G - Mrs. F. C. Smith not a last living aboriginal

Summary

IN September, 1889, Mr. Jas. Barnard read before the Royal Society of Tasmania a short paper entitled “Notes on the Last Living Aboriginal of Tasmania.” This paper was practically a claim asserting that an old resident at Irishtown, near Port Cygnet, named Mrs. Fanny Cochrane Smith, was a pure blood Tasmanian aborigine and hence the sole survivor of her race. As, since the year 1876, we had been under the impression that with the death of Truganini no pure blood aboriginal survived, the claim was naturally much doubted by anthropologists. A reference to Mr. Barnard's paper was made in “Nature,” November 14th, 1889, and the statement was, without apparent examination, accepted as a fact and reproduced by Prof A. H. Keane in his “Ethnology,” published seven years later (p. 294 note). I had, however, on receipt of a newspaper copy of Mr. Barnard's paper pointed out in “Nature,” December 5th, 1889, reasons which to me appeared to be sufficiently strong for at any rate withholding my judgment on the question until further proof should have been forthcoming.