Dressed in traditional trousers, a jacket and hat, many remember Granny Lum Loy walking each day from Stuart Park to the centre of Darwin. A Territory icon, Granny Lum Loy was born in China in 1884, moving to Darwin in 1898. At the age of 17, she married Lum Loy, a mining engineer and they settled in Pine Creek. When her husband died, she returned to Darwin with her daughter Lizzie, establishing a mango plantation in Fannie Bay and helping with her daughter‚ on Cavenagh Street before being evacuated prior to the bombing of Darwin in 1942. After returning to Darwin, she started a chicken farm in Stuart Park where she worked until her death at the age of 96. Her funeral was reportedly “one of the biggest and longest in Darwin's history” Granny Lum Loy is one of the few Territory women who have a page on Wikipedia about them. This International Women Day on Wednesday 8 March you are invited to Northern Territory Library from 5-7pm to help create new pages about Territory women.

Published: 26 February 2017

Picture: Advertiser Collection, Northern Territory Library