Quilt No.431TM - The Townsville Museum

The maker, Martha Jane Marlton (born Duff) was born in Scotland in 1904. Her parents came from Glasgow where her father was a tailor and when they came to Australia they settled in Warwick on the Darling Downs where Mr. Duff became a tailor in about 1910. Martha Jane Duff was a telephonist at the Warwick telephone exchange and travelled to Townsville in 1929 to work at the Townsville telephone exchange then returning to Warwick to marry Robert William Marlton. The rug is made from his old jumpers and cardigans. He felt the cold especially when travelling between Warwick and Townsville visiting family. After marrying Martha they travelled to Bundaberg, Winton and Chartres Towers as Robert worked with the railways. In 1938 he was injured when a train ran over his foot and he lost one toe. After recuperating for a year they moved to Townsville where Robert worked as a porter at the goods shed.
Martha Jane Marlton came from a family of sewers. Two of her sisters worked for their father in the tailoring business but Martha was not a sewer, preferring the garden. She was, however, thrifty and a conserver and the quilt had been mended and carefully stored. Martha was interested in the Women's Guild and the CWA.
[This information is taken from a telephone conversation with Jean Marlton by Morley Grainger in Townsville 13.3.98]