Aboriginal Education in Eastern Australia (N.S.W.) 1788–1855

Bell J. H. “Aboriginal Education in New South Wales”, Australian Quarterly, 33, June 1961, 30–34, and with some expansions of the contemporary sociological aspects in Forum of Education, 21, Oct. 1962, 116–129.

For argument refer to my unpublished M.A. thesis, “Aboriginal and White Relations in N.S.W. 1788–1855”, Sydney University, 1966, Library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Ibid., especially Chps. 17–19. The status of Aborigines as British subjects was inferred from the Proclamation of Possession of Eastern Australia by right of discovery and the Instructions to each Governor from Phillip onwards extending protection to native people. Until Darling's time a confused legal situation prevailed from the conflict between the vaguely defined legal assumptions and the realities of the Aborigines' uncivilized state. See for example Archives 4/1735, Colonial Secretary's “In” Letters, 4, Macquarie to Sgt. Robert Broadfoot 8/5/1816, where hostile Aborigines are to be treated as prisoners of war yet dealt with by the law, and H.R.A., IX, 362ff, for the outlawing of certain natives two months later.

Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Aborigines (British Settlements), 1836, c538, 4, Instructions from Charles II to the Council of Foreign Plantations, 1670.

Instructions. Not implemented: H.R.A., I, 23, Phillip to Sydney 15/5/1788.

M.L. A78² Banks Papers, 8–9, R. H. to Banks 13/12/1786; Matra, J. M. “A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales”, 23/8/1783, Historical Records of New South Wales, I, 737; “Heads of a Plan”, Mackaness, G., Some Proposals for Establishing Colonies in the South Seas, Sydney: privately printed, 1943, 54.

In the destitute state of the infant colony nothing more was possible even if it had been thought necessary.

Tench W. Sydney's First Four Years. Sydney: Angus and Robertson in association with The Royal Australian Historical Society, 1961, 139–141.

Bond G. A Brief Account of the Colony of Port Jackson in New South Wales [etc.], Oxford, 1806, 5; Turnbull, J. A Voyage Round the World [etc.], London, 1805, I, 73–74; Barrington, G. The History of New South Wales [etc.], London 2nd ed., 1810, 148.

Collins D. An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales [etc.], London, 1798, I, 439.

For Bennelong: ibid., 439–440; M. L. A78², 178, Capt. Waterhouse to A. Phillip 24/10/1795; B. T., Box 49 Missionary Series, W. P. Crook to J. Hardcastle 5/5/1805 at 251.

Mackaness G. (Ed.). Some Private Correspondence of the Rev. Samuel Marsden and Family 1794–1824. Sydney: privately printed, 1942, 15, Eliza Marsden to (Miss Mary) Stokes 1/5/1796.

Quoted Marsden, Rev. J. B. Life and Work of Samuel Marsden. Christchurch, 1913 ed., 63.

McLachlan N. (Ed.). The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux. London: Heinemann, 1964, 115.

Replies to a Circular Letter … (from) … The Select Committee on the Condition of the Aborigines, 31 October, 1846, 4, Rev. Thomas Hassall.

B. T., Box 54 Missionary series, 1882, Rev. S. Marsden to Rev. D. Coates 23/2/1836; cf. Sydney Gazette, Aug. 14, 1819.

The C.M.S. mission established by Marsden in New Zealand proceeded on the policy of civilizing before Christianizing. For a description: Lang, J. D. New Zealand in 1839. London, 1839.

M. L. FM4/1393, Wesleyan Missionary Society, General Committee, London, Minute Book 1819–22; M. L. A1973 Diary of Rev. W. Lawry, 66, 68, 71, 125–130.

According to one account he was at one time a member of the Wesleyan society. “The Apostle of the Maoris” (evidently a London sabbatarian weekly). Sunday at Home, 1857, 101. The more accepted version is that he was a “Methodist” in the sense of being an evangelical within the Church: Yarwood, A. T., entry for Marsden Australian Dictionary of Biography. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967, 2, 207–208.

Marsden, Rev. S. An Answer to Certain Calumnies … London, 1826, 67–68.

B. T., Box 52 Missionary series, 1047, Rev. W. Walker to Rev. R. Watson 5/12/1821. Walker attributes the changed attitude of the clergy to Marsden's hostile intercession. Marsden's sustained opposition to Walker's activity was complicated by Walker's strong adherence to Governor Brisbane and to the liberals in the factional strife of the time. See generally “Letters of William Walker” (1821–1826), Methodist Missionary Society, London. I am indebted to Rev. S. G. Claughton, Sydney, for access to these documents through the microfilm in his possession; M. L. A2899 Macarthur Papers 3, 160a, John Macarthur snr. to John jnr. 16/5/1827.

