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The $20 note features Mary Reibey on the obverse, and Dr John Flynn on the reverse.
Mary Reibey was born in Bury, Lancashire, England on 12th. May 1777, and at the age of 13 she had been apprehended in Stafford (disguised as a boy), convicted for horse stealing and transported to Australia for 7 years on the Royal Admiral, which arrived in Sydney in October 1792 - harsh punishment for what was probably intended as a lark!
On 7th. September 1794 at the age of 17, Mary, who had been working as a nursemaid for a military family was granted permission to marry an Irishman, Thomas Reibey, whom she had met during her voyage out to Australia. Reibey had worked for the East India Company and used his contacts with them to successfully start a small import business in Sydney with a partner. Eventually Mary became involved and became very capable of handling all of the business matters when it became necessary for the partners to be away at sea.
In a few years the business was booming and it continued to expand, as more vessels were added to their fleet, but Thomas Reibey became ill on one of his frequent voyages and his health quickly deteriorated on his return. In 1811, at the age of 34, Mary became a widow with seven children. To make life even harder, Thomas Reibey's partner also died within the month, probably from the same illness, leaving Mary as the sole owner of the business! Out of necessity, Mary soon proved that she had the temperament to manage the growing shipping business, and after nine years of dedicated work she had accumulated a fortune of 20,000 Pounds which, in 1820, she used to return to England with two of her daughters, in an effort to attain some of the comforts, that had passed her and her family by.
Within a year she had become homesick for the freedoms of Australia so she returned, and, inan effort to put her convict past behind her, she would often describe her presence in the colony as- 'Came free, by the ship, 'Mariner' in 1821'.
Mary remained a widow, mainly by choice, but her commercial and many real estate interests continued to quietly thrive and keep her a rich woman. She retired to Newtown, Sydney, and passed away in 1855. She has been hailed as an icon for the achievement of women, who have triumphed over humble beginnings.
Australia is described as an island continent of some 7,682,300 square kilometres (or about the same size as the U.S.A.- excluding Alaska), made up of deserts surrounded by a relatively narrow band of fertile coastline, with an average height of only 300 metres above sea-level and an average yearly rainfall of only 30 cms. (12 inches).
The Australian inland is not unlike some of the rocky deserts of America and Mexico, that suffer months of drought then bloom magnificently after a rain, but our red centre deserts stretch for thousands of square kilometres, our droughts can last for a decade, and when the 'Wet' finally arrives we can have devastating floods that can form inland seas that sometimes last for years, or else dry into salt-lakes within a few months to herald the onslaught of another drought!
In 1912, less than 50,000 people lived in this inland area that is bigger than Western Europe, and life was extremely hard and lonely for the men, and their women and children, who lived hundreds of kilometres from their nearest help if anything went wrong! In response to the problems of isolation, illness or injury, and the lack of schools and religious centres, the Presbyterian Church of Australia decided, in 1912, to establish the Australian Inland Mission with a 31 year-old minister, John Flynn, as the first Superintendent.
John Flynn was born at Moliagul, Victoria on 25th. November 1880, and even though he matriculated from high school his family could not afford to send him to University. Flynn became a full fledged minister in 1911, after working on missions during his 4 years of training, and then volunteered to work at a mission in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. It was during this time that Flynn recognised, and started to address, the two great problems that the inland presented - the lack of transportation and communication!
During the next 16 years of establishing 'nursing hostels' in the outback and working with others dedicated to the task, such as Clifford Peel who, in 1917, suggested the air ambulance, and Alfred Traeger who, in 1928, developed an idea of Flynn's and came up with the famous 'pedal-operated radio transceiver', Flynn had great personal satisfaction to be able to see the formation of the first Flying Doctor Service (designated Royal in 1955) at Cloncurry in May 1928.
'Flynn of the Inland' was buried in the country he loved so much, near Alice Springs. In 1953, a commemorative cairn was erected 17 miles north of Tennant Creek, in Flynn's honour, and on it are included these words:
.........He bought to lonely places a spiritual ministry
And spread a mantle of safety over them........'
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