Martha Gamble Albany 1835 - 1867

Martha Gamble

Albany 1835 - 1867

Martha Gamble entered this life on 5 November, 1835 and was born on one of the islands of the Archipelego of Rechèchè .  Robert Gamble, her father, traversed the seas readily between Kangaroo Island and Albany and so she may have been born on the island he normally stayed and that was Middle Island.  Her birth was the first recorded for Robert and “Eliza”.  Robert was a sealer and sometimes a whaler and lived on many of the Islands off the South Coast of Western Australia with Eliza and their children.  Eliza Nowen was a woman of the Bunurong People of Pt. Phillip Bay and had been captured by raiders in 1832/34.   Robert may have bought her from another sealer on one of the islands of Bass Strait, but early records state that she was from originally from Pt. Phillip Bay.

Martha was born into an extremely harsh life and living conditions for the family was very scant and labour intensive.  Her mother was a virtual slave.  Robert Gamble must have been an extremely hardened man.  Sealers and whalers were known for their lack of empathy for anything, human or animal.  The act of killing seals was said to be and still is considered a very dehumanizing occupation.  It would not be unfair to say that Robert was such a man.

Martha’s day would have begun with helping her mum with the duties required of her.  Depending on the season this would have been tending the vegetables near the “cottage” or helping the sealing gangs rounding up the small seal pups and killing the seals.  Bunurong women were highly rated for their ability to tan hides and weave baskets and fish traps and these talents would have been passed to Martha.  Seal skins were worth a small fortune and Robert Gamble was said to have had quite a sizable amount of money at different times.

Martha had 3 brothers and 3 sisters, however only two sisters lived on to marry and have children.  Martha’s siblings, Robert born in 1836, Isabella in 1837, and John in 1838, when these children died or if they went on to have families has never been recorded.  Only their births were recorded in a family Bible.   “The Breaksea Island Bible” as it was to become known as is now in the possession of the Albany Historical Society.  Isobella, John and Robert were never found to have been baptised, and it is probably fair to say that Isobella and John died in infancy.  The birth of another John was recorded in the Bible in 1863 but because it occurred when Eliza was a much older woman, there is some doubt as to whether he was Eliza’s natural child.

Despite Martha’s early years being hard or maybe because of it, she became quiet involved in the early life of the Anglican Church.  She had moved into Albany, possibly to find employment.  What this may have been we don’t know, however her involvement in forming and fund raising for the Anglican Church is recorded.  She was confirmed into the Church on Trinity Sunday by the Bishop Hale the day after it was consecrated.  She was the first in her family to be confirmed and the youngest.  She was 14.  No one at this stage knows where she lived or with whom.  Henry Camfield became fundamental to the establishment of the Anglican Church and a champion of Emma, Martha’s sister and would go on with his wife to rear Martha’s two children.  Ann Camfield was to set up an aboriginal school, so it could be said they had become a firm friends of the Gamble’s much earlier.

Martha married in 1860 to Mathew Smith, a teacher.  It seems that they were truly in love as this does not appear to have been an arranged marriage as Nancy’s appears to have been 2 years before.  Martha was 21 and Mathew was 44 years old.  They seem to be a happy couple, both committed to church work.  Mathew had been a teacher and may have continued in a teaching role so as to be able to feed the family.Martha had 2 children to Mathew, Eliza Jane, 1862 and Martha Grace 1865.  In July of that year Mathew died leaving Martha, a young widow with 2 small children.

Life for a young widow with children was a poor one unless your husband left an estate to live off, unfortunately this was not the case with Martha.  No husband meant no income and we don’t believe that Mathew had been a wealthy man.  She had no alternative but to find employment or a husband.  Two years later she did just that and found John Foran.  He had been born here in Western Australia and his parents had come out on one of the first ships out to Western Australia.

They were married in the church in 1867 and on 14th September of that year John Foran Jnr. was born.  His birth must have been a traumatic one as Martha died in child birth and little John weakened by the birth died 3 months later.  The little girls were left orphaned and it appears that they went into the care of the Camfields who would had already set up an educational institution for orphaned aboriginal children.  The children at this institution were loved and cared for and Martha and Eliza eventually grew and were placed into the employment of Bishop Hale and his wife.

Martha’s life although short must have been a life of such contrasts.  She was born into a life of hard work and the things she may have witnessed as a child could have been very dehumanising, however she grew to a woman of courage and determination and gentleness and love.  She found comfort in doing work for the church community, and so had found respect in that from her peers.  Martha left a legacy of conviction and faith for her descendents, one which lingers in varying forms today.

©Theresa Lo Presti
2014