Matilda WallacePrint Page

The monument commemorates Matilda Wallace who settled in the area in 1864.

Matilda Hill arrived in Australia from England when she was 21. Three years after her marriage to Abraham Wallace in 1861, the couple left Adelaide for Queensland. Matilda’s experiences are told in her book "Twelve Years in Australia 1859 to 1871" , which gives a graphic account of pioneering life in the isolated pastoral area, Sturts Meadow. She was the only European woman in this region and lived on her own for long periods with the help of local Aboriginals with whom she had a good relationship. 

With her husband Abraham Wallace they brought 25 horses, 1,400 sheep and 18 months of supplies across the Barrier Range from Mingarie in South Australia and settled on Sturts Meadows. A lack of water meant they stayed on the move in those early years but in 1876 a well sunk on the creek near their original camp provided permanent water.  This water ensured that 18,000 sheep were utilizing this when the first homestead was built.

Abraham Wallace was born in Ireland in 1828,and came to Australia at the age of 20 and settled in the Mount Gambier district of South Austraila in 1850. After a short time on the Victorian goldfields, he returned to Mount Gambier where he married Matilda Hill.
 

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