Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this page contains the names and images of deceased people.
If you walked down Castlereagh Street or through the Domain in the 1840s, there was a fair chance you'd see Cora Gooseberry: an older Aboriginal woman with a government blanket round her shoulders, a scarf on her head and a clay pipe on the go. She was the daughter of Moorooboora, the man Maroubra is named after, and the widow of Bungaree, the most famous Aboriginal man in early Sydney. For about twenty years after Bungaree died in 1830 she was a Sydney identity in her own right, known to the newspapers as "Queen Gooseberry". She died at the Sydney Arms Hotel in Castlereagh Street on 30 July 1852, and the publican paid for her grave. Here's what the records actually tell us about her.
Her Name and Her Family
"Cora Gooseberry" was the name the colonists used. The Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) says her Aboriginal name was written down as Kaaroo, Carra, Caroo, Car-roo or Ba-ran-gan, depending on who was doing the writing. Wikipedia gives Caroo, citing Jakelin Troy's book on king plates. In the magistrates' blanket lists she also turns up as "Lady Bongary" or "Mrs Gooseberry".
She was born around 1777, about ten years before the First Fleet sailed in. Her father was Moorooboora (c.1758–1798), whom the ADB calls a prominent leader of the Murro-ore-dial (Pathway Place) clan, south of Port Jackson.
Moorooboora and Maroubra
Wikipedia's Maroubra article, citing historian Keith Vincent Smith, says the suburb's name comes from Moorooboora: muru meaning pathway and boora the initiation ground, and that the name refers to the path to the initiation ground at Boora Point, now part of the national park on Malabar Headland. So when you're having a swim at Maroubra, you're at a beach named after Cora's dad.
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Life with Bungaree
Bungaree came down from Broken Bay to Sydney in the 1790s. The ADB entry on him (by F. D. McCarthy, revised in 2025) says he sailed with Matthew Flinders in the Investigator and may have been the first Aboriginal person to sail right round Australia, then sailed with Phillip Parker King in 1817. Governors gave him their cast-off uniforms and a cocked hat, and he was famous for mimicking every governor from Hunter to Brisbane.
Bungaree had more than one wife. His other main wife was Matora. Wikipedia, citing Paul Irish's Hidden in Plain View, says that after Matora died in the mid-1820s Cora became Bungaree's principal wife, and the pair were known around Sydney as the "king" and "queen" of the local Aboriginal people. The ADB's Bungaree entry says Cora "became his principal wife and was given the title of queen".
Bungaree's people didn't stay in one spot. Wikipedia (again drawing on Paul Irish) lists their camps along the eastern harbour: Georges Head, Rose Bay, Camp Cove, the Domain and Elizabeth Bay. Camp Cove at Watsons Bay was a favourite, good for fishing and important culturally, and at times a few hundred people gathered there.
In 1815 Governor Macquarie set up Bungaree's group of about fifteen people on a farm at Georges Head, with huts, tools, stock and convict instructors. The ADB says the farm didn't take and the venture failed. In 1828 the group moved to the Governor's Domain and received rations, by which time Bungaree was described as "in the last stages of human infirmity". He died on 24 November 1830 and was buried at Rose Bay.
Children
The family picture is a bit cloudy. Wikipedia, citing Keith Vincent Smith's Mari Nawi, says Cora and Bungaree may not have had children together, but that she helped raise Boin, better known as Bowen Bungaree, Bungaree's son with Matora. Bowen later went to San Francisco during the California gold rush. The ADB adds that a man called Boio, or "Long Dick", of the Brisbane Water clan, claimed to be her son by Bungaree.
Queen Gooseberry About Town
After Bungaree died, Cora became, in Wikipedia's words, a leader among a regrouped band. The ADB names some of "Gooseberry's mob": Ricketty Dick, Jacky Jacky and Bowen Bungaree. They camped in the street outside Sydney hotels or in the Domain, where they put on displays of boomerang throwing for whoever was watching.
Her look became her trademark: a government-issue blanket, a headscarf and a clay pipe. The explorer John F. Mann first saw her at Brisbane Water in the early 1840s and wrote that "she had little on beyond an old straw bonnet".
At Government House, 1844
In July 1844 the Australian newspaper reported that she went to a levee at Government House. She wore her straw hat and 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". That crescent was her breastplate. The language is the paper's, and it was having a bit of fun at her expense, but she turned up all the same.
With Angas at North Head, 1845
Cora knew how to tell a good story. She told the artist George French Angas that Bungaree had ruled Sydney's Aboriginal people when the First Fleet arrived in 1788. The ADB points out that Bungaree was probably only about ten at the time.
In July 1845 she did something more valuable. In exchange for flour and tobacco, she took Angas and the police commissioner W. A. Miles to the Aboriginal rock carvings at North Head. There she told them "all that she had heard her father say" about the places where "dibble dibble walk about". The ADB reads this as a hint that Moorooboora had been a koradji (the ADB's word) from that country. Wikipedia notes that she kept her cultural knowledge of coastal Sydney and only shared some of it, carefully, with curious British visitors.
Angas painted her, and his watercolour Old Queen Gooseberry, Widow of Bungaree (the portrait at the top of this page) was shown at the Egyptian Hall in London in 1846.
The Breastplates
A breastplate, also called a king plate or gorget, was a crescent-shaped metal plate worn on a chain round the neck. Wikipedia explains that colonial authorities handed them out to Aboriginal people they saw as leaders. The design was copied from the gorgets worn by army officers, and plates were often inscribed "King", "Queen" or "Chief". Aboriginal societies didn't have kings or queens. Clans made decisions through groups of senior men and women, so the titles were the colonists' invention. The ADB calls Bungaree's own title, "Chief of the Broken Bay Tribe", given with his plate by Macquarie in 1815, "a completely fictitious title".
