Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Queen Gooseberry's rum mug, c. 1800

Queen Gooseberry's rum mug, c. 1800

Copper, welded side join and base with a semi-circular handle attached with pins to its upper edge

David Scott Mitchell Collection

R 252

‘Queen Gooseberry’ and ‘King Bungaree’ were well-known Sydney characters during the Macquarie era and both were frequently sketched and painted. Governor Macquarie dubbed them with these fictitious titles in an attempt to create Aboriginal ‘leaders’ with whom he could negotiate, illustrating how little Europeans understood about the complex structures of Indigenous society. This copper mug was given to Cora Gooseberry to collect her allowance of rum.

Cora Gooseberry (c.1777–1852), Aboriginal woman known as 'Queen Gooseberry', was the daughter of Moorooboora (Maroubra) (c.1758-1798), a prominent leader of the Murro-ore-dial (Pathway Place) clan, south of Port Jackson. Her Aboriginal name was recorded as Kaaroo, Carra, Caroo, Car-roo or Ba-ran-gan.

Keith Vincent Smith, Australian Dictionary of Biography



In July 1844 the Australian reported that Gooseberry attended a levee at Government House, wearing her straw hat, a 'new pink robe of very curious workmanship' with 'the order of her tribe in the form of a crescent, suspended by a brass chain from her ebon neck'.

Keith Vincent Smith, Australian Dictionary of Biography


On 30 July 1852 Gooseberry was found dead at the Sydney Arms Hotel in Castlereagh Street, where according to press reports she had been drinking in the kitchen the previous night. The coroner returned a verdict of death from natural causes. The publican E. Borton (or Berton) paid for her burial and headstone in the Presbyterian section of the Sandhills cemetery (Central Railway). The stone was later removed to the pioneers cemetery at Botany; the epitaph has now faded, but was recorded by Mrs AG Foster in 1901.

Keith Vincent Smith, Australian Dictionary of Biography