Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Mrs Sophie Corrie: Becoming eminent. Part Two.

Little was written about Sophie Corrie before William Brooks took over publishing her guide to fruit preserving in 1902.[1] The book was now promoted more aggressively, in the Sydney Stock and Station Journal, a newspaper published and printed by Brooks, and by then Sophie was already well known within certain circles as winner of many prizes, and as a judge, at country agricultural shows. The first detailed account of her life and achievements appears in the Brisbane Courier in 1903, based on a personal interview conducted while Sophie was visiting Brisbane.[2] The anonymous author describes how the widowed Sophie ‘took up a selection in the Mittagong district … and commenced clearing it, doing a good portion of the work with her own hands, the children assisting her with the cutting of the timber’. This account records that she cultivated the first two acres herself, ‘with a hoe as her only farming implement!’ and then went on to plant all the trees in her orchard with her own hands. Although she eventually had five acres under fruit trees, for the first ten years the family lived on the proceeds of the crops she grew and the poultry and pigs she reared. She also claims to have never employed any labour on the farm other than ‘some children’ who helped to harvest the crops of peas. The article also notes that her youngest son, Broughton Corrie, has a farm adjoining his mother’s and ‘is well known as one of the most up-to-date farmers in the district’.

This picture of Sophie as ‘a woman of grit and determination’, the description of her endeavours and the emphasis on her hard work and self-reliance, forms the basis of the reports that follow. Few of the subsequent newspaper articles appear to be based on first-hand information consequently Sophie’s story is not always accurately reported, embellished by journalists to suit their own purposes and/or manipulated by Sophie herself to only reveal as much of her personal story as she thought appropriate or necessary.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph in 1904, having met Sophie at the Royal Show, ‘Una’ (Laura Bogue Luffman) repeats the same claims regarding the clearing of the land but rounds out the story with some additional, quite specific information.[3] Sophie is quoted as saying that she had been left a widow with ‘a small income of £30 per annum’ and began to earn her living by keeping a boarding house. She then took up a free selection near Mittagong, paying the £10 deposit and when she had complied with the requirements of the Land Act she was able to take possession of 40 acres of virgin bush on the payment of £2 per year.[4] She claims the family lived a healthy, happy life in an old hut until a house was built. ‘Someone’ gave her a present of young fruit trees, which she planted with her own hands, and she grew crops between the rows to provide an income until the orchard started bearing. Apart from employing a man to plough once a year she did everything else herself. Eventually there were 12 acres under cultivation – 5 under oats and 7 as a vegetable garden. Now, at 71, she claimed to be ‘resting’ having ‘handed over a good cottage and 400 acres’ to her youngest son, with whom she was living. 

Both these accounts were published before Sophie sold her holdings at Colo Vale in 1906 and travelled overseas. By the time she returned to Australia in 1908 the women’s movement had gained momentum. Women voted in New South Wales for the first in 1903 and there was now much talk of expanded roles for women. Although she was no spring chicken Sophie’s story fitted the popular image of ‘The Australian Girl’ –equal to the men around her, practical, independent, energetic and unconventional; someone able to accommodate herself to altered circumstances and treat every difficulty as an incentive.[5] In particular, the Women’s Liberal League were advocating training for women in agriculture.[6] More than ever Sophie represented an exemplar of the successful independent female agriculturalist, in addition she could now claim to have travelled the world alone. It was for these reasons that Mrs Salmon chose to include her in the series of eminent women (see Part One) .

Mary Frederika Salmon was herself an independent woman, working as a journalist, regularly contributing to the daily and weekly press, specialising in articles on prominent personages and the early history of Sydney. Salmon had been a teacher and sometime English mistress at Springfield College, which might explain her inclusion of Lady Murray in her list of eminent women. It is perhaps no accident that her article about Sophie Corrie also coincided with the publication of the fifth edition of The Art of Canning.[7]

Mrs Salmon based her article on an interview with her subject but presented a somewhat romanticised and exaggerated image that laid great emphasis on Sophie’s pioneering spirit, claiming that ‘[f]or 30 years this indefatigable woman worked to convert a bare, unprofitable free selection into a productive, well-cultivated farm.’ Salmon described Bargo Brush/Colo Vale as lonely and wild when Sophie and her children moved there, 8 miles from the nearest school or church in Mittagong, and still the haunt of bushrangers. Salmon has the family living ‘in a slab and bark hut in an uncleared paddock’ and Sophie doing all the work herself, felling trees, grubbing out roots and planting all the fruit trees since there were no funds to hire labour.[8] Most importantly Sophie set a fine example to the local community: ‘It is by such self-reliant people, women as well as men, that every settlement here has come into existence’. Salmon then goes on to frame Sophie as not just a pioneer but the heroine of the district. There is no mention of a boarding house or of Sophie’s wider family connections.

            Sophie appears to have been so impressed with this panegyric and the recognition she was receiving that she arranged to have Salmon’s article, and two others about her life, printed in a booklet by her publisher, William Brooks.[9] (It is likely that Brooks circulated this along with review copies of the fifth edition of The Art of Canning, published in 1909.)

The first of these additional contributions was a paragraph from the Stock and Station Journal announcing her appointment as the first woman member of the New South Wales Chamber of Agriculture. The other adds more detail about her family history. Although Salmon claimed that Sophie was Australian born, of Australian parents and spent her childhood in a house at the corner of Philip and Hunter Streets, this article, reproduced from the Wide Bay Times, offers a contradictory story. In this version Sophie’s parents arrived in Sydney Cove in 1819/20. Her father is described as a keen sportsman who took up land near Wollongong before the difficulties of getting supplies from Sydney and the prospect of famine convinced him to move to Manly Beach (Curl Curl Lagoon) where, the writer implies, he established an orchard. While it seems Sophie may not have made a secret of her connection to the Wheeler family, she was clearly unconcerned about the discrepancies in these two accounts.[10]

Subsequent articles, including an interview which appeared in the August 1909 edition of New Idea, unashamedly repeated verbatim paragraphs already published, stressing Sophie’s independent spirit and how she represented ‘a splendid example of what one woman can achieve’, was a notable pioneer, ‘practically the first Australian woman to go on the land’ and ‘one of the grandest women Australia has produced’, but providing no more detail about her family background.[11]

When Sophie died, on 28 September 1913, newspapers across the country carried the news, but the reports of her life were not without some controversy.[12] The Sydney Morning Herald published another piece by Mary Salmon, repeating the story she had told before.[13] In the same issue, a few pages further on, another paragraph from an anonymous author claimed that Sophie had been born at the Blue Bell Hotel in Hunter Street and had lived for many years in Strawberry Hills.[14] This article was clearly written by someone who knew something of Sophie’s family history, including the connection to the Iredales and Brennands, but was the first and only mention of the Blue Bell Hotel and the family connection to Surry Hills.

