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 1885 - 1961 |
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| Birth |
1885 |
"Verona", Cleveland street, Redfern. Redfern Reg. No 10184/1885  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Died |
27 May 1961 |
Chatswood Reg No 12741/1961 |
| Person ID |
I077 |
RopemakerDymocks |
| Last Modified |
4 Dec 2017 |
| Father |
George Trotter Evans, b. 1840, Stepney, Middlesex, England. 4Q1840 Evans George John Trotter Stepney 2 450 , d. 31 Dec 1920, at Guildford, late of Rooty Hill. Granville Reg No 1880/1921 |
| Mother |
Isabella Ann Forsyth, b. 1857, Prahan, Victoria, Australia. Victoria Reg No 1188/1857 , d. 21 May 1935, Chatswood Reg No 6253/1935 |
| Married |
25 Oct 1882 |
St Michaels, Flinders St, Surry Hill, Sydney. Sydney Reg. No 1532/1882 |
| Family ID |
F018 |
Group Sheet |
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| Notes |
- The Sydney Morning Herald Saturday 10 January 1885 Page 1
EVANS.?January 8, at her residence, Verona, Cleveland-street,
Redfern, the wife of George T. Evans, of a daughter.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954)Sat 24 Jan 1914 Page 20
Family Notices
WYATT-FORSYTH.-December 6, 1913, at the Pres-
byterian Church, Manly, by the Rev. Dr. F. W.
Dunlop, Ivor B., son of John Wyatt, of Neutral
Bay, to Annie Forsyth, elder daughter of Mrs. A.
F. Evans, of Girrahween, Manly.
http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/wyatt_annie
Wyatt, Annie
Annie Forsyth Wyatt is celebrated as the founder of the National Trust movement in Australia. Sydney's historic natural and built sites remaining today owe much to her efforts in setting up a national trust in 1945 to protect historically significant places. In 1946 the new Trust compiled an 'A' and 'B' list of Sydney's historic buildings and places and launched its first battle against proposed developments in Macquarie Street. These proposals would have seen the loss of Hyde Park Barracks and the Mint Building. Many groups supported this battle which resulted ultimately in the compilation of a combined list of significant buildings within New South Wales rated by the National Trust,Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Cumberland County Council. Buildings on the list would be protected for future generations to 'learn from the past'. Annie Wyatt's resolve to conserve and protect our heritage places through the work of a national trust had come to fruition. Until her death in 1961 Annie worked tirelessly for the National Trust of Australia (NSW) and saw the creation of similar national trusts in the other states.
A conservationist, lover of colonial history, and a humanitarian, Annie Wyatt also believed women could make a difference in community issues. She had seen women working effectively in the community during World War I. Over her lifetime she worked for many causes apart from the National Trust of Australia (NSW), including the Red Cross and the NSW Prisoners' Aid Association for 20 years. She published a book Doors that Slam, donating the proceeds to the Prisoners' Aid Association.
Early lifeBorn in 1885 at 90 Cleveland Street, Redfern, Annie was the eldest of eight children of Isabella Anne Evans (nee Forsyth) and George Trotter Evans. The growing family moved in 1891 to a house named Fairholme in the semi-rural Rooty Hill area, with Annie boarding at Burwood Methodist Ladies College from the age of 10. Annie's love of Australia's bushland and history is evident in her childhood memories of Rooty Hill. Pony rides to lovely old homes such as Bungaribee, Mamre, Horsley and Graystanes featured largely in her childhood memories of wildflowers and bushlands now gone. [1]
Annie's maternal grandfather Archibald Forsyth (1826-1908) had arrived in Australia in 1848 from Scotland. After working as a cedar-getter, a supplier of equipment to gold miners and a timber merchant he established the first rope works in New South Wales at Waterloo in 1864. [2] His outspoken public role as a Protectionist, and a member of Parliament, and his actions as a philanthropist in setting up the Animals Protection League, and supporting the sick and hungry must have influenced his young granddaughter, who found herself speaking out about public issues in the 1920s. Believing women had a part to play, her voice was often heard asking the question 'What about the women?' at various local meetings. [3] She was an early supporter of the United Associations of Women in 1929. [4]
Ku-ring-gai Tree Lovers Civic LeagueAnnie first became an active advocate of conservation in 1927 when, as a mother of two small children, she set up the Ku-ring-gai Tree Lovers' Civic League. This small group, consisting mainly of women, protested against activities destroying natural areas. Campaigns against rubbish dumping in bushland, clearing newly subdivided blocks of all trees, and sale of public bushland were on the agenda. The group conducted school education programs and was asked to intervene in problems outside the local area. Balls Head was retained as a reafforested public area in 1931, and bushland at Palm Beach was retained with the help of the Ku-ring-gai Tree Lovers' Civic League. The League existed for 45 years with several branches over Australia including Orange, Hunters Hill, Darwin and Adelaide. [5] Annie Wyatt helped to preserve a small area of Sydney's remaining bluegum and blackbutt forests as a member of the Dalrymple Hay Forest Preservation Committee in the 1930s.