Cora had two breastplates, and both survive:
- A brass plate inscribed "Cora Gooseberry Freeman Bungaree Queen of Sydney and Botany", held in the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, together with her rum mug.
- Another engraved "GOOSEBERRY Queen of Sydney to South Head", held by the Australian Museum.
I couldn't find a free-to-use photo of either plate, so the images below are other breastplates from New South Wales and Queensland, to show what they looked like and how they were worn.
Her Last Years in Town
Cora lived at Camp Cove and other harbour camps well into old age. Wikipedia says that in her last few years she moved into the city and stayed at the hotels run by her friend Edward Borton, an ex-convict publican. The ADB gives his name as "E. Borton (or Berton)".
Death at the Sydney Arms, 1852
On 30 July 1852 Cora Gooseberry was found dead at the Sydney Arms Hotel in Castlereagh Street. The ADB says press reports had her drinking in the kitchen the night before. The coroner found she had died of natural causes. She would have been about 75.
Borton paid for her burial and a headstone in the Presbyterian section of the Sandhills (Devonshire Street) cemetery, where Central Station is now. Her stone was later moved to the pioneers' cemetery at Botany. Its epitaph has since worn away, but Mrs A. G. Foster wrote it down in 1901, so the words weren't lost.
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How She's Remembered
Cora is one of the best-pictured Aboriginal people of early Sydney. The ADB lists portraits by Charles Rodius (a pencil portrait from 1844 showing her in a plain Mother Hubbard dress), William Fernyhough, Eugène Delessert and James S. Bray, as well as Angas's watercolour in the South Australian Museum. The National Library of Australia holds a Rodius portrait too, and the British Museum has copies of Fernyhough's 1836 print.
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Her things are still with us too: the brass plate and rum mug at the Mitchell Library, and the second plate at the Australian Museum. And every time someone says "Maroubra", they're saying her father's name.
Timeline
- c.1758 – Moorooboora, Cora's father, is born.
- c.1777 – Cora (Kaaroo/Caroo) is born.
- 1788 – The First Fleet arrives at Sydney Cove.
- 1798 – Moorooboora dies.
- 1790s – Bungaree moves from Broken Bay to Sydney.
- 1815 – Macquarie sets up Bungaree's group at Georges Head and gives him his breastplate.
- Mid-1820s – Matora dies and Cora becomes Bungaree's principal wife (per Paul Irish, via Wikipedia).
- 1828 – Bungaree's group moves to the Domain.
- 24 November 1830 – Bungaree dies and is buried at Rose Bay.
- 1836 – Fernyhough publishes his profile portrait of her.
- Early 1840s – John F. Mann sees her at Brisbane Water.
- 1844 – Rodius draws her in pencil. In July she attends a levee at Government House.
- July 1845 – She guides Angas and W. A. Miles to the North Head rock carvings.
- 1846 – Angas exhibits her portrait at the Egyptian Hall, London.
- 30 July 1852 – She is found dead at the Sydney Arms Hotel, Castlereagh Street, and buried at the Sandhills cemetery.
- 1901 – Mrs A. G. Foster records the epitaph on her headstone, later moved to Botany.
Where the Sources Disagree
- Her name. The ADB lists Kaaroo, Carra, Caroo, Car-roo and Ba-ran-gan. Wikipedia settles on Caroo, following Jakelin Troy.
- Her birth year. Every source gives "c.1777", which is an estimate. The ADB's heading drops the "c." and simply says 1777.
- Children. Wikipedia (citing Keith Vincent Smith's Mari Nawi) says she and Bungaree may have had no children together, and that she helped raise Bowen. The ADB records that Boio ("Long Dick") claimed to be her son by Bungaree. Neither source says whether the claim was true.
- When she became "queen". Wikipedia's infobox gives Bungaree as her husband "w. 1830", while its text, citing Paul Irish, has her as principal wife after Matora died in the mid-1820s.
- The publican. The ADB gives his surname as Borton "or Berton". Wikipedia uses Edward Borton.
- The breastplate wording. The ADB gives the Mitchell Library plate as "Cora Gooseberry Freeman Bungaree Queen of Sydney and Botany". Wikipedia, citing Val Attenbrow, sets it out line by line as "Cora Gooseberry/ Freeman/ Bungaree / Queen of Sydney and Botany".
- Bungaree's voyage. The ADB dates the Investigator voyage 1801–02. Wikipedia's Bungaree article says 1802–03.
- Where her headstone is. The ADB says it was moved to the "pioneers cemetery at Botany" and that its epitaph has faded. Wikipedia names this Pioneers Cemetery, Botany, and says the stone was moved "shortly afterwards". The ADB just says "later".
My Earlier Posts
- Devonshire Street Cemetery – The Burial Ground Under Central Station
- The Sandhills Cemetery – Devonshire Street Cemetery
- Names Of Railway Stations In New South Wales – Including Aboriginal Names & Meanings
- Assorted Drawings Of Old Colonial Sydney Town
- The City Of Sydney – The Story Of its Growth – John Arthur Barry
Sources
- Keith Vincent Smith, "Gooseberry, Cora (1777–1852)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplement, 2005: adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gooseberry-cora-12942
- F. D. McCarthy, "Bungaree (c.1775–1830)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 1, 1966 (revised 2025): adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bungaree-1848
- Wikipedia, "Cora Gooseberry" (citing Attenbrow, Troy, Irish, Smith and others): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cora_Gooseberry
- Wikipedia, "Bungaree": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungaree
- Wikipedia, "Maroubra, New South Wales" (history section): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroubra,_New_South_Wales
- Wikipedia, "Aboriginal breastplate": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_breastplate
- Image details from each file's Wikimedia Commons page (linked from every picture).