Name: Jennifer Horsfield
Bio: Teacher, historian and author of Mary Cunningham: An Australian Life [Ginninderra Press]
Isolation and Depression in Pre-Rural Australia: The Story of Mary Cunningham – 15th February 2005
Isolation and Depression in Rural Australia: The Story of Mary Cunningham
This speech was printed in Sydney Papers Vol.17 No.2 in 2005 (pages 1-11)
Jennifer Horsfield is a teacher and historian and author of Mary Cunningham: An Australian Life [Ginninderra Press]. Mary Cunningham (nee Twynam) belonged to the prosperous pastoralist class of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Australia. Even so, her life was dogged by tragedy and loneliness. Cunningham’s story of Mary Twynam is a chapter of Australian history. On Tuesday 15 February 2005, Jennifer Horsfield addressed The Sydney Institute to evaluate how isolation in those pioneering years, especially for women, left a scar on Australia’s proud history.