Sophie’s daughter, Edith, felt duty bound to write to the Herald to correct Mrs Salmon. [15] She pointed out that Sophie had not been left without means, rather she had an inheritance from her father’s estate. While admitting that her mother was ‘a stoic with an interesting personality’ she insisted that Mrs Salmon had ‘a wrong conception of my mother’s capabilities’ maintaining that Sophie’s ‘usefulness centred in woman’s arts’. Just what Edith meant by this is not altogether clear, but it seems she either felt that Mrs Salmon had overstated her mother’s achievements or did not appreciate the picture of Sophie as a manual worker. Given that previous renditions of Sophie’s story had also emphasised her performance of physical work, Edith had left it a bit late to complain.

Sophie’s old friend of fifty years, Amelia Pemell, also saw fit to write to the Sydney Morning Herald alarmed that some of the statements in the press concerning Sophie could ‘detract from the high opinion the public has formed of her noble character and wonderful life’.[16] She leapt to the defence. Sophie was, she claimed, born at the top of Hunter Street but certainly not in an inn. Both women were staunch supporters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and Pemell claimed that Sophie’s parents were ‘as bitter against the drink’ as Sophie was herself. To suggest, as Edith had done, that Sophie was ‘not without means’ was also a great mistake. Pemell argued that Edith was too young to have known ‘the terrible straits through which her mother had to pass’ to make a home for her children. Further she all but accused Edith of wanting to tarnish her mother’s memory – ‘it is a great pity that anything should be written that would make people believe what Mrs Corrie told of her terrible hardships (although she did not tell the half of them) was untrue’. As to the assertion that Sophie had inherited from her father’s estate, Pemell conceded that Sophie did own land, ‘quite a considerable portion, at what is now known as North Manly’ but it had not yet been sold and was consequently ‘of very little use to her’. Amelia Pemell concluded, ‘it makes us very angry when we see things are being written or said that will make outsiders think less instead of more of this truly noble woman, who did not sink under circumstance that might well have crushed her, but who overcame all difficulties, to the astonishment of everyone’.

Edith, aged 8 when her father died and who had lived with her mother until she married John Dymock in 1889, could hardly be called an outsider, but clearly the facts of her mother’s life, were not entirely consistent with the story Sophie had imparted to her friends and possibly the one Sophie herself wished to establish. Mrs Salmon justified what she had written on just that basis: ‘whatever I have said about her was fully approved by her.’[17]

Although the Wheeler’s were ardent Methodists, and despite Miss Pemell’s insistence to the contrary, even if Sophie was not born at the Blue Bell, she at least spent some of her youth in and around public houses. Amelia Pemell claimed to have known Sophie for 50 years, even so they were probably not acquainted until after Sophie was married, by which time her family no longer had any interest in the Strawberry Hills Hotel. It is unlikely that Sophie would have mentioned the connection to Pemell since they may have met through their common enthusiasm for the temperance movement. Similarly, Pemell may not have been aware that Sophie inherited money from her father’s estate. Although Sophie had mentioned that she was in receipt of some income in her interview with ‘Una’ printed in the Daily Telegraph this detail was not widely repeated. As the information printed in the booklet which included Mary Salmon’s article attests, Sophie did not necessarily make a secret of her connection to the Wheeler family in the Dee Why area, but she may not have elaborated on this relationship. Her daughter Maud had married her Wheeler cousin, James in 1887, which suggests the family had remained in contact after Sophie moved to Colo Vale and, presumably, she had ongoing dealings with the Wheelers. Maud divorced her husband in 1906 on the grounds of adultery which makes it likely that Sophie’s connection with this branch of the family soured after that.

Sophie’s reputation as a pioneer is a combination of the romantic image of the dutiful wife and the feminist ideal of the independent woman. Sophie did not entirely fit the stereotypical image of the loyal pioneer woman who went into the wilderness with her husband and sacrificed her own interests to support his endeavours and raise a family. Several tellings of her story emphasise she did have to endure her share of loneliness and inconvenience, and she did share with the ‘angel of the bush’ the virtues of hard work, self-sufficiency, and forbearance, but she was no silent heroine. Nonetheless it was the fact that she had faced ‘terrible straits’ and refused to ‘sink under circumstances that might well have crushed her’ which Amelia Pemell held as her defining virtues, and Mary Salmon celebrated.

For the feminist writer Laura Bogue Luffman (‘Una’) on the other hand Sophie represented self-determination and the control and autonomy women could achieve for themselves through work. Most importantly Sophie attained her independence by capitalising on essentially feminine, domestic skills. Sophie’s story fitted with the feminist idealism and national pride of the early years of the twentieth century.

The first wave of Australian feminists have been characterised as exponents of ‘expediency feminism’ that is they did not challenge the status quo, espousing ‘only a limited and practical critique of the inflexible division of the spheres by sex’. While they believed that women had an equal right to the franchise they also believed in traditional family values and few had any problem reconciling a woman’s right to individual fulfillment with an entrenched belief in the importance of the domestic sphere. [18] Luffman for example believed that ‘every home is a mint for coming character’ and argued for raising the status of domestic work so that it would no longer be regarded as ‘ungenteel’.[19] Sophie herself strongly supported female suffrage while not losing sight of traditional family values. In the introduction to The Art Of Canning she states she wished to inspire the readers of her book to regard the industry of the home ‘as one demanding and deserving intelligent interest’.

