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the best part of my life has been spent in Australia and my wife and family are all natives of the colonies. The
reason I suppose is that the Government have to consider their pocket as well as others. Even yourself sir—your
servants are Chinese and you deal off a Chinaman because you get things from them the cheapest and I expect you
would not mind Chinese putting in a vote for you in the next Council elections.’
One of George’s main interests outside business was horse racing and reports of races again indicate the
segregation that existed in the community. For instance the account of a race in 1899, when Tye’s horse came
third, referred to the fact that the race could only be entered by ‘bona fide horses the property of the Chinese.’
The Tyes were also listed in the paper as donating money towards the Chinese Theatrical Company, with the
paper noting that ‘the Chinese Joss [would] send wealth to the country for giving such generous hearted people.’
George was also involved in some mining activity and was an extremely keen and talented gardener, making Tye’s
home an acknowledged showpiece in the community.
Meanwhile Jane Tye was making a much-respected name for herself in the Top End community. She frequently
acted as an interpreter in court cases involving Chinese, and was very faithful about placing annual ‘In Memoriam’
notices in the paper to commemorate the deaths of her brothers and mother. She was particularly well known,
however, as the Top End community’s best-loved and most skilled midwife, an expertise she had probably learned
from her mother.
Long term Territory resident Lily Ah Toy described the esteem in which Jane Tye was held when she was
interviewed for a book on Territory birth experiences in 1988: ‘The whole Chinese community, and others, trusted
her’. Another interviewee for the same book, Mary Agostini, said: ‘When you knew you were pregnant you got to
get a midwife early because she was always booked up... She delivered... most of the babies in the area. She was
the only reliable one.’ Nelly Fong recalled that ‘Granny Tye’ delivered all her brothers and sisters as well as herself.
‘She delivered us, and you know nothing sterilised or anything, just natural birth, and she never lost a baby yet...
wind, rain or shine, she’d be there.’ This latter phrase became the basis of the title of the book produced.
Granny Tye’s work destinations included such relatively remote areas as Borroloola, evidenced for instance in
1909 when the Northern Territory Times and Gazette reported she ‘was the only passenger for the McArthur River
by the steamer Nelson to fulfil an engagement as nurse at Borroloola.’ In 1913, the paper reported an ordeal she
had endured, along with a party of local men and women, when the motor launch on which they were enjoying an
afternoon at a nearby lighthouse got caught in ‘furious squalls’ off Two Fellow Creek. The party was forced to land
at an adjacent beach and camp there until the next morning.
When Jane Tye died in June 1934, the Darwin newspaper reported the esteem in which she was held:
‘Mrs Jane Elizabeth Tye, at the age of 65 years, after a long and painful illness which she bore uncomplainingly.
The late Mrs Tye was for almost 40 years a midwifery nurse in Darwin, and such was her skill in her profession that
she never lost a single case either of mother or child. No call to her for assistance went unheeded. On one occasion
she even journeyed as far as Borroloola in a small boat to bring succour to an expectant mother. Another call she
answered was to Cape Don Lighthouse, also made in a lugger. In the days before motor cars night calls almost
invariably meant walking, but rain or fine, for rich or poor, a call for nursing aid to Nurse Tye was unfailingly
responded to and many mothers scattered throughout the Northern Territory and further afield will shed a silent
tear at her passing. For many years before the establishment of the baby clinic Nurse Tye acted in an advisory
capacity to mothers. If baby was sick it was to Mrs Tye it was brought and the mother was instructed in its care and
treatment in the same way as is now given by the Matron in charge of the Baby Clinic. It can truthfully be said of
the deceased lady that she was one of Nature’s gentlewomen in the strictest sense of the word. Her long and useful
life was one of sacrifice and service, intermixed with kindness and generosity which she dispensed with open
hands and many of the poorer families will retain kindly memories of her and regret her demise.’
Her funeral was conducted in Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church and she was buried in the grave occupied
by her mother and brother in the old Palmerston Cemetery on Goyder Road. In 1992, she was still remembered
fondly by many of Darwin’s older women who had relied on her during their various birth experiences. Many of
her descendants still live in the Territory.
Rain or Shine She Walks Everywhere, 1988; personal research notes; family history notes.
BARBARA JAMES, Vol 2.