Gnowangerup Aboriginal Mission and Agricultural School (fmr)

Statement of Significance

Gnowangerup Agricultural School is a rare example of an Aboriginal Mission Site in the Great Southern Region. It is representative of an Aboriginal Mission that was privately established by individuals not in association with a religious organisation or government department and demonstrates the development of Aboriginal Institutions from the 1920s to 1970s from Aboriginal reserve, to Aboriginal mission, to Aboriginal agricultural school, to residential agricultural school. The Site of Gnowangerup Aboriginal Mission, and the formerly associated site of Gnowangerup Reserve, is significant in being established, owned and managed by husband and wife, Brother Hedley Wright and Sister May Wright for over three decades. Gnowangerup Agricultural School is significant to the Aboriginal Community and former residents who spent time there.

Physical Description

Gnowangerup Agricultural School is made up of a series of educational, administration and farm buildings predominantly constructed from brick, timber and asbestos with iron roofs.

History

Hedley Wright and his wife Hope May Wright, better known as Brother and Sister Wright, established the Gnowangerup Reserve in 1920 on Gnowangerup Shire Council-donated land. The Reserve was privately-run by the Wrights with both of them teaching Aboriginal students on site. They established Gnowangerup Aboriginal Mission in 1935 after moving those at the Reserve to the new 90 acre Mission site on the other site of Gnowangerup town. Men were encouraged to earn money through farm work and women were taught domestic duties, while children received schooling from the staff at the Mission. In 1948, Hedley Wright resigned after a disagreement he had with the United Aborigines Mission, but returned to the Mission in 1954 when the Baptist Church opened an Agricultural School there. 1978, due to falling attendances, the school began to include non-Aboriginal youths who weren’t succeeding in traditional schools. In 2005 boarding facilities at Gnowangerup Agricultural School were closed. The school was renamed Gnowangerup Training Centre in 2006 and provided training programs for secondary students who were already enrolled in mainstream schools in Gnowangerup, Katanning and Jerramungup. The centre was closed in 2010 by the Minster for Education due to low enrolments.

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