The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Annie Coulthard (Yadandhanha), of Adnyamathanha descent, grew up at Wertaloona station where her father worked. There she was employed as a housemaid until about 1924, when she married her cousin Samuel Coulthard.

Annie and Samuel moved to Balcanoona where they worked for Ray Thomas, carting stones and sand for the new ‘Government House’, now headquarters of the Gammon Ranges National Park. After the birth of their first child in 1926, the family moved to the Adnyamathanha camp at Ram Paddock Gate on Patsy Springs, where they struggled to survive in a land ravaged by stock and drought. They moved to the Nepabunna run in 1930, when Thomas gave it to the Adnyamathanha. In the early 1940s, the Coulthards drove sheep between Balcanoona and Copley, and lived and worked on Idninha. In the early 1950s they moved to Wooltana and then to Nepabunna where, in 1973, Sam Coulthard died.

The last five years of her life Annie Coulthard dedicated to passing on traditional knowledge. She died in 1986 and was buried at Nepabunna beside her husband.