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New South Wales - Organisation

St Clair Aboriginal Mission (1893 - 1923)

  • Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home]

    Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home], c. 1908, courtesy of State Library of New South Wales.
    Details

From
1893
To
1923
Categories
Children's Home, Home, Mission and Protestant
Alternative Names
  • Mount Olive Reserve
  • Singleton Aboriginal Mission

St Clair Mission, located in Carrowbrook between Muswellbrook and Singleton, was an Aboriginal mission that was established by Reverend JS White in 1893. In the late 1890s Retta Dixon, a Baptist missionary, moved to the Mission. In 1905 she formed the Aborigines Inland Mission and took formal control of St Clair. She established the Singleton Children's Home on St Clair in the same year. St Clair operated until 1918 when it was taken over by the Aborigines Protection Board and renamed Mount Olive Reserve. The missionaries were forced out in 1920 and the reserve and the Home were closed in 1923.

Details

Location

1893 - 1923
Location - St Clair Aboriginal Mission was located at Carrowbrook, south of Singleton. Location: Singleton

Run By

Related Glossary Terms

Related Organisations

  • Singleton Aboriginal Children's Home (1910 - 1920)

    The Aborigines Inland Mission ran both Singleton Aboriginal Children's Home and St Clair Home and adult residents of St Clair often stayed at Singleton Aboriginal Children's Home

  • Singleton Home (1905 - 1910)

    The Aborigines Inland Mission ran both Singleton Home and St Clair Aboriginal Mission, and adults from the latter often stayed in the Singleton Home

    Date: 1905 - 1923

Publications

Books

  • Horton, David, The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 1994. Details
  • Miller, James, Koori, a will to win, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1985. Details

Resources

Theses

  • Brett-Vickers, Christine, 'A missionary in the family : George and Jennie Smith and Aboriginal people, New South Wales 1890-1920', PhD thesis, School of History, LaTrobe University, 2007. Details

Online Resources

Photos

21. Group of St Clair Aborigines, near Singleton NSW. First AIM station. c. 1903.
Title
21. Group of St Clair Aborigines, near Singleton NSW. First AIM station. c. 1903.
Type
Image
Date
c. 1903
Source
State Library of New South Wales

Details

Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home]
Title
Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home]
Type
Image
Date
c. 1908
Source
State Library of New South Wales

Details

Sources used to compile this entry: 'Our Aim newsletters', in Aborigines' Inland Mission newsletters, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1907-1961, http://aiatsis.gov.au/collections/collections-online/digitised-collections/aborigines-inland-mission-newsletters/our-aim-newsletters; Brett-Vickers, Christine, 'A missionary in the family : George and Jennie Smith and Aboriginal people, New South Wales 1890-1920', PhD thesis, School of History, LaTrobe University, 2007; Gray, Anna, St Clair Mission, Australian Museum, Australian Museum, 2010. Also available at https://web.archive.org/web/20171021052801/http://australianmuseum.net.au/St-Clair-Mission/; Parry, Naomi, 'Such a longing': black and white children in welfare in New South Wales and Tasmania, 1880-1940, Department of History, University of New South Wales, 2007, 361 pp, http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/40786; Radi, Heather, 'Long, Margaret Jane (Retta) (1878-1956)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/long-margaret-jane-retta-10857; Email correspondence from Dr Christine Brett-Vickers, 21-22 January 2013 and 15 May 2014.

Prepared by: Naomi Parry