Mrs Luffman was an active supporter of the Women’s Liberal League which, under the leadership of Hilma Molyneux Parkes, advocated for a range of feminist issues. Luffman used her column in the Daily Telegraph to promote the causes of the League, and her interview with Sophie was one of a series she wrote on women in agriculture.[20] Making agricultural training available to women had been part of the League’s platform since its inception but, not all agricultural pursuits were thought to be ideal for women, only activities like gardening and growing flowers and fruit, jam making, bee keeping and poultry farming, ‘la petite culture’ were considered to be entirely suitable. [21] Sophie, the unassuming little grey haired lady, was an example to all those who argued that women were unsuited to hard work or that manual labour was unwomanly and unbecoming, but neither had she strayed beyond the boundaries of what was acceptable by establishing an orchard and making jam. Luffman continued to use Sophie as an illustration of what could be achieved and argued how much easier her life would have been if she had been trained, as the battle for a horticultural college for women continued.[22]

The real Sophie Corrie

Just how well-known Sophie was in her lifetime is open to question. How many people beyond those associated with agricultural shows and with an interest in horticulture, were aware of her is hard to gauge. If it is true that 12,000 copies of her book on the art of canning were in circulation by 1913 this would suggest her expertise was sought after. However, this is a small number in comparison to print runs for more comprehensive works on cookery such as Mrs Wicken’s Kingswood Cookery Book. In this case Angus and Robertson printed 10,000 copies per edition. Notwithstanding The Art of Canning remains noteworthy because of its early date and because it is perhaps the first cookbook published in Australia to concentrate on only one aspect of culinary practise.

The evidence suggests that Sophie, particularly in her later years as she gained a public persona, may have been coy about her background and her circumstances. She was more forthcoming about her personal history in the interviews she gave before 1906 than she was when she returned from overseas. The detailed account produced by ‘Una’ was not repeated in other newspapers.[23] Extended family connections, and sources of income other than the profits from her agricultural efforts, did not fit well with the image of Sophie as an independent woman, reliant on her own resources and industry which may have made her reluctant to mention them. It is equally possible that the few journalists who interviewed her, rather than those who simply repeated material already published, chose to only include the details they thought relevant to the story they wanted to tell. Nonetheless the facts of Sophie’s life in no way detract from her reputation as a hard worker and ‘a woman of grit and determination’. It would be hard not to be impressed by her achievements, her business acumen, and her successful land dealings, although whether her achievements qualify her as an eminent Australian is debatable. Few people today, with the exception of those interested in old cookery books, are likely to have heard of Sophie Corrie, but her book is not her only legacy. Corrie Road in North Manly and Corrie Road at Alpine, near Colo Vale are named in her honour. The suburb of Wheeler Heights, Wheeler Street in Narrabeen, and Brumby Street in Surry Hills also bear testimony to the story of the Wheeler family in Sydney.



[1] Sophie Corrie, The Art of Canning, Bottling and Preserving of Fruits (Sydney: William Brooks & Co., 1902)

[2] The Brisbane Courier, 31 August 1903, p. 7, ‘An Australian Woman Farmer’. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19217186

[3] This was one of a series of articles about ‘Women in Agriculture’. Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1904, p. 5 ‘Women in Agriculture. An Object Lesson’, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article237823368.

[4] For description of Robertson Land Acts see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_Land_Acts. Anyone taking up land was required to fence the area and to live on their selection.

[5] Sydney Morning Herald (hereafter SMH), 20 November 1907, p. 5 ‘The Australian Girl’. See also SMH, 5 December 1906, p. 5, ‘The Australian Woman’.

[6] For advocating for women in agriculture and their admission to the agricultural college see Daily Telegraph, 17 May 1906, p. 9; Evening News, 8 October 1908, p. 5. Examples of successful women farmers, see Australian Star, 12 September 1908, p. 9. Daily Telegraph, 6 May 1909, p. 4, re Girls Realm Exhibition and need for education.

[7] For Mary Salmon, https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A1470SMH, 8 January 1937, p. 17. Similarly, the interview with ‘Una’ published in the Daily Telegraph in 1904 also coincided with the publication of the fourth edition. Salmon's article on Sophie, Australian Town and Country Journal (hereafter ATCJ) 9 September 1908, p. 25

[8] Later accounts have Sophie and her family living in a tent before the hut is built, Northern Star (Lismore), 28 April 1913, p.4; Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 4 October 1913, p. 6; Daily Telegraph, 1 October 1913, p. 15.

[9] Sophie Corrie, Eminent Women in Australia (Sydney: William Brooks, 1909?). https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/74VveqMEAKeX. All these articles mention that Sophie has not long returned from an overseas trip, that fact and the date of the article in ATCJ suggests a publication date of late 1908/ early 1909.

[10] The original article in the Wide Bay Times has not been cited but this information is repeated in Telegraph (Brisbane) 4 May 1912, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article175233036. Sophie abridged her life story many times. In 1898 she has fond remembrance of the family living at Strawberry Hills, The Methodist, 12 November 1898, p. 7.

[11] Ellie Russel, ‘A Woman Pioneer. How to Win a Living from the Soil,’ New Idea, 6 August 1909, pp. 618–9

[12] For obituaries see Daily Telegraph, 1 October 1913, p. 11, SMH, 1 October 1913, p. 11; Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 4 October 1913, p. 6. Register (Adelaide), 11 November 1913, p. 8; Daily Herald (Adelaide), 2 October 1913, p. 4.

[13] SMH, 1 October 1913, p. 7.

[14] SMH, 1 October 1913, p. 11. Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton) 1 October 1913, p. 6 also mentions that the Wheelers were an old Strawberry Hills family, associated with the Iredales and the Brennands.

[15] SMH, 8 October 1913, p. 7.

[16] SMH, 15 October 1913, p. 7. 

[17] SMH, 15 October 1913, p. 7

[18] For expediency feminism see Judith Allen, ‘The “feminisms” of the early women’s movement 1850–1920’, Refractory Girl 17 (1979), pp. 10–16.

[19] DT, 13 June 1904, p. 7.

[20] Daily Telegraph, 1 April 1904, p. 3, ‘A visit to the Royal Show’; 7 April 1904, p. 5 ‘Women in Agriculture. An Object Lesson’; 16 April 1904, p. 15, ‘A poultry farm’; 2 May 1904, p. 3, ‘Strawberry culture’;  11 May 1904, p. 5 “‘Were they desirable immigrants?’, Italian settlers at New Italy.”

