Australia’s “mission girl”

Blue Mountains Historical Society

Public Meeting and Talk – Saturday 5 November

On Saturday 5 November 2022, the Blue Mountains Historical Society will hold its next public meeting and talk commencing at 10.30am at the History Research Rooms at 99 Blaxland Road, Wentworth Falls.

Our speaker, Dr Catherine Bishop, will share with her audience the story of Annie Lock, Australia’s “mission girl”

In 2012 Dr Bishop completed a PhD in history at the Australian National University, Canberra, studying the lives of businesswomen in Sydney and Wellington New Zealand.

In 2015, Dr Bishop published some of her PhD research as the book “Minding Her Own Business: Colonial businesswomen in Sydney”.  The following year, it won the Ashurst Business Literature Prize. In 2016, she was the Australian Religious History Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales. The same year she won the Australian Women’s History Network Mary Bennett prize and received a New Zealand History Trust Award to help fund her research for her second book, “Women Mean Business: Colonial businesswomen in New Zealand”.

In 2019, she was a visiting fellow at Northumbria University, England. From 2019 to 2021 she had a postdoctoral fellowship at Macquarie University and is working on research into Australian businesswomen since 1880.

Come along on Saturday and learn all about Annie Lock, a faith missionary, who fought with Daisy Bates, met the Duke of Gloucester and inspired R.M. Williams. She was shipwrecked in a pearling lugger, drove a buggy 200 miles across desert to escape drought, produced Christmas puddings in 40-degree heat, nursed sore-ridden children, hit headlines for supposedly being ‘Happy to Marry a Black’, and pronounced on Aboriginal culture and policy with erratic spelling but genuine conviction.

Tea and coffee are available for a gold-coin donation from 9.45 am. Entry to the talk is free to members, $5.00 for non-members.