Elizabeth and Mary Phillips

Story

(This is a snap shot biography of two unusual migrants who I suspect do not fit the usual pattern)

Elizabeth and Mary Phillips were sisters who were born and brought up in the small mining village of Pontlottyn in Wales. Elizabeth was born in 1894 and Mary in 1905. They came from a family which was extraordinarily supportive and happy. Two brothers were to die prematurely as a result of the First World War through the effects of gas. The five girls all trained as nurses Elizabeth, known as Bessie achieving a role as matron in a maternity hospital. Both Mary and Bessie lost their fiancees in military conflicts and whilst the other sisters married and had children these two did not. Because of the death of their mother and the effects of the depression in Cardiff where they both were in 1937 they decided to take the unprecedented step of going into business together, opening a small residential hotel in Swansea. The hotel was on the beach front and catered for sixteen plus clients. The main reason for this purchase was to have a home and income for themselves and their father.

However, their family exploded. The business was successful despite the outbreak of war, billeted Officers insured their income but the war and illness was to have a devastating effect not only on them but their sister’s families. Their sister Doris contracted Rhematiod Arthritis following the birth of her second child Janet, her husband was at sea in the Merchant Navy, and as she was nearly crippled, her son John aged four, went to live at Swansea. The youngest sister, Greta had four children in rapid succession so the second youngest Philip, went to Swansea, aged 12 months,but by the time her fourth child, Marie was twelve months old, Greta had died aged 28, of a bacterial infection. Marie went to Swansea. Subsequently so did the other two siblings for extended periods and holidays. John was no longer a permanent resident but he and his sister were also frequent visitors again thorughout the summer holiday period.

The hotel flourished these two women running it with hired assistance and caring for up to seven children throughout the summer months. The children occupied ‘the attic” a room large enough to sleep all of them and the beach and the local parks were there playground. Philip and Marie were to remain with Bessie and Mary permenantly.

The advertisements for a new life in Australia in England in the fifties captured Mary’s imagination, she wanted to take the children there to provide them with the opportunities promised. National Service prevented Philip from joining them but in 1957 they sold their business and with Marie departed for Australia, Bessie was sixty four and Mary fifty three Marie seventeen when they arrived in Melbourne.

In those early years they worked extraordinarily hard at anything that came their way, Mary did factory work until she could gain a position in a Maternal and Child Health Clinic. Bessie did housekeeping. Marie did most of her education as a part time student, became a teacher. She married Roy Mackrell in 1962, and had one daughter, Fiona in 1970.

Bessie and Mary loved Australia and never regreted the move though they missed their extended family terribly. They made friends established themselves a home and found great joy in their great grand neice Fiona and in Marie’s career and happy marriage to Roy Mackrell.

They remained in Australia for the rest of their lives but did make an extended return visit to England They represented the Melbourne Welsh Society at the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969. Their greatest sorrows were their sister Doris did not live to make the journey out even for a holiday and that Philip decided to migrate to Canada not Australia.

Marie buried her two aunts, Bessie in, 1976 and Mary three years later in 1979.

In the seventies the pergorative phrase ‘old maids’ was in common usage, these were my very precious ‘old maids’ to whom I owe everything, they gave me a rich education, love security and who were two outstandingly generous, loving, open and courageous women who taught me all things are possible and that home is where the heart is.

The three family members travelled on assisted passage on the Fairstar.

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