Captain For Whom The Rivers Ran

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday December 15, 2005

Matt Wallace Matt Wallace is Pearl Wallace's grandson. He and a friend, David Bennett, helped prepare her autobiography, A River Woman.

Pearl Royal Wallace

Paddle-steamer skipper

1911-2005

A CAPTAIN'S cap lay among the flowers on the casket, which was draped with the flag of the Murray River, in St Thomas' Church in the Adelaide Hills, recently as 10 Murray River skippers formed an honour guard for a true pioneer - Pearl Wallace, who died in Adelaide, aged 94.

Elsewhere along the river, a number of old-time riverboats stopped midstream and sounded their whistles, and passengers dropped flowers into the water as a mark of respect.

Wallace, the first woman to become a certified master mariner in Australia, was the last of the original paddle-steamer captains.

She spent most of her life living and working on the paddle-steamers of the Murray and Darling rivers, and in 1947 became Australia's first female ship's captain. She was the inspiration for the heroine in Nancy Cato's famous novel All the Rivers Run.

Born in Renmark, South Australia, Wallace's first two weeks formed one of the longest periods she spent on land until she stepped ashore for the last time 66 years later.

Her father, William Collins, had worked on the stations along the Murray as a boy. He had watched enviously as the river boats steamed past, and eventually hard work and determination enabled him to buy his own. It was on the banks of the Murray that he met and married Emmie Marschall, whose strength and kindness inspired Wallace, the youngest of their five children.

The family travelled in their trading paddle-steamer, Alpha, along the Darling, where they bought and sold all manner of goods at the remote stations and communities along the river. As well as raising her family, Emmie would often work as engineer on the boat, firing the boiler and running the steam engine. When they pulled ashore, there was only time for a quick wash before she attended to the store counter.

Wallace would sit with her siblings in the wheelhouse as the Alpha steamed along. There they were educated by their father, who prepared for them lessons in arithmetic or writing. Wallace also learnt about the river, boats, boilers, steam engines, barges and navigation.

Her father would instruct her while guiding her hands on the steering wheel. One day, when she was six, he told her she was in charge and walked out, leaving her to steer the boat for what she felt was an eternity.

During the drought of 1915, the family was stranded on the Alpha for six months at a remote spot on the Darling when the river dried up. They planted a vegetable garden and, for the first time, Wallace knew what it was like to live on land rather than as a nomad. She remembered this as the happiest time of her life and dreamed of a life ashore.

However, necessity was such that she remained on the river for most of her life. She married an engineer, Neil Wallace, who was employed for many years in constructing the locks along the Murray and the barrages at its mouth.

In 1947, her father was still operating river boats and needed an extra skipper. He encouraged Wallace to use her lifetime of experience to sit the exam to become certified.

With her husband and her young son Leith, she travelled to Melbourne to do an intensive three-day test. This was held by a group of three old skippers who, at first, were sceptical about allowing a woman to join their ranks. But by the end of the exam, their hard faces had softened and each congratulated her. "You are as good as any man we have put through and better than some," she was told.

During the 1956 floods, a dramatic salvage operation was conducted to move the stranded wool clip down the Darling. Wallace departed from Para Station steering the Vega barge, piled with 1000 bales, towed by PS Success. She battled rusty equipment, swirling currents, snags and low-hanging trees that almost swept her from the deck.

She was powerless to alert the disoriented steamer captain when he turned off the main channel and into a flooded creek. They were grounded and it took a full day to return to the river, but then they encountered power lines across the river that exploded in sparks as the vessels struck.

However, by the 1950s the river boats era was at a close and Wallace was forced to find other work, only occasionally returning to run her paddle-steamer Kookaburra. She obtained a government contract to dredge snags and mud from the irrigation sluices near Murray Bridge. Here she met the young Cato, who interviewed the real-life "Philadelphia Gordon" for her novel.

Wallace's last job was in 1977, when she took command of the pleasure cruiser Canberra in Echuca for several months after the skipper fell ill. It was during this time that she was able to save the money to fulfil her dream of living on the land. She bought a house in the Adelaide Hills and lived quietly near her family with her cats and tended the garden she had always wanted.

Wallace's story, A River Woman, was published in 2001. The recollections of her childhood are a fascinating insight into an almost forgotten way of life. Many of her new friends were surprised to learn of the contribution this kind, gentle and unassuming woman made to Australian history.