Anna Maria Austin ⁵⁴

  General Notes:

From The Times, December 31, 1907

The death is announced of Miss Anna Maria Austin, of the Duffryn
Mission, Essequibo, British Guiana. She was the last surviving
daughter of the Rev. William Austin, for 59 years rectotr of St.
John's parish and rural dean of Essequibo, and was born on January 12,
1832. At the early age of 12 she began mission work among the
Indians. With her sister, Miss Henrietta Austin, afterwards Mrs.
Freeman, she opened a mission school in the grounds of St. John's
rectory, and there the work grew and prospered for 20 years, when her
sister having married in the meantime, Miss Austin bought a property
at Duffryn, on the banks of the river, and re-established her mission
there. For 40 years longer she carried on her work in this spot,
ministering to the spiritual and material needs of the Indians, among
whom she was known as Tété-the Indian word for "great mother"-and
"Buck Missie". At one time she had 30 orphans under her charge, and
nursed her Indians in epidemics of smallpox, measles, and even yellow
fever. Dean Farrar said of her in his book on the history of the
Church in Guiana, "She is one of those striking examples which even
this shallow 19th century affords of Christianity carried not only in
the spirit, but in the letter. There would surely be less need for
preachers against modern infidelity if there were more of her class
and kind". Miss Austin was a cousin of the late Bishop Austin and
first cousin of the first Lord Aberdare.