[21] See SMH, 10 December 1903, p. 8 ‘Liberal Union Congress’. ‘la petite culture’ Daily Telegraph, 14 October 1899, p. 5 ‘Women and agriculture’. There was also the argument that horticulture rather than agriculture was appropriate for women, since most horticulture was done by hand, see Daily Telegraph, 12 June 1913, p. 13.

[22] Daily Telegraph, 25 June 1913, p. 15, ‘Women in rural industries’. 

[23] The fact that Sophie was in receipt of £30 per annum was repeated in Northern Star (Lismore), 16 April 1904, p. 10 and the Armidale Chronicle, 16 April 1904, p. 8; and The Sun 28 February 1909, p. 6.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The life of Mrs Sophie Corrie, an eminent Australian. Part One.

 


In 1908, towards the end of the year, the Australian Town and Country Journal published a series of twelve articles under the banner ‘Eminent Women in Australia’. These vignettes were intended to recover the untold stories of notable women:

Side by side with the many notable men who have lived in and worked for this great Commonwealth there have also been eminent women, whose story in many cases has been untold, and though they may have been equally strong fine characters, with great influence for good, yet, in accordance with the spirit of the times, little or nothing has been publicly said about them or their work.[1]

Most were women whose histories and achievements are familiar to Australian historians and warrant their own entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (hereafter ADB) – Lady Windeyer, philanthropist, temperance advocate, promoter of women’s issuesLady John Franklin, widow of Sir John Franklin, Lieutenant -Governor of Tasmania and later Arctic explorer; Miss Lucy Osburn, protégé of Florence Nightingale and pioneer of trained nurses in Australia; Mrs Caroline Chisholm, champion of female immigrants; and Catherine Helen Spence, journalist, reformer, and feminist. [2]

Others, who worked ‘quietly, so unostentatiously that if their names are mentioned people scarcely are aware that anything distinctive attaches to them by reason of what they have been spending years in accomplishing’ rate a brief, often very brief, mention in the ADB  in relation to the work of their husband: – Lady Northcote, wife of the Governor General, philanthropist and supporter of women’s causes; Mrs James Jefferis, wife of a congregational minister, who campaigned for the cause of destitute, orphaned and neglected children; Mrs Robert Lowe, Lady Sherbrooke, who made herself ‘indispensable to a famous man’; Mrs Garran, widow of journalist and politician Dr. Andrew Garran, who served on the board of the State Children’s Relief and on the house committee of the Children’s Hospital; and Lady Terence Aubrey Murray who, on death of husband established Springfield College, a boarding school for girls in Darlinghurst. [3]

This list of women whose achievements were worth memorialising was completed with the inclusion of Miss Louise Taplin, who supervised the Infants’ Home, a refuge for unmarried mothers and their children in Ashfield, from 1886 until her death in 1901, and Mrs Sophie Corrie. [4]  Sophie Corrie was exceptional not least because she was the only one of these twelve women who had been born in Australia (she was not just ‘in’ Australia, but ‘of’ Australia). She has also been included in the ADB in recognition of her individual achievements, which include winning over 700 prizes for her jams, pickles, jellies and preserves, being appointed to serve on the council of the New South Wales Chamber of Agriculture, and authoring The Art of Canning, Bottling and Preserving of Fruits which eventually ran to six editions.[5] The first edition of The Art of Canning was presumably self-published in 1892, making it one of the very earliest cookery books written by someone born in Australia.[6] But Sophie qualified as an ‘eminent’ woman because she was an example ‘of the many grand women who, giving up cheerfully the easier conditions of city life, have gone forth with their children, and settled on the land, labouring until they have made the desert into a garden, and from a gum tree forest has evolved a homestead, and an estate has been cultivated’.[7] The rise to eminence of a fruit preserving champion begs many questions. Just how remarkable was Sophie Corrie and how did she gain such notoriety?

The life of Sophie Corrie

Sophie’s grandfather, George Wheeler, arrived in Sydney as a convict, with a 14-year sentence, in 1817. Joined by his wife, Sophia, and children John, James and William in 1822, he was assigned to Sophia in 1823. George Wheeler established himself in Kent Street as a chandler/dealer. [8]

His eldest son, John, sometime dealer and grocer (presumably working with his father initially), quickly took advantage of the opportunities available to him in the colony. John, aged 24, married Elizabeth Brumby in 1830 and in the same year petitioned Governor Darling for, and was granted, land in the Illawarra.[9] In the event the family did not move to the Illawarra and John continued in business in Sydney.[10] The second of John’s five children, Sophia/ Sophie, was born in 1832.

In 1830 George Wheeler held the license for the Bell, subsequently the Blue Bell Inn (corner of Phillip and Hunter Streets), which then passed to his son James Wheeler, the licensee from 1832 until 1837. James then moved on to take up farming. In 1837 both John and James took up land in the area of Manly Cove, James to the north of Dee Why Lagoon and John 100 acres in the vicinity of Balgowlah Village bounded by Manly Creek, the main road to Pittwater and Condamine Street.[11] According to the 1841 census John, Elizabeth and their four daughters, Mary, Sophia, Louisa and Emily were living in a stone house at Manly Farm. Similarly, John’s brother James was living with his wife and three daughters on his property at Dee Why Lagoon. James subsequently acquired considerable holdings, farming land at Narrabeen and Dee Why, and town lots at Balgowlah. This branch of the Wheeler family remained in the area for over 100 years.[12]

Meanwhile John, Sophie’s father, held the publican’s license for the Lord Nelson, on the corner of Philip and Hunter streets in 1836 and 1837, and then for the Blue Bell on the corner of Sussex and Erskine streets in 1842 and 1843, before he took over the Strawberry Hills Inn.[13] When John died in 1846 the license for the Strawberry Hills Inn (Surry Hills) passed to his wife Elizabeth. Elizabeth, remarried in 1848, and the Strawberry Hills Inn remained in family hands until around 1856.[14] By the terms of John’s will his four daughters inherited all his real estate as tenants in common on their mother’s remarriage and were entitled to equal shares of all the rents and profits therefrom.[15] When George Wheeler, Sophie’s grandfather, died in 1852 he was able to bequeath his heirs considerable real estate. Sophie and her sisters inherited their father’s share consisting of lots in Elizabeth Street South and Wilton Street, part of the Strawberry Hills Estate, Surry Hills.[16]

