Snapshots of Aboriginal Fitzroy

Moving to Fitzroy

Off the Mission

Alick Jackomos has noted that "during the mid 1930s the Aboriginal community of Melbourne consisted of about 10-12 families living in Fitzroy with one or two families living in Richmond and North Melbourne; approximately 100 people". Beryl Booth recalls that her family were the first Aboriginal family to move to Fitzroy in 1928, shifting from Gunditjamara country in the west of the State. Edna Brown also recalls coming to Melbourne from the Framlingham Mission in 1932, when she was only fifteen years old. She recalls that "I married in 1934 and we held the service in the minister's house in Collingwood. It was the Depression and times were pretty bad". The experience of the returned Aboriginal servicemen, who had fought for their country in the First World War were denied equality on their return to Australia. This prompted many to leave the country areas:

My grandfather served in the First World War, he was in the light-horse regiment and was
gassed and all that in France, came back and they had a plan for soldiers resettlement and
Lake Condah Aboriginal Mission was actually split up, torn apart and the white soldiers could
use the mission land. And when our soldiers asked for the land they were told “nup” you
weren’t entitled to it, even though it was soldiers resettlement, those that went and fought for
the country. So you had the white soldiers taking the land off us again and the mission slowly
shrink ing. It was just another way of forcing our people off the land …hav ing to live off river
banks as I said earlier and be com ing fringe dwellers and you look around at where a lot of the
Aboriginal mis sions were you’d fi nd a lot of fringe dwellers living in a camp, living on the edge
of towns and river banks and that’s how they were forced out and the country towns, a lot of the
country towns they couldn’t move there because of the racial tension there they always had to
live outside or the majority of us would live outside…and pretty hard to fi nd a job and that’s why
a lot of them came to Melbourne.

Ronald Johnson, Interview, 14 September 2001.

The declaration of war in 1939 resulted in many Aboriginal families coming to Melbourne, particularly those of the men who had enlisted in the AIF. The war effort also required workers and Aboriginal people to obtain employment at a number of places, such as "the munition works, the glassworks at Newport and the other industries supporting the war effort". At one point there were twenty Aboriginal servicemen from Lake Tyers who enlisted in the AIF, these men were posted around Melbourne, Bacchus Marsh and later Bonegilla, after which their families shifted from the country to the various streets around Fitzroy.

Aboriginal Recruits from Lake Tyers
lined up for morning parade at Caulfield
Reproduction rights owned by State library of Victoria
Library Record no: 1163655 Accession number: H99.201/282

Nora Murray recalls her family coming to Fitzroy in 1941 and first living in Little George Street, which is now Napier Street, behind the MacRobertsons chocolate factory. After the death of her father the family moved first to St Georges Road before her mother, Gladys, purchased a house at 25 Fergie Street in North Fitzroy. She recalls that when she was about 13 her mother worked in the Munitions Factory in Maribyrnong. From an early age Nora also worked:

I was working afternoon shift at Australian Cans in Nicholson Street, Carlton. We made the cans for the food that was provided to army personnel. I worked night shift and Mum worked during the day. I had worked before at the Rosella Factory in Collingwood where we made tomato sauce and sweet pickles. Quite a few of our people worked there too.
Nora Murray, Interview courtesy of Bev Murray

The prospect of full-time work and the desire to be close to enlisted family members were not the only reasons people moved to the city. Many of the families that moved to Melbourne did so to escape the control of the Aborigines Protection Board. The assimilation policy that had been introduced with the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 was still in force and this meant that the board could compel either "full bloods" or "half castes" to reside at the remaining Aboriginal mission, at Lake Tyers in Gippsland. Those family members who were not deemed to be dark enough to reside on the mission were forced off and were prosecuted if they attempted to return to visit their family.

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Further information

Community Advocacy
c/o Richmond Town Hall,
333 Bridge Rd, Richmond
Telephone 9205 5160
Email info@yarracity.vic.gov.au

Links

Within this site
Snapshots of Aboriginal Fitzroy home
Snapshots of Aboriginal Fitzroy

External sites (Yarra City Council accepts no responsibility for the information or opinions contained within external sites)
Dictionary of Aboriginal place names of Victoria
Gary Foley's Koori History Website
Aboriginal Housing Board of Victoria
Aboriginal Health Service

Information supplied by: Electronic communications & design officer - 9205 5214

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