By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] A [/dropcap]lmost 170 years after she was laid to rest somewhere in the Warrnambool sand dunes, Agnes Ruttleton – the “Granny” behind Granny’s Grave – is to get her name back.

The Warrnambool City Council has followed through on its plan to have a plaque recognising pioneer Agnes Ruttleton added to the famous Granny’s Grave site at the east end of Lady Bay and has installed it in time for March 8: International Women’s Day.

Until now, Agnes has been incorrectly known only as Mrs James Raddleston, “the first white woman buried in Warrnambool” and thousands of locals and tourists have walked past her memorial in the dunes not knowing anything more about her.

Last year, however, Bluestone Magazine ran a story on the research of local historian Jenny Fawcett that revealed so much more about the life and times of Granny Ruttleton, who died in 1848 at the age of 60. It remains one of our most popular stories and you can read it here.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] A [/dropcap]mong those inspired by Agnes’ story was Warrnambool textile artist Louise Parlour, who used the imagery of the Granny’s Grave bluestone headstone for her entry in the inaugural South West International Women’s Day Art Prize.

“The theme for the art prize was ‘Women and Place’ and I think the Granny’s Grave story fits that so perfectly,” Louise said.

“So many people walk past that site and never really stop to look. Plus (Agnes) is not actually buried there and they have her name wrong, so it is like she is invisible, despite being one of the first pioneering women of Warrnambool.”

Louise photographed the headstone and used this to create a template from dissolvable plastic. Around this template she freehand embroidered the headstone using the closest colour she could find to bluestone.

The work took about 50 hours and 10.5 km – yes, 10.5 km – of cotton to complete.

“I think I bought about every batch of that cotton I could get my hands on in Warrnambool,” Louise laughed.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]he gravestone’s green lettering was then stencilled on to the work, some real lichen added from Louise’s roof at home and the whole thing covered with a thin coat of PVC glue to hold it together once the dissolvable plastic was removed.

The headstone itself is surrounded by sand and pussy willows, boxed by recycled fence pickets from a friend.

“I wanted it to look like I imagine it did when it was first erected, not with the modern handrails and things around it,” Louise said.

As part of sharing Agnes’s story with the public, Louise wrote a poem encapsulating what is known of her life and included this in her piece, tucked inside a piece of weathered marine ply.

“I want people to pick it up, read it and go away knowing a bit more about Agnes,” she said.

[learn_more caption=”You can read Louise’s poem here:”]

Where is this woman?

Laid to rest

Windswept dunes

Leaving no remnants

No trace……………

No photos to be found

Only our imaginations

Giving Granny a face.

A pioneer woman of her day

A township of 100 people

So they say…..

Makeshift homes set up

Enduring the wind and rain

On Flagstaff Hill

Where the sheep today roam.

So who is this Granny?

Encapsulated in time

A bluestone grave

Neither reason nor rhyme

Standing all alone

Standing the test of time……

Not much is known about Granny

And her pioneer days

Agnes sailed by sea

From Tasmania

Aboard the Essington

Wife of James

No record of children

The colony of New South Wales

Town of Warrnambool……

Worked hard for a quid

Odd jobs and selling crays

Headstone depicts wrong name

Should read – Mrs Agnes Ruttleton

Second white woman

To be buried in Warrnambool

First believed to be buried on an island

Off the Hopkins River

Granny was admired by one Richard Osburne

Known as a publisher and local historian

Paid for her burial

In the sand dunes……

Returning some years later

To no avail

Could not find her marker

And all efforts failed

Richard Osburne fought

Council decided to erect a headstone

The one that stands today All alone……..

Louise Parlour 2015

(I would like to acknowledge Bluestone Magazine and their article “Who is the “Granny” behind Granny’s Grave?” published February 9, 2014, and local researcher Jenny Fawcett who uncovered the story of the “real Granny”.) [/learn_more]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]he marine ply was found at Levy’s Beach where she occasionally walks with her father, who visits the area regularly in search of that other Warrnambool legend: the Mahogany Ship.

