Aboriginal woman

Truganini daughter
Louisa esmai
Full blood aboriginal

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Aboriginal Children at the Orphan Schools

Several Aboriginal children - most taken from their families at the Wybalenna Aboriginal establishment on Flinders Island - were admitted to the Orphan School in the 1830s and 1840s. Perhaps the most well-known are Mathinna; William (or Billy) Lanne; and Fanny Cochrane-Smith.
Fanny Cochrane-Smith (1834-1905) was born on Flinders Island. In December 1842, aged eight, she was admitted to the Queen's Orphan School simply as 'Fanny', and remained there until February 1843. She later lived at Oyster Cove with her mother and sister, Mary Anne. Fanny married William Smith in 1854 in Hobart and had a large family.

Mathinna was admitted (aged 8) in 1843 after three years of a privileged life at Government House as the social experiment of Lady Jane Franklin. She was taken back to Flinders Island in 1844, where she had been born in January 1835. Her parents had died during her years of absence. Her older sister, Teanic (believed to be Tina), had died (aged 3) at the Orphan School on 15 June 1835 and was buried at Holy Trinity. Aft

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MATHINNA TRAGEDY

MRS JONES DISCHARGED,

By TelograDh—Press Association —Copyr*gUi (Received August 28, 9.55 p.m.) HOBART, Aufeust 28. In connection with the murder of William John Mullins, who disappeared on Juno 20th, Mrs Jones has been discharged. The police withdrew the charge on tho ground that there was not sufficient evidence. The inquest regarding the death of William John Mullins, a farmer at Mathinna. who disappeared on Juno 20th, and portions of whose remains are supposed to have been found in tbe debris of a huge fire, concluded on August 12th, As a result of the jury’s verdict, Daniel a farmer residing in the district, was charged with murder, and his wife, Jane Elizabeth Jones, charged with being an accessory after the fact. Jones was a neighbour of Mullins’s. Between the men there had allegedly been “bad blood’’ over land and other transactions. On tho day of tho tragedy, Jones explained, he had been ’possum hunting at the time of the supposed murder, which would account for shots then heard. Mullins on tho day of the tragedy left homo to inspect opossum traps which

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Mathinna (Tasmanian)

Indigenous Tasmanian girl

Mathinna (c.1835 – 1 September 1852) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian girl, who was kidnapped, adopted and later abandoned by the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, Sir John Franklin and his wife Lady Jane Franklin.

Early life

Mathinna was born as Mary at the Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment on Flinders Island around the year 1835. Her father was Towterer, an exiled leader of the Ninine tribe originally from south-west Tasmania, and her mother was Wongerneep. Both were captured by George Augustus Robinson, the Chief Protector of Aborigines, in 1833, and sent to Wybalenna as part of the policy of removing all of the Aboriginal people from mainland Van Diemen's Land, later known as Tasmania.^[1]

Lady Jane Franklin requests a "black boy"

In 1837 Sir John Franklin was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land for a term of four years.^[2]

A year later, Sir John Franklin's wife, Lady Jane Franklin requested George Augustus Robinson to send her a "black boy" from Wybalenna along with other cur