Angela Francis determined to help mothers in remote locations

She knew the pain of losing children and the hardship of remote life – and did something about it, writes Dot Whittington.

Angela Francis studied widwifery and made a huge contribution to falling infant and maternal death rates.

Pregnant and with a toddler son, Angela Francis left her comfortable life in England for Moreton Bay, a three-month voyage to the opposite side of the world.

Hardship and grief awaited but her experiences would help shape the future for young mothers in the new colony of Queensland.

Angela was born in London in 1826 and was the ripe old age of 33 when she married the merchant Arthur Moreland Francis. Their son Richard, “Dick”, was born the following year.

As a young lady, Angela had learnt drawing, singing and playing the harmonium, and could read and write, but nothing to prepare her for what lay ahead.

The little family boarded the clipper Saldanha, as paying second class passengers with two servants, on October 17, 1861, and on January 18, 1862, arrived at Cape Moreton. Before they could head up the Brisbane River, gale force winds whipped up huge waves and the Saldanha, its sails torn and water pounding its decks, limped back out to sea.

It would be another nine days before they could get back, and while they were being blown around Moreton Bay, Angela delivered a son she called Clement.

With her new baby, she then sat in a small boat for the 23km trip from Brisbane to Oxley, where her husband had been given land to farm cotton. A patch was cleared near the riverbank and the two tents that would be their new home were pitched.

Angela Francis and her family.

Angela wrote to her sister: “The land consisted of about 70 acres, quite untouched by human hand. A wild scrub and forest where the wallabies, opossums, native bears, iguanas and snakes made their undisputed home.”

Tragedy struck 11 months later when baby Clement died. In his mother’s words: “Clement grew weaker and weaker; no tooth visible, but his little gums were all bursting with them. The heat was unbearable, and so one morning his father carried him in his big, comfortable arms from the tent through the scrub to a big waterhole. There we sat on a log, Clement asleep on my lap. Such gentle breathing, dense quiet, no pain. Clement opened his eyes, looked up at me. Then he was with God.”

Next came the rain and they had to evacuate as floodwater swirled around their beds. They returned to find most of their possessions gone or covered in mud, but the tent was salvaged and four months later Angela gave birth to a third son, Alexander.

She would have another four babies but only one, Charlotte, survived.

Arthur’s cotton enterprise was abandoned and plans to farm sugar also failed. After serving a term in parliament in 1867-70, he leased the farm and the family moved to Albion where he became a writer for the Brisbane Courier.

Arthur, a few months younger than his wife, was 49 when he was appointed Police Magistrate in Banana, Central Queensland. Angela and Charlotte accompanied him into the wilderness, while the two boys stayed at school in Brisbane.

Over the next two decades, Angela moved house 11 times, experiencing the remote west from Thargomindah to Barcaldine. She saw first-hand the enormous difficulties faced by women who, like herself, had little assistance during childbirth and with infant care.

Knowing the pain of needless suffering and death, she determined that women having children in bush townships should have proper nursing care.

When her son Dick won a scholarship to Oxford University (he was the first Australian at Balliol College) Angela accompanied him to England and while in London, completed a midwifery course at Queen Charlotte’s Lying-in Hospital. She also helped 30 young women find work as governesses in Queensland.

The family are buried on the hillside of what was their original property at Corinda.

Returning home in 1880, Angela ran education classes for women and persuaded the government to introduce midwifery courses at Brisbane hospitals so country girls could learn the skills their communities needed. She also raised funds to support them while training.

In Barcaldine, she led a committee to have a cottage hospital built.

Angela’s first aid and infant care classes made a considerable contribution to the colony’s falling infant and maternal death rates.

After Arthur died in 1902, she made her final voyage across the sea to England where her only surviving children, Charlotte and Alexander, had settled. She died on May 10, 1910, aged 83.

The Brisbane Courier eulogised, “wherever her husband’s later work as police magistrate took them, there she made her character and power felt, and in many distant towns, her name is still remembered with deep affection.”

Arthur, her babies, and firstborn son – Dick died aged 32 after heroic rescue efforts in the 1893 floods – are all buried in a little cemetery on the hillside of their original property at Corinda.