It is the first time Louise has entered her work in an exhibition, but unfortunately, after our interview, she learned that she had missed out in the selection process (the prize attracted more than 70 entries, of which only 50 could be selected).

Despite missing out, Louise remained upbeat, saying she had thoroughly enjoyed creating the work. We think Agnes would be pretty chuffed too.

In the meantime, the council plaque – which has been added to the viewing platform next to the grave – provides details about Agnes and her challenging life as one of the first non-Indigenous people to settle in the area.

A council spokesman said the full text of the plaque, which can be found at the end of this story, was developed with the assistance of Elizabeth and (the late) Les O’Callaghan and the Warrnambool Historical Society, in conjunction with historian Dr Helen Doyle.

[learn_more caption=”Read the full text on the grave plaque here:”] Who was Granny? Granny’s Grave marks the burial site of Agnes Ruttleton, who died in December 1848. Agnes Ruttleton, known as “Granny”, was recorded as “the first white woman to be buried in Warrnambool”.

Agnes arrived in Warrnambool with her husband James Ruttleton in the late 1840s (probably both ex-convicts from Van Diemen’s Land) and lived in humble conditions, occupying a tent or hut at the base of Flagstaff Hill. It is believed they made a living catching crayfish. Exposed to unpredictable weather and with few physical comforts, they would have had a tough life.

In Warrnambool’s early days many settlers experienced similar hardship and made meagre incomes from fishing and beachcombing. In an 1850 census, eight men gave their place of residence as ‘at the jetty’, another five were described as ‘Fishermen at the Hummocks’.

Upon Agnes’ death in 1848, a group of leading Warrnambool citizens, including Richard Osburne, who would later publish The Examiner, Gilbert Nicol, Mark Nicholson, John Hollins Craig, John Moffat Chisholm and Thomas Denny, rallied to provide a decent burial ceremony for her.

Rev. Thomas Slattery, the Catholic priest from Belfast (Port Fairy), was brought across to officiate at a ceremony held at the sand hummocks and to consecrate the ground where she was buried. [/learn_more]

[box]The South West International Women’s Day Art Prize will be launched Thursday March 5 at 6pm at The Artery, 224 Timor St, Warrnambool. Live music. Judging by internationally recognised Portland artist Carmel Wallace.[/box]

You might also enjoy…

 

A fence full of happy soles at Tyrendarra

Victoria’s oldest building right in our backyard

Deep into the cellars of KM Lynch

Turning into the Turn In Motel

Biblio Art Prize remains an open book

OPINION

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]here are not a lot of memorials to women in Warrnambool: in fact compared to the ovals, parks, plaques, sculptures, plinths and pioneer boards that have been devoted to civic-minded and influential men, there is barely anything at all.

The historic Warrnambool Pioneer Board appears to have set the standard and has become as famous for its omissions as its inclusions.

Put together in 1907, the 3m x 2m board features 204 individual photographs of Warrnambool’s pioneers and not one of them is a woman. In an almost humorous twist, the board itself was assembled and illustrated by a woman, Lillian Foyle, but nobody remembers her name compared to those who feature in the circular frames.

You would think that more than 100 years on things might have changed considerably, but it appears not.

I am happy to stand corrected, but the only high-profile monuments to women that come to my mind easily are the contemporary Val Bertrand Stadium in west Warrnambool and the 110-year-old Granny’s Grave in the sand dunes off the bike/walking track in east Warrnambool.

And the Granny’s Grave site is looking increasingly worse for wear.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] D[/dropcap]espite being passed by thousands of people every year, including tourists who are encouraged to visit the grave, the monument is covered in rust stains, the paintwork is peeling and chipped, the metal surround is completely out of character with the grave, and the site is surrounded by weeds.

There is also no interpretive plaque or information about “Granny”, other than the few – and as it turns out, incorrect – lines etched into the basalt headstone, even though the Warrnambool City Council announced earlier this year that a plaque would be in place by the end of June.

It is now the middle of October, and I have become tired of asking the council when the plaque might be coming and no doubt they have tired of me too.