Annie's love of place saw her seeking an active role in the conservation and protection of historic buildings as well as of natural places through the creation of a body like the National Trust in England. In the 1930s Bernard-Smith remembered her as quietly but consistently discussing colonial Australia with an infectious enthusiasm, an enthusiasm which attracted sympathisers to her cause. [6] Looming large in her sense of loss of Australian heritage buildings in the 1930s and 1940s were Burdekin House and the Commissariat Stores at west Circular Quay where an apathetic public had stood back and watched these destructions.
The National TrustAnnie Wyatt, representing the Ku-ring-gai Tree Lovers League, finally presented to the 1944 Forestry League (NSW) Conference her case for the need to form a national trust in Australia. This was approved and on 6 April 1945 it was resolved that a national trust subcommittee of the Forestry League be formed under Cresswell O'Reilly, Annie Wyatt and Arthur Cousins. [7]
The National Trust Provisional Committee began to fulfil Annie's dream of saving Sydney's historic sites. A program of education and public campaigns against demolition and unsuitable development in historic areas followed. Annie Wyatt, in early Trust minutes, warned the group 'that the last lovely Macquarie buildings were in dire peril and that we should take our stand for their preservation'. The 1946 Trust campaign to protect Macquarie Street against proposed developments was widely supported. The Trust produced an initial list of items to be preserved in 1946. The 'A' list included Sydney's Hyde Park Barracks and the Mint, St James Church, the 1815 Military Hospital at Observatory Hill, and Cadman's cottage, which all remain today as part of Sydney's central area. The list also included items further from the centre of Sydney. Old Government House at Parramatta, John Macarthur's Elizabeth Farm House, and Lennox Bridge, as well as the cemeteries at Camperdown and Parramatta, were included on this list, and have been retained.
Protector of heritageAnnie Wyatt continued her role as protector of Sydney's historic buildings and places, gently reminding the early Trust committee to move beyond the discussion and basically get on with following the objectives of the Trust. As a member of both the historic buildings and conservation subcommittees of the Trust, Annie continued to work on protecting both Sydney's historic buildings and natural areas. In the minutes she warned of threats to the natural public spaces of Sydney's harbourside and to historic structures such as Lennox Bridge, St Malo at Hunters Hill and Macquarie Fields House. Sydney's remaining heritage buildings and places today owe much to Annie Wyatt. She was awarded an OBE in 1960. A reserve at Palm Beach, an azalea and a stone seat in the Swain Reserve have been named in her memory. She continued to educate the public and protect Sydney's heritage sites until her death in 1961.
Notes[1] Ivor Wyatt, Ours in Trust : a personal history of The National Trust of Australia (NSW), Willow Bend Press, Sydney, 1987, p 2
[2] Ivor Wyatt, Of Dugong and a Sacred Mountain Ivor F & Mabel Wyatt, Sydney, 1998, pp 89?90
[3] Interview with Ivor Wyatt, conducted by Julie Blyth, National Trust archivist, 2004
[4] Interview with Ivor Wyatt, conducted by Julie Blyth, National Trust archivist, 2004
[5] Ku-ring-gai Tree Lovers Civic League files held in National Trust Archive
[6] Ivor Wyatt, Ours in Trust : a personal history of The National Trust of Australia (NSW), Willow Bend Press, Sydney, 1987, p 8
[7] National Trust of Australia (NSW) Minute book 1945
Australian Dictionary of Biography
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wyatt-annie-forsyth-12081
Life Summary [details]
Alternative Names
¦Evans, Annie Forsyth
Birth
3 January 1885
Redfern, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Death
27 May 1961
St Ives, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cultural Heritage
¦English
Religious Influence
¦Methodist
Occupation
¦community worker
¦conservationist
¦Red Cross worker
Wyatt, Annie Forsyth (1885?1961)
by Caroline Simpson
Annie Forsyth Wyatt (1885-1961), conservationist, was born on 3 January 1885 at Redfern, Sydney, eldest of eight children of George Trotter Evans, an English-born railway superintendent, and his second wife Isabella Anne, daughter of Archibald Forsyth. Annie also had two half-brothers and a half-sister. In 1891 the family moved to Rooty Hill, a fertile district where orchards and vineyards were encroaching on the bushland. After lessons at home Annie, aged 10, became a boarder at the Methodist Ladies' College, Burwood. She admired the headmaster Rev. Charles Prescott, and tried to abide by his dictum, 'be concise'. At the Presbyterian Church, Manly, on 6 December 1913, she married Ivor Bertie Wyatt (d.1958), a salesman and later tea merchant.
