Amateur photographer, was the wife of the first superintendent of Barambah Reserve (Cherbourg Mission), Qld, in charge of organising the transference of girls and women to their place of employment under work agreements made with the mission. She apparently had a good relationship with lots of the women and girls in her care. On 20 March 2000, Debra Bennett-McLean spoke to Michael Aird about Mrs Stuart’s collection, recently donated to the Aboriginal women’s group Nungeena:
There are photographs of marriages and other events that have such a personal slant on them. They are almost as if she took a photograph of her own family. There are also photographs that may have been taken by the Aboriginal women or by their employers. They were sent back to the Matron. There is a sense of respect portrayed by some of the people in these photographs. There are beautiful photographs of babies, mothers and babies and whole family groups. There are photographs of women working at their everyday duties and photographs of women taking a break from their work and relaxing.
This collection of photographs was looked after by this family and passed on through the family. Then this old lady, who is the grand-daughter of Mrs Stuart, organised for her grand-daughter to contact the family of my Auntie Winnie Smith, who had been friends of the family. These photographs are extremely important to me. I think that this story needs to be told. Other people want to know about these photos. I have never seen such a significant number of images of black women in these kinds of settings. I felt a real connection to them, especially knowing my grandmother’s life as a nanny, housekeeper, drover and the other things she was. People would say, I know who that baby is. Those babies are aged in their 50s and 60s now. That was significant for those people to be able to say, I know who that is. People wanted to get copies of the photographs.
Aird’s interview is accompanied by a photograph he took on 9 July 1999 of Debra Bennett-McLean setting up the display of Mrs Stuart’s collection in a hired tent at Musgrave Park for NAIDOC Week. It was organised by Nungeena after Mrs Stuart’s collection was donated to it.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
