Further on NSW, most of the people receiving rations in the late 19C-early 20C in western NSW (most similar to SA) were living on the big pastoral stations and in fact, the records sometimes say of a locality 'no rations needed, all employed'. The 'rounding up into missions/reserves' by government was later, in the 1930s+, and different from the earlier church-run missions. It was a side-effect of the closer settlement policies which broke up the big pastoral stations, plus, I think, the effect of the Depression (with differences between eastern/central and western NSW) - both factors put many previously employed Aboriginal familes out of work and off their now subdivided land. There is one unique case in WNSW, where the Aboriginal community escaped the forced moves, and stayed on the station, which they now own. (Merri Hill, 1996, Weilmoringle : a unique bi-cultural community.)

Try researching Maralinga Tjarutjaand then see how many were cooked in the British Blasts. Check that out for crusine culture. No wonder the Irish hate the Poms.

Thank you, Cossomby, reality is often much stranger than the stereotype, isn't it ?

Yes, in SA, the government took over two church-based Missions in 1916-1917, and another Mission in the far North-East was transferred to private leaseholding at about the same time, and as you say, during the Depression, people moved back to the 'Missions', as they were still - and are still - known, during the depression.

Watching Chris Masters' program on the ABC last night on Australia during that time, I was thinking that life might have been hard and cottages overcrowded on 'Missions', but at least they stayed alive.

In fact, that overcrowding might have been the major incentive for people to get the hell off and find a new life for themselves in country towns immediately after the War, and from their into the towns and cities. Hence, the massive shift to cities a generation later, and the maturing of a young urban population in the eighties and later.

Hence, since then, far more participation in higher education, for them and their children. Bingo ! Thirty three thousand graduates as at the end of 2012. Well, 'bingo' might be a bit precocious.

There are little gems in all those letters. One time, when the blokes at Victor Harbor had been provided with an 18-ft boat, six-oared, for fishing further out, and the people up the coast at Port Elliott demanded the same, when the Victor Harbor people demanded to be paid to look after the boat, the Minister ordered the boat to be taken off them and given to the Port Elliott people.

A boat that size would have cost about ten pounds, a fifth of a good annual wage, say eight thousand dollars in our money. There were easilya hundred boats on the waterways at any time from the 1870s. Relations of my wife's were still using a boat like that in the 1950s at Wellington here in SA.

Clearly, the intention was to force people to usethe resources of the river, plus modern fishing gear, to lighten the ration burden. B@stards !

[TBC]

[continued]

Chris,

Yes, indeed, some terrible things were still being done right up to the sixties, and those atomic tests are probably still having repercussions for the health of the people there.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Still trying to work this website thing ! Currently, I can put only three files on at a time, but I've tricked it to take all the Correspondence 1840-1912, in two files, and Annual reports on the other. That's about three thousand pages.

www.firstsources.info

Joe

Hi Joe,

I think what you are doing is pretty important and deserves some support.

I am reasonably savvy around web pages as well as content management systems. If you feel you could do with some assistance I am willing to donate some time to help with the web part of your project.

On the other hand if you are happy surfing the learning curve yourself (and that can be fun too) that is fine.

Well done on your efforts thus far.