Meanwhile the Wheeler family, through their membership of the Methodist Church and their business and land dealings put down firm foundations in the city and became established members of their community. Marriage further consolidated that position uniting the Wheelers with other families making a place for themselves in middle class society. Sophie’s aunt Louisa, George’s youngest child, married Thomas Fusedale, a successful businessman who served on the Waterloo Council as both alderman and Mayor.[17] Sophie’s sister Elizabeth married accountant and public servant, Charles Cornelius Nightingale, while her other sister Louisa married Lancelot Iredale Brennand. Lancelot’s grandfather, Lancelot Iredale, had founded a successful business as an ironmonger while his father, Thomas Brennand, had been an auctioneer and sometime bookseller. Lancelot Iredale Brennand’s own career saw him become superintendent of the Colonial Office Stores Department.[18]

Sophie Wheeler married young Irish doctor William Christian McDona in 1855 only to be widowed in 1857.[19] In 1863 she married Charles Pittman Corrie.[20] Charles Corrie was initially successful ‘in the commercial world’ and the family ‘lived in comfort’ at Concord until mining speculation eventually led to bankruptcy and Charles died insolvent, aged 45, in April 1875.[21] Sophie was left with four children and gave birth to another son in January 1876.[22] She first supported her family by running a boarding house. Now living at 80 William Street, Woolloomooloo, Sophie advertised apartments to let before selling her ‘superior household furniture and effects’ and moving to Mittagong late in 1877.[23]

This move was a very deliberate decision, since it meant leaving behind her extended family and friends. It might have been that she wished to distance herself from her family, but this seems unlikely. The marriage of her daughter Maud to James Wheeler junior confirms that these two families kept in contact.[24] It is also plausible that Sophie took advice on her land and business dealings from her Uncle James and from her Brennand and Fusedale connections. Louisa and Lancelot Brennand had already taken up land in the Blue Mountains, at Valley Heights, before Sophie relocated to Mittagong. In newspaper interviews Sophie claims she chose to leave the city for her children’s health and because she had always wanted to live in the country, but it is also likely that the move to Mittagong was strategic. A boarding house in the Southern Highlands was likely to attract a more genteel and monied clientele than one in Woolloomooloo, and the rent of the premises may have been cheaper, all contributing to stretching her finances further. Life in the country perhaps offered other savings such as growing her own vegetables to feed her family. There is also the possibility that she wished to escape any social stigma attached to her husband’s bankruptcy. 

In the healthy atmosphere of the southern highlands, she began by ‘receiving visitors’ at Eisenthal a ‘substantial stone-built residence of 14 rooms, kitchen and offices, servants’ rooms, stable and coach house’.[25] There is also evidence that she took in children under the State Children’s Relief Act and received money from the State for their upkeep, presumably while the family was at Eisenthal.[26] Providing accommodation was an on-going source of income. In 1881 Sophie advertised rooms available at Osbourne House in Bowral, and in 1887 she was offering ‘superior accommodation to visitors’ at Strathdon, Colo Vale. Sophie’s daughter Edith married John Dymock at Strathdon, described in the wedding announcement as ‘the home of the bride’s mother’, in 1889 and Sophie was still receiving summer visitors at Strathdon in November 1892.[27]

In the interim Sophie’s mother, Elizabeth, had died.[28] Under the provisions of her late husband’s will his brother James had become trustee and sole executor of his estate on Elizabeth’s marriage to Thomas Wheeler. Following Elizabeth’s death, the decision was taken to sell the land in Surry Hills which John had inherited from his father, and which was now the sole property of Sophie and her sister Louisa.[29] The Brumby House Estate was subdivided and auctioned on 5 March 1879.[30]


Subdivision plan, Brumby House Estate Strawberry Hills [area around Wilton Street and Wilton Place, Brumby Street] (05/03/1879), [A-00530222] City of Sydney Archives, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1069642.

 

It should be remembered too that Sophie and Louisa were also the owners of John Wheeler’s land near Manly, from which they received rent, giving Sophie some regular income. The sale of the land at Surry Hills must have given her funds to draw down on and perhaps financed her own land deals, beginning in 1881 with five small blocks just outside what was then the village of Fitzroy at a total outlay of a little over £100.[31] Sophie extended her land holdings with conditional purchases in 1882 and again in 1884 in the area now known as Yerrinbool and Alpine. In accordance with the land regulations regarding conditional purchase the selector paid a deposit of one quarter of the purchase price and was required to make improvements to the value of £1 per acre. The selector was also expected to reside on, and to occupy the land for three years. Payment for the land could be made from year to year and the balance, with interest could be paid over an extended period. Sophie set about clearing her land, advertising timber for sale in 1882 and in 1883, in partnership with someone by the name of Moore, she took over the Mittagong timber mill previously operated by Williamson and Co. [32]

Sophie was able to support herself and her brood, the eldest of whom were now well old enough to make a contribution, with the proceeds of her land clearing and farming, supplementing her income by letting rooms, but presumably also secure in the knowledge that there was money in the bank. She also soon began to boost her petty cash by winning prizes for her jams and pickles at local agricultural society shows from Berrima and Goulburn to Picton, Camden, Kiama, Wollongong and eventually the New South Wales Agricultural Society Show in Sydney.[33]

