The Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs was formed in 1972. As a result of the creation of this department, the Federal Government took over responsibility for all issues related to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. Policy and planning functions which had previously been the responsibility of the States were transferred to the…
The Lutheran Church is a branch of the Protestant church, and was founded in Germany in the 16th Century by Reformationist Martin Luther. The Lutheran Church was first established in Australia by German Lutherans arriving in South Australia in 1838. Separate Lutheran churches were founded in Victoria from the 1840s, and Queensland from the 1850s….
The National Archives of Australia (NAA) holds many records which provide information of interest to former child migrants. The records relating to individual child and youth migrants are essentially those concerned with their entry into Australia rather than the day-to-day care once they had arrived. The NAA also holds a number of policy and administrative…
Eugenics was an influential doctrine popular from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Eugenics refers to the philosophy and practice of selective breeding of humans with desirable (or “superior”) hereditary traits. While not discounting the role of environmental factors, it placed considerable emphasis on heredity in shaping an individual’s characteristics. The ideas within eugenics…
Closed adoption refers to the practice of sealing an adopted child’s original birth certificate and issuing a new birth certificate when the child was adopted. This new certificate included the name of the child and their adoptive parents. The identity of the adopted child’s original parents was hidden. This practice meant that many people didn’t…
The John Mulligan Photograph Collection, ca. 1960-1976 is a collection of photographs taken by John Aloysius Mulligan between 1960 and 1976. The subjects are social, religious and cultural events in Australia. The acetate negatives have been discarded due to deteoriation but the National Library of Australia holds digital copies of all the images. The collection…
The Junior Red Cross Society was formally established in Australia in 1918, as part of the Australian Red Cross. It was a children’s and youth division, which had regional committees. Various branches of the Junior Red Cross Society set up and ran Homes in various locations around Australia, as part of its peacetime programs. These…
Australian Indigenous Ministries is the modern name of the Aborigines Inland Mission. The name change occurred in 1998. In 2014 it is not directly involved in caring for children and it appears that its historical records and photographic collections were donated to the State Library of New South Wales between 2000 and 2010.
The Aborigines Inland Mission (AIM) was an Evangelical Baptist missionary organisation established by Retta Dixon in 1905. The AIM and its staff ran the St Clair Mission, the Singleton Home, the Native Workers’ Training College and the Singleton Bible Training Institute in New South Wales, as well as the Phillip Creek Mission and the Retta…
On 21 March 2013, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard apologised on behalf of the Australian Government to people affected by forced adoption or removal policies and practices. The national apology was delivered in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra.
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
