Jones, Hannah
Family background
Hannah Dolphin Jones was born in 1853 near Armidale, eldest of four children to Joseph Dolphin Jones, farmer and later shopkeeper, and Annie Louisa Mitchell nee Quigg. Soon after Hannah's birth the family moved to the Berrima district where in 1874 her father was appointed to the board of Eling Forest Public School. The following year Hannah, aged 22, undertook three months training at Berrima Public culminating in a week's temporary charge of Roslyn Public School.
Maxton Provisional School
On 1 September 1875, Hannah was appointed to a new school at Maxton in the Goulburn District. Despite the school's recently opened status, Hannah and her pupils were 'crowded into a small, uncomfortable, poorly furnished temporary building' situated on a property tenanted by the secretary of the School Board, Alfred Guymer. Unfortunately, Mr Guymer's tenure of the site was uncertain, so a proposal to relocate the school to a more secure location was put forward. Progress on the relocation was slow, so Hannah continued teaching in the inadequate premises for over four years, her duty perhaps made less onerous by her marriage in August 1879 to Alfred Guymer's son, James. Hannah and her husband appear to have settled close to the extended Guymer family on a small property at Baw Baw called 'Rockleigh'. Two months after her marriage, aid was withdrawn from the Maxton school, forcing its closure, with Hannah's employment left in abeyance.
Waterland Provisional School
In August 1880, after a ten-month break in which she gave birth to a daughter, Hannah was appointed to Waterland Provisional just south of Goulburn. The school operated out of a small Methodist church, where Hannah taught for seven months before resigning, (the school subsequently closing until 1883 when it reopened as Run of Water, later known as Yarra).
Later life
Sadly, Hannah died from hepatic abscess when only 39. Her husband, who was in poor health, died a few days later, his demise apparently 'accelerated by the loss of his wife' ['Goulburn Evening Penny Post', 6 December 1892, p. 2]. They were buried in Thurlow Methodist Cemetery, and guardianship of their 13-year-old daughter was granted to Alfred Guymer, the girl's paternal grandfather.
[Biography prepared by Joanne Toohey, 2024. Sources include NSW school teachers' rolls 1868-1908, NSW school and related records 1876-1979, historic newspapers, NSW births, deaths and marriages index, probate documents, and 'Early Education and Schools in the Canberra Region', (1999) by Lyall Gillespie.]
Schools
- Yarra
08/1880 - 01/1881