The Exhibition of Women’s Industries, staged in October 1888, was the initiative of the wife of the governor of New South Wales, Lady Carrington. Held in the old exhibition buildings in Prince Alfred Park, Sydney, the event was intended as both a vehicle to raise money for the Queen’s Jubilee Fund for Distressed Women and an opportunity to display the variety of work performed by women. The aim of the display was to demonstrate ‘the standard of excellence to which [women] have attained in the several useful and ornamental arts to which they have devoted their attention’ with the object of also illustrating the ‘various methods by which women can earn their livelihood’.[34]  No doubt these noble aims appealed to Sophie, who was her own example of what one woman could achieve, and she enthusiastically supported an event which she believed ‘did much to break down many a barrier & opened avenues for women to follow occupations never thought of before’.[35] She contributed jams, pickles and dried fruits to the competitions, donated tea cakes and scones and spent time volunteering in the kitchen established to provide refreshments for the visitors to the exhibition. Needless to say, she also came away with prizes for her produce.[36] Her experiences working at Alfred Park ‘in the interest of the women of NSW’, and incidentally meeting with like-minded women such as Lady Mary Windeyer, the delegate in charge of the Education Department, may have provided her with the impetus to produce The Art of Canning, Bottling and Preserving of Fruit which she appears to have self-published in 1891/2.[37] This booklet brought her to the attention of a wider audience, particularly after William Brooks & Co took over the publication and advertised it regularly in the Sydney Stock and Station Journal.[38] The booklet also carried endorsements from Lady Carrington (wife of the Governor of New South Wales 1885–1890) to whom the book was dedicated, Lady Darley (wife of the Lieutenant Governor of New South Wales 1891–1910), the Department of Agriculture, and laudatory press notices.[39]

 

In all Sophie claimed to have won 700 awards including the Royal Agricultural Society’s national prize for a method of using surplus fruits and vegetables.[40] Her success with her preserves and the fresh produce from her farm saw her eventually graduate from competitor to judge. Along with her interest in agriculture in general she was recognised as something of an expert on a range of topics - farming, fruit trees, vegetables, controlling pests and animal husbandry. She became known to, and well respected by other horticulturalists and authorities such as members of the Royal Agricultural Society, and the Department of Agriculture, culminating with her appointment as the first woman to serve on the council of the New South Wales Chamber of Agriculture.[41]

In 1905/6 she and her youngest child, Broughton, sold their land holdings at Cole Vale.[42] Sophie, at the age of 73, embarked on a world tour.

On Monday, 9 April 1906, HMS Ventura left Circular Quay bound for San Francisco via Auckland, Samoa and Honolulu. Among the passengers were Mrs S. Corrie and Miss S. Franklin. Sophie left the Ventura at Auckland on April 13th but not before she had struck up an acquaintance with Miles Franklin, to whom she presented a copy of The Art of Canning. What the two women thought of one another and what they talked about is not recorded, but they may have found much common ground. Both were travelling alone, leaving Australia for the first time, Sophie fulfilling a life-long ambition, Franklin seeking recognition.[43] Franklin understood the joys and vicissitudes of life on the land and the desire to be independent, Sophie was a model of the self-reliant woman, although hers was perhaps not the brilliant career that Franklin sought. It is not difficult to imagine that Sophie would have encouraged Franklin to follow her dreams. There is no evidence that Franklin ever prepared any of Sophie’s recipes, but the book remained in her possession and eventually found its way into the collection of the State Library of New South Wales.

Sophie first spent three months in New Zealand then ‘moved leisurely’ across the United States and Canada before spending time in Britain and Europe.[44] She did not return home until 1908. What evidence there is suggests that now, thanks to her new-found notoriety (see Part 2) and no longer tied to the farm and life in the country, she was able to indulge her interests, including advocating for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, supporting women’s suffrage and the cause of women as workers, acting as a judge at various agricultural shows, writing occasionally for newspapers, granting interviews to journalists, travelling and visiting her sons in Queensland. She also revised and updated The Art of Canning which was issued in a 6th edition in 1913, by which time there were 12,000 copies in circulation.[45] In September 1913 she was in Queensland, visiting Rockhampton and Bundaberg before returning to Brisbane with a severe cold. She developed bronchitis and died on 27 September aged 81.Her total estate was valued at £4940.[46] 

In her will Sophie made three bequests each of £100. The recipients were the Bowral Circuit of the Methodist Church of Australia, the Berrima District Cottage Hospital and Georgiana Barker, wife of Alfred John Barker of Teneriffe, Brisbane. Georgiana Louis Annie Barker, nee Smith, had been a witness at Sophie’s wedding to Charles Pittman Corrie. Georgiana’s husband had also been successful in business before losing everything, so the two women had much in common.[47] Interestingly while she paid her respects to the community where she had made her home, Sophie did not provide any funds to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union despite her support of their work.

The proceeds of her shares in the Equitable Permanent Building Land and Savings Institution, valued at £920, were to be used to pay these legacies, any debts, and her funeral expenses. The balance was to be held in trust for some of her grandchildren, to provide for their education and support until they reached 21, when each was entitled to an equal share. 

Altogether Sophie had land holdings estimated to be worth £3600. All the remaining land at Colo Vale was to go to Broughton. The land she held in common with her sister Louisa was to be sold by her trustees and then divided equally between her surviving children, one fourth each to Arthur, Broughton and Edith, and the last to be held in trust to provide an income for Maud, and on her death for the children of Maud’s second marriage.[48] Her household and personal effects she left to Broughton. Arthur inherited the copyright of The Art of Canning. This appears to be a generous and fair distribution of her considerable wealth, given that Broughton had been the main supporter of her farming endeavours.

In addition, Sophie directed her sons to maintain the family vault at Rookwood, and their brother Stanley’s grave at Wanganui, in New Zealand. Her final instruction was that she was to be buried in the Corrie family vault and ‘that my funeral shall be conducted in as plain and unostentatious a manner as possible’.[49]

For all the information it is possible to glean from the archive, Sophie Corrie’s true character and the nature of her relationships with family and friends remain elusive. Moreover, in later life she develops a public persona which is somewhat at odds with the facts. See Part Two.



[1] Australian Town and Country Journal (hereafter ATCJ), 9 September 1908, p. 25.

[2] ATJC, 9 September 1908, p. 25 Lady Mary Elizabeth Windeyer, Australian Dictionary of Biography (hereafter ADBhttps://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/windeyer-lady-mary-elizabeth-1059ATCJ18 November 1908, p. 24 Lady Jane Franklin, ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/franklin-lady-jane-2065ATCJ, 16 September 1908, p. 39 Lucy Osburn, ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/osburn-lucy-4345ATCJ, 30 September 1908, p. 39 Caroline Chisholm, ADBhttps://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/chisholm-caroline-1894; ATCJ7 October 1908, p. 37 Catherine Helen Spence, ADBhttps://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spence-catherine-helen-4627.