Bluestone wrote earlier this year about the fascinating story behind the “Granny” who lies in Granny’s Grave – Agnes Ruttleton – and how she has come to represent all of the faceless and nameless women who were among the very first to come to a scrap of a town called Warrnambool in the hope of a better life.

Agnes was never a rich woman, and she died in poverty at the age of 60 in 1848, but there was something about her indefatigable, pioneering spirit that more successful and wealthy citizens like Richard Osburne thought was worth commemorating. He lobbied for years to have the approximate site of her burial marked by an official grave.

The council knows this is a special site, but the wheels turn extremely slowly when it comes to preserving key elements of our past.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] A [/dropcap] 2008 management report into the city’s public art and cultural assets concluded way back then that Granny’s Grave needed “significant restoration”, including replacing the rusted handrail, ongoing weeding and, with the help of expert advice, cleaning the stone surface, removing the rust stains and re-patching and re-coating the concrete as required.

The handrail has been replaced, but that’s where work has stopped.

I wonder if the council – and us, as residents – would be so accepting of the situation if the memorial marked a returned soldier, a famous footballer, or a founding father of the town?

The council recently voted to apply heritage planning controls over the Granny’s Grave site and I was slightly stunned that it hadn’t already been covered.

Councillor Jacinta Ermacora summed it up when she said the heritage protection process not only for Granny’s Grave, but for dozens of other sites around Warrnambool had “taken far too long”. Given the process began in 1983 – when the council first realised its heritage controls were hopelessly out of date – Cr Ermacora is being generous.

Why is it like this?

Why does it take so long for any action to be taken on preserving our heritage and, when it is, it is often half-finished and then abandoned?

It appears that we are so focussed on the “now” that we have lost sight of preserving the characters and essence of our past.

Agnes is certainly a rare character from our past who deserves her proper place in our story.

 [button link=”http://the-terrier.com.au/subscribe-2/” type=”icon” icon=”heart” newwindow=”yes”]If you would like early access to Opinion pieces, please subscribe to Bluestone.[/button]

Find more Opinion here…

 

All words, no funding, for Fletcher Jones story

Grappling with the work of a predator

Unravelling the mystery of art commissions

Lack of schooling a ticking bomb in south-west

What about more fun for grown-ups?

Council’s racing hospitality bill hard to swallow

By Carol Altmann

One of Warrnambool’s most enduring mysteries has been the identity of the “Granny” buried at Granny’s Grave high in the sand hills of Lady Bay and now, more than 165 years after her death, she is to finally have due recognition.

The Warrnambool City Council will add a plaque to the grave site by the end of June that will correct a long-standing error that named “Granny” as Mrs James Raddleston – the name inscribed on the headstone – and confirm that she was in fact Agnes Ruttleton.

Very little was known about Agnes Ruttleton beyond the perfunctory details etched into her headstone that told us she died in 1848 and was the “first white woman buried in Warrnambool” which at that time was still part of NSW.

Bluestone, however, has pulled together the threads uncovered by various researchers to tell her full story.

We began with a bunch of history books and a visit to the Warrnambool & District Historical Society that holds a thin manila folder on Granny’s Grave which contains the bare bones of her life and identity.

 

 

The books and clippings reveal that Agnes and her husband – who was incorrectly named as a James Raddleston –  lived in a tent somewhere near Flagstaff Hill in 1847-48 and eked out an existence through odd jobs and selling crayfish. At that time, Warrnambool was just a speck, with the first land sales having been held in 1847 and its population at around 100.

Among the first people to buy land was Richard Osburne, the newspaper publisher and historian, who at the age of 22 bought a block on the corner of Kelp and Merri streets not far from where Agnes and James were living. Richard knew Agnes as “Granny”, probably because of her age (more on that later) and, it appears, became quite emotionally attached to the “old” woman.

When Agnes died in 1848, Osburne is named among a group of men who organised for a coffin and a funeral service to be held at a burial spot in the isolated dunes, as Warrnambool did not yet have a cemetery. A fence was built around her grave but years of scarifying wind, rain and shifting sands saw the fence – and entire gravesite – eventually disappear from view.

