Elsie Rosaline Masson (1891–1935) was an Australian photographer, writer and traveller, best known as the wife of Polish-British anthropologist

Bronisław Malinowski Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (; 7 April 1884 – 16 May 1942) was a Polish anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology. ...

. She published ''An Untamed Territory: The Northern Territory of Australia'' in 1915.

Biography

Masson was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

and was the daughter of David Orme Masson and his wife Mary who had arrived in Australia from Scotland in 1886. A close family friend of the family was Baldwin Spencer who likely influenced Masson to later travel to the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. She attended school at Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School and received first class honours in French and German and received a scholarship to study Italian at university. Masson first moved to the Northern Territory in 1913 to work as a

governess A governess is a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching; depending on terms of their employment, they may or ma ...

to the children of

John A. Gilruth John Anderson Gilruth (17 February 1871 – 4 March 1937) was a Scottish-Australian veterinary scientist and administrator. He is particularly noted for being Administrator of the Northern Territory from 1912 to 1918, when he was recalled afte ...

, who was the Administrator, she also acted as a companion to his wife and she left in 1914. This coincided with Baldwin Spencer's time there as the Special Commissioner and Chief Protector of Aborigines and she travelled alongside him. It was while in Darwin, and the travel she did from there, that she began publishing articles in numerous Australian newspapers about her life there which became the book, ''An Untamed Territory: The Northern Territory of Australia'' (1915). This book is a lively account which covers material from Darwin to Pine Creek. During her time in the Northern Territory she also took many photographs which are now held by the

Pitt Rivers Museum Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed ...

. In Melbourne, and with the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Masson trained as a nurse and then, also in 1914, met and, in 1919, married

; together they settled in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. She then had three daughters, Józefa, Wanda and Helena. She died in 1935 while in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. Their daughter Helena Malinowska Wayne would conduct research and publish several works about the life her parents, including a book ''The story of a marriage: the letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson (1995)''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Masson, Elsie Rosaline 1890 births 1935 deaths Bronisław Malinowski Australian writers