Obituaries Australia

The death is announced of Miss Diana Richardson Bunbury, of Picton, near Bunbury. The deceased lady, who died last Wednesday, was in her lifetime one of the most respected colonists in Western Australia. Upwards of 70 years of age at the time of her death, she had spent the greater part of her life in the colony, and, till the infirmities of age came upon her, devoted herself to works of charity and benevolence, giving largely of her means and energies to all in need of assistance. She was also a devoted adherent of the Church of England, to which she gave liberally. Miss Bunbury was the eldest daughter of the late Sir James M. Richardson Bunbury, Bart., of Augher, County Tyrone, Ireland, and arrived in the colony very many years ago, with her mother, Lady Bunbury, and her brothers, Messrs. William and Alfred Bunbury, all of whom have predeceased her. They all settled in the southern districts, and it is somewhat curious that they chose the district bearing the same name as that of their family, it having been called after Lieutenant H. W. Bunbury, who in 1836 explored the country between the Dale and Williams rivers. Afterwards Mr. William Bunbury removed to Beechlands, Vasse. Of late years Miss Bunbury lived in comparative seclusion, occasioned chiefly by the infirmity of deafness, from which she was a great sufferer. Her favourite recreation had always been the study of botany, and no greater admirer of Western Australian wild flowers ever lived. Indeed she possessed one of the most perfect, if not actually the most perfect, of collections in the colony, and to her knowledge of Western Australian flora, the late Baron Von Mueller, with whom she corresponded, was indebted in no small degree.