Oombulgurri

Values

· The place has social and historical significance for the Oombulgurri Aboriginal Community and Aboriginal people who lived there as part of the Forrest River Mission.

· The place is an example of the approach that the Anglican Church had towards the Aboriginal population and Mission treatment of Aboriginal people.

· The place is representative of development in the education of Aboriginal children in Western Australia.

· Oombulgurri is representative of historic changes in the treatment of Aboriginal people from segregation to assimilation to self-determination.

· The place is representative of Aboriginal resistance to British culture at the time the mission was first established

Statement of Significance

Oombulgurri has social and historical significance for the Oombulgurri Aboriginal Community and Aboriginal people who lived there as part of the Forrest River Mission. It is also an example of the approach that the Anglican Church had towards the Aboriginal population and Mission treatment of Aboriginal people. Oombulgurri is representative of development in the education of Aboriginal children in Western Australia, historic changes in the treatment of Aboriginal people from segregation to assimilation to self-determination, and Aboriginal resistance to British culture at the time the mission was first established.

Physical Description

The buildings are a mixture of local resources - timber, rock, mudbrick and grass thatch as well as modern timber, tin, corrugated iron and fibro. It is comprised of a mixture of the old and new, although very little of the original mud brick community buildings remain.

History

In 1895, Charles O.L. Riley, the third Anglican Bishop of Perth, launched an appeal calling for volunteers to establish a northern mission “to attend the needs of a dying race”. In 1897, Harold Hale, son of the first Bishop of Perth, Matthew Blagden Hale, took on the appeal and led 40,000 volunteers to acre mission site in the northern Kimberley. The initial venture failed as a result of hostility and the mission was abandoned a year after it began. Bishop Riley continued to appeal for his mission after its first failure and a second party was assembled to return to Forrest River in March 1913. Rev. Ernest R.B. Gribble, who had previous experience as the superintendent at Yarrabah Aboriginal Mission in Queensland and had knowledge of keeping stock, growing crops and use of mud, straw and sticks to build huts, made successful contact with the local Aboriginal people. By the mid-1960s the mission began to fail again and by 1968-1972 the Forrest River Mission population was scattered across several Wyndham Reserves. In 1974 Oombulgurri again proved to be significant in the education of Aboriginal children when it became the first recognised independent Aboriginal school in Australia where parents shaped the curriculum. The community was removed after shutting down of Oombulgurri’s medical clinic, school and store in 2011.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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