Isabella Parry & The Nurture Of Children

Early in 1830, after a fifteen hour sea voyage from Sydney, Isabella Parry disembarked at Tahlee, Port Stephens, north of Newcastle in the Hunter Valley. She was accompanied by her husband, Sir Edward Parry, the polar explorer. They were also accompanied by their twin children, Isabella and Edward.
They were named after their parents but they were not named by their parents.

The twins were two months old when they landed at Port Stephens. They had been born in government house in Sydney moments after the Parry’s had arrived in Port Jackson. The babies were premature and very poorly and Isabella was in danger of her life. She had already lost two children in infancy and a third had miscarried.

Eliza Darling, the governors wife had the twins baptized immediately, naming them after their parents. Eliza Darling even suckled little Edward at her breast such was her care for children. Both Eliza Darling and Isabella Parry were devout evangelical Christian women. Isabella was strong in heart and clear in mind. Her desire was to serve God and she believed she could do this best by attending to ‘the one thing needful’ (Luke 10:42). This meant doing whatever was required to ensure the salvation of those for whom one was responsible. In Isabella’s case, this meant her family, herself, and the employees or ‘servants’ of the Company, the assigned convicts and the aborigines.

She had another two children, Lucy and Charles in quick succession. Her husband ran the local church, while she opened a school for 42 young pupils and another for adult convicts, and she established a lending library. She visited the sick and concerned herself with the temporal and the spiritual well-being of all around her. She successfully befriended the aboriginal people in a nearby camp.

Isabella loved her husband and missed him when he was away which was often. The two of them, even when separated, read the Bible and prayed at the same time each day, so that they would feel their oneness in the Lord.

After the family returned to England in 1837 Isabella suffered much. The Parry’s eldest daughter died of scarlet fever and Isabella had another daughter who died and she herself died in 1839 aged 38 years, having another set of twins. Her eldest son Edward was only nine years of age and was present when she died. His father had read to her the Scripture, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith“, and Isabella said ‘and the finisher’.

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