In 1926 the family (with two children) moved to Gordon. Dismayed at the total clearing of bushland for home sites and the use of Gordon gully for waste, Annie invited neighbours to her home to share her indignation. This gathering, led by the mayor of Ku-ring-gai, Walter Cresswell O'Reilly, established the Ku-ring-gai Tree Lovers' Civic League in 1927. The influence of the league was widespread. Wyatt was prominent in moves to create and gazette Balls Head reserve, on Sydney Harbour (1931), Dalrymple forest reserve, Pymble (1934), and the A. F. Wyatt reserve, overlooking Palm Beach (1938), named in her honour.
For twenty years Wyatt worked for the Prisoners' Aid Association of New South Wales and was president (1938-41) of the women's section. She regularly visited gaols, where such 'old lags' as Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh regarded her as trustworthy. On friendly terms with the comptroller of prisons, she succeeded in gaining less ugly clothes for the inmates. Horrified at seeing women dampen red-covered library books to colour their lips, she gained permission for them to receive presents of lipstick and face powder.
Annie Wyatt loved old Sydney and the County of Cumberland and spoke with knowledge and enthusiasm on their history. She deplored the ruinous state of two Georgian mansions, Graystanes, Prospect, and Bungaribee, Doonside. The demolition of Burdekin House, Macquarie Street, in 1934 and the Commissariat Stores at West Circular Quay in 1939 (which she described as 'official vandalism at its worst') galvanized her into action. Aware of the work of the National Trust in Britain, at a Tree Lovers' meeting on 11 April that year, she proposed setting up a similar organization in which buildings and landscapes could be permanently vested.
World War II intervened and Annie was occupied with the Prisoners' Aid Association and the Australian Red Cross Society (she was president of the Gordon branch). In 1941 she published a historical romance, Doors that Slam, and gave the proceeds to the Red Cross. Her friends included the historians Charles Bertie and James Watson, an early conservationist Minard Crommelin, and the commissioner for forestry Edward Swain.
At the Australian Forest League's 'Save our Trees' conference in Sydney in November 1944, Wyatt spoke, to acclamation, for a national trust. In April 1945 the National Trust of Australia (New South Wales) was established; O'Reilly chaired the provisional committee (Annie believed that this was not a role for a woman, but she was secretary). She served on the trust's council from its official foundation on 5 November 1947 to her death and was vice-president in 1951-61. She was also vice-president (1947-53) of the Forestry Advisory Council of New South Wales. In 1960 she was appointed O.B.E.
The attitude of (Sir) William McKell's government to a national trust was unenthusiastic, not surprisingly, in view of its plans to demolish Hyde Park Barracks, the Mint and Parliament House to remodel Macquarie Street. The fledgling trust waged a campaign against the forces of government?and won. Public apathy towards the preservation of old buildings now turned to support, especially from the Sydney Morning Herald.
Known to her children as 'Mater', Mrs Wyatt was considered odd: a housewife who struggled to awaken public interest in conservation. She skilfully combined her work?in which her husband took great pride?with her marriage, and endured his camping holidays, concealing from him her lack of enthusiasm. Of medium plump build, with golden hair, blue eyes, and a serious demeanour, she had vision and determination. She died on 27 May 1961 at her home at St Ives and was cremated. Her daughter and son Ivor, who served (1969-73) as president of the National Trust, survived her.
Select Bibliography
¦I. F. Wyatt, Ours in Trust (Syd, 1987)
¦H. Malcher (ed), Women of Ku-ring-gai (Syd, 1999)
¦National Trust of Australia (New South Wales), Bulletin, no 2, 1961
¦Sydney Morning Herald, 27 May 1938, 2 July 1946, 29 May 1961
¦Sunday Sun (Sydney), 31 Mar 1946
¦Sunday Telegraph (Sydney), 24 Mar 1947
¦honours, A463, item 1959/4816 (National Archives of Australia)
¦private information.
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