Rev. L. E. Threlkeld to Rev. S. Marsden 21/11/1826 in Threlkeld. A Statement Chiefly Relating to the Formation and Abandonment of a Mission to the Aborigines of New South Wales [etc.]. Sydney, 1828, 19.

The best of many illustrations is that in Archives 1161 Supreme Court Papers, (83), “Recollections of the Aborigines by Alexander Berry 1838”

Sadleir R. The Aborigines of Australia. Sydney, 1883, 59.

Lockley G. L. “An Estimate of the Contribution made in New South Wales by Missionaries of the London Missionary Society arriving there between 1798 and 1825”. Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Sydney.

H.R.A., VIII, 370–371, Shelley to Macquarie 8/4/1814 and 371–372, Shelley to Macquarie 20/8/1814.

B. T., Box 49 Missionary series, 380, Shelley to Burder 6/10/1814. Until this building was ready Shelley's home and outbuildings in Church Street, Parramatta, served as the Institution.

Sydney Gazette, Dec. 10, 1814: General Order.

Copy of a Report, by the late Major General Macquarie, on the Colony of New South Wales, to Earl Bathurst; dated London, 27th July, 1822, c477, 5, para. 25.

Report from the Committee on the Aborigines Question N.S.W., 1838, Mrs. Shelley's evidence, 54.

Sydney Gazette, Dec. 31, 1814 and April 22, 1815; (Mellish), An Account of the Treatment of Convicts and How They Are Dispos'd of in New South Wales, May 1825, (M. L.: part of some larger volume), 59.

Sydney Gazette, Apr. 17, 1819; M. L. A1677² Hassall Correspondence 2, 369–371, Letter from a Very Young Sunday School Teacher, Parramatta to Sunday School Magazine at Oxford—probably a reference to the same event.

Sydney Gazette, July 8, 1815.

Report of the Committee on the Aborigines Question, 1838, Mrs. Shelley's evidence, 54; B. T., Box 8 Bigge Appendix, 3519, evidence of Rev. R. Hill 22/1/1821; D. L. Add. 64, G. Molle, President of Committee to Governor Macquarie n.d., refers to “Mr. Barnes” as Mrs. Shelley's assistant.

Mrs. Shelley's evidence, 1838.

Sydney Gazette, Mar. 17, 1821.

M. L. FM4/1498, Minutes of the Committee of the Native Institution 28/12/1821.

B. T., Box 53 Missionary series, 1401–1402, Rev. W. Walker to Rev. R. Watson 13/3/1824.

“Letters of William Walker”, Walker to Secretaries 27/1/1825.

B. T. 53, 1727, Marsden to Coates 9/2/1827. The school was under the trustees of the Clergy and School Lands.

M. L. A850 Letter Book No. 1 of Archdeacon Thomas Hobbes Scott, 357–358, Scott to Hall 6/2/1827.

[Wilton, C. P. N.?] Review article on “Specimens of a Dialect of the Aborigines … L. E. Threlkeld”, The Australian Quarterly Journal, Sydney, 1, 1828, 51; Suttor Hon. W. H. “Early Christian Missions Among Our Aborigines”, The Daily Telegraph, June 22, 1899.

Sydney Gazette, Aug. 22, 1827 and H.R.A., VII, 277. Compare H.R.A., X, 263ff, Cartwright to Macquarie 6/12/1819 and 18/12/1820 with Sydney Gazette, Dec. 13, 1822, letter from “Philanthropus”

H.R.A., X, 263ff. Cartwright's detailed proposals were embodied in a poem which does not appear to have survived.

Ibid., 262–263, Macquarie to Bathurst, 24/2/1820.

Dawson R. The Present State of Australia [etc.], London, 1830, 331; M. L. A820 “Colony of New South Wales 1830”, 166; M. L. A1211 Return of Colleges and Schools … enclosure to Bourke to Goderich 18/1/1833.

Revs. J. C. S. Handt and J. Günther.

Marginal annotation by George Bennet, member of L.M.S. Deputation, in his copy of Threlkeld's, A Statement …, 8, National Library of Australia, Canberra.

Champion B. W. “Lancelot Edward Threlkeld. His Life and Work 1788–1859” J.R.A.H.S., 25, 355; Sydney Gazette, May 22, 1830.

