by Linda Banks
Amy’s father, John Norton Oxley, was born at ‘Kirkham’ in 1824 and baptised by Rev. Samuel Marsden. John was only four when his father died, so with wider family help, John and his brother, Henry, were educated at King’s School, Parramatta. After a three-year visit with their mother to England and Europe to ‘complete’ their education, John threw himself into developing the property while retaining large blocks of land in and around Bowral to the south. Unfortunately, for him, the discovery of gold in the 1850s saw an exponential rise in the cost of labour, making farming increasingly unprofitable. The spread of rust disease also made it impossible to grow wheat in the district, rendering the new expensive mill almost worthless. John also suffered a crippling personal loss at this time. His first wife Ann and newborn child both died within a few days of each other. Through his involvement as churchwarden at St Paul’s Cobbitty, John met and married Harriet Jane Hassall. They were married in February 1854 by the rector (her father), Rev. Thomas Hassall.4
1.3 John Norton and Harriet Oxley.
Thomas Hassall (1794–1868) grew up in a missionary family, first in Tahiti and then in Sydney. When trouble broke out in Tahiti, Rev. Samuel Marsden opened up his home to the Hassalls and then helped them settle on a farm nearby. From an early age, Thomas displayed the gifts of an educator and evangelist. He started the first Sunday School in Australia in his parents’ home in 1813. After theological training back in England, he became Marsden’s curate at Parramatta and married his eldest daughter, Anne. In 1827, Thomas became rector of the Cowpastures parish, which extended 130 miles to the south from Camden. He became known as ‘the galloping parson’ because of his regular trips on horseback around the area. He and Anne raised their eight children on their farm ‘Denbigh’, not far from ‘Kirkham’. Thomas supervised the building of first Heber Chapel and later St Paul’s Church at Cobbitty.5
1.4 St Paul’s Church, Cobbitty.
In 1856, John Oxley was elected as the representative of Camden West in the first parliament of New South Wales. Although he succeeded in passing some progressive legislation on rail gauges, because this was unpopular with own constituency he never sought re-election. Through his political connections, John was appointed a magistrate, and always interested in new technology, he supported initiatives for the first Sydney to Parramatta railway line.6
Life at ‘Kirkham’ very much reflected upper middle-class Victorian values and routines. Harriet organised the domestic duties and children’s education, especially as John was often away on business.7 A live-in tutor taught the school-age children the basic subjects connected to ‘reading writing and arithmetic’, history and geography. Activities like swimming, riding and shooting, as well as calisthenics, rounded out the curriculum. Popular games of the time like skipping, jacks and marbles, Oranges and Lemons and What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? were all considered worthwhile educational play. The girls learned the piano and singing. Duets were a favourite pastime for friends and visitors, and occasionally their mother, playing harmonium, accompanied them. By making doll’s clothes, they were also taught to darn, sew and knit. A girl learned ‘a skill with her needle and the art of cutting out, which will be valuable in her future years.’8
Daily routines at ‘Kirkham’ sought to naturally integrate the Christian faith into the children’s lives. Morning and evening prayers and Bible reading were part of their everyday experience. Involvement in the life of their local church, St Paul’s Cobbitty, was a highlight of the week. There were also Sunday gatherings at ‘Denbigh’, the nearby Hassall family home, where their grandmother Anne, matriarch of the whole clan, lived. Lunch together was full of engrossing stories about life in Yorkshire, early colonial days and extensive missionary exploits by various branches of the family.
Amy’s family often socialised with important people who had homes in the Camden area. These included the Premier of New South Wales, Sir Charles Cowper, his wife Eliza and the MacArthur family, who were leading graziers in the colony.9 The extended family had strong social contacts with other significant figures like the Blaxlands and Wentworths, Bishop and Mrs Barker, and missionaries returning from fascinating places like Foochow. At the other end of the social scale, there were also opportunities to meet with Aborigines who were intermittently employed on the property. On one occasion there was a corroboree involving 400 participants.
1.5 ‘Camelot’, on the Kirkham estate, in the late nineteenth century.
