
50th anniversary of the death of Nina Terry
She was born in January 1875 at Lara, the Darlinghurst home of her Buchanan grandparents, but grew up in the rural surrounds of Rouse Hill House where she shared her childhood with her sister Kathleen.
She grew into a vivacious young women, with a talent for horse-riding and for music and in 1895 married her charming, improvident, second cousin George Terry from the nearby property Box Hill, returning to Rouse Hill House with George and their sons after the death of Nina’s mother’s Bessie in 1924.
Nina was deeply respectful of the home that her parents had created and worked to retain her mother's housekeeping practices and arrangements, leaving her own imprint on the house in the process. In her latter years, with the rise of the heritage movement, Nina regularly found herself and the house the subject of interest from journalists and historians. She died at the house on August 17th 1968, as had her parents before her, and in the bedroom which had been shared successively by her grandparents and great-grandparents [ref: Caroline Rouse Thornton, Rouse Hill House & the Rouses, 2nd ed, 2015]
Today’s visitors to Rouse Hill House are the beneficiaries of Nina’s custodianship, providing us with a rare example of an intact late 19th century interior, reflecting the lifestyle of a genteel middle class Australian family – with all its ups and downs.

Carte de visite portrait photograph of Nina Terry as a child, around 1876.
For more information about this image, see our Library Catalogue

Wedding photograph of Nina Beatrice Terry (nee Rouse). She married her second cousin, George Alan Terry (1871-1957) at Christ Church, Rouse Hill, on April 24th 1895.
For more information about this image, see our Library Catalogue

"A Group after the Hunt Rouse Hill 18th July 1895". Nina Terry is seated in the centre of the middle row next to her mother, Bessie Rouse, who is turned towards her. The poet A.B. 'Banjo' Paterson (standing 6th from the right in the back row) was also among those who followed the hounds.
For more information about this image, see our Library Catalogue

Four of the five sons of George and Nina Terry, photographed at Box Hill House in about 1907. Left to right: Roderick Buchanan Rouse Terry (1899-1980), Geoffrey Rouse Terry (1896-1970), Gerald George Terry (b. 1904) and Edwin Terence Terry (b. 1902). Noel Terry, the youngest of the five brothers, was born in 1908.
For more information about this image, see our Library Catalogue

Members of the Kellyville-Rouse Hill Red Cross branch, c1917/1918. Nina Terry is sitting to the right of her mother, Bessie Rouse, in the middle row, showing her best profile and wearing a hat embellished with sprays of wattle.
For more information about this image see our Library Catalogue

Studio portrait of Nina Terry by May Moore, around 1920. For more information about this image see our Library Catalogue