Fanny Cochrane Smith

Fanny Cochrane Smith
Smith c. 1900 wearing shell necklaces
Born
Fanny Cochrane

December 1834
Settlement Point (or Wybalenna, meaning Black Man's House) on Flinders Island, Tasmania, Australia
Died24 February 1905(1905-02-24) (aged 70)
Port Cygnet, Tasmania, Australia
SpouseWilliam Smith
Children11

Fanny Cochrane Smith (née Cochrane; December 1834 – 24 February 1905) was an Aboriginal Tasmanian considered to be the last fluent speaker of the Flinders Island lingua franca and the Tasmanian languages.[1] Her wax cylinder recordings of songs are the only audio recordings of any of Tasmania's indigenous languages. Her recordings were inducted into the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register in 2017.[2]

  1. ^ NJB Plomley, 1976b. Friendly mission: the Tasmanian journals of George Augustus Robinson 1829–34. Kingsgrove. pp. xiv–xv.
  2. ^ "NFSA: Aboriginal recordings added to Australian Memory of the World". Indigenous.gov.au. Australian Government. 9 February 2017.