Fanny Cochrane Smith is a very important character from Tasmania's past. She was the first Indigenous Australian to ever be recorded and these recordings were the first, and last, recordings of Tasmanian Aboriginal languages, leaving us with an invaluable connection to our state's Indigenous culture.
Greg Lehman is an historian, Tasmanian Aboriginal and memeber of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's Aboriginal Advisory Council. Here he discusses Fanny Cochrane Smith:
We will start the story with Horace Watson, who was born in Bendigo shortly after his parents migrated from Leicestershire in 1852.
He married Louisa Keen, daughter to the man who invented Keens Curry near Hobart around 1860.
Horace took over the curry business, and after years of hard work, had time to devote to broader interests.
He travelled widely, and amassed an impressive collection of Aboriginal and Islander artifacts.
One evening in 1899, Horace attended a concert by Fanny Cochrane Smith at the Theatre Royal in Hobart.
At the concert she told stories and sang traditional Tasmanian Aboriginal songs. He was so impressed that he immediately arranged to make phonograph recordings of the songs.
There were two recording sessions, the first of which was made in the rooms of the Royal Society, in 1899, followed by sessions in 1903 at Barton Hall, where a famous photo of her was taken.
In the photo you can see a diminutive old lady dwarfed by the huge trumpet of the Edison wax cylinder phonograph recorder.
This was cutting-edge technology. Horace was one of the first people ever to use recording equipment in Australia, pre-dating even the trailblazing composer and musicologist, Percy Grainger.
According to the famous Australian violinist Jon Rose, at the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address in Sydney in 2007, the recording of Fanny Cochrane is arguably one of the most important 19th century musical artefacts from anywhere in the world - certainly more important than the recording of Brahms playing his piano in the same year.
Fanny Cochrane was born in Wybaleena on Flinders Island in 1834, not long after her parents and around 120 original Tasmanians were 'settled' there.
Her mother Tanganuturra, known as Sarah, formed a life-long relationship with Nicermanic, whom she met there.
As the first child born in the settlement, young Fanny learnt songs and culture from all over Tasmania. She was taken from her family at the age of seven.
In 1847 the 47 Palawa people who had survived Wybalenna, including Fanny, Nicermenic and Tanganutura, were moved to Oyster Cove.
In 1854 Fanny married William Smith, a relatively educated ex-convict. For many years they ran a boarding house in Hobart, before moving to Nicholls Rivulet near Oyster Cove, where she was granted 100 acres.
Yet she kept close ties with her people, including Truganini, who taught her bushcraft and with whom she would fish, hunt and collect bush tucker.
After the death of Truganini in 1876, Fanny Cochrane Smith claimed the title of the last surviving Tasmanian Aboriginal.
Tasmanian Government of the day recognised her claim and awarded her full title to 300 acres through two land grants and a stipend of £50 for the rest of her life.
Fanny continued traditional practices - hunting, gathering bush food and medicines, making baskets, diving for shellfish and engaging in maintained Aboriginal ceremony.
As a convert to Methodism, she donated some of her land for the building of a church.
Today there is a museum there dedicated to her memory and run by the local Aboriginal community.
Based on the article 'The Man and the Woman and the Edison Phonograph' by the Bruce Watson (great grandson of Horace Watson).
You can listen to some of Fanny's recordings on the National Film and Sound Archive's website.