Charlotte Barton

Charlotte Barton (1797–1867) was the author of Australia's earliest known children's book. The book titled A Mother's Offering to her Children: By a Lady, Long Resident in New South Wales. Sydney: Gazette Office was published in 1841.

Anonymously published, the book was originally attributed to Lady J.J. Gordon Bremer, the wife of Sir James John Gordon Bremer. However, extensive research by Marcie Muir supports its attribution to Charlotte Barton.

In 1826 Charlotte Waring came to New South Wales to take up a position as governess to the family of Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur. She became engaged to James Atkinson, a highly respected agriculturalist and author, during the voyage to Australia. They married in 1827. The couple settled at Atkinson's property Oldbury in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. They had four children, including the author and naturalist Caroline Louisa Waring Calvert (née Atkinson). The children appear, slightly disguised, as the four children of the book. Charlotte's father, Thomas Albert Waring, died in 1829. She is mentioned in his will as the wife of James Atkinson in NSW.

James Atkinson died in 1834, and Charlotte married Oldbury's overseer George Bruce Barton in March 1836. He became insane and Charlotte was forced to separate from him. Barton had a history of alcoholism and violence, and was eventually convicted of manslaughter in Bathurst in 1854.

Charlotte left Oldbury with her children bound for Budgong and later moved to Sydney. Her guardianship of her children was resoundingly confirmed as of 6 July 1841 in a decision by C.J. Dowling of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

It being made manifest, therefore, that Mrs. Barton is herself competent to educate her children either by herself or by any competent assistance under her own eye, it would require a state of urgent circumstances to induce the Court to deprive them (all of whom are under thirteen years of age) of that maternal care and tenderness, which none but a mother can bestow.

A Mother's Offering is written in the genre of children's conversation textbooks, reflecting the importance of family conversation to education in the home in the nineteenth century. Charlotte drew on her own experiences in the colony, and probably on actual conversations with her children, in preparing the text. It is an excellent example of the influence women had on the community through the education of their children.

...
Wikipedia