A PIONEERING PAIR

Louisa Atkinson and her mother, Charlotte, were among Australia's earliest authors, and pioneers in women's rights.

- JANE JOHNSTON

WHEN A BRONZE statue of a woman named Charlotte was unveiled in Berrima, New South Wales in December 2023, it sparked conversations about who she was and why she deserved to be commemorated in such a way.

Charlotte Waring Atkinson Barton lived from 1796 to 1867. In ways that were pioneering for women of her times, she was an author, educator and great appreciator of nature and the natural sciences, and successfully fought in the NSW Supreme Court for custody of her four children. The youngest of these, born in 1834, was Caroline Louisa Atkinson Calvert, who died just five years after her mother, in 1872.

Both Charlotte and Louisa were unconventional, multi-talented women who achieved significant firsts in colonial Australia. Their stories are dramatic and extraordinary, and three prolific and award-winning Australian authors have written about them – Patricia Clarke OAM, Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell. Patricia’s 1990 biography, Pioneer Writer: The Life of Louisa Atkinson, Novelist, Journalist, Naturalist, is the only extended biographical writing about Louisa. It includes extended excerpts from Louisa’s novels and articles and substantial research on Charlotte.

Sisters Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell are great-great-great-great-granddaughters of Charlotte by her eldest daughter, Charlotte Elizabeth. They are also part of the Wingecarribee Women Writers group, which commissioned the statue by artist Julie Haseler Reilly. Their 2020 co-authored book, Searching for Charlotte: The Fascinating Story of Australia’s First Children’s Author, is about Charlotte and her children, and the authors’ personal journey as they researched the book. Given Charlotte’s life, that was quite a journey.