Protector of Aborigines

The office of the Protector of Aborigines was established pursuant to a recommendation contained in the Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes, (British settlements.) of the House of Commons. On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report.

The report recommended that Protectors of Aborigines should be engaged. They would be required to learn the Aboriginal language and their duties would be to watch over the rights of Aborigines, guard against encroachment on their property and to protect them from acts of cruelty, oppression and injustice. The Port Phillip Protectorate was established with George Augustus Robinson as chief protector and four full-time protectors.^[1]

While the role was nominally to protect Aborigines, particularly in remote areas, it has been suggested that the role included social control up to the point of controlling whom individuals were able to marry and where they lived and managing their financial affairs.

As well as Robinson, A. O. Neville and Edward John Eyre were notable Protectors of Aborigines.

Matthew Moorhouse was the first Protector of Aborigines in South Australia.

The Aborigines Welfare Board in New South Wales was abolished in 1969. By then, all states and territories had repealed the legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of "protection".

Protectors of Aborigines

Protectors of Aborigines around Australia included:

• Victoria (Port Phillip Protectorate, 1839–1849)
  • George Augustus Robinson
  • William Thomas, (Assistant Protector) 1839-1849
  • Edward Stone Parker, (Assistant Protector) Loddon and Northwest District, 1839–1849
• Victoria
  • William Thomas, Guardian of Aborigines in the counties of Bourke, Mornington and Evelyn
• South Australia
  • William Wyatt, 1837-
  • Matthew Moorhouse, 1839-
  • Edward John Eyre, Sub-Protector on the Murray River 1841-1847
  • Edward Bate Scott, Sub-Protector on the Murray River, 1848-1857 and later as Protector of Aborigines^[2]
• Northern Territory (part of South Australia until 1911)
  • Walter Baldwin Spencer
  • Francis James Gillen, 1892-
  • William Edward Harney, 1940 to 1947
  • Xavier Herbert
  • Cecil Cook^[3][4][5]
• Queensland
  • Walter Roth, 1898–1904
  • Archibald Meston, 1898 to 1903
  • Patrick Killoran, 1963 to 1986^[6]
• Western Australia
  • Henry Charles Prinsep, 1898 to 1907^[7][8]
  • Charles Frederick Gale, 1907 to 1915^[9][10]
  • Auber Octavius Neville, 1917 to 1936. Neville was appointed Commissioner of Native Affairs from 1936 to 1940, see also the Moseley Royal Commission.^[11][12]
  • Francis Illingworth Bray, 1940 to 1947. Commissioner of Native Affairs.^[13][14]
  • Stanley Guise Middleton, 1948 to 1962. The Commissioner of Native Affairs was the head of the Department of Native Affairs (Commissioner of Native Welfare from June 1955).^[15][16]
  • Frank Ellis Gare, 1962 to 1972. The last Commissioner of Native Welfare.^[17]

See also

Compare:

• Indian Agent (Canada)
• Indian Agent (United States)
• Department of Aboriginal Affairs (Western Australia)

References

1. Aplin, Graeme; S.G. Foster; Michael McKernan, eds. (1987). Australians:Events and Places. Fairfax, Syme and Weldon Associates. pp. 47–8. ISBN 0-949288-13-6.
2. "SEVENTY YEARS A COLONIST.". The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931). Adelaide, SA: National Library of Australia. 3 July 1909. p. 8. Retrieved 3 January 2016.
3. Reports on actions of Dr Cecil Cook.
4. Dr Cook was the Chief Protector of Aborigines during the trial and appeal of Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda. The first Aboriginal Australian whose case was heard in the High Court (at the National Archives of Australia)
5. Hossain, Samia. "Norman Haire and Cecil Cook on Procedures of Sterilisation in the Inter-War Period." In Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of an Identity, edited by Leigh Boucher, Jane Carey, and Katherine Ellinghaus, 454-63. Melbourne: RMIT Publishing, 2007.
6. Tony Koch, (2 November 2010), Notorious bureaucrat who oppressed Aborigines dies unlamented, The Australian accessed 24 November 2013
7. "Golden Wedding.". Bunbury Herald. Western Australia: National Library of Australia. 9 March 1918. p. 6. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
8. "News and notes". The West Australian. Perth: National Library of Australia. 12 December 1907. p. 7. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
9. "South and West Australia.". The Albury Banner and Wodonga Express. New South Wales: National Library of Australia. 20 December 1907. p. 34. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
10. "Our Calendar". Western Mail. Perth: National Library of Australia. 5 November 1915. p. 31. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
11. "Internal Troubles". Western Mail. Perth: National Library of Australia. 23 February 1917. p. 29. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
12. "Former Public Servant dies at home". The West Australian. Perth: National Library of Australia. 20 April 1954. p. 7. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
13. "Native Affairs.". The Northern Times. Carnarvon, Western Australia: National Library of Australia. 17 October 1940. p. 3. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
14. "Mr. F. I. BRAY Dead". The West Australian. Perth: National Library of Australia. 7 October 1949. p. 2. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
15. "Native Affairs.". Kalgoorlie Miner. Western Australia: National Library of Australia. 28 July 1948. p. 3. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
16. Kral, Inge (2012). "Everything was Different because of the Changing". Talk, Text and Technology: Literacy and Social Practice in a Remote Indigenous Community. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. p. 113. ISBN 9781847697592. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
17. Wilson-Clark, Charlie (16 February 2004). "He heralded a new era for Aborigines". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 18 April 2016.

External links

• An Index to the Chief Protector of Aborigines (Western Australia) Files 1898–1908 [PDF])
• Black Robinson: Protector of Aborigines. Vivienne Rae-Ellis. A controversial study of George ('Black') Robinson, first Chief Protector of Aborigines in Australia Melbourne University Press
• George Augustus Robinson, was a NSW Chief Protector of Aborigines in the early 1800s, George Augustus Robinson
• NSW State Library Protector of Aborigines Heritage Collection – the journals and papers of George Augustus Robinson (1791-1866)
• Public Record Office Victoria online catalogue "VPRS 2895 Chief Protector of Aborigines: Outward Letter Book 1848–1850 ... VPRS 4399 Duplicate Annual Reports for the Chief Protector of Aborigines 1845– ..."