Fursman, Tryphena Persis
Tryphena Fursman was born 26th December 1857 in Bowden, South Australia, third of nine children to William Fursman, an itinerant Methodist minister, and Catherine nee Buckingham. The records of their children's births (and several infant deaths) capture the family's movement from South Australia to Victoria, then New South Wales, ultimately settling in Gundaroo by 1873 where William Fursman was appointed Gundaroo Public School teacher. By this time, Tryphena was sixteen and assisting her father with his school duties as well as his temperance campaign.
In 1875 the residents of Back Creek, four miles from Gundaroo, suggested Tryphena as teacher in their submission for a provisional school. The application indicated a possible enrolment of forty-one pupils, children of graziers and farmers, and proposed a disused building as a temporary site. The district inspector came to assess the school site, having also arranged an appointment with Tryphena, but was informed on the day that 'she had been ill during the night and was then unable to leave her bed'. Tryphena was nonetheless recognised as teacher on trial for six months and the new school began in December 1875 with a name change to Mugwill, the indigenous name for the area.
Over the next six months Tryphena rode daily from Gundaroo to Mugwill to teach. She earned £29 in that period, most of which she spent on saddles, bridle, horses, and horse food. Inspector Murray returned in May 1876 to examine the school and Tryphena. His appraisal of her abilities was unfavourable, determining her practical skill 'incompetent' and her knowledge 'very small'. He therefore recommended her appointment be terminated and aid to the school withdrawn.
Inspector Murray met with Mr Fursman and advised him to send Tryphena to 'some good public School' for 6-12 months and then let her apply for training. Tryphena however wrote at length to ask the Department to reconsider, acknowledging her inexperience but judging her education adequate 'to teach any of the children at Mugwill for a long time yet'. She put forward several reasons why she should not be judged by her failed attempt at the written exam (as did her father in a separate letter). The local school board also asked that the decision to withdraw aid be reconsidered and conveyed support for Tryphena, noting her 'unblemished moral character' and declaring she was 'honest, steady and persevering in her work, and our children are getting on well under her tuition,' These combined pleas notwithstanding, aid to Mugwill school was withdrawn on 30 June 1876 and it was another five years before the school reopened.
At this point Tryphena Fursman likely went back to assisting her father with Gundaroo School. In 1877, she married John Murray whose family had been farming in the Lake George area since the 1830s. Tryphena and her husband moved to Young, then Sydney as the birth records of their five children indicate. Tryphena's parents also eventually moved to Sydney, her father dying there in 1884. Tryphena survived him by only a few years, dying in 1887, aged twenty-nine. At least one of her children, George William Murray, is known to have become a teacher, retiring in Goulburn in 1941.
[Biography prepared by Joanne Toohey, 2023. Sources consulted include NSW school teachers' rolls 1868-1908, 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
- Mugwill School
12/1875 - 06/1876