 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Mathinna
The Aborininal girl after whom the town was named
(Painting by Thomas Bock)
Hight Street, Mathinna
1890s
The beauty of the Mathinna area is portrayed in the famous Mathinna Falls
Mathinna
Most of the towns, properties,
mountains and land marks in the Fingal Valley were given names by the
early settlers that related to their homeland, with the Irish theme being
the most dominant. Two towns, however, both of which were established
and became famous after gold was discovered in the area, ended up with
Aboriginal names.
The first to feel the influx of some 500 prospectors in 1852 was The Nook,
later to be given the name Mangana after the Aboriginal words Mangana
Lienta which was their way of describing the South Esk River.
Soon after gold was found at Mangana, a second and larger find was discovered
20 or so kilometers north at Mathinna. This find led to the opening of
the Golden Gate mine, which once established, became the second largest
gold producing mine in Tasmania after the Tasmanian mine at Beaconsfield.
The town too grew and with around 300 men per shift working at the Golden
Gate in the latter part of the 1800s, Mathinna was, for a time, the third
largest town in Tasmania.
But it is the name Mathinna that I believe has more significance than
the history of the town itself. It reminds us of a time in Tasmania history
that no one should be proud of. It is also a time we should never forget
so that the ignorant acts of our ancestors will not be repeated.
Mathinna was a beautiful Aboriginal girl born at Wybalenna on Flinders
Island in 1835 after her parents and the rest of their South West tribe
were rounded up by George Augustus Robertson two years earlier. He was
under orders from Governor George Arthur to relocate all Aboriginals from
Van Diemens Land to the Bass Strait Island so they would cause no more
trouble to the settlers.
Mary, or Mathinna as she was later renamed by Europeans, was taken from
her parents as a baby and sent to live with a school teacher as part of
a policy to educate Aboriginal children in white ways as early as possible.
In 1838, the then Governor of Van Diemens Land, Sir John Franklin and
his wife Lady Jane, visited the Aboriginal settlement at Wybalenna where
they were entertained with dance and song and in return gave out presents
of knives, handkerchiefs, beads and marbles. They also arranged for the
pretty, young child, Mathinna, to be sent to Hobart where she would become
part of their household at Government House.
All of a sudden Mathinna was part of the Hobart upper-class. She rode
in the carriage with Lady Jane, shared a governess with Eleanor, the Franklin’s
daughter. Lady Jane even had convict artist, Thomas Bock, paint Mathinna’s
portrait while dressed in her favourite red dress.
But alas, her time of being the apple in many a European’s eye at Government
house was short lived, in 1843 the Franklins returned to England without
Mathinna. She was sent to the Queen’s Orphan School in Hobart where she
was totally different from the other girls and completely unaccepted by
her fellow students. She was soon sent back to Flinders Island and again
taken in by a school master. Her people at Wybalenna were dying, however,
disease, loneliness and sheer broken hearts had almost wiped them out
and Mathinna returned, once again, to Hobart and Queen’s Orphan School.
By this time the school had become overcrowded and disease ridden, with
many dying of scarlet fever. Hunger and unjust punishment were everyday
occurrences and at the age of sixteen, when Mathinna was able to leave
the school, she was given another setback when she went to live with a
group of her people at an Aboriginal settlement at Oyster Cove. Here again
she found the same situation as at Wybalenna, her people were dying at
an alarming rate and dwindling to extinction.
Mathinna had no choice but to get caught up in the devastating way of
life forced onto her people by the white man and in no time she was selling
her body for alcohol and enough food just to survive. Her end, at the
age of just 21, was as tragic as hundreds who had come before her. One
dark night, in a drunkard state, she fell into the water and was drowned.
The township of Mathinna in now only a shadow of its 1800’s hay days,
but it is blessed to have such a lovely name, which stands as a symbol
to a beautiful young lady born into a wonderful race of people, whose
misfortune, it appears, was the arrogance of the Nineteenth Century Van
Diemens Land aristocracy.
Jim Haas
Golden Gate Gold Mine at Mathinna.
Towards the Nineteenth Century Mathinna was the third largest town in
Tasmania after
Hobart and Launceton