Ann LOCK

LOCK, ANN (ANNIE, JOHANSEN, MRS A) (b. Riverton, SA, 1 Aug 1876; d. Cleve, SA, 10 Feb 1943). Missionary to Australian Aborigines.

The seventh child of Walter Lock sharefarmer, and Ann (née Stokes), Annie Lock worked as a dressmaker until she entered Angas College in Adelaide in 1901. Although a Methodist, in 1903 Lock joined the NSW Aborigines Mission, a non-denominational faith mission, renamed the Australian Aborigines Mission (AAM) in 1907 and the United Aborigines Mission (UAM) in 1929.

Lock worked first at Forster (NSW) 190509, then moved to WA in 1909 and until 1912 was matron of the AAM's Dulhi-Gunyah Orphanage for Aboriginal children in Perth afterwards pioneering a mission in Katanning in the South-West of WA. In 1915, the WA government established the Carrolup Native Settlement, 30 km away, where Lock worked until personality clashes caused her departure in 1917. She then joined an independent missionary with a colourful reputation, Sydney Hadley, on Sunday Island Mission. She spent some of her happiest years there, returning to SA in 1924.

In 1927, after spending some time in Oodnadatta, Lock felt called to Central Australia. Without full AAM support and opposed by government and settlers, Lock went to Harding Soak, north of Alice Springs. Drought conditions forced her retreat to Katherine, NT, in Oct 1928. In Aug 1928 Aborigines murdered a white man in Central Australia and police subsequently massacred many Aborigines. Recalled in 1929 to give evidence to the resulting enquiry in Alice Springs, Lock achieved temporary fame when headlines across Australia claimed falsely that she was 'Happy to Marry a Black'. The Board of Enquiry also blamed the racial unrest partly upon 'a woman Missionary living amongst naked blacks thus lowering their respect for whites'. That Lock usually worked alone was further cause for concern.

Ryan's Well, north of Alice Springs, was Lock's base until the white settler asked her to leave in 1930. She travelled 200 miles further north by buggy to Boxer Creek in the Murchison Range. She remained at what is now known as 'Annie Loch [sic] Waterhole' until Sept 1932. In 1933 Lock pioneered a mission at Ooldea on the East-West railway line, after another intrepid buggy trip from Crystal Brook. Lock left Ooldea in 1936, retiring a year later to marry widower James Johansen, ex-banker and self-appointed missionary to Eyre Peninsula whites. Annie Johansen died from pneumonia and is buried in Cleve. Her husband married twice more before dying in 1970.

Lock was unusual in preferring to work alone as a pioneer missionary. Such behaviour from a woman was condoned by the UAM partly because she proved a difficult working companion. She was independent and forthright, with an unshakeable faith in God and in her mission work despite frequent hostility from white society and ambivalent reactions from Aborigines. Although she reported some success in converting Aborigines to Christianity and 'civilisation', reading between the lines of her reports reveals the limitations of this success. However, regardless of the number of conversions they achieved, Lock's missions did aid Aborigines in a practical way, often providing a buffer between black and white and between life and death.

C Bishop, "A woman Missionary living amongst naked blacks": Annie Lock, 1876-1943' (MA thesis ANU, 1991); J Cribbin, The Killing Times (Sydney, 1984); A E Gerard, History of the UAM (Adelaide [?1945]); B James, No Man's Land (Sydney, 1989); E. Telfer, Amongst Australian Aborigines (Sydney, 1939); V Turner, The 'Good Fella Missus' (Adelaide, 1938); V Turner, Ooldea (Melbourne, 1950); Australian Aborigines' Advocate (1908-1929); United Aborigines' Messenger(1929-1943)

CATHERINE E BISHOP