Emma Withnell JP

Emma Withnell JP wife of John Withnell, both pioneers of Roebourne.

Emma was affectionately known to all old North Westerns as "Mother of the Northwest.
Written on the back ob the photograph: (formerly hung in Sunshine CWA Holiday Home - to be hung in Baandee Rest Room at Mangowine).

Database says: Photo orginally hung in Pioneer Hall - Sunshine, Salvado Street Cottesloe.

Emma Mary Withnell (1842-1928), pioneer, was born on 19 December 1842 at Guildford, Western Australia, daughter of George Hancock, farmer, and his wife Sophia. She was tutored on a farm near Beverley by her university-educated father and was later to do the same for her own eleven children. On 10 May 1859 at York she married John, son of William Withnell, a stonemason who had migrated in 1830.
Attracted by the discovery of good pastoral land in the north-west, Withnell sailed for Port Walcott in 1864 in the chartered Sea Ripple with Emma, two children and her sister Frances. All of their livestock except eighty-six sheep was lost when the ship ran aground. Camped at Nickol Bay, they lost more equipment but were saved from death by thirst by a settler. Wearing makeshift clogs of wood and sheep-skin, the family walked to the Harding River and settled near Mount Welcome where Emma soon bore her third child.
Widely known as the 'Mother of the north-west', Emma looked after the sick, delivered babies and regularly conducted religious services in her home. The Aboriginals trusted and respected her; she nursed and vaccinated many in a smallpox epidemic in 1866. She and John were honoured by being made a 'Boorong' and a 'Banaker', which enabled them to move freely amongst the tribes. 'The awful loneliness' was her greatest burden as she affirmed when sympathising with new arrivals in the north, 'for the work is hard and the lonesomeness at times unbearable'.
Survived by nine of her eleven children, Emma died of cholecystitis on 16 May 1928 at Mount Lawley, and was buried in the Anglican cemetery at Guildford. Her portrait hangs in the 'Hall of Pioneers' in the Baandee rest house at the National Trust property at Mangowine.
In 1961 the Country Women's Association erected a memorial of Nickol Bay stone on the site of her Roebourne home.