Mary Lucille Burrows
Name: Mary Lucille Burrows
Parents: Rachel Burrows and Charles Norcott
Born: 3 June 1835, Perth WA
Husband: Joseph Thomas Reilly married 10 April 1855
Died: 18 Nov 1902, Northam WA
Mary Lucille Burrows was born in a small tenement in the city of Perth (near Victoria Square), Western Australia on 3rd June 1835. She is the daughter of Rachel Burrows and Charles Norcott.
Mary's father Charles Norcott had formed a liaison with Rachel Burrows, who was in service to Lady Stirling. Charles left for Ireland in May 1836 but died while there, with no knowledge of the birth of his daughter, Mary Lucille Burrows.
At a very early age, she was taken into the care of Captain Charles Boyd and his wife Eliza, with whom Mary's mother Rachel may have come to the colony in 1832.
In 1848, Mary was one of the first pupils of what is now known as Mercedes College, located in the city of Perth. In 1851, Mary became mistress of a new school in Fremantle, which she continued for several years. In 1855, she returned to Perth and began a business as a milliner and dressmaker with Mrs Thompson. The capital for this business came form the the sale of sheep, in the Toodyay district, which had been left to her by her father Charles Norcott for her education and training. The business was successful and she found herself with a 'respectable sum of money'.
On 10 April 1855 she married Joseph Thomas Reilly in the old church in Lord St Perth, and the honeymoon spent at Henley Park on the Swan River.
With Joseph they had twelve children, of whom six survived, and from 1866 they fostered two orphans. At her death she had 14 grandchildren.
Mary died on 18th November 1902, at her home in Gordon Street, Northam.