Gnowangerup Mission

Gnowangerup Mission was established in 1926 by Hope and Hedley Wright on behalf of the Australian Aborigines’ Mission, on a 6.5 acre Government Reserve just outside Gnowangerup, in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. In 1929 the Australian Aborigines’ Mission became the United Aborigines Mission and the Wrights continued to run Gnowangerup on its behalf. The Mission moved two miles out of the town of Gnowangerup to a 190 acre plot in 1935. Gnowangerup Mission closed in 1973.

The land for the original Gnowangerup Mission was provided by Gnowerangup Shire Council, one mile southwest of Gnowangerup on Tambellup Road. The Mission included a school.

During the early 1930s there was much concern about the location of the Mission and in 1935 a new Mission Station was opened two miles north-east of Gnowangerup. The official opening happened in November 1935. The buildings were transferred to the new location and the school continued.

Gnowangerup Mission was gazetted as a Native Institution on 29 March 1940 and its status as a Native Institution under s.4 of the Native Welfare Act 1963 was cancelled on 04/02/1970.

Gnowangerup Mission is mentioned in multiple sources as an institution that housed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children removed from their families. The December 1948 issue of the United Aborigines Messenger mentions a changed policy for the work at Gnowangerup with eight children under the care of the missionaries.

In the 1960s Gnowangerup Agriculture School was opened on the Mission’s land.

Gnowangerup Mission closed in 1973.

In November 2017 seventeen members of the Stolen Generations returned to Gnowangerup Mission to undertake healing activities.

National Redress Scheme for people who have experienced institutional child sexual abuse

The Western Australian government has agreed to be a funder of last resort for this institution. This means that although the institution is now defunct, it is participating in the National Redress Scheme, and the government has agreed to pay the institution’s share of costs of providing redress to a person (as long as the government is found to be equally responsible for the abuse a person experienced).