Annie Mercy Fallick (nee Gale), born at Waggalalah near Gunning, was the eldest child of Queanbeyan and district newspaper proprietor John Gale. From about 1885, Fallick ran a bookselling, newsagency and stationery business in Queanbeyan. (She was working in her shop until 9.00pm on the night of her death, but closed ‘early’ as she felt unwell.)
Fallick was a trained compositor and, from 1894 until her death in March 1905, was the manager of John Gale’s Queanbeyan Observer. Prior to taking over this role, Fallick had produced another of her father’s newspaper, the Gunning Leader. One of her son’s, R. J. S. Fallick, wrote that Fallick drove solo a buggy and pair of horses from Queanbeyan to Gunning each week, ‘not without some public disapproval’, to produce the Leader (qtd. in Rod Kirkpatrick’s Country Conscience: A History of the New South Wales Provincial Press, 1841-1995).
Major source: ‘Queanbeyan.’ Goulburn Evening Penny Post 30 Mar 1905: 1
Sighted: 15/10/2013
