The Australian Women's Register

Nancy Stevens was born on 23 December 1903 to Guiseppa (Jessie) and James (Jim) Stevens. Nancy’s parents had travelled separately to Western Australia from Victoria, Jim arriving in 1893. They met at a band concert in Kalgoorlie and were married in the Anglican Church Kalgoorlie. Jim worked as a winder driver and later a tributer and prospector. He was also a member and a regular performer at the Boulder Liedertafel and the Goldfields Operatic Society.

Nancy was the eldest of seven children. Alan, Jessie, Ada, David Edith and Ted. The family lived on a mining lease in Trafalgar and even when the water scheme came to Kalgoorlie their domestic facilities were rudimentary. Nancy went to school at the Trafalgar and later the Kalgoorlie Central School, where students knitted balaclavas and socks for the Red Cross war effort. Her class was then transferred to the newly-opened Eastern Goldfields High School.

Her ambition was to become a teacher and she began as a monitor at the Trafalgar School and the Kalgoorlie Central Infants School as an Assistant on Supply. She also furthered her studies and was the first women to study at the School of Mines, where she successfully passed chemistry and geology. She left teaching in 1929 upon marriage.

She met businessman Charles Manners, and they married on the 19 September 1929. Both were active in church and community life on the goldfields.

Nancy Manners had two children, Ron and Frances, and although she did not return to teaching she continued to contribute to the education of her children and their friends.

Nancy died in 1980 in Perth.