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“Here lie the bones of Maggie Bray.”

This local saying, a grave, and an engraved plate with her name on it are just some of what remains in our knowledge of Maggie Bray, the part- Aboriginal wife of WH “Billy” Bray.  

Not even her death on 13 February 1928 was recorded by the police.  

Her husband Billy Bray came to the Pine Creek goldfields around the late 1800s and was Chairman of the NT Miners Association there for some years. His one enduring skill, apart from those as a coach builder, wheelwright and blacksmith, was his ability to play the piano. He played at many functions at Pine Creek Emungalan and Katherin over the years to the late 1940s.  

Billy is said to have built the railway station building at Emungalan, which was later transported to Mataranka after the rail was extended south. When the new town of Katherin formed on the south bank in 1926 he took up Lot 115 on the corner of Third Street and the river, “…owing to the advantage of the River Front and Road Corner.” 

When Maggie die Billy buried her overlooking the river ad probably her country. Billy  was evacuated south during the wars year but returned to Katherine where he took up playing the piano at “wedding, parties, and anything.”  

Billy Bray died on 18 July 1952 at 85 years of age and was buried in the Katherine Cemetery. His grave is no longer visible and it seems he is now more anonymous than Maggie, but for a street named for him.  

“The Northern Territory was unsettled country and any women coming here in the early days, prior to the turn of the 20th Century were pioneers…. Those who were not married were very quickly snapped up. It is unfortunate that the records describe the men in great detail, while the women are often only mentioned in passing.  

• Pearl Ogden - Women of the Kath-rine.  

QUIZ:  

How old was Billy Bray when Maggie Bray died?   

While an engraved plate and a local saying kept Maggie Bray alive in the hearts and minds of Katherine residents, today records are kept online.  

To search for burial locations for loved ones at the Katherine Memorial Cemetery, you can go to:  

https://apps.byond.cloud/deceased-search/83eb120a-ce4d-4cb1-d03c-d38c3a092eee 

Do you have any relatives buried in Katherine? Tell us if you can find them.  

Enter your answers