The Australian Women's Register

Eleven letters from Daisy Bates to the Fairbairn family in Perth, mostly written from her desert camps. The first letter (20 Sept. 1901) is to Robert Fairbairn, a magistrate, commissioner and governor of Freemantle Prison. Bates thanks Fairbairn for sending “the copy of the Govt Gazette containing your letter re the native question” besides other references. The second letter is addressed to Mrs Fairbairn (20 November 1912) and includes a detailed description of the journey and arrival at Eucla (WA). The other nine letters are addressed to their daughter, Ainslie, between 1913-1946. In the letter dated 16 October 1943, Bates describes this month as her “84th Birth month”, confirming the recent research in Ireland which established her birthdate as 1859, not 1863 as previously thought. In the letter she adds, “I have never asked the natives to work for me & do every last-least-littlest-duty myself. I never thought, from the beginning of my work amongst them, that it was fair to them, to expect them to wait on me, nor have I ever “trained” them to such work. Missions do these things …”