Turton, Annie Emma Dora
Family background
Annie Turton was born near Yass in 1896, eldest of six children to farmer Joseph John Turton and Elizabeth Esther nee Hodgson. After some years in the Murrumburrah district, the Turton family settled in Blakney Creek, north-east of Yass.
Teaching experience: Subsidised schools
Around the age of 20, Annie was employed to teach in a subsidised school on Blackburn station, near Yass. This teaching situation had an enrolment below the minimum required for a government school, so Annie was employed by the parents, who also provided the school building while receiving some government funding for each child attending. In 1919 Annie resigned the Blackburn position to take up a similar one near Murrumbateman, where she again taught for about two years. At her send-off from Blackburn, she was given a travelling bag by parents as a 'token of their appreciation and esteem' ['Yass Evening Tribune', 27 November, 1919, p. 2].
Toual Provisional School
In March 1921 Annie, now aged 25, was appointed temporary teacher at Toual as the school reopened after a three-year closure. Despite her four years' experience in subsidised schools, she was regarded as unqualified so was paid less than £4 per week. Her employment only lasted until the end of 1921 as Toual was then converted to half-time.
Later life
While Annie's teaching career at Toual was short-lived, she evidently formed firm connections with the community. In 1924 she married local grazier Claude M J Butt and they had three children, the older two attending the Toual Half-Time school before it closed in 1931. Annie died in 1972, having been widowed eight years earlier, and was buried in Murrumbateman Bush cemetery.
[Biography prepared by Joanne Toohey, 2024. Sources include NSW Teacher Career Cards, NSW school and related records 1876-1979, historic newspapers, NSW births, deaths and marriages index, and 'Early Education and Schools in the Canberra Region', (1999) by Lyall Gillespie.]
Schools
- Toual
03/1921 - 12/1921