Frances PERRY

PERRY, FRANCES (b. Hull, England, 16 June 1815; d. Lake District, England, 2 Dec 1892). Wife of Bp Charles Perry (q.v.).

Frances ('Fanny' to her friends) was the second youngest of six children, daughter of a Hull merchant and ship owner, Samuel Cooper. Her closest brother, John, studied at Cambridge and befriended Charles Perry. Frances, also an evangelical, became friendly with Perry. They married on 14 October 1841.

Frances joined her husband while he served as curate and vicar of St Paul's, Cambridge 1841-7. On Perry's appointment as the first bp of Melbourne they took 108 days on the Stag to reach Melbourne, arriving in January 1848.

Mrs Perry was not able to have any children and so was free to accompany her husband on many of his long trips in his vast diocese. When they arrived, his spiritual responsibilities covered about half of the 43 000 people in the colony. By the end of his episcopate, they were able to subdivide the diocese, creating the new diocese of Ballarat in 1872. Bishop Perry and his wife returned home in 1874, to search for a bishop for the new diocese, and to retire. They remained in London till Charles' death (1891), when Frances moved to Ambleside in the Lake country near her brother, John, now Archdeacon of Westmorland. She died on the first anniversary of her husband's death on 2 December 1892.

Mary Stawell, wife of the Chief Justice of Vic, described Frances Perry as 'a lively little woman, nothing very particular as a companion, but with a good deal of English wit or kitten liveliness'(Robin, 1967: 20). Others were more impressed, especially by her ability to mix with people of different social classes, and her willingness to take riding lessons and head off into the wilds of Gippsland, riding 45 miles sidesaddle in one day, walking up the long hills, and staying in crude accommodation in little country inns. She wrote clearly and vividly in her diary and letters of their trips, of the wide, fast flowing Murray River similar to rivers at home, of her impressions of the older Bp Broughton of Sydney in their meeting at Albury, of spills by both her husband and herself while riding, of the only made road in the colony leading the 8 miles to Heidelberg, of trips by little liked boats to Ponland. Her keen eye and pen captured the birds seen en route, the ferny creeks, the dense forests, the good looking native police who accompanied them to Gippsland, the blackwood forest, the first view of the Snowy Mountains on the way to Wangaratta, and at times the unchanging landscape: 'Toujours le gum'

Frances Perry captured the extreme temperatures, the pestering flies, and the exhaustion of a summer heatwave in her writing: 'We could do nothing but sigh and groan and move from one position to another, vainly hoping the move might prove refreshing, drink hot weak tea out of Bush cups ... and wonder when the wind would change' (Robin, 1984: 132). She recorded later (6 February 1851) the terrible Black Thursday when the temperature was 106 degrees at 10 am in the coolest spot with dust everywhere ... and then 56 degrees the next day! She described the tragic bushfires and the woman and five children burnt to death in a hut on the Plenty. Her reaction to the discovery of gold in 1851 became well-known: 'Gold! Gold! Gold! My dear Amelia, we are gone mad with gold; and what is to be the end of it no one knows' (Robin, 1984: 155).

Mrs Perry also acted as scribe for her husband, and helped him in his busy duties. As bishop's wife, she was also expected to be involved in charitable functions and organisations, and she did this very thoroughly. She was concerned for the poor in Melbourne who were unable to have proper medical care, leading often to the women dying or losing their babies in childbirth. Her influence and enthusiasm helped develop in 1856 the Lying-in Hospital for poor women. She was president for nearly twenty years of this hospital, the first such specialised institution in Australasia. The hospital developed with the help of several doctors and a devoted group of women to become the Royal Women's Hospital, in which she was commemorated when the Frances Perry wing was opened in 1970. MB Perry was also involved in other charities, especially the Governesses' Institution and Melbourne Home. On her return to England, she donated the testimonial money given to her by the women in Victoria to this Home for Governesses.

ADB 5; B Darling, 'Some leading women in the history of the Anglican Church in Australia' in Australian and New Zealand Religious History 1788-1988, ed R Withycombe (Canberra, 1988): 147-56; A de Q Robin, Australian Sketches: The Journals and Letters of Frances Perry (Melbourne, 1984); A de Q Robin, Charles Perry, Bishop of Melbourne (Perth, 1967)

BARBARA BRINSLEY DARLING