Hello from Diana

I'm Diana, one of Georgiana's great-great-grandaughters. Georgiana's eldest surviving daughter Sabina married Mathew Hale who had come out to Australia as archdeacon of Adelaide. He later became Bishop of Perth and subsequently Bishop of Brisbane. One of Mathew and Sabina's younger sons was Harold Hale, who was sent to a boarding school in Hobart because there were no schools his father considered suitable in Brisbane at that time. When Mathew retired, the family returned to England. However, after his death a number of them, including Harold, returned to Australia. Harold (my grandfather) settled in Tasmania,married Georgina Officer, and produced 5 children. My father Ted was the youngest. He married Joan Oliphant, and also produced 5 children, of whom I'm the youngest. I'm married, but have no children - only stepsons, nephews and neices.

I've always had an interest in Georgiana, and these days I'm particularly interested in the spirit she seems to have passed on to a number of her descendants, together with the number of us (at least in the branches I know) who have a strong interest in gardens and native plants. Nature or nurture?

One, for instance, travelled to the Middle East with her husband when he went to the First World War, and we have photos of her in nursing uniform at one of the military hospitals, sitting beside the Nile, riding a camel accompanied by the wife of one of our Light Horse senior officers, and listed in the programs of entertainment organised by the wives for benefit of the soldiers.

I'd be interested to hear from any other descendants of Georgiana and to hear any stories of the generations.

Diana West