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After years of financial uncertainty, in 1870 John reluctantly decided to put most of his property on the market. As Harriet had written to her sister Marianne some time before, ‘John owes a great deal of money … and really there seems very little chance of him paying it back for some years.’10 The sale took some time. Meanwhile John searched for a place to live nearer Sydney. Through a business contact, he learned that Samuel Bennett, owner of The Evening News and the Australian Town and Country Journal, had two houses in Glebe, just over two miles from the city, one of which, ‘Willow Lodge’, was available for rent.
Amy enjoyed moving into a house with a basement and a second storey. It was a handsome property, built on stone foundations, with brick walls, a slate roof, an elegant verandah and a small front garden. Inside there were eight apartments that had previously accommodated several adults, domestic servants and occasional guests. For John, its closeness to the city made it easier to pursue some of his ventures, and for the children it was only a short boat ride to Hunters Hill, where their grandmother Emma now lived.
Though John still had a number of assets after selling the Kirkham estate, such as the mill he built, for the most part he continued to be cash poor. As Harriet had to manage the household expenses, she was more conscious of their financial situation. However, the size and location of ‘Willow Lodge’ opened up a new prospect for raising money, offering ‘genteel’ accommodation for short- and longer-term lodgers. It would be up to Harriet to manage this – besides looking after a new baby, Beatrice Marsden, and five other children still at home. In one of her letters to her sister during the family’s first year at Glebe, Harriet wrote that earning a regular income from this venture was difficult. Lodgers often came and went for short stays and occasionally there were none at all. To maximise the number of tenants she could take in the busiest periods, Harriet arranged for her sons, Fred and Arthur, to stay at the Oxley home at Hunters Hill.
An amusing family anecdote about Amy as a five-year-old, in August 1873, described her delight in receiving a shirred dress from her grandmother, then playing dress-ups in the parlour with her younger sister Beattie. Harriet describes this to her sister as ‘the old family failing to dress well and look good.’ On a more serious note, Harriet also writes that lodgers in the house had all left because Amy had contracted scarlet fever and they were afraid of its highly contagious, life-threatening consequences. This early brush with disease and doctors was Amy’s introduction to sickness and medicine, something that would become a lifetime focus.
At the start of 1875, a new world opened up for Amy. Instead of staying at home, she was now old enough to attend school. Despite his reduced income, John remained keen for his children to get a good education. As hiring a tutor was now too expensive, he looked for the best school in the neighbourhood. The obvious choice was Glebe Public School. As the first educational institution in the area, it was already gaining a reputation for being progressive. The school was within walking distance and easily accessible by foot or public carriage. Attending school for the first time was quite an experience. It was a large neo-Gothic building with sheltered verandahs and generous windows. Inside it was more daunting, with unheated classrooms and uncomfortable benches. The number of students was at first overwhelming, though because attendance was not yet compulsory and diseases were often rampant, many were regularly absent. As the school year had only two terms, one in autumn and one in winter, Amy could still spend half of every year at home helping her mother or making visits to members of the wider fa
mily, especially her Aunt Lizzie in Parramatta. In one of these off-seasons, her Aunt Marianne and cousin Isabel visited Sydney from Geelong in Victoria. Initially they stayed at ‘Willow Lodge’, where the two girls discovered they had much in common. In the following years their friendship developed by letter as well as through other visits of Marianne – sometimes with Isabel – to Sydney.11
By the late 1870s, convict transportation and British military presence had finally ended. Although Queen Victoria’s dominant reign had lasted nearly half a century, Australia was developing a more confident pride in its own identity. Every state now had its own elected parliament, and the first moves were being made towards federation of the separate colonies. The eight-hour day had been introduced in Victoria, and significant industries were beginning to develop. Technological innovations, such as incandescent light bulbs, cash registers, antiseptic medical treatments and the first overseas telegraph messages, were making an appearance. In sport, the Melbourne Cup was becoming a national obsession and cricket tests between Australian and England a regular event.
