Design and Art Australia Online

Aboriginal women and girls from La Perouse, on the north shore of Botany Bay near Sydney, are well known for making shell-work, which involves decorating ornaments with a variety of shells and shell grit collected from local beaches (Individual Heritage Group, 1988).

Shell-working has been practised by generations of Aboriginal women at La Perouse for well over a century. Emma Timbery belongs to the early phase in the history of La Perouse shell-work. She was born in the early 1840s at Liverpool, south west of Sydney, the daughter of Hubert Walden and his Aboriginal wife, Betsy. In May 1864, she married George (“Trimmer”) Timbery, who was from the Illawarra area (Nugent, 2005b, pp381-382). By the early 1880s, and probably since the late 1870s, George and Emma were living with their children, along with some other Aboriginal families, at La Perouse. The specific location of their settlement was then called Cooriwal (also spelt Currewol, Koorewal and Gooriwaal), but is today more commonly known as Frenchman’s Beach. George, like other Aboriginal men in the settlement at the time, worked as a fisherman. A report made by the local policeman to the Protector of Aborigines in January 1883 explained that the Aboriginal women contributed to the livelihood of their families by 'making shell baskets, which they sell in Sydney and the suburbs’. Emma Timbery, who became known as 'Queen Emma’ or 'Granny Timbery’, was likely one of those women (Nugent, 2005a).

Unfortunately, no known examples of Emma Timbery’s shell-work today survive, or indeed any at all from the late nineteenth century and very early twentieth century period in which she was working. (One of the earliest surviving examples of La Perouse shell-work held in a public collection is a pair of baby shoes in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney which dates from 1918, postdating Emma’s death. See She Sells Seashells, 2007). There are, however, references to Emma’s shell-work in written records dating from the period of its manufacture. For instance, in February 1910, the Australian Aborigines Advocate, the magazine of the United Aborigines Mission, which was the missionary organisation that worked in the Aboriginal settlement at La Perouse, reported on an item in a Sydney newspaper describing 'an exhibition of Australian manufactures in England’. Part of the newspaper article said that:

'On the opening day there was a large attendance of Australian and New Zealanders, who patronised [the missionary organisation’s] stall. The Lady Rachel Byng and the Hon. Mrs. Schonberg Byng, were large purchasers, the latter buying the beautiful New Zealand cot blankets, and shell-work from Sydney, made by Queen Emma at the Aboriginal Camp at La Perouse. Queen Emma’s shell work was almost fought for’.

By this time, Emma Timbery was in her late sixties, with possibly more than twenty-five years experience as a shell-worker. She died six years later on 26 November, 1916.

That Emma Timbery’s shell-work was displayed on a missionary stall in an exhibition of Australian manufactures in London gives some clues to its uses and meanings in the early part of the twentieth century. Whereas earlier records indicate that shellwork was primarily a local source of income for Aboriginal women, its display within colonial exhibitions in the imperial centre of London indicates that 'the items were read as proof of the worth and “civilisability” of their makers’ (Phillips, 1998, p210). It would have also been used as a missionary marketing tool: its sale would have helped to raise funds for the United Aborigines Mission, and its display would have helped to garner support for the organisation’s missionary work among Aboriginal women in Australia.

At the same time, the first decade of the twentieth century marks the rapid expansion of a local market for Aboriginal women’s shellwork at La Perouse (Nugent, 2005a, chapter 3). During that decade, the tramline from Sydney was extended to La Perouse. This brought increased numbers of tourists and daytrippers to the place, which contributed to the development of a local tourist precinct. This local tourist trade, which continued up until the 1960s, provided a very good market for shellwork along with other souvenirs produced by local Aboriginal people. These particular local conditions help to explain the sustained production of shellwork by Aboriginal women at La Perouse. As Ruth B. Phillips notes, in relation to the comparable history of souvenir production among North American indigenous communities, 'the importance of trade ware [souvenir] production was greatest in communities with easy access to cities and tourist sites’ (Phillips, 1995, p103).

Emma Timbery was not only a celebrated shellworker in the late nineteenth century. In the 1890s, she was a highly valued informant for the amateur anthropologist R. H. Mathews, providing knowledge about the Dharawal language, which she spoke, and information about other cultural matters (Thomas, 2007, pp3-4). Her information has been essential for the preservation and revival of the Dharawal language. In this respect, Emma Timbery is an Aboriginal woman who both contributed to the preservation of her people’s cultural knowledge and traditions, which was under threat during her lifetime, as well as being an innovator in the development of new cultural traditions and practices, such as shellwork.

Although Emma Timbery did not live to see the heyday of shellwork production at La Perouse in the 1930s and 1940s, many of her direct descendants have ensured the continuation of the craft throughout the twentieth century. Today, her great-granddaughter Esme Timbery is a celebrated and award-winning shellworker.

Writers:

Nugent, Maria Note:

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

2011

Status:

peer-reviewed