Queen EthelPrint Page

The monument commemorates Queen Ethel, the last full blooded Aborigine to reside in the Kingston District.

Blackford Reserve is associated with several significant individuals and families, notably the renowned weaver and ‘Queen’, Ethel Watson, nee Ethel Wympie. Mrs Watson lived for much of her life at Blackford Reserve in a stone and iron cottage which stands on the opposite side of the road to the other houses. Her memorial, erected by the Kingston Branch of the National Trust at the town’s entrance in 1971, was the first memorial dedicated to an Aboriginal person in South Australia, and commemorated her as “Queen’ Ethel, the ‘last full-blood’ Aboriginal person in the district when she died, aged 80, in 1954.

She was buried in the Kingston cemetery on 5 July 1954 and there is a portrait of her in the Adelaide Museum. The descendents of her tribe, the Muandik, still reside in the district.

The last full-blooded, aborigine in the S.E. 80-year-old "Queen Ethel " Watson, of the Kingston tribe, died in Kingston Hospital on Sunday of influenza. Mrs. Watson's death is the first reported in the influenza epidemic that is sweeping the district. Known throughout the S-E as  "Queen Ethel"  Mrs. Watson's family included triplets, but she is survived by only one daughter.She lived most of her life on the Blackford Reserve,about 12 miles from Kingston. Her maiden name was Ethel Wimpi. She married a half-caste aborigine, Harry Watson,and later moved into a little cottage at Rosebank, on the outskirts of Kingston.
Chronicle (Adelaide). 8 July 1954.

Location

Details

Dedication