In late 1879, planning began for Australia’s first large-scale exhibitions for commerce and industry. John Oxley was appointed Superintendent of the Machinery and Agricultural Hall for the upcoming Sydney International Exhibition. This was held at the Garden Palace, an impressive cathedral-like building at the entrance to the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Domain. This appointment not only helped the family budget by providing a regular income but, at its conclusion, honoured his administrative and entrepreneurial skills with ‘an address, two gold watches, a purse of sovereigns and a silver table service.’12 The exhibition also connected him with many like-minded people and led to his being elected a judge and steward during the early development of the Agricultural Society of New South Wales.
In the wake of the NSW Public Instruction Act of 1880 – making school attendance compulsory and creating a uniform curriculum – Amy’s year became part of a separate Superior School preparing some students, especially boys, to study at nearby Sydney University. Though it was now possible for girls to apply, it would seem this was something Amy did not have in mind. When, around this time, she was invited to train as a pupil-teacher in the school, she did not even have to consider her response. Most teachers in schools were trained this way. In their mid-teens, students who showed promise of becoming teachers were asked if they would take part in a year-long course. While they were learning on the job, these trainees assisted a teacher in the classroom. Many of those who completed this training immediately became full-time teachers.
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Early in 1883, 85-year-old Grannie Emma fell and broke her thigh at ‘Molesworth’, her two-storey sandstone mansion overlooking Sydney Harbour in Hunters Hill.13 For many years, this breathtakingly beautiful spot had been a holiday retreat for various members of the family, Amy included. Emma enjoyed having the children stay and help with her garden, cows and chickens. This major setback for Emma, who up till now ‘was always active and endowed with a good constitution’, helped John and Harriet to finally make up their minds about moving from ‘Willow Lodge’ to Hunters Hill.14 This would free up Harriet to help care for her mother-in-law and John, her now only surviving son, to help her maintain the estate.
For the growing children it was an idyllic move. They had always loved watching the passing boats and now they could do this daily. As Amy’s older sister, Molly, wrote during this time:
This is a most delightful place. The view is simply perfect. When in Harbour the ‘Men of War’ were just beneath us … Grannie has brought out her opera glasses and we may have them – on the condition that we put them away – we are all learning the flags. The Flagstaff is opposite us across the water: there is so much to be seen that I quite tire of running up the stairs to see the ships and flags. I just get to the bottom when there is a cry of ‘ship’, so up we scramble again. I have just been watching the ‘Northampton’ and the mail steamer ‘City of New York’, they look so pretty, but I pity the poor creatures a few hours hence’.15
Originally Hunters Hill was a village separated by water from the main areas of settlement, but now it was increasingly becoming a suburb of the city. While two bridges opened up a circuitous route between these, the quickest way of getting to town was by steam ferry. A typical morning routine is humorously described by one of the residents. When the 8am steamer was sighted, a bell rang loudly near the wharf.
Then the residents living up and back of the Hill fastened up their bootlaces, and started their daily sprint. The catching of this steamer was then an essential to those with a business or profession in Sydney – the long-distance residents knew their speed capacity to a fraction.16
As well as one of the Oxleys, another passenger mentioned was the famous Australian poet ‘Banjo’ Paterson.
Sadly, in 1885, Emma Norton Oxley died, aged 87. Members of the family gathered from near and far to mark her passing. Her funeral and burial at St Anne’s Ryde was a significant occasion. Amy and her siblings had learned much about life and faith from this beloved and cultured lady.
Whether it was in their DNA from their grandfather, John Oxley, or whether it was because of their visits to Hunters Hill with its views of Sydney Harbour, all Amy’s brothers and sisters enjoyed sailing. In fact, rowing had become one of her favourite pastimes. As a newspaper reports, Amy belonged to a team that was coached by her father.
