Brooch

Maker & role
Unknown, Maker
 Production date
Early 20th Century
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Object detail

Collection
Meroogal
Measurements
0 - Whole, W: 4 x D: 2.5cm (W: 40 x D: 25mm)
Production notes
Professionally made.
Subject person
Helen Macgregor (b.1881, d.1973)
Credit line
Purchase, 1985
Meroogal Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Helen Macgregor's brooch, maker unknown, early 20th century
Description
This small cloisonné enamel brooch, dates to the early 20th century and is constructed of brass, with wires soldered to the surface to form the floral pattern. These wires have been filled with coloured enamels and the whole polished to a smooth glass finish. The brooch belonged to Mary Helen Grace (Helen) Macgregor (1881-1973), one of five daughters of Roderick Macgregor and his wife Mary Susan Thorburn. Helen was born in Cambewarra in the Shoalhaven district of New South Wales where her father was the local schoolmaster. She had the opportunity of a high-school education, winning prizes at Madame Wallrabe’s Nowra High School in 1892, and then went on to train as a nurse at the Coast Hospital, Sydney. Helen did not marry, although she had suitors, and chose instead to pursue a career as a private nurse. In 1919 she was involved in converting Nowra Public School into a temporary hospital to care for victims of the pnemonic influenza epidemic. In 1934 she moved into the Thorburn family home Meroogal in Nowra, helping to care for her aging Thorburn aunts. Helen and her sisters Margaret Steel and Elgin Macgregor inherited Meroogal after their Aunt Tot Thorburn’s death in 1956 and Helen lived there until shortly before her own death in 1973.
Accession number
M86/1216

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