Louisa Briggs

Please note this page includes the image and story of a deceased First Nations woman.

Louisa advocated for the rights of displaced First Nations people taken to government reserves and stations in the late 1800s. She is recognised as one of the five ancestors from whom Boonwurrung heritage can be traced.

Born on the south coast in the 1830s, Louisa was a young child when she was kidnapped by sealers and taken to Preservation Island in the Bass Strait.

Through the 1870s, Louisa lived with her husband and children at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station where she worked as a nurse and midwife and later became the first Aboriginal woman to be paid as a midwife. Louisa was an outspoken advocate for First Nations rights and was expelled from Coranderrk several times, often for criticising the station’s administration.

Louisa was an activist at a time when the government and its agencies enforced assimilation policies and excluded biracial people. She protested against the poor treatment of Aboriginal people on the government reserves and sent letters to officials about the low wages and lack of rations. She died in 1925 aged nearly 100.

Proposed location: St Kilda, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong country

Louisa Briggs - Victorian Women’s Public Art Program

Image source: Glen Eira City Council website

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