An interesting contest took place on Saturday last, when on the Parramatta River six rowing matches were conducted over a course of half a mile and a good quarter-mile for each of the other events with ladies taking part in each race. In March 1886, the third of a series of similar matches took place in which Miss Amy Oxley was the animating spirit. Her father, John Oxley, then resided at Hunters Hill, and did much to encourage rowing amongst ladies. In the race of 20 March, when the course was over Tarburn Creek, Parramatta River … Miss A. Oxley was cox.17
For Amy, 1886 was a year of decision. She had now been a pupil-teacher for four years and had enjoyed the challenge of learning to communicate with children, especially with the slower learners. However, she realised that unless something was done to reduce the impact of disease and poverty, any benefit from a good education would be seriously diminished. To put it in the language of our day, she became interested in working with the ‘whole’ person.
A couple of years earlier, not far from the school, the Sydney Hospital for Sick Children had opened up on Glebe Point Road. Its new style of paediatric care seemed to combine both teaching and nursing. Amy had an interest in things medical, harking back to childhood memories of scarlet fever. Now 18, she applied to start nursing training the following autumn. In early November Amy learned she had been accepted, and she wrote immediately to her Aunt Marianne to ask if it was possible to spend the next few months on their ‘Darriwill’ farm. She had made a brief visit there with her father the year before, and this would give her more opportunity to be with her closest cousin as well as prepare for the exciting possibilities that lay ahead.
CHAPTER 2
Signals of China Calling (1887–1895)
For the Oxley family, trips to ‘Darriwill’ were always an exciting adventure. They involved catching a steamer down the coast to Melbourne, staying overnight with relatives, travelling just over an hour by train to Geelong and then being driven by horse and buggy to the homestead. ‘Darriwill’ was owned by Amy’s uncle and aunt, George and Marianne Hope. Built in 1856 on 4500 acres, the house was now a single-storey, 70-square, bluestone residence with 14 principal bedrooms, overlooking an ornamental pond, expansive lawns and well-established gardens. On the property were sheep yards, shearing sheds, paddocks for grazing cattle, a coach house and stables, as well as an established winery. When George Hope died in 1884, leaving Marianne and her six children to run the estate, probate showed his combined assets to be worth more than $8,000,000 in today’s terms.1
At ‘Darriwill’ Amy enjoyed riding, swimming and even shootin
g. This extended stay also gave her more time with Isabel, whom in later letters she often referred to as ‘my own dear Captain’ and described herself as ‘your second mate.’ 2 Sailing was not the only thing they shared in common. As young people, both had committed themselves to follow Christ and were interested in the wider world beyond Australia.3 From her childhood, Amy had heard about missionaries through her family and had been particularly challenged by the work of her great grandfather, Samuel Marsden, among the Maoris. Attending St Barnabas’ Church, Glebe (now Broadway), had encouraged her to see teaching and nursing as God-given work, and this desire had been recently stirred up again as she considered her future.
The daily routine at ‘Darriwill’ was never dull. It was bookended by morning and evening prayers and readings that, according to Amy’s second cousin, Australian historian Manning Clark, were attended by the entire household, including the servants.4 During this longer visit, Amy ‘worked for her keep’ by acting as a driver for her Aunt Marianne and helping to improve the tennis court. She enjoyed taking part in a variety of interdenominational meetings held in the district, some at ‘Darriwill’ itself. Aunt Marianne was very hospitable and made ‘Darriwill’ a haven for visiting Christian workers needing a rest, with regular ‘parlour meetings’ on Sundays. On her nineteenth birthday, 13 January 1887, Amy received a card from her Aunt Lizzie. Its contents encouraged her to visit her friend Rev. H.B. Macartney at St Mary’s Church, Caulfield, when she was next in Melbourne, to consider serving as a missionary nurse overseas.
From her earliest days at ‘Denbigh’, Eliza (Lizzie) Marsden Hassall (1834–1917) helped her father Thomas and her brother, James, in their ministries. She helped supervise the Sunday School at Heber Chapel and the building of St Paul’s Church, Cobbitty. Never marrying, she managed the large estate and even learned winemaking. When her father died in 1868, Eliza moved with her mother to Parramatta and cared for her until Anne’s death. From the age of 21, she was deeply involved in the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1880 she started the first Australian branch of the Young People’s Scripture Union, only a year after it was founded in London. Within a decade, her boundless energy and people skills helped it grow to 12,000 members across 300 branches.5