Biography

Jennifer (Jenny) Gill – 1946-2021 was the daughter of Douglas Stewart Gill and Shirley Gill, Shirly Marghritta Gill (nee Robbins). Born in Launceston to a family strongly associated with St. John’s Church, Jenny wrote that her earliest ancestors reached Van Diemen’s land in 1832 and there has been at least one branch of the family in Launceston ever since.

She was educated at Broadland House School and worked in areas mostly to do with history, including honorary work at St John’s, Holy Trinity and elsewhere, and a 20-year stint as archivist at the Launceston Church Grammar School. 

She presented and published historical papers on a wide variety of subjects including shopping in Launceston in the 19th century and places of medical care before the Launceston General Hospital. Her books included Engraved in Memory, which dealt with the people named on memorials in the churches of Launceston and surrounds, as well as histories of 

Holy Trinity Church, the Launceston Homoeopathic Hospital and Self Help Workplace – Celebrating 50 Years on its 50th anniversary. Other papers included studies of her ancestor Alice Newton, Fences and Dame Schools in Tasmania.
Her contributions were often published in The Examiner, Tasmanian Ancestry and News from Grammar. 
She was a member of many historical organisations, including the Tasmanian Family History Society, which she joined in 1982 and held the positions of secretary, vice president and president of the Launceston branch between 1989 and 2000.

Even her central city home, The Wren’s Nest in Batten St. was a runner up in the City of Launceston Heritage Awards in 2019.

Her extraordinary, dedicated work from the early 1980s until the time of her death laid the foundations for the systematic cataloguing and preservation of 200 years of historical documents and artifacts of St. John's Church, and the present Heritage and History Group is indebted to her achievements.

Not long after her death, John Dent, OAM, wrote in the newsletter of Tasmanian Family History Society, “Jenny’s considerable contribution to the understanding and recording of Launceston’s history and the many organisations she belonged to will be sorely missed. Her sense of humour, love of life, music and cats and her friendship will be fondly remembered by all her friends. Jenny will be engraved in our memory, forever.”

A fine tribute to her life [linked] was read in the House of Assembly in Tasmania’s Parliament by Janie Finlay MHA in November 2021.

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