Sometimes the only traces left of a nineteenth century woman’s life are those scattered through the stories of the men around her. Such is the case with Eliza Mary Durbridge, whose quiet life can only be pieced together through fragments of tragedy, migration and family devotion.
Born in Shoreditch, Middlesex, around the time of the Battle of Waterloo, Eliza Southey was the eldest child of George Southey and Mary Hall. Two of her brothers later emigrated to Geelong where they became hotelkeepers.
Her first marriage ended sadly. Eliza married Horace Phipps, a law clerk, but within four years he had become mentally ill and was admitted to Bethnal House, a London lunatic asylum, where he died in 1847. Eliza was left a childless widow.
She later married Joseph Durbridge, a miller’s son. Meanwhile, tragedy struck again when Eliza’s brother George was widowed in Geelong after his wife died following childbirth. He returned to England with his children, placing his young sons, George and James, in boarding school before remarrying and returning to Victoria.
In 1862 Eliza and Joseph sailed to Melbourne aboard the Norfolk, bringing the two boys with them. When their father died five years later, the childless Eliza appears to have become a steady mother figure to the boys, particularly George, who remained close to the couple throughout their lives.
By 1870 Eliza and Joseph had settled quietly in Colac where Joseph worked for local millers, their home in Forest Street was surrounded by fruit and flower gardens. When Eliza died in 1898, aged eighty-four, the newspaper noted simply that she “was respected by her neighbours and all who came in contact with her.”
Research by Merrill O’Donnell
Story by Clare Short

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