, Occupation Citizen, 1995; personal research notes.
BARBARA JAMES, Vol 3.
ANDREWS, WILLIAM WALLACE (1860–1924), railway engineer, was born in South Australia in 1860,
son of William Buckton Andrews, an Anglican clergyman who had emigrated from Essex, England, in 1854.
At the age of 16 Andrews became a cadet surveyor and engineer and spent six years in the United States working
on the construction and maintenance of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line, a line later to become famous as
the title of a hit song. He joined the South Australian railways on his return to Australia and came to Palmerston
(then Darwin) to join the Palmerston to Pine Creek railway as Chief Engineer in 1889. In 1891 after he saw to the
repair of the line after some unusual flooding he was presented with a gold watch by the community as a token
of their esteem for his efforts. On 2 December 1892 he was promoted to be Superintendent of the Territory line.
He had a reputation of being rather pious, however, and apparently had a ‘swear list’ of unacceptable words and if
any of his workers used them they were fined.
On 22 October 1892 he married in Adelaide Mary Jane Foelsche, daughter of Paul Foelsche and they returned
to the Territory in February 1893, the local press commenting on the marriage and his promotion that ‘the new
super will come back to us with something more than a mere official claim on the place’.
He was a community minded man and much involved in the town’s activities. He was a good marksman with
the Port Darwin Rifle Club and he also played tennis. He was prominent in the organising committee for the visit
of the Governor of South Australia, Lord Kintore, in 1891. He served as Vice President of the Palmerston Institute
(then the library) and helped to see that library books were sent by rail to the Brocks Creek branch. He also served
as Vice President of the Palmerston Debating Society and performed with the Dingo Glee Club. As a prominent
public servant he often sat on juries. With his father in law, Paul Foelsche, he is thought to have been one of the
original group who formed the Port Darwin Masonic Lodge in 1902; he was installed as Worshipful Master of the
Lodge in 1902.
When the South Australian government was making plans to erect lighthouses to watch over Northern Territory
waters he accompanied the Territory Member of Parliament, V L Solomon, to inspect the site of Charles Point
in 1893. He also accompanied Justice Herbert and the South Australian Governor, Sir George Le Hunte, on a
visit to the Daly River aboard the steam yacht White Star in 1905 and inspected the lighthouses at Cape Don and
Cape Hotham in 1908.
In 1908 he was transferred to the Gawler–Angaston line in South Australia and he and his family left the
Territory in July 1909. The European and Chinese community presented him with a purse of sovereigns to ‘purchase
a piece of silver plate suitably inscribed’ and he also received a presentation from the tennis club of which he was
secretary. He was later promoted to the position of Assistant Engineer for Railway Construction, a position he held