Esther (Allison) Flaherty (1856 - 1942)

Born 26 May 1856 in Picton, Western Australia, Australia

Wife of Edward Frederick Flaherty — married 15 May 1874 in Australind, Western Australia, Australia

Died 8 Jul 1942 at age 86 in Bunbury, Western Australia, Australia

Biography

Esther was born on 26 May 1856 in Picton, Western Australia.^[1]

She married Edward Frederick Flaherty on 15 May 1874 in Australind.^{[2] [3]}

She passed in 1942 ^[4]

On July 8, just before she could have seen another dawn, and in her 87th year, a survivor from the most romantic era in our State's colonisation by our British race died in Bunbury. Born at Picton on May 26, 1856, and a life-long resident on the outskirts of Bunbury, latterly in the town itself, Mrs. Esther Flaherty was, in her immediate environment, as exact and complete a Domesday Book as William the Conqueror's, so far as it covered a similar area, was in 1086. She knew all the agricultural holdings around, and their owners, and their families, retainers and stock. Her father, whose name was Allison, was one of the soldiery who be-gan to figure in the Colony's development in 1850. He accompanied Lieut. Bunbury when that young officer set out from Pinjarra to explore the coastal region to the southward and, as it happened, to choose the site for what has become the civic and shipping centre of the Southwest.

Little could Mr. Allison have thought, as he looked across Koombana Bay then, that he would have a daughter who would walk from her home at Picton to a harbour in that bay, to watch for the arrival of the first steamship to enter the port. Mrs. Flaherty was that daughter, however, and she was known humorously to relate how she decided to sit waiting in a shed all night when it became evident that the steamer was likely to be late. Steam-driven ships, with their quaint paddle-wheels, were as much an innovation to people at that time as motor cars and aeroplanes have been in this century. The first voyage to Australia under steam had been made by the "Sophia Jane" in 1830-31. In 1852 the first P. and 0. steam vessel reached our shores. The name of the ship Mrs. Flaherty saw is not known to the writer. Having lost her mother when only five weeks old, the child was taken care of by kind neighbours, principally by Mrs. Lawrence (sister of Mr. James Moore) and Mrs. Forrest, of the old Picton family.

When grown up, she married Edward Frederick Flaherty, who was born in Western Australia, his parents having come out in 1829. Widowed in 1884, Mrs. Flaherty and her two daughters lived for some years with Miss Eliza. Flaherty, at 'Sungrove," an estate on the old Boyanup road, between Picton and Boyanup. This, spot was destined to be a landmark of great interest, for settlers from the Blackwood camped there when they carted their produce to Bun-bury, and took back in their wagons flour, tea, sugar and whatever else they required. Among those bewhiskered stalwarts were Dousts, Gibletts, Armstrongs, Jones (from Southampton), Blechyndens, Wheatleys, W. O. Mitchells (then of Torridon). and others. Mrs. Flaherty's chief local interests throughout her long life were Picton Church (in which she was christened) and Bunbury's agricultural show, which she only missed attending two or three times.

Like her contemporaries, who laid the foundations of our country's pleasant traditions and were in the van of land-settlement long before Coolgardie and subsequent tidal waves of immigration, she created an atmosphere of domestic life strongly reminiscent of the England of Charles Dickens, which they, or their fathers and mothers, had left behind them. In Esther Flah-erty we lost much more than a friend. No woman has ever been more revered. Miraculously, some early hovea was found in the bush, and some myrtle, a bunch of which was thrown down on the coffin. Her remains were interred in the old Picton cemetery by Archdeacon Adams. Chief mourners at the graveside were her daughters, Flo and Edith Flaherty.^[5]

The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians

ALLISON. Esther. b. 1856, dtr. of John. m. 1874 Edward Frederick FLAHERTY. ^[6]

FLAHERTY, Edward Frederick, b. 5.6.1832,. d. 4.3.1884 (Picton). son of Edward & Sarah Elizabeth (nee Chapman). m. 15.5.1874 (Congreg. Australind) Esther ALLISON b. 26.5.1856 d. 8.7.1942. dtr. of John (soldier). Chd. Florence Ellen b. 1875 d. 1947 (Subiaco), Edith Esther b. 1878 d. 1956. Farmer 1870s Picton. Listed by Salvado in 5.1854 at Dardanup. C/E . ^[7]

Sources

1. ↑ "Australia Births and Baptisms, 1792-1981", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XTDJ-FZB : 28 January 2020), Esther Allison, 1856.
2. ↑ The Bicentennial dictionary of Western Australians, pre-1829-1888. [compiled by Rica Erickson], https://www.friendsofbattyelibrary.org.au/bicentennial-dictionary
3. ↑ WA Marriage Records. Reg No. 37.7 Reg year 1874
4. ↑ WA Marriage Records. Reg No. 6600103, Reg year 1942
5. ↑ Well-known Bunbury Resident Dies (1942, July 30). Harvey Murray Times (WA : 1931 - 1955), p. 5. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article251315149
6. ↑ The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians, pre-1829-1888, Vol 1, A, pg 32. [compiled by Rica Erickson] https://www.friendsofbattyelibrary.org.au/bicentennial-dictionary
7. ↑ The Bicentennial Dictionary of Western Australians, pre-1829-1888, Vol 2, F, pg 32. [compiled by Rica Erickson] https://www.friendsofbattyelibrary.org.au/bicentennial-dictionary