Eddy, Nancy Gilmour, (née Jamieson)   (1916 - 2012)

Born at Rose Park, SA, 19 April 1916, died in Darwin 24 September 2012.

In 1935 Nancy Gilmour Jamieson went from Peterborough in South Australia to Alice Springs as a shorthand-typist to the town's first legal-practice.

A little later she left for Darwin in the Royal Overland Mail truck (well before the Stuart Highway existed) to see Arthur Rex Eddy, a friend from her youth in Peterborough, and to work for A. E. Jolly and Co.
Jolly's motto was 'from a needle to an anchor', such was the variety of goods that it sold.

In 1936 Nancy married Rex Eddy.

She spent most of her early married years bringing up their two sons and in working from home. Her typing skills were called upon by Darwin Courthouse because it was suffering its traditional shortage of court-reporters.

In late December 1941 Nancy and her sons, were evacuated from Darwin only a month or so before the first bombings of Darwin by Japanese forces.

After the war, and Rex's return from military service, the family left Glenelg, South Australia to return to Darwin.

In due course Nancy created a tropical forest in miniature behind their house, although this was later destroyed by Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

After both sons had gone away to Adelaide High School, Nancy had begun to study exotic and native plants and their Latin diagnoses, and to teach herself botany and its nomenclature. She worked at the Botanical Gardens, both in identifying plants and in engraving labels for more than a thousand of them. She gave garden-talks in the Territory and as far away as the University of Adelaide and the Melbourne Horticultural Society, and also gave illustrated talks about plants to local schools, women's organizations and gardening-clubs.

In 1954 Nancy began, and continued for 29 years, as a judge of gardening and horticultural displays at the Darwin Show.

She was, many times in 30 years, called on by the staff of (then) Darwin Hospital to identify poisonous plants that had been eaten by patients, most of whom were children.

Nancy also contributed articles to the North Australian Monthly. In 1961 Nancy was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia (FRSSA), and as a Life-Member of the Darwin Garden Club.

Source: Extracted from: https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/10070/227601/0
Portrait Photo: 1992, extracted from: https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/10070/748066

Collecting localities for 'Eddy, N.G.' from AVH (2023)

Data from 91 specimens