Eliza Fraser
Eliza Fraser was a Scottish woman whose ship was shipwrecked on the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 22 May 1836, and who was captured by Aborigines. Fraser Island is named after her.
She was the wife of Captain Fraser, captain of the Stirling Castle. There were 18 people aboard the ship and a cargo mainly of spirits, which may have been involved in the accident. They struck a reef hundreds of kilometres north of Fraser Island. They then launched a boat and landed at Waddy Point on Fraser Island. It was here that she was captured by Aborigines; her husband either died from starvation or was killed by an Aborigine because he was unable to carry wood). They were stripped of their clothing.
She was found by John Graham, an escaped convict who had lived for six years with the Aborigines, and is said to have gone naked to get the confidence of the Aborigines. Eliza later married another sea captain and went back to England. Controversy followed when she requested from the Lord Mayor of London funds to be given to herself & her children as she was left penniless after her husband had died, not mentioning her marriage to Captain Greene or the £400 received in Sydney by a fund set up to help her. A sensationalised account of the incident was sold in London.
Fiction
Patrick White wrote a fictionalised account of the incident in the 1976 novel A Fringe of Leaves. Other writers to have written her story include André Brink, Kenneth Cook and Michael Ondaatje. Sidney Nolan painted a wide range of personal interpretations of historical and legendary figures, including Eliza Fraser.
Film
In 1976 a comedy film titled "Eliza Fraser" ("The Adventures of Eliza Fraser" was an alternate title) was made about her. Susannah York played the title role, and the film was directed by Tim Burstall. It was the first Australian film with a seven figure budget, costing $1.2 million to make.
Eliza Fraser at IMDb
See also
References
- Goldie, Terry (1989). Fear and Temptation: The Image of the Indigene in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Literatures. Toronto: McGill-Queens University Press.
- Russell, Lynette, et al., eds (1998). Constructions of Colonialism: Perspectives on Eliza Fraser's Shipwreck. Wellington: Leicester University Press.