
Ethel May Eliza Zahel (3 February 1877 – 9 April 1951) was an Australian public servant and schoolteacher who was born in
Mackay,
Queensland
Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
.
On 6 November 1895 she married Mark Charles Zahel, solicitor, at her parents' home in Mackay.
In 1905 she moved to Thursday island with her husband who died there on 4 June 1907. Ethel accepted a permanent appointment to the Torres Strait Islands teaching service dated on 15 June 1909. She moved to the island of Yam with her daughter Ethel Lorenza, who died a few months later.
[Margaret Lawrie, 'Zahel, Ethel May Eliza (1877–1951)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/zahel-ethel-may-eliza-9225/text16301, published first in hardcopy 1990, accessed online 28 December 2021.]
In October 1909 she opened a school on Badu (Mulgrave Island) and lived in the household of Frederick Walker, a former missionary. In 1915 she was given control of the Papuan Industries Ltd. 'company boats', owned by Islanders and signed authorizations for provisioning the vessels and payments made for pearl-shell and trochus brought back to Badu.
Australia declaration of war with Japan led to her evacuation from the Torres Strait on 29 January 1942 and she then retired from the public service.
She died in
Brisbane
Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
,
Queensland
Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
on 9 April 1951.
References
Public servants of Queensland
Australian schoolteachers
Australian Anglicans
Australian people of English descent
1877 births
1951 deaths
People from Mackay, Queensland
{{Australia-gov-bio-stub