Indeed Osburne was mortified when he returned to Warrnambool in 1886 and despite “walking and walking” he was unable to find Granny Raddleston’s final resting place.

“I tired myself from the search,” he wrote in a letter to the local paper.

 

 

Osburne used his letter to implore the council to erect a proper headstone in honour of one of Warrnambool’s pioneering women, but nothing was done for almost another 20 years when, in 1904, a group of citizens raised funds for the bluestone headstone that stands today.

(In the intervening years, an anonymous resident used a piece from the 1888 wreck of the Edinburgh to mark Granny’s Grave – perhaps as a subtle hint for the council to hurry up.)

When the headstone was finally unveiled, it had Agnes reduced to “Mrs James Raddleston”, a person who did not technically exist, although it was not uncommon for name spellings to be mangled through either mis-spellings, poor handwriting or mispronunciation. Raddleston had been recorded as Rittleton, Ruttleton and Raddlestone.

And this is where Jenny Fawcett, from Warrnambool, comes in.

 

 

To call Jenny an amateur historian is a gross understatement: she is researcher unlike any other we have met before. Jenny has devoted hours of her time, driven by personal passion rather than profit, researching the history and characters of the south-west Victorian coast.

Her files are extraordinary, and her recall of individual details and events is mind-boggling.

It is Jenny who has reached back through time to find that Agnes Raddleston is Agnes Ruttleton and, in so doing, uncovered how James and Agnes came to be in Warrnambool.

“I like unravelling the mystery behind an individual, and Granny’s Grave is one of those stories that just had to be unravelled,” she said.

Through meticulous searching of convict records, Jenny traced James Ruttleton as an English boatman who was sentenced to 14 years for stealing and transported to Australia in 1820 – first to NSW, and later, after escaping, to Hobart Town. He was 31 years old.

 

 

After a variety of indiscretions, James was finally granted his Certificate of Freedom in 1834 and settled into a life in Tasmania.

Somewhere along the way, he met Agnes. Jenny has not been able to uncover her maiden name, or whether she was a convict too, but there is no record of James ever marrying.

“Maybe they were already married when he was sentenced and she joined him in Australia later, which could happen, or perhaps they were never married at all,” Jenny said.

What we do know, thanks to Jenny’s research, is that the pair sailed from Tasmania to Port Fairy on board the Essington in November 1846 and are listed as James and Agnes Ruttleton.

Both were then aged in their late 50s, but Jenny believes James may have been lured by the opportunity of better work. The Geelong and Portland Bay Immigration Society – which included Port Fairy – was keen to bring in labour.

 

 

It appears the new opportunity didn’t quite work out, however, with James and Agnes living in virtual poverty for their final years.

Agnes died only 12 months after they arrived, at the age of 60, on December 13, 1848.

Agnes was also not the first white woman to die in the area.

Landholder John Allan (from Allansford fame), lost his first wife Jemima in 1842 and buried her on an island in the Hopkins River. There were most likely other deaths among the original sealers and settlers.

Agnes was, however, perhaps the first white woman to be buried in the newly proclaimed area of Warrnambool.

James Ruttleton died three years after Agnes, on June 15, 1851, and is buried in the Port Fairy cemetery…his death certificate incorrectly names him as John.

While Warrnambool’s infamous “Pioneers Board” (now housed in the library) doesn’t include any female pioneers among its faces, the Granny’s Grave plaque will recognise at least one of the many brave women who ventured to what was then nothing more than a tiny settlement behind the sand dunes.

 

 In researching this story, we uncovered a rare and beautiful poem about Granny’s Grave by Professor Andrew Taylor, who was born in Warrnambool. The Grave by the Sea, Warrnambool was first published in Quadrant Magazine in March 1981. Prof Taylor has kindly granted us permission to reprint his poem in full here. We would also like to thank Dr Simon Cooper for his efforts in finding a copy of the poem that, being written pre-computers, Prof  Taylor did not even have. He does now!