Morilla “Milly” Canfell
Morilla “Milly” Canfell (left) with sisters Violet, Iris, Joyce and Nell (front). Photograph: Lightning Ridge Historical Society.
Morilla “Milly” Canfell was born in 1910 at Lightning Ridge, the daughter of early miner Mick Canfell and his wife Elizabeth Kings. She is said to have been the first child born in the main street of the Ridge — Morilla Street — after which she was named.
In the 1920s, Milly moved with her family to Bollon in Queensland, where she later married Jack Walter Murray, son of John “Jack” Murray, one of the men associated with the discovery of opal at Lightning Ridge. They were married on 19 December 1930, though the couple had already begun raising a family by that time. They had at least six children.
Milly lived most of her adult life in Bollon and later in Ipswich, Queensland. She died on 2 January 1992 at Ipswich, aged 82, and was buried there.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, p. 10; LRHS oral history.