[3]  ATCJ, 2 September 1908, p. 27 Henry Stafford Northcote ADBhttps://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/northcote-henry-stafford-7861ATCJ, 23 September 1908, p. 39; James Jefferis, ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jefferis-james-3853ATCJ, 14 October 1908, p. 39; Robert Lowe, ADB, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lowe-robert-2376ATCJ, 21 October 1908, p. 39; Andrew Garran, ADB,https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/garran-andrew-3594ATCJ, 4 November 1908, p. 39; Sir Terence Aubrey Murray, ADBhttps://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murray-sir-terence-aubrey-2498.

[4] ATCJ, 2 December 1908, p. 38; Obituary https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/taplin-louise-27555

[6] No libraries appear to have a copy of the original version of this publication. The date of its first printing is assumed from a letter written by Sophie Corrie to Lady Windeyer dated 25 October 1892, to accompany a copy of the book. https://primo-slnsw.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=ADLIB110350932&context=L&vid=SLNSW&lang=en_US&search_scope=E&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,sophie%20corrie&offset=0

[7] ACTJ, 28 October 1908, p. 39. 

[8] Museums of History NSW-State Archives Collection (hereafter MHNSW-StAC), Index to Col. Sec. Papers 1788–1825, [4/4570D], p. 130; petition from Sophia to Governor Brisbane for mitigation of sentence, [4/1870], p. 95; Census of New South Wales, November 1828. George Wheeler, alias George Ayres. Arrival Sophia Wheeler, Sydney Gazette, 24 May 1822, p. 2. 

[9] MHNSW-StAC: Col. Sec. Letters relating to Land 1826-56, item no. 2/8004, reel no. 1197. Elizabeth Brumby came to New South Wales as a nurse with the family of John Lamb, J.P, arrived on Resource, 6 May 1829, Sydney Gazette, 9 May 1829, p. 2. 

[10] Sydney Gazette, 23 August 1836, p. 4. Francis Clarke, 50 acres, parish unnamed at Illawarra, near the Minnamurra rivulet. Promised by Ralph Darling on 14 January 1831 to John Wheeler and possession authorised on 31 March 1831, but now at his request advertised in favour of Mr Clarke.

[11] MHNSW-StAC: NRS 13836, Land grants and leases (Registers) 1792–1865, [7/450], register 5, page 15, 21, reel 2846 (12 April 1837); register 6, pp. 23, 25 and 25, reel 2846 (18 April 1842).

[12] The Wheeler house stood on the southern shore of Narrabeen Lagoon and was not demolished until the 1980s.                                                                                                                                                                    

[13] John’s license was not renewed in 1838, Sydney Gazette, 21 July 1838, p. 2; Sydney Morning Herald (hereafter SMH), 8 August 1838, p. 2. Sale of the license, stock in trade, and household furniture of the well-known public house the Blue Bell in Erskine Street, SMH, 4 December 1843, p. 3.

[14] Death of John Wheeler, SMH, 23 May 1846, p. 3. Elizabeth Wheeler married Thomas Wheeler, of Bank Street, Chippendale, in 1848 and the license was then in Thomas’s name. Thomas died in 1866 (18 May 1866, at his residence Pitt Street, Waterloo, SMH, 26 May 1866, p. 1), and Elizabeth in 1874 (SMH, 18 November 1874, p. 1). Whether or not Thomas was related to the wider Wheeler clan is unclear but Thomas Fusedale, husband of Louisa Wheeler, Sophie’s aunt, was the executor of Thomas Wheeler’s will, MHNSW-StAC: NRS-13660-1-[14/3394],-Series 1_6829, date of death 18 May 1866, granted 6 July 1866. Thomas Wheeler of Pitt Street, Waterloo, formerly a baker.

[15] MHNSW-StAC: NRS-13660-1-[14/3226]-Series 1_1727, John Wheeler,  date of death  22 May 1846. Probate granted 3 August 1846.

[16] MHNSW-StAC:  NRS-13660-1-[14/3253]-Series 1_2574, George Wheeler, date of death 2 November 1852, probate granted 19 March 1853.

[17] Alderman 1874-79, Mayor 1876.

[18] Marriage Nightingale/Wheeler SMH 23 June 1851, p. 3, took place at the residence of Thomas Wheeler, and the witnesses were Thomas Wheeler and Charles Nightingale. Marriage Louisa and  Launcelot Iredale Brennand, SMH, 7 May 1856, p. 1, married with the consent of James Wheeler, Louisa’s guardian, in the presence of W. ? Brennand and Charles Cornelius Nightingale. 

[19] .William Christian McDonna MD married Sophia Wheeler 20 October 1855, in the presence of Lancelot I. Brennand and Charles Nightingale. See SMH, 30 September 1855, p. 8, and death SMH  25 June 1857, p. 8. Sophie wasted no time, the whole of McDona’s household furniture and effects were advertised for sale in the Empire, 27 June 1857, p. 7. While McDona’s death certificate notes that he was married, it also states that the name of his spouse is ‘unknown’. The death was reported by the Weslyan minister, so it is possible that he and Sophie were estranged.

[20] SMH, 5 February 1862, p. 1.

[21] Evening News, 15 April 1875, p. 2; NSW Government Gazette, 19 March 1875, p. 845; Singleton Argus, 18 November 1874, p. 2, Corrie had debts of £1000. At the time of Corrie’s death, the family is living in Stewart Street, Paddington. SMH, 26 December 1868, p. 8 To let, Clermont, Concord, 10 minutes from Homebush station, 10 rooms, large hall, pantries, bath, servant’s rooms, kitchen, laundry, cellar, coach house, stables. 20 or 40 acres land, 5 in orchard.

[22] Birth of Broughton Corrie, SMH, 7 January 1876, p. 1, at 86 William Street, Woolloomooloo. Her other children were Emily, born at Palmer Street SMH, 31 January 1863, p. 1; Arthur Pitman born 18 April 1865, SMH, 20 May 1865, p. 9; Edith, born 25 November, Darlinghurst, SMH, 1 December 1866, p. 1; Walter, born 1869, died 1870; Maud, born 1870, at Clermont, Concord, Sydney Mail, 22 October, p. 14; Charles Stanley, born 1873 at Clermont, Concord, Empire, 15 January 1873. 

