embroiderer, second daughter of John and Martha Gorringe, was born in Brighton, England, on 11 February 1839 and came to Australia with her family as a baby. Her elder sister was called Esther and there were at least two other sisters, Martha and Elizabeth, and brothers called William and John.
In 1851, when Mary Ann was twelve years old, she completed a needlework sampler featuring the stone court house at Carcoar (NSW). The making of this finely worked sampler is probably indicative of a childhood spent with parents who were concerned for her education, anxious that she learn among other things the needlework skills she would assuredly need in later adult life. Mary Ann’s father was the first blacksmith in Carcoar and also a carpenter; he may well have been involved in the construction of the court house.
The family were strong Presbyterians, and John is known to have led the choir for the opening of St James’s church in Carcoar in 1862. From this we can also assume that Mary Ann grew up in a household where music, as well as religion, were highly valued and earnestly practised.
Carcoar, which lies between Bathurst and Cowra, is the third oldest town west of the Blue Mountains, across which the first successful trail was blazed by Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson in 1813. The area around Carcoar where Mary Ann grew up was well known in the early nineteenth century for its lawlessness, as a place where bushrangers and criminals took refuge. The court house, built in 1842, was presumably a very welcome addition to the lives of the law abiding. It was used at different times during its thirty seven year life as a Court of Petty Sessions, a gaol, a meeting place and a church.
Mary Ann Gorringe married twice: firstly a Mr Turner and secondly, on 9 February 1880, a butcher from Blayney called Edward Price. The Prices had two sons, Edward John (b.1880) and Oswald (b.1884). After Oswald died at the age of four, Mary Ann’s sister Elizabeth wrote a long and somewhat maudlin poem about his death which has been preserved in the Gorringe family papers. It begins:
See the waxen hands are resting;
By his side they passive lie;
All their work on earth is ended;
Will they rest beyond the sky?
- Writers:
- Sumner, Christina
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
