Jessie Litchfield

Jessie Sinclair Litchfield (1883-1956), writer, was born on 18 February 1883 at Ashfield, Sydney, second child of Jean (born Sinclair) and John Phillips, contractor. The family lived in various country towns until 1895 when they returned to Sydney. Jessie attended Neutral Bay Public School, where one of her teachers was Mary Cameron (Gilmore).

On 21 January 1908 at Darwin Jessie married Valentine Augustus Litchfield, a handsome miner she had met on a ship to Darwin. They moved wherever the diamond drills were sent, first to West Arm, then to Anson Bay, Brocks Creek, the Ironblow mine, the Union reefs and Pine Creek. Conditions were isolated and crude but Jessie became committed to Territory life. In 1909 she was 129 km from town, 32 km by sea, 5 km from the nearest white women; she described her circumstances for the Messenger, a Victorian church publication - 'Chinese and blacks my nearest neighbours'. Her plea for mission stations possibly influenced the establishment of the Australian Inland Mission. She was the mother of four sons and three daughters.

When the diamond drills finished, Val found work in Darwin with Vestey's meatworks. He died in 1931. Jessie already an experienced reporter had published Far North Memories (1930) based on life in the diamond-drill camps. She was a prolific writer, completing five books and contributing numerous stories, articles and verse to a wide range of magazines and newspapers. In 1930 she was desperately in need of income and despite objections to her appointment became editor of the Northern Territory Times and Government Gazette. Vigorous, self-reliant and enterprising, she edited the Times until June 1932 when it was purchased by its union-owned rival the Northern Standard. Jessie was a vociferous anti-Communist, a member of the Country Women's Association, and also of the Fellowship of Australian Writers. She was Darwin press representative for several Australian and overseas papers and for six years for Reuters.

In February 1942 she was compulsorily evacuated to Sydney where she purchased a small lending library, 'The Roberta', which she reopened in Darwin after the war in premises built by herself. A self-trained photographer and historian, she was something of a local expert on Territory affairs. Writing to influential people, she crusaded for Darwin, which she envisaged as 'the Great Front Door of Australia', and for Territory self-government. In 1951 she unsuccessfully contested the Territory federal seat as an Independent, campaigning over 4830 km by taxi.

In 1953 Jessie Litchfield was presented with the coronation medal for out-standing service to the Northern Territory. She was the first woman in the Territory to be appointed a justice of the peace (1955). In 1954 she helped to establish the North Australian monthly, serving as assistant editor and Territory correspondent. She died on 12 March 1956 at Richmond, while on a visit to Melbourne. Her ashes were scattered over Darwin. Her manuscripts and estate of 3000 pounds were left to the Bread and Cheese Club, Melbourne, to establish an annual Jessie Litchfield literary award for Australian literature, preferably dealing with Territory life.

Barbara James

Janet Dickinson Jessie Litchfield - Grand Old Lady of the Territory 1982.

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