Grace Bussell
Grace Bussell (* 1860 in Margaret River (Western Australia) ; † October 7, 1935 in Guildford , Western Australia ) was an Australian who became known at the age of 16 for rescuing numerous shipwrecked people on the coast of Western Australia after the wreck of the schooner Georgette . The places Gracetown (Western Australia) and Lake Grace were later named after her.
Life
Grace Bussell grew up on a farm near the Margaret River estuary in Western Australia.
On December 1, 1876, the schooner SS Georgette got into distress when water leaked into the ship in heavy seas and the pumps failed. Three lifeboats were launched near Calgardup Bay . The first crashed into the hull of the georgette , the second reached the coast. The third, overloaded boat was full of water. The Aboriginal Sam Isaacs , who had been observing the action from the coast, alerted the residents of the nearby farm. The 16-year-old farmer's daughter Grace Bussell was one of the first to reach the scene of the accident. According to a contemporary newspaper report that Bussell dubbed "Grace Darling of Australia," she drove her horse down the steep coast and through the heavy surf into the sea until she reached the third boat. With the help of ropes and Sam Isaacs she had brought with her, she gradually dragged the castaways ashore in a four-hour rescue operation. 38 out of 50 people survived the accident.
In 1882, Grace Bussell married Surveyor General Frederick Slade Drake-Brockman . Her son Edmund Drake-Brockman (1884-1949) later became Major General in the Australian Army , her daughter was the philanthropist Deborah Vernon Hackett (1887-1965).
Honors
In 1878, Bussell received the Royal Humane Society's silver medal for bravery, while Sam Isaacs received the bronze medal.
In 1910, surveyor Marshal Fox named a lake after her, which later gave the name to the Lake Grace settlement. Gracetown, founded in 1961, also got her name.
Web links
- Shipwrecks: Georgette . ABC News, 2003
literature
- Charles Walker Ray: Grace Bussell, the heroine of Western Australia and other poems . Lockwood & Brainard, 1878 ( online at archive.org)
- Vanessa Tucker: Aussie Heroes: Grace Bussell & Sam Isaacs . Wisdoms, 1999
- Stephanie Owen Reeder: Amazing Grace: An Adventure at Sea ( youth novel ). UNSW Press, 2011
- Michelle Gillespie: Sam, Grace and the Shipwreck . Fremantle Press, 2011
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bussell, Grace |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Australian woman, lifesaver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1860 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Margaret River (Western Australia) |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 7, 1935 |
| Place of death | Guildford , Western Australia |