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thatched roof and a floor from crushed anthills, making a cool house in hot weather but damp in the infrequent rain.
Cooking was done in a camp oven under a bush shelter. It was seven months before Isabelle Price saw another
white person other than her children, a man who came to shear the sheep. At the same time he taught 14-year-old
Pearl to shear, a skill she continued to use with good effect. When we consider the conditions under which this
small droving feat was completed, and the initial establishment of her bush home, this lone women, Isabelle Price,
surely deserves a place in Australia’s pastoral history.
Her relations with the small group of local Aborigines were mutually friendly and supportive. When she
suffered acute pain from a scorpion bite on the foot, one of the Aboriginal men made a hot mud plaster and
bound her foot, replacing the poultice throughout the night until the pain eased. The Aboriginal children were
her own children’s only playmates. Crows, particularly when the ewes were lambing, proved more troublesome
than dingoes, but these were not the only sheep killers. One day an Aboriginal shepherd ran to the house with the
alarming news that a bull camel (probably on heat) was running sheep down and trampling them to death. As Pearl
later told the story: ‘Mother could not climb a tree and an Aborigine could not use the gun so the task fell to me.
I rode my horse out to where the camel was feeding, and without dismounting tied my horse to a fairly tall mulga
which I climbed from its back. I then waited for the camel to come over to the horse. I think I fired about six shots
into it before it staggered off and fell. Afraid that it might get up and come at me, I got back on my horse and
galloped off. When we got back some time later it was dead. So life went on.’
Due to lime dust in the wool, Isabelle Price sold Harper’s Springs in 1926 and moved west to the second block.
Good rains enabled the family to camp with the sheep in different areas until Isabelle was confident that the best
place to build a permanent home was beside the only well on the block. She named it ‘Woola Downs’ as sheep
were the first introduced animals to graze its grass and herbage. Mail could be collected from Stirling Station at
six-week intervals, a horse ride of at least two days’ return. Flour, tea, sugar and onions (potatoes would not keep)
were the basic supplies purchased. The Aborigines taught the Prices the value of good bush tucker, which with
onions, prevented scurvy.
The new house was an improved version of the first one as it had a large tent under the thatch in the bedroom!
The goatherd, now quite large, provided not only meat and milk but also goatskins to cover the crushed anthill
impacted floor. As noted in the 1933 Pastoral Inspection, goatskins mats on ant bed or stone slate floors were
almost universal in the homesteads of the Alice Springs Pastoral District. Two homesteads, only, had any timber
flooring! The greatest improvement at Woola Downs was the semi-detached kitchen with a wood-burning stove
installed in a galvanised iron chimney. By 1927, Isabelle Price had almost 3 000 sheep. The wool was transported
to Oodnadatta by Afghan pack camels. Alf and Ron had turned 14 and 12 respectively and by then Alf was doing
a man’s work. The boys sank three more wells on Woola Downs, of which each had a distinct medicinal quality,
aptly named ‘Walk’, ‘Trot’ and ‘Gallop’.
First Pearl, then Mollie, married and left home, leaving Alf and Ron to assist their mother. However, the problems
associated with the need to shepherd and yard sheep finally induced Isabelle to sell the sheep and restock with
cattle. Meanwhile the improvements made to the house by Alf and Ron were evident in the 1933 Pastoral Report
on Woola Downs: ‘Isabelle Violet Price first ran sheep, now 309 cattle.
HOUSE 24 feet by 12, ant-bed brick construction of two rooms with 8 by 12ft. rough stone walls room at end.
A 9 ft. foot verandah at front and 8ft. foot verandah at back. Ant-bed floor throughout, and 9 foot roof on bush
frame.
The buildings are very primitive. The Lessee is a widow with two sons, struggling to make a start, the building
is in keeping with her position. They are weatherproof. Estimated value, Sixty Pounds.’
After the outbreak of war in 1939 Alf enlisted in the Army, and months later Ron was killed in a car accident.
In 1940, the courageous Isabelle Price sold Woola Downs and retired to Alice Springs. In 1946, to further her
children’s education, Pearl moved to Adelaide. The following year, her mother moved from Alice Springs to live
in Woodville, an Adelaide suburb. Not surprisingly, Isabelle Price, whose rare affinity with the bush was such
that she never spoke of loneliness, now experienced loneliness in the city. In 1954, she made her last move to live
with Pearl. She died in 1957 at the age of 80. Isabelle Price is buried with her husband, and two of their first three
children, in the Payneham Cemetery.
Australian Archives, Northern Territory Office; Price family records and information provided by P Powell.
GRAEME BUCKNALL, Vol 2.PURKISS, LEONARD HUNTER (LEN) (1900–1965), miner and politician, was born at Ebor, New South
Wales, son of William Alfred Purkiss, who worked in the insurance industry, and Harriet Sophia Emily Purkiss,
nee Mowle. He married Amelia Cranston in Sydney about 1923 and there were two daughters of the marriage.
He worked in the mines at Lithgow, New South Wales before coming to the Territory in 1946 to settle in Tennant
Creek. Like most residents of the day, he held a number of mining leases, among which were the Maple Leaf and
Black Cat mines.
Purkiss was first elected to the Northern Territory Legislative Council as the member for Tennant Creek on
28 April 1951. By the time the elections were held on 20 February 1960 the electorate name had been changed
to Barkly. As might have been expected he was a Labor member, a lifetime supporter, and a great personal friend
of J B Chifley. Purkiss was one of six rebel members (the others Paddy Carroll, Tiger Brennan, Bill Petrick,
Dick Ward and Neil Hargrave) who resigned from the Council in 1958 to protest against the government’s failure
to grant constitutional reforms. Concessions were made shortly afterwards. More than any other member, he was
responsible for the passage of legislation to licence betting shops in the Northern Territory. He introduced the Bill