The Australian Women's Register

Ethel Alice Ginn was born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales on 28 March 1900. She was the eldest of four children to Henry Thomas Ginn (1856-1939) and Elizabeth (Betsy) Winter (1876-1960). Henry and Elizabeth came from two well-known pioneering families from Canberra’s Gungahlin region. Henry’s father, William Ginn, emigrated to Australia in 1857 and settled in Canberra at Woolshed Creek, Duntroon, where he worked for Sydney merchant Robert Campbell. In about 1860 Campbell built a stone cottage for William which later became known as Blundell’s Cottage. William with his wife Mary and their four children remained there until 1874 when they moved to their newly acquired property Canberra Park.

In 1899, William’s two sons, Walter and Henry (Harry), built a new homestead at Canberra Park. In that same year Henry married Elizabeth Winter, daughter of John and Jemima Winter who were prominent early settlers in the region who are associated with Gungaderra Station, formerly known as Red Hill Station. Together Henry and Elizabeth settled at the new Canberra Park homestead, where Henry engaged in farming and agricultural pursuits. They had four children Ethel Alice, Elizabeth Lillian, James Henry and William John.

In 1917 and 1918 Ethel attended St Benedict’s Convent in Queanbeyan where she successfully passed her elementary book-keeping and ‘grammar of music’ exams. When she was about nineteen, she became a children’s nurse to the Crace family, another pioneer family whose associations with the Gungahlin Ginninderra district date back to the late 1800s.

By 1924 she had moved to Melbourne where she was governess to the son of Dr Valentine McDonald and his wife Everil in Toorak, Melbourne. It was here in Victoria that she met her husband Adrian Alick Trounson (1901-1981), a jockey. They married in 1931 and lived in Dandenong. Ethel and Adrian had three children, Colleen, Mary and Alick.

Towards the end of 1937 they relocated to Ainslie in Canberra and continued to live there until the 1970s when they moved to Malua Bay, NSW. Ethel’s remaining years were spent in Queensland with her daughter Mary. Ethel Trounson died on 1 April in 1993 at Boonah, Queensland.