Mrs Nora Noyes
A Generous Women
Only a small amount is known about the woman who paid for the building of All Saints Anglican Church in Collie. Nora Octavia Busby was born on May 17, 1868 in Devon, England. She was the eighth child of Alexander Ellick Busby and Caroline Busby (born Cripps). It is interesting to note that four of Nora’s siblings (Alexander, Charles, Arthur and Constance) had been born in New South Wales where her parents had married in 1854. Nora’s father was Scottish by birth (1808) but had come as a teenager, with his parents and siblings to New South Wales in 1824. Alexander owned a sheep station in the Upper Hunter region with his brother William and was a member of the NSW Legislative Council from August 1856 to February 1858. The descendants of William Busby are still living in the Upper Hunter today.
Alexander Busby and his family returned to England and a further 5 children were born (Louisa, Emily, William, Nora and Susan). In the Census of 1871, Nora (2 years old) was living in London with her Mother Caroline and five of her siblings: Alexander, Catherine, Louisa, Emily, William and Susan. William (Nora’s brother) eventually became a Priest. Alexander Busby died in 1873 when Nora was only 5 years old.
By the 1891 Census Nora was 22 years old and living with her mother and three of her sisters (Louisa, Emily and Susan). Nora married Colonel Arthur Walter Noyes on 16 October 1907 (Nora was 39 and Arthur was 64) at St Johns Church Maddermaket, Norwich in Norfolk, England. But on the 20th of January 1908, Colonel Noyes died of Typhoid Fever and was buried in Cairo, Egypt.
In 1912 Nora Noyes was attended All Saints Anglican Church in Margaret Street London where she heard the Bishop of Bunbury, the Right Reverend Fredrick Goldsmith, ask for help for his struggling new Diocese. Over the course of the following years Mrs Noyes donated a very large amount of money for the Church building, the Mural, the Dado, and the Candlesticks. In 1924 a memorial tablet of carved jarrah was dedicated by Bishop Wilson in the Baptistry of the Church. It commemorates Nora’s husband Colonel Arthur Noyes. Arthur Walter Noyes was a Colonel with the West Yorkshire Regiment joining the service in 1864. He served in New Zealand, Afghanistan and India but died while on his honeymoon tour in Cairo. The inscription reads: ‘This church is built to the glory of God and all the Saints triumphant, and to the dear and radiant memory of Colonel Arthur Walter Noyes Prince of Wales Regiment who died in Cairo, 20th January 1908. Rest eternal grant him O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him’.
The Collie Mail reported the Dedication of the Memorial Tablet on 11 April 1924.
Although never coming to Australia or visiting the Church she funded, she remained a keen follower of its progress. So much so that on her death on November 19, 1938 her family sent to the Church a chalice and paten of gold plate on solid silver, decorated with precious stones and taken from her personal jewellery. This is still in use in the Church today.