Jeannie Gunn was born on the 5^th June 1870 in Melbourne and died on the 9^th June 1961. Jeannie married in December 1901 Aeneas Gunn, In 1902 they arrived in Katherine at the “Elsey Station” in the Northern Territory and accepted to manage the station. The first owner of “Elsey Station” was Abraham Wallace in 1880. Aeneas Gunn has been the captain of the Red Gauntlet which was a 40 ton steamer. Jeannie Gunn wrote “We of Never Never”, “The Little Black Princess of the Never Never”. Jeannie was the youngest daughter of a Baptist minister. She got education form her mother at home. During her stay at Elsey Station she started to write to her family in Melbourne about her experiences in the bush. From these letters she wrote the book “We of Never Never” and over one million copies were sold during her lifetime. Her husband, Aeneas, died of malarial dysentery in 1903. After the death of Aeneas, Jeannie returned back to Melbourne to be with her family. When she came back to Melbourne she began to write two new stories “Terrick: His Book”, which was about an Aboriginal chief and “The Making of Monbluk”, which is an area near Melbourne. But she never finished them, because she stopped writing when the World War 1 began as she was involved in the war, helping and nursing the wounded soldiers.

Katherine