Honouring Angela Francis: A woman who made a difference

The Kingsford Terrace Corinda retirement community honours district pioneers when naming its buildings. Our latest stage will be called ‘Francis’ to acknowledge the contribution of Angela Francis to improving maternal outcomes for mothers and their babies in Queensland. Here is her story. 

Angela (nee Powell) Francis arrived in Moreton Bay from England on the sailing clipper Saldanha on January 28, 1862, with her husband Arthur and toddler son, Richard. She gave birth to another son, Clement, during a fierce storm only a few days out from their destination. At the time Queensland had only been a colony for two and a half years.

The family settled on the Brisbane River taking up 21 acres from what is now Francis Lookout on Dewar Terrace, Corinda, to the river and adding substantially to their landholding with land along Oxley Creek to Sherwood Road.

Angela Francis wrote of their early life at Corinda: “The land was quite untouched by human hand. A wild scrub and forest where the wallabies, opossums, native bears, iguanas and snakes made their undisputed home. Thousands of frogs in the waterholes and parrots, curlews, wagtails, hawks, butcher-birds, laughing jackasses, satin and stockwhip birds lived all around us. Our land had a frontage on the Brisbane River, and this was the first bit cleared and planted with bananas. They grew fast, bore fruit, and thus brought in the first money of our farming.’’

Angela, Arthur and their two sons lived in tents at the foot of what is now Corinda Hill and in 1863 at the age of 11 months, the previously healthy Clement became ill. Angela wrote long after the tragedy: “There we sat on a log, Clement asleep on my lap. Such gentle breathing – dense quiet – no pain. Clement opened his eyes and looked up at me – the intensity of that look. Then he was with God. That is more than forty years ago, but that look is still ever near me.’’

Without a cemetery to bury Clement, the family set aside an acre of elevated land as a private burial site, the cemetery can still be seen at Francis Lookout. Soon after the death of her baby, the family experienced another hardship, a flood in which they lost most of their possessions.

Angela gave birth to five more children within the next 10 years, but only three of her children survived, Richard, Alexander and Charlotte. With such a high mortality rate in Moreton Bay during the 1860 to 1870s Angela became very protective of her three surviving children.

At the end of 1873 the family had built a home at Corinda adjacent to the Francis Lookout.

For many years Angela lived in remote parts of Queensland when she accompanied her husband in his position as magistrate. She witnessed the enormous difficulties faced by women, who like her, had little assistance during childbirth or in infant care.

Later, Angela travelled to England when her son Richard won the first Exhibition scholarship to Oxford University. (He later became Master of Mathematics at his old school Brisbane Grammar.) While in London, Angela undertook a course of midwifery at Queen Charlotte’s Lying-in Hospital.

On her return to Queensland, she ran classes for women and after nine years persuaded the government to introduce midwifery courses aimed at country girls where their knowledge would assist their communities. Angela continued to give first aid and infant care classes and her contribution to the falling infant and maternal death rates in the colony was considerable.

Arthur Francis died in 1902 at which time Angela, a talented woodcarver, with help from friends carved the words ‘Rest for the Weary’ in the lychgate at the entry to Francis Lookout in memory of her husband and their precious children buried there. Today the lookout is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register.

Angela returned to England after her husband’s death. Despite being blind in her final years she still kept a lively interest in the world around her. In May 1910 she died at her daughter’s home in West Sussex. An obituary to Angela in The Brisbane Courier newspaper stated: “Wherever her husband’s later work as police magistrate took them, there she made her character and power felt, and in many distant towns her name is still remembered with deep affection.’’

The Francis stage of Kingsford Terrace Corinda was launched in November 2020 and will offer 16 spacious apartments. Click here or call 3716 0804 for more information.