Maria Butcher's Singer sewing table

Singer sewing table used by Maria Butcher, Umpila language group, when sewing school uniforms for the children who lived on the Lockhart River Mission.

A timber Singer sewing machine table on a metal (iron?) base. The top of the table features a rectangular timber platform to which the sewing machine would have been attached. Underneath the tabletop, rectangular timber compartments feature on both sides. The proper right compartment is segregated into three drawer sections. The drawers themselves are all missing from both the compartments and the outside walls of the compartments feature applied decorative, scroll-like timber motifs. One of these decorative motifs is missing from the side of the proper left compartment.

The sewing machine table was a valued personal possession of Maria Butcher. She bought it when she lived at the Anglican Mission at Bare Hill, an hour's drive from current day Lockhart River. Residents of Lockhart River have relatively few personal possessions. The table is a physical reminder of the life she and her family shared on the old mission site, and of the times during which she raised her children.