Emma Callaghan

Emma Jane Callaghan (1884 to 1979) was an Australian Aboriginal midwife and nurse, also a supporter of Indigenous rights and a recorder of Indigenous culture. She was born on 28 February 1884 at La Perouse in New South Wales, a younger twin, to Kathleen Sims of the Tharawal people and William Foot. At thirteen, although barely educated herself, she became a teacher within the Aboriginal settlement at Bellbrook, and she lived there for twenty-five years alongside Retta Long, helping with childbirth, birth registration and the ill. She was a translator of the Dhanggati language, the tongue of her first husband Athol Callaghan's people, working on biblical stories. She died at Randwick aged 95. Her home was preserved by the New South Wales government in 1985, and in November 2023 she was one of eight women announced for a state blue plaque.