In early 1896 Annie Jones from Bendigo Victoria was nursing in the Government hospital at Cue, Western Australia. While she was recovering from a mild form of typhoid fever, word came by camel train that Mr. Magnus Maxton Calder, a member of the firm Calder & Co of Cue, was suffering from typhoid fever in Lawlers.
She volunteered to go to the town and nurse him. Mr. Lemperer, a member of the firm, travelled with her from Cue. It took four days to cover the 200 miles in a buckboard drawn by two horses. She was unable to carry much in the way of supplies as the horse feed took up a lot of the room.
On her arrival in May, she found her patient had died but there were many other patients requiring her attention. A number of local businessmen formed a committee and asked if she could stay on as a district nurse. The difficulty of tending men in their 6 feet by 8 feet tents, which meant she had to crawl in and take temperatures and make them comfortable until her next visit, was most unsatisfactory.
Matron Annie Jones is seated front row.
Hospital Committee and Staff:- Back row second from left A G Clifton, seated on left Matron Annie Mansbridge nee Jones
The committee then erected a large tent in the main street so she could at least stay with her patients who were mostly suffering from typhoid fever and small accidents which she could manage with a few stitches. She nursed with the help of a male orderly until the Government provided the aid to help build a hospital.
Mr. Herbert Hoover, who was later to become president of the United States of America, was among the invited guests when she had the honour of opening the Battery at the Great Eastern Gold mine on the 17th of September 1896, by breaking a bottle of champagne over the flywheel.
William Owen Mansbridge and Annie Caroline Jones were married on Thursday 17th September 1897, the first wedding to take place in Lawlers. Mr. A G Clifton gave the bride away. Mr. Henry Barnes was the best man and the bride was attended by Misses Kay Solly and Beatrice McGregor. The Reverend Alf Craven of Cue officiated at the ceremony.
William Owen Mansbridge JP standing second from left.
Civil Servants Lawlers c1897. Standing second from left William Owen M Mansbridge, Seated:- J B Solly, Colquohon,
A G Clifton, McGregor.
Annie Jones was to become Matron of the new hospital, Mr, or Captain Mansbridge, as he was known, was the Mining Registrar having previously worked under Warden Clifton in Halls Creek and Broome.
Annie and Owen were to have four children. Wurdel Olive Mansbridge was born in Lawlers in 1898 followed by Franklin Oliver Mansbridge born in Fremantle in 1900. Beatrice Annie, born in the Murchison in 1902 and Muriel Edith Mansbridge born in Mt Magnet in 1904. Annie and Owen were to spend a long life together with Annie passing away at the age of 86 in Perth in 1954 followed by Oliver four years later in 1958 also aged 86 yrs.
From the West Australian 5th July 1915
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN HEROES. MAJOR MANSBRIDGE, DS.O. Major William Owen Mansbridge is 43 years of age. His first commission, a second lieutenancy in the Goldfields Infantry Regiment, was secured in 1905, and two years later he was made a lieutenant. He was promoted to captaincy in 1911, and only a year later received his majority. Prior to the outbreak of war, he was third in command of the 84th Regiment, but in the early stages of the hostilities, he volunteered for service abroad and was appointed to a commission in the 16th Battalion. In private life, Major Mansbridge was Mining Registrar at Kanowna, and his quiet and unassuming disposition secured him a very large circle of friends on the goldfields. Prior, to receiving, the Kanowna appointment he was for many years stationed in the North-West and, in the light of the experience gained there he formulated a scheme for the organisation and training of the aboriginals of Northern Australia for defense purposes in case of a possible invasion in that quarter. An outline of this project was published last year, under his name in the “Australian Military Journal.” Major Mansbridge was to become the first-ever president of the Western Australian Branch of the RSL ‘Returned Services League’.
W O Mansbridge 7th from the left front row.
The Opening of Hill 60 Mine at Mt Magnet: From the Geraldton Guardian 21st March 1935.
Moya Sharp
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