Women’s History Month

Bacchus Marsh & District Historical Society Inc.

March – we celebrate Women’s History Month.

Mary Rennie Low.

Mary Rennie Way was born 4 October 1828. She was the daughter of Catherine and William Way of St Andrews Scotland. Mary Way arrived in Victoria on the ship ‘Wanata’ in 1852.

On 29 June 1853 Mary married Thomas Low. Mary and Thomas had eleven children; David born in Collingwood in 1854, Thomas, Jane, Catherine in Bacchus Marsh, Mary in Fitzroy, Margaret, James, Caroline, Barbara, Janet, and Charlotte were born in Bacchus Marsh.

The Low family lived at what we call the’ Underbank’ area, on west side of the Korkuperrimul Creek also known as Low’s Hill.

In Thomas’ obituary in the Bacchus Marsh Express newspaper 8 July 1890 it states that ‘The family was one of the earliest dairy farmers in the colony.’ Mrs Low is not mentioned very much in our newspapers, but then again with supporting her husband and raising eleven children, she would not have had time for much else.

Mary died at the home of one of her children at Captains Flat in NSW in 1901 and is buried at Bacchus Marsh with her husband.