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Anne Fraser Bon

(1838-1936) philanthropist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ47093158
Source-derived summary

Anne Fraser Bon (9 April 1838 – 5 June 1936) was a Scottish-born Australian pastoralist, philanthropist and advocate for Aboriginal people.

Life

Bon was born in Perthshire, Scotland and was the second daughter of Jane (born Fraser) and physician David Dougall. In 1858, she married a friend of the Dougall family named John Bon, and they moved to Victoria where John had established himself.

She was active in advocating for marginalised persons in Victoria, including the Chinese, blind soldiers and inmates of State mental institutions. She campaigned for a public inquiry into the treatment of Victoria's Aboriginal people, which led to the 1881 Coranderrk Inquiry to which she was an appointed member. Bon was later appointed to Victoria's Aboriginal Protection Board. In 1934 she presented the stone used for the monument in Healesville to William Barak, with whom she had a long association.

Bon died on 5 June 1936 in Melbourne.

Editorial summary

“Anne Fraser Bon” enters the record as (1838-1936) philanthropist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Anne, Fraser and 1838-1936 can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1838, 1936, 1858, 1881—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1838-04-09. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Anne, Fraser and 1838-1936.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Anne Fraser Bon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Anne, Fraser and 1838-1936 provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q47093158. VIAF identifies the subject as 135148389421510711801. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1838, 1936, 1858 and 1881.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Anne Fraser Bon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.