Thorpe Rev. O. The First Catholic Mission to the Australian Aborigines. Sydney: Pellegrini and Co., 1950.

Sparks H. J. J. Queensland's First Free Settlement 1838–1938, Brisbane: W. R. Smith and Paterson for Queensland's First Free Settlers' Centenary Committee, 1938: the fullest of several published accounts of this mission.

D. L. Add. 367 Ridley Papers. My unpublished paper on this mission. “Rev. William Ridley: Missionary to the Aborigines 1853–1856”, is in the Library of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies and the Presbyterian Library, Assembly Hall, Sydney.

State Library of Victoria, Colonial Secretary's records, W. Thomas to La Trobe 12/12/1845; Report from the Select Committee on the Aborigines and Protectorate, N.S.W., 1849, 38–39.

See for examples “A Resident”[Kerr, J. H.?], Glimpses of Life in Victoria, Edinburgh:1872, 195; Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 8, 1851 and Dec. 9, 1853; Arden's Sydney Magazine, Oct. 1843.

Beveridge P. The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina, Melbourne, 1889, 92, “In matters of religion these aborigines are very, very destitute indeed, yet they admit that all their actions are overlooked by a good and by an evil spirit.”

Church Missionary Record, VI, Oct. 1835, 225, Extracts from the Journal of Rev. William Watson, for 1/12/1834.

M. L. A1715 Rev. Joseph Orton's Journal, 2, 140–141, relating to Assistant Protector of Aborigines William Thomas who was a Methodist lay preacher and essentially a missionary in outlook and proceedings.

Re Threlkeld. From 1831 Threlkeld received only a government subsidy of £186 p.a. to assist his personal resources. Votes and Proceedings, 1843, Return dated 12/10/1843; Re Watson: H.R.A., XXIII, 484, Gipps to Stanley 21/3/1844; Mundy, G. C., Our Antipodes, London: 2nd ed., 1852, 1, 242; Re Walker: “Letters of William Walker”; Re Lang: D.L. 116, Lang to Colonial Secretary 21/5/1841.

H.R.A., XII, 125.

Ibid., 797, Scott to Darling 9/12/1826 and XIV, 60ff, Scott to Darling 8/1/1827.

D. L. Add. 90, Chief Protector of Aborigines to Assistant Protectors 4/7/1839.

D. L. Add. 210, Assistant Protector Parker to Chief Protector 18/3/1840; Archives 4/2511. Colonial Secretary's “In” Letters, Chief Protector to Superintendent La Trobe 22/9/1840; State Library of Victoria, Colonial Secretary's records, Chief Protector to Parker 11/6/1840. Parker's station was taken as a precedent from which the others followed.

M. L. A827 Waugh Family Papers, 30, J. Waugh to E. Waugh –/–/1838; M. L. Governor's Despatches to England, 41, 819–844.

“Mr. William Thomas, The Aboriginal Guardian”. The Leader, Melbourne, May 30, 1863.

Morrison E. Early Days in the Loddon Valley. (Daylesford, Vic.): privately printed, 1965, 6.

State Library of Victoria, Dredge's Diary 1839–1843, note pinned inside front cover, and Diary 421957, 6/10/1838; Parris, H. S., “Early Mitchellstown and Nagambie”, The Victorian Historical Magazine, 23, 141.

Morrison, op. cit.

For details: my thesis, 555 and Appendices IV–VII.

Sydney Gazette, Sept. 17, 1829: Trustees of Clergy and School Lands, Financial statement for 1827; The Colonist, May 23, 1838; Arden's Sydney Magazine, Oct., 1843.

H.R.A., 14, 57ff, Sadleir's report as retailed by Archdeacon Scott.

Archives 4/1525, Minutes of the Executive Council, 9, Minute No. 32, A, 9/7/1849.

M. L. Governors' Despatches to England, 63, 646–647.

Archives 4/1334, Governor's Despatch from England, Grey to FitzRoy 5/11/1850, No. 163.

M. L. Governors' Despatches to England, 74, FitzRoy to Newcastle 22/12/1853, No. 162, and enclosures.

Mrs. Shelley's evidence to 1838 Committee, 55.

Archives 7/2710, “Church and School Corporation Letters from Colonial Secretary”1821–28, 139, A Return of the Revenue and Expenditure of the Corporation of Trustees of Clergy and School Lands in the Colony of New South Wales for the Year 1826.