Catherine's Story: From a Childhood on the Isle of Skye to Life in the Colony of New South Wales

This nineteenth century social history is written by Gail Barnes, the great, great granddaughter of Catherine McKinnon. Catherine McKinnon's life began on the crofting settlement of Kendram, on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.  However, due to the compounding effects of the Highland Clearances and the famine of 1837, there was no future for her in Scotland.  So, when Catherine was only thirteen, she emigrated to the colony of New South Wales, Australia with her older brother John and his young family.

When Catherine arrived in NSW she settled on Dunmore Estate, near Maitland.  She had five sons with her first husband Angus McDonald, a poor tenant farmer, at Dunmore.  After a sequence of life changing events, including her family winning the first Australian lottery, she moved to Underbank Estate near Dungog.  Catherine spent many years at Underbank raising her growing family with her second husband, Thomas Ballard.  The last part of Catherine's story takes place at Red Range near Glen Innes, where Catherine, Thomas and their family were early settlers on land which they had purchased under the Crown Lands Act 1861.

Catherine was a woman of her time.  Her story examines birthing options, childhood mortality, birth control and suicide.  It also includes discussion of Clan MacKinnon, First Nations people, bushrangers and Chinese gold miners, as well as the Highland Clearances, the Bank of Australia lottery, the temperance movement, Federation, suffrage and much more. 

The lives of ordinary women were not seen as significant in the colonial narrative.  Their names were rarely recorded in books or even on official documents.  Yet their unique stories tell us so much about our history and about ourselves.