Marribank

Marribank, earlier known as Carrolup, was the site of one of two large Native Settlements for Indigenous Australians established by the office of the Protector of Aborigines of the Western Australian State Government.[1] It was a site where some of the Stolen Generations were taken after being separated from their families.

Marribank
Location in Western Australia

History

Background

The 1905, the Western Australian government approved an act that deemed all Aboriginal or part-Aboriginal children to be wards of the state, with the Chief Protector of Aborigines (now considered their legal guardian) granted the legal power to take them from their parents' care and put them into institutions.[2][3] Aboriginal children were taken from their parents, especially if they had a European or part-European ancestry, in order to break the possibility of being socialised within traditional Aboriginal language and culture, as a part of a government policy which has become known as the Stolen Generations. It was hoped by the Protector of Aborigines that boys would be trained as agricultural labourers, and girls would obtain work as domestic servants.

Children living at Carrolup of marriageable age had to obtain official government permission to marry. As the official policy was acknowledged as "smoothing the pillow of a dying race", the "breeding out" of Aboriginal racial characteristics was encouraged. The officials took little or no action in cases of sexual abuse of girls by those officially in charge of them.

Carrolup Native Settlement (1915-1922)

Carrolup was established in 1915 as a government-run "native settlement",[1] with a Superintendent was from the Australian Aborigines Mission, which also provided volunteer staff.[4] It lay not far from the Western Australian town of Katanning, after complaints by white farmers and settlers about the Aboriginal fringe dwellers living north of the town, who were attending school to the south. Together with settlements at Moore River, Roelands and Gnowangerup, at one stage it formed part of a number of institutions that housed most of the Noongar people of the South West of Western Australia.

The Carrolup facility was closed in 1922, with all residents transferred to the Moore River Settlement.[1]

Carrolup Native Settlement (1939-1951)

The settlement was re-opened by the Department of Native Affairs in 1939, and by 1944 it housed 129 boys, girls and older children.[5] In the late 1940s artworks made by some of the children gained international attention.

In 1949 the school at Carrolup was closed down, and the school-age children were transferred to other sites.[5] In 1951 the native settlement was closed and the adults living there were 'dispersed'; teenage boys were kept back in order to establish Marribank Farm Training School.[5]

Marribank Farm Training School (1951-1952)

The short-lived farm training school for Aboriginal boys was handed over to the Baptist Church in 1952.[1]

Marribank (1952-1988)

The settlement was run by the Baptist Union as an Aboriginal mission between 1952 and 1988.[6]

Carrolup child artists

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as Carrolup Native Settlement, the site became the setting of a Noongar (South-West Aboriginal) Art movement among the children resident there,[7] famous for its portrayals of local Western Australian scenes at sunset.[8] An exhibition of Carrolup artists was organised in Perth, in a number of Australian towns and cities and in London. A number of prominent Western Australian Aboriginal Artists started their work at Marribank, and were the subject of two national travelling benchmark exhibitions curated by the Director of the Berndt Museum of Anthropology at The University of Western Australia, "Nyungar Landscapes" containing elements of the extensive Melvie, Stan and Gael Phillips Collection donated to the Berndt Museum and (with Noongar artist Sandra Hill) "Aboriginal Artists of the South-West", containing items from the Noel and Lily White Collection presented to the Museum by Noelene and Ross White.[9][10]

As part of a community initiated project, commenced in 1987, two Noongar trainees participated in a teaching program in museology at the Anthropology Research Museum, as the Berndt Museum of Anthropology was then known. Tina Hansen and Cora Farmer were funded by the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council to work towards establishing a Cultural Centre at Marribank/Carrolup.[11] Members of the community had sought assistance from John Stanton after they heard of his interest in the Carrolup children's drawings produced in the 1946-50 period. The Museum had been actively acquiring examples of these drawings for several years. Copies of these and related materials, including photographs, manuscripts and press clippings, were lodged with the Cultural Centre, which was funded by the Australian Bicentennial Authority, and opened in 1988. Tina Hansen and Cora Farmer learnt, while they were on placement with the Museum, collections management skills, display techniques, and photographic and videographic processes. They both spent the following year refining documentation on historical photographs. The first exhibition, in one room of the Old Girls' Dormitory, traced the history of Carrolup Native Settlement, as it was known, and the emergence of the "bush landscape" school of art there. Another room displayed contemporary Noongar works. A further gallery, which focussed on the Marribank years, opened in 1992.

