LITCHFIELD, JESSIE SINCLAIR (1883-1956), Northern Territory pioneer and author,
was born on 18 February 1883 at Ashfield, Sydney, second child of John Phillips,
contractor, and his wife Jean Sinclair, née Reid. The family lived in various
country towns until 1895 when they returned to Sydney. Jessie attended Neutral Bay
Public School, where one of her teachers was Mary Cameron, later Dame Mary
Gilmore.
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Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
Moving around parts of the Northern Territory while her husband worked in the diamond mines, Jessie Litchfield raised her family and worked as a journalist. She published Far North Memories in 1930. After the death of her husband, she worked as editor of the Northern Territory Times and Government Gazette. In 1955 she became the first woman in the Territory to be appointed a justice of the peace.
It is said that a letter Jessie Litchfield wrote in 1909, which somehow ended up in John Flynn's hands, was instrumental to his involvement in the Australian Inland Mission. Had he not seen it, might well have become 'Flynn of Korea' rather than 'Flynn of the Inland' once he had completed his training to become a Resbyterian minister.
Litchfield's letter pleaded for the Pressbyterian Church to send a married, male Presbyterian missionary to the Northern Territory, so that he and his wife might start to 'civilise' it. Her greatest concern was the extent of informal and abusive interracial relationships that had been established between indigenous women and non-indigenous men, but she was also concerned about the impact of drink and drugs on public health. The place needed a missionary 'to teach the people right from wrong'.
Flynn used the letter to encourage women he knew in Melbourne to support initiatives to help women in remote, inland regions. The initiatives were, of course, highly racialised.
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Australian Women's Register