Augusta (Gow) Packer (1815 - 1893)

Born 13 Jul 1815 in Midlothian, Scotland, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Wife of Frederick Alexander Packer — married 22 Jul 1837 in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland

Descendants

Died 23 Feb 1893 at age 77 in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

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Biography

Daughter of the Edinburgh musician and composer Nathaniel Gow, and his second wife Mary Hogg (1777- ), was reportedly herself a pupil at the Royal Academy of Music in London (presumably c.1830), in July 1837 she married another former RAM student, Frederick Alexander Packer. Her appointment, in late 1840, as wet nurse to the infant princess royal, Victoria (her mother, queen Victoria, anyway famously averse to breast feeding) occasioned her first premature notice by the Australian press in W. A. Duncan's Chronicle in Sydney in April 1841:

"Mrs. Packer, who has been appointed wet nurse to the princess royal, is a native of Edinburgh, where she was well known as Miss Augusta Gow. She is a daughter of the late Nathaniel Gow, of this city, and grand-daughter of the celebrated Neil Gow. Mrs. Packer studied music at the Royal Academy, London, with the view of becoming a public singer, in which character she appeared here at several concerts. Mrs. Packer has, or at least had, a splendid figure, and no doubt possesses all the qualifications requisite for the proper performance of the duties of her important office.-Scotsman.

She herself arrived in Hobart in July 1852, with her husband and family, including musician son Frederick Augustus Packer. For several years after her husband's death in 1862, she advertised as a teacher "giving instruction in Italian and English Singing, and on the Pianoforte (either to beginners or to those who may require finishing lessons) ... Mrs. Packer will also give lessons (separately) in Scottish Songs and the Music peculiar to Scotland."

Augusta's obituary was published as follows:^[1]

Mrs [Augusta] Packer, the respected mother of Mr J. E. Packer, Under-Treasurer, and of Mr F. A. Packer, Clerk of the House of Assembly, died to-day, aged 73. She came of an old Scotch family, and claimed lineage with the celebrated Neil [Niel?] Gow. She was one of our leading musicians, and her death severs another link in the musical past of the colony. The deceased lady was a kind and affectionate mother and made many faithful friends. So intimately has her name been connected with the rise and progress of music in the colony that it will be handed down from generation to generation as that of a lady whose whole soul was devoted to keeping up a high and pure standard of music. As a citizen she was highly respected and esteemed by all who know her. She was quiet and genial, and always polite and ladylike. Mrs Packer has been in failing health for some time, and passed quietly away, thus closing the record of a useful life, the memoral of which will live long in the hearts of those who knew her worth, both as a lady and a musician.

Sources

• Graeme Skinner (University of Sydney), "Packer family", Australharmony (an online resource toward the history of music and musicians in colonial and early Federation Australia)
• Obituaries Australia: Augusta Packer
• Father's Wikipedia entry

1. ↑ Examiner (Launceston, Tas), 24 February 1893, p.8

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Tiffiny Rodriguez for creating Gow-47 on 1 Oct 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by Tiffiny and others.