The "lost" collection of Carrolup children's art was made by Florence Rutter, principally to exhibit and sell on behalf of the children, in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, through the Aboriginal Children's Trust that she set up in London. The collection includes a personal selection that Florence made for both herself and her family. However, she lost all her own money, together with that held by the Trust, to a con man. Destitute, she advertised its availability and was able to sell it to Herbert Mayer of New York city.

Rutter died in 1958, her dreams shattered. Some say she died of a broken heart. Herbert Mayer gifted the collection to his old university, Colgate, in upstate New York in 1966. This is the collection that Howard Morphy "found" at the Picker Gallery at Colgate University in 2004.[12] A year later, Athol Farmer, Ezzard Flowers and John Stanton travelled to the United States to inspect the collection and to select items for inclusion in the 2006 "Koorah Coolingah" exhibition at Katanning, with a parallel exhibition at the Western Australian Museum in Perth, which were part of the Perth International Arts Festival.[13][14]

In late 2018, David Clark and John Stanton set up an informational web site, www.carrolup.info, to focus attention on this story, which stretches over eighty years.

Today's site

After the settlement was abandoned, many of the buildings fell into disrepair. In 2016 a project was launched to transform the site into a cultural healing centre for Stolen Generations survivors and their communities.[15]

References
  1. "Marribank, Katanning". Government of Western Australia. Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  2. "The Acts of the Parliament of Western Australia: Aborigines Act 1905". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  3. Rutter, Florence; Carrolup Native Settlement (W.A.) (1951), Little black fingers : the story of Carrolup Native Settlement children, Western Australia, s.n, retrieved 3 November 2014
  4. "Carrolup". Find & Connect Support Services. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  5. "Carrolup Native Settlement". Find & Connect Support Services. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  6. "Marribank". Find & Connect Support Services. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
  7. Laurie, Victoria (2006), "The lost prodigies: [More than 50 years ago, Aboriginal children in WA produced art that stunned the world. Now the Carrolup paintings are back on show]", Weekend Australian Magazine (21-22 Jan 2006): 28–31, ISSN 1038-8761
  8. Morrison, Noel (2008), Carrolup inspired, Matilda Pub, ISBN 978-1-921036-51-4
  9. Stanton, J. E. (John Edward); Stanton, J. E. (John Edward), 1950-; Berndt Museum of Anthropology (1992), Nyungar landscapes : Aboriginal artists of the South-West : the heritage of Carrolup, Western Australia, University of Western Australia, Berndt Museum of Anthropology, ISBN 978-0-86422-180-3CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. Stanton, John (2000). Aboriginal Artists of the South-West: past and present. Perth: The University of Western Australia Berndt Museum of Anthropology. p. 36. ISBN 1-74052-0173.
  11. Clark, David. "Noongar Trainees: Marribank Cultural Centre Project". The Carrolup Story. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
  12. Lee, Felecia. "From Aboriginal children, painful and poignant art". New York Times. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
  13. Pushman, Tracie (2006). Koora Coolingah (Children Long Ago). Perth: The University of Western Australia Berndt Museum of Anthropology. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-74052-127-7.
  14. Martin, Kelrick, (presenter,); ABC-TV (Australia) (2006), Carrolup found, ABC, retrieved 3 November 2014CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. Moodie, Claire (8 October 2016). "Christian Missions to be Turned Into Cultural Healing Centres". ABC News. Retrieved 18 November 2019.

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