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tall—her spirit of adventure and personality would see her through. It took courage on Jeannie’s part to leave the
comforts of the city to venture into unknown land, although her husband would certainly have told her much about
it.
They arrived in Palmerston in mid January 1902—the middle of the wet season. When the men at Elsey Station
heard that the new manager was bringing a woman with him they tried everything they knew to stop her but
Jeannie would not be deterred. Her size seemed to have been in her favour and eventually she found her way into
their hearts. The trip from Palmerston to the Elsey took several weeks by train and buggy with many flooded rivers
to cross and she was being educated along the way. Not far from the homestead the head stockman suggested that
Jeannie should learn how to find water in case she should get lost in the bush. She replied that she would be all
right—she would just catch a cow and milk it—much to the delight of the listening men, who could visualise the
little woman trying to catch the wild cattle.
The men admired Jeannie’s courage and humour and her amazing lack of complaint won their approval.
Her training in gymnastics and horse-riding would have made her fit and hardy and her experiences as a teacher
of ‘young ladies’ would have aided her in managing the homestead with the help of the Aborigines whom she
learned to know and love. Jeannie took Bett-Bett, an abandoned little part-Aboriginal girl, into her home and later
immortalised her in a book, The Little Black Princess. Bett-Bett, later known as Dolly Bonson, eventually moved
to Darwin where she married and raised a family.
Professor Baldwin Spencer, speaking of the Aboriginal characters in Jeannie’s books, said that she had
understanding of the Aborigines to be able to write as she had, ‘with insight ; she certainly showed more interest
in them than did most white women of the time.
Jeannie settled very well into the station life at the Elsey and often accompanied Aeneas to the cattle camps.
Their companionship was shattered when, just after their first wedding anniversary, Aeneas died of malarial
dysentery. He was buried on the station. The men, who had tried so hard to stop Jeannie from coming into their
lives and had learned to love her, came to her assistance in her hour of need.
Jeannie was ill herself when she made the return trip to Palmerston, where her sister was waiting to accompany
her back to Hawthorn in Victoria. After she recovered Jeannie would entertain the children of her relatives with
stories about the Aborigines and people of the Elsey, and she was encouraged to write them down. She produced
two books, The Little Black Princess in 1905 and We of the Never Never in 1908. The contents came from letters
she had written to friends in the south, letters Aeneas had written to the newspapers and Jeannie’s wonderful
memory. In the freshness of marriage and without children to distract her she was able to notice and record minute
detail of Elsey Station life—the good, the bad, the happy, the sad—and the special magic that she saw in the
Territory. She attempted to show these things to the insulated populace of the southern states. Jeannie’s only other
literary production was a magazine article to celebrate Victoria’s centenary year. She did do some research for two
more books, one about an old Aboriginal man, John Terrick of Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, and the other a story
set in Monbulk, Victoria, but in both cases the work did not come to fruition.
Jeannie only spent one short year in the Northern Territory and after leaving it she would not return to visit,
although she did leave Victoria for three years shortly after her father’s death in 1909 to tour Europe. She preferred
to remember the Territory as it had been. In her books she tended to portray her characters as a little larger than
life. In the freshness of marriage perhaps things took on a rosy glow. In any case, Jeannie corresponded with her
friends in the north, and when any of them visited Victoria, she welcomed them into her home.
In later years Jeannie became involved with the Returned Services League (RSL) and helped in fund-raising
for disabled soldiers and their dependents. She was awarded certificates of Appreciation and Honour from the
RSL and the TB Soldiers and Soldiers Association of Victoria (1937 and 1938) as well as having been awarded
the King’s Coronation Medal in 1937. Then in 1939, at the age of 69, she was made an officer of the Order of the
British Empire (OBE) in recognition of her services to Australian Literature and to the disabled soldiers and their
dependants of two world wars.
Jeannie died in her sleep in 1961 at the grand old age of 91. She was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery
on 14 June 1961. She never remarried and had no children to survive her. Jeannie’s photographs are held in the
South Australian Archives.
J Gunn, We of the Never Never, 1983; J Gunn, Selections From the Little Black Princess, 1976; H T Linklater, Echoes of the Elsey Saga, 1981;
I Nesdale, The Little Missus, 1977; J L Rossiter, Notes on We of the Never Never, and The Little Black Princess, 1922; M Towie, ‘Little Black
Princess Lives’, Midweek Territorian, 9 April 1986.
JANET DICKINSON, Vol 1.
GUNTHER, AMELIA ALBERTINA: see KILIAN, AMELIA ALBERTINA
GURD, CHARLES HENRY (1920– ), medical practitioner, medical administrator and community organiser,
was born on 3 March 1920 at Bristol in the United Kingdom, the son of C H Gurd, merchant seaman, and his wife
Violet Susan, nee Coles.
His childhood was spent in Bristol during the Great Depression where poverty, disease and poor health in the
community influenced his desire to work in the health field. He was educated at Cotham Boys School in Bristol.
He qualified as a medical practitioner from the University of Bristol in 1943 with distinction in Pathology. He was
also awarded the Barrett Roue prize in Ophthalmology and the Hewer and Sanders prizes in Pathology.
Gurd’s war service consisted of over two years as the doctor on a troop ship, which visited such places as
Normandy, Russia, India, Africa and Singapore. In 1946 he joined the British Colonial Medical Service. He was
to remain in the Service until 1971. In 1949 he went to Africa where he remained until 1953, serving in public