[23] Vacant apartments, SMH, 8 February 1877, p. 12; sale of household goods SMH, 18 April 1877, p. 6. Interview in The Sun, 11 May 1913, p. 20, she says she started a boarding house in William Street and after 5 years went to Mittagong.

[24] Maud married James Wheeler in 1887.

[25] Advertising the guest house, SMH, 27 October 1877, p. 16, 13 November 1878, p. 12. Description of house SMH, 9 January 1873, p. 8.

[26] This is a case which involves Sophie’s eldest son, Arthur, facing court over having beaten a boy in their care. Goulburn Evening Penny Post, 15 May 1884, p. 4; SMH, 20 May 1884, p. 4; Bowral Free Press, 31 May 1884, p. 2.

[27] Advertising a vacancy at Osbourne House, SMH, 19 January 1881, p. 12; a cottage to let in Bowral, SMH, 26 November 1881; Sydney Punch, 26 February 1881, p. 2 ‘Mrs Corrie had a charming cottage at Bowral … good and attentive hostess … makes visitors thoroughly happy and comfortable.’ Advertising a 6 roomed, furnished house with every convenience, at Colo Vale, SMH, 8 January 1887, p. 20 (in name of A. P. Corrie); superior accommodation to visitors at Strathdon, Colo Vale, SMH, 16 February 1887, p. 3. Marriage of Edith and John Dymock at Strathdon, AJCJ, 30 November 1889, p. 35 and Daily Telegraph, 16 November 1892, p. 8. A letter from Sophie to  Lady Windeyer, dated October 1892, is sent from Ti-Tree. This is just another discrepancy in the story. According to an interview Sophie gave to an Adelaide reporter in 1911 she disposed of her original homestead on the death of her daughter (Emily died in 1894, at the home of her sister Edith, in Jamberoo, SMH, 1 August 1894, p, 1) and established another on the same selection (Observer (Adelaide), 2 December 1911, p. 42). It remains unclear whether Strathdon was this original homestead.

[28] Elizabeth Wheeler nee Brumby, died 16 November 1872 at her residence Derwent Street, Glebe, SMH 18 November 1872, p. 1.

[29] Sister Emily died in 1854 having never married (SMH, 3 July 1854, p. 8). Elizabeth Nightingale, wife of Charles Cornelius, died 17 May 1863. 

[30] See advertising SMH 11 January 1897, p. 13 and results of sale SMH 8 March 1879, p. 6. 

[31] NSW Government Gazette 29 August 1882, p. 4468. For land transfers see https://hlrv.nswlrs.com.au. Vol. 50 folios 153, 154, 155, 156 and 157. Sophie gives her occupation as lodging house keeper. The Fitzroy village area is now a part of Mittagong.

[32] Timber for sale, SMH, 19 September 1882, p. 9; Mrs Corrie’s timber mill, Bowral Free Press, 18 August 1883, p. 3. See also Bowral Free Press 22 September 1883, p. 2.’

[33] She was exhibiting at least as early as 1885, Bowral Free Press, 25 March 1885, p. 3 at the Berrima District Agricultural Society Show.

[34] SMH, 1 October 1888, p. 8. ‘Exhibition of Women’s Industries’. 

[35] Letter to Lady Windeyer, 25 October 1892. State Library of NSW, https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/YK5QQQjn.

[36] See catalogue https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-486158185/view?partId=nla.obj-486252763 for her contributions. For prizes see SMH, 12 October 1888, p. 8; 27 October, p. 10 and 29 October, p. 3. In The Art of Canning, she claims to have been awarded 2 silver medals for her candied and dried fruits, and 2 bronze medals for pickles and condiments.

[37] This date is assumed from the letter to Mary Windeyer. 

[38] Sydney Stock and Station Journal was published by Brooks.

[40] Sophie claimed that this was a first prize but in fact the RAS did not award a first prize in this contest. The Australian Star, 26 April 1893, p. 2. 

[41] The Chamber aimed to foster co-operation between primary producers and so protect their shared interests. Corrie was a member until her death. Sydney Stock and Station Journal, 27 October 1908, p. 4.

[42] LAND SALES SMH, 1 December 1905, p. 4; Sale of Mrs Corrie’s effects as she is leaving the area, The Wollondilly Press, 7 April 1906, p. 2. B. Corrie sells Alpine Estate, 1 ½ miles from station, poultry and dairy farm blocks, Evening News, 28 March 1906, p. 8. 

[43] Sophie’s ambition Sun, 11 May 1913, p. 20.

[44] Sun, 11 May 1913, p. 20; ‘moved leisurely’, Farmer and Settler, 29 January 1907, p. 7; Daily Telegraph, 24 February 1909, p. 12 ‘A woman traveller returned’.

[45] Farmer and Settler, 8 April 1913, p. 8.

[46] Telegraph (Brisbane), 27 September 1913, p. 2. MHNSW-StAC, NRS-13660-6-884-Series 4_62021 Date of death 27 September 1913, place of residence Sydney. Date of will 19 May 1909.

[47] Telegraph (Bris) 24 April 1891, p. 3 and Brisbane Courier, 17 July 1902, p. 4.

[48] Sophie and Louisa held 94 acres in total. SMH, 25 September 1915, p. 4 Advertising auction by orders of the executors of the will of Mrs Sophie Corrie, well-known market garden in north manly, 24 acres, frontages to main Pittwater Road, Condamine Street and old Pittwater Road. An old established garden, consisting of deep rich alluvial soil with a long frontage to the permanent Curl Curl Creek, from which the land is irrigated. Convenient to Manly and fronting Brookvale tramway. Rent 125 pounds yearly.

[49] The Corrie plot is at Rookwood Cemetery, Methodist Old 1A OC_Zone A/#/69. Buried there are Sophie, Arthur Pittman Corrie, Walter Corrie, Alfred Nightingale, Charles P. Corrie and Emily L. Corrie. Alfred Nightingale was the son of Charles Cornelius and his second wife, Sarah Jones.