Topic: TRAVEL.

My Great Aunt Margaret Anne Hunt, always known as “Maggie” , was born on 9 Sept 1864 in Reading, Berkshire and travelled to Australia with her family in 1879. She spent much of her early years in the shadow of her big sister Fanny, the first woman to gain a Science degree in Australia. Fanny started a girls’ school in Ipswich, outside Brisbane, Australia and Maggie, who as far as is known had no formal nursing training, became the school matron. Later Fanny started another school in Toowoomba, Queensland which she named Girton after Girton College at Oxford. Maggie was again the matron.

In an interesting twist of fate the building which housed Girton was later taken over by a Mr. Ernest Gill who started a boys’ school there in 1910. His wife was Isabella Griffiths, daughter of AL Griffiths of the Griffiths family which founded the Toowoomba Foundry.

In 1911 Maggie married wealthy George Washington Griffiths, almost certainly the brother of AL Griffiths. She was 47 and he was 67. They were great world travellers and made one or more voyages to England via the newly-opened Suez Canal. It is said they crossed the Alps in a De Dion motorcar, saw a ‘flying machine’ (airship) over Lake Lausanne, brought back a tin of tea from Japan and also several huge ornamental vases, and some intricately carved items of furniture from northern India among many other mementoes. Many of these are still in the hands of Maggie’s siblings’ descendants.

When George died in 1924, Maggie had a wonderful time spending George’s money on more overseas travelling. One does wonder if George’s children from his earlier marriage were equally well provided for! Maggie survived him by another 15 years. She had no children.

Although not part of the “Travel” story, it is worth recording that eventually Maggie bought a substantial house in northern Sydney some time after 1931 and named it “Redmarley” after the Hunt family’s ancestral village in Worcestershire. This particular “Redmarley”, one of a number of houses owned by Hunt family members, was at one time later a private nursing hospital run by Maggie’s niece Betty d’Archy, the author’s aunt. The family house in Toowoomba at the time Maggie was a matron at Griton, was also named “Redmarley”.