South Coast NSW History Story
Emily Wintle
Emily Wintle’s fascinating story, as a South Coast pioneer, certainly deserves inclusion here.
But, there is also a second lesser-known story concerning her - one that Mark McKenna, Professor of History at the University of Sydney, indicates (writing in 'Meanjin', Summer 2018) 'is a story that continued to unfold long after it was published, unsettling the memories of the families involved, revealing previously hidden details and shifting at the edges as more information came to light' – that is just as intriguing.
Emily Gillespie was born in October 1848, one of eight children to Michael Gillespie, a station manager at Yowrie west of Cobargo, and his wife. When she was 6 years old, her mother decided she could no longer look after her, so she was ‘taken in’ to become a servant by the Tarlinton family at their family home at Bredbatoura, near Cobargo.
Her employment was abruptly ended 13 years later when she was accused, perhaps falsely, of breaking a mixing bowl.
In 1868, then aged 20, Emily married Walter Wintle a labourer who had also worked for the Tarlinton family. They were to settle on 300 acres of ‘wattle bark land’ near Bermagui.
In 1886, Emily’s husband died. He was 42. She was 38 and, with twelve children to care for (eleven of her own, plus (supposedly; but Mark McKenna suggests otherwise) a small daughter of a friend who had died), she was left with a farm to run.
It was not long thereafter that Emily decided it would be more profitable to run a carrying business between Central Tilba and Tilba Tilba and their port town, Bermagui. So, she had two drays built.
The business rapidly became a success, transporting goods to the Tilbas and backloading railway sleepers to Bermagui. The round trip took two days.
In those days there were no made roads and the bridge across Wallaga Lake had not been built. So, to cross the Lake, Emily and her eldest son would unload their cargos, transfer them onto small barges, punt these across the lake, swim the horse teams and the empty drays across the Lake, reload them on the other side and then continue their journey.
Crossing the Lake was not without risk, with Emily recalling on one occasion ‘the tide was out and eight big sharks were hemmed in by the sand bar. We manned the boat and with sticks beat the sharks that were wallowing in the sand and water.’
A bridge was built across Wallaga Lake in 1894 and immediately a number of other men sought to provide cartage services from the Tilbas to Bermagui. However, the Tilba shopkeepers – recognising the valuable service that Emily had been providing – told Emily that, because the others had not previously tendered for the work, she could have the cartage contract for as long as she cared to do the run.
One of Emily Wintle’s sons, Alf, served in the Boer War and later, along with his brother Jack, served again in World War I at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.
Emily continued to run the farm near Wallaga Lake until she was in her seventies, then moved to Bondi in Sydney where she died in 1937 at the age of 89.
The incident involving Emily Wintle (or Emily Gillespie as she then was) that so fascinated Professor Mark McKenna occurred in 1864 when Emily was age 14 years old and was a domestic servant at Bredbatoura. This is how Mark relates it:
'Mr and Mrs Tarlinton were away in Sydney and would not return for several weeks. Emily was at home together with the Tarlintons’ daughters Elizabeth and Margaret, and the Tarlintons’ sons Alexander, James and Thomas. On Saturday evening, 8 April, Emily had gone to bed around 9 pm. In the room next to her, as always when their mother was away, slept the Tarlinton sisters, Margaret and Elizabeth. Shortly after going to bed, Emily was woken by the sound of the sisters moving to an upstairs bedroom. They were forced to pass through Emily’s room to reach the stairs. Emily immediately got out of bed and stood at the foot of the stairs, listening to the sound of Elizabeth and Margaret moving about upstairs. They had never slept upstairs before. She waited for around ten minutes and went back to bed.
The next day, Margaret Tarlinton was ill and remained in bed. Emily visited Margaret in her room, and tried in vain to comfort her as she ‘roared out with pain’. Later that same evening, Sunday, 9 April, Emily and her sister again slept where they had slept the night before. After a few hours, she was woken by the sound of a baby crying in the upstairs room. Again, Emily got out of bed and stood at the foot of the stairs. She listened to the baby’s cries until she heard Margaret Tarlinton call out, ‘You little wretch, you have caused me all this pain’. It was midnight. Emily went back to bed but was unable to sleep, kept awake by Margaret’s constant moaning and the cries of the child.
‘Just before daylight’, Emily heard Elizabeth come downstairs. She lay awake, her eyes closed, her body perfectly still. Certain that Emily was asleep, Elizabeth hurried back upstairs before coming down again, but on this occasion Emily could see she was carrying a ‘black bundle’. When Elizabeth had passed through her room and out the front door of the house, Emily got out of bed and looked through the parlour window. She watched as Elizabeth took a spade hidden in the raspberry bushes, walked through the garden and down into the orchard. Alarmed, Emily hurried back to her room, put on her clothes, and walked round the back of the house. As she approached the water closet, she saw Elizabeth Tarlinton digging a hole near the fence. She waited quietly, being careful not to be heard. When Elizabeth had finished digging, Emily saw her place the ‘black bundle’ in the hole and lay a wooden board on top, before filling the hole with earth.
After Elizabeth had gone back upstairs, Emily scratched away the earth with her bare hands. It was now daylight and she was worried that ‘the blacks’ would see her and think that it was her child. Removing the soil, she found the body of a female infant with black curly hair, its skin dark and yellow. Wrapped in a black silk petticoat, the child had a piece of white calico tied around its neck. Emily washed the child’s head with water, wrapped it in the petticoat and reburied it. The next morning, she saw bloodstains on the floor of the upstairs room where Margaret had given birth to the child. They appeared to be smeared, as if someone had tried to wash them away with soap and water…
In May 1870, Emily Wintle sat in Sydney’s Central Criminal Court, the primary witness in a quite extraordinary case (Elizabeth and Margaret Tarlinton had been charged with murder)... She told the court how two ‘darkies’, who had been hands on the station for three or four years, were often seen ‘skylarking’ with the Tarlinton sisters…In court, Emily’s evidence was cast in doubt by the counsel for defence. He alleged that her husband was known to be in dispute with Tarlinton. He also cast aspersions on Emily’s character…Finally, doctors called in by the court to comment on the bones found by the police stated that while they were probably that of a newborn child, they were in such an advanced state of decay that little could be proved by examining the few that remained. Remarkably, at the end of the case, the foreman of the jury stated that he did not wish to hear the judge sum up, and found the prisoner not guilty. She could leave the court, he said, ‘without a stain on her character’.
Reporting the judgment, the editor of the 'Bega Gazette' expressed relief, claiming Emily’s allegations had been little more than a vindictive conspiracy against a ‘most respectable resident in the district’. But reading the transcript of the proceedings, it is difficult to believe that Emily’s allegations had been fabricated. The detail is too precise, and the evidence, though not conclusive in a court of law, certainly suggests a high probability of truth.'
(Mark McKenna’s complete Meanjin article, well-worth reading, is available online at www.meanjin.com.au>essays>in-search-of-emily)
The photograph is only known photograph of Emily Wintle, at the Funeral of Queen Narelle, Wallaga Lake, c. 1900. She is sitting at the right wearing a peak cap. Photograph by William Corkhill. http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an2511328
