View of four of the five cottages from the west. In the foreground is the site of the original cottage dormitories, c. 2011, by Thom, Louise, courtesy of NSW Office of Environment and Heritage.
Details
The United Aborigines Mission began operating in New South Wales in 1894 and ran the Bomaderry Children's Home, as well as a variety of chapels and churches across New South Wales, including in Katoomba. Its records are now housed in Victoria. In October 2019, Sharrock Pitman Legal Pty Ltd, a legal firm based in Melbourne, advised the Find & Connect web resource that the United Aborigines Mission and UAM Ministries were in the process of being wound up. As of February 2020, UAM Ministries remained a registered charity, last reporting to the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission in September 2019.
The United Aborigines Mission was mentioned in the Bringing Them Home Report (1997) as an institution that housed Indigenous children removed from their families.
Sources used to compile this entry: A Changing Landscape and a People Return, At The Beach: Contact, Migration and Settlement in South East Sydney, La Perouse, New South Wales, NSW Migration Heritage Centre, 2011, http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/atthebeach/changing-landscape/; Hanson, Dallas, Why are they in children's homes: report of the ACOSS children's home intake survey, Australian Department of Social Services: Australian Council of Social Services, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1979, 83 pp; Thinee, Kristy and Bradford, Tracy, Connecting Kin: Guide to Records, A guide to help people separated from their families search for their records [completed in 1998], New South Wales Department of Community Services, Sydney, New South Wales, 1998, https://clan.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/connectkin_guide.pdf; Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission, 'U.A.M. Ministries' Charity details, ABN 13062042951 (website accessed 14 February 2020).
Prepared by: Naomi Parry
Created: 21 March 2011, Last modified: 14 February 2020