Sarah Jane Cope b. 1843

Also known as Mrs George Watnell Burwell, Mrs Henry Turner, Mrs Charles Cope, Jane Shaw, Sarah Jane Shaw
  • Artist (Painter)
Painter and craftworker, she was the mother of author Ethel Turner. Together with her three daughters she migrated from England to Australia in 1879.

painter and craftworker, mother of Ethel Turner (her father was No.1 husband, George Burwell), was said by her great-granddaughter to have 'excelled at painting, woodcarving, leather and copperwork’ (Poole, 5). When her second husband died, Sarah Jane Cope and her three daughters migrated from the north of England to Australia, leaving on the screw steamer Durham just after Christmas 1879. Disappointed in her hopes of finding a position as governess, Jean worked as a supervisor in a Sydney Department store and the family lived in Stanley Street in the city. On 31 December 1880 at St Peter’s Church of England, Woolloomooloo (now Darlinghurst), she married, for the third time, Charles Cope, a clerk in the Sales Division of the Department of Lands. Their son, Rex, was born in 1881.

This entry is a stub. You can help the DAAO by submitting a biography.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1999
Last updated:
2011