Mathilde Caroline Herbert
Mathilde Caroline Herbert was born on 24 February 1880 at Yanyarrie, South Australia, the daughter of Carl August Steinke and Sophie Auguste Christina Elisabeth Koop.
In March 1916, she legally changed her name by deed poll from Steinke to Herbert, a decision announced publicly in The Age (Melbourne) on 21 March 1916. This was not uncommon during World War I and in the post-war years, as anti-German sentiment was strong.
Herbert was registered as a nurse and midwife in Ballarat in 1917. Before registering formally, she had already begun working as a bush nurse, serving at Buchan in 1915 and in Ballarat from 1916.
Photograph sourced from Family History of Johann Gottlieb Steinke, by William Max Steinke.
In 1925, Mathilde married George H. Maxwell Walker in Muswellbrook, New South Wales. The couple later moved to Lightning Ridge and operated a shop there during the 1920s, before relocating to the Grawin opal field during the rush in the latter half of the decade.
Mathilde continued her nursing work in regional New South Wales and Victoria: Narromine in 1927, the Grawin opal fields in 1930, Leeton in 1935, Ballarat again in 1942, Corio and Newtown in 1949, and finally Geelong in 1954.
Mathilde’s nursing position was not without controversy. As recorded by Stuart Lloyd (The Lightning Ridge Book, p. 43), she was the target of an unpleasant campaign by some local figures, who attempted to run her out of town by smearing excrement on her gate latch. She continued working regardless.
Mathilde Caroline Herbert died in Geelong, Victoria, on 30 July 1962. Her long nursing career spanned nearly five decades and numerous remote communities across eastern Australia.
Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: The Age, 21 March 1916, p. 12; ‘Bush Nursing Association’, Daily Telegraph, 30 May 1919, p. 6; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 43; Walgett Spectator, 3 July 1919.