Don Roulston Buzzard

Appendix 4.4
Nellie’s nine years of service in China
Furlough in Australia

(All information on this page is from the Church Missionary Society unless otherwise stated.)

On 22nd April 1925, Nellie’s arrival in Australia onboard the “Arafura” was announced the Brisbane (Queensland) Telegraph newspaper under the headline “Missionary Returns”. The article spoke of her work with young children and also having to contend with warlords in the area. Another article in the “Daily Mail” entitled “Work in China” described her work in China and that she was going onto Sydney to spend time with relatives.

A sequel to the “Arafura” berthing in Brisbane, was played out in a Brisbane court when a Malay crew member was arrested for being in possession of opium.

The “Arafura” berthed at No. 8 Wharf, Woolloomooloo, at about 3 p.m. The police in Brisbane must have contacted the New South Wales as “Not many minutes after the steamer had been moored to the wharf, Inspector Clifford, of the Customs Department, Chief-Searcher G. Brown, and twelve other Customs officials, boarded the Arafura, and commenced a search for contraband cargo”.

By the report in the newspapers, the seizure was substantial and led to an expose in one newspaper of who actually was in control of the smuggling of opium into Australia. The opium was destroyed in an incinerator on Moore Park.

The park had an interesting history for golfers as the “large and polluting Council incinerator was opened in the south-west corner of the park in 1902, followed by an adjoining home for stray dogs in 1908. The Moore Park Municipal Golf Links opened in 1913 as a public golf course accessible to everybody, at a time when golf was principally a sport for the wealthy. After enduring the dumping of Council waste on its fairways for decades, the golf club eventually took over the incinerator site when it was demolished in the late 1930s.”

On 1st May 1925, Nellie had an article printed in the Gleaner Magazine 1st May 1925. This article must have been written some time beforehand, as she was still on furlough in Australia.

Whilst Nellie was on holidays, Miss Bakewell who worked with Nellie wrote that a major advancement had be made in travelling between Pakhoi and Linchow. Instead of a 5 to 6 hour ride in a sedan chair, the new motor road cut this time to one hour

New road between Pakhoi and Linchow