Blacktown Native Institution Site

About

The Blacktown Native Institution Site is the heritage-listed site of a former residential school for Aboriginal and Māori children in the City of Blacktown, part of the Greater Sydney metropolitan area in Australia, built from 1822. The site is located at Richmond Road, Oakhurst, New South Wales. The school, which previously operated in Parramatta, has also been called the Parramatta Native Institution and the Blacktown Institution. After the school closed, the Blacktown site was known as Lloydhurst, Epping and Epping Forest. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 2011.

The history of the Blacktown Native Institution is closely tied to the events of the early colonial period in New South Wales. Following colonisation by the British from 1788, a complex process of negotiation commenced between the regions' Indigenous inhabitants and the colonists. The outcomes of early cross-cultural engagement were shaped by a range of official and religious interests and so the establishment of the Blacktown Native Institution should be understood in the context of this period and the contemporary European racial attitudes and policies of that time.

When Lachlan Macquarie took up the position of Governor in 1809 he was instructed to facilitate that British subjects live in 'amity and kindness' with Aboriginal people. The colonial head of the Church of England, Samuel Marsden, had also been advised by the London Missionary Society in 1810, that he should "contribute to the Civilisation of the Heathen and thus prepare them for the reception of moral and religious instruction".

The proposal to establish a school for Aboriginal children was made amid growing conflict between settlers and the local Aboriginal people dispossessed of their yam farming lands along the Hawkesbury River. Farmers were competing directly with the Indigenous inhabitants, prompting violence and armed resistance, which only diminished with the death of Koori leader Pemulwuy in 1802. The arrival of drought in 1814 exacerbated the conflict, and in April 1816 Macquarie ordered military expeditions into Gandangarra land along the Nepean River.

It was in the context of this conflict that in April 1814 William Shelley, a trader and former missionary of the London Missionary Society, wrote to Governor Macquarie with a proposal for educating Aboriginal children. Shelley stressed the need for education in useful skills, as a group rather than as individuals, for their eventual marriage, and for constant religious supervision. Macquarie eagerly seized upon the proposal and commenced establishment of a "Black Native Institution of NSW" at Parramatta. In December 1814 Macquarie held a public conference of local Aboriginal people to inform them of the institution and its purpose, and the first Aboriginal children were given into the school's care. Parents were told that they were not to remove their children from the Institution but that they could assemble every year on 28 December and be allowed to see their children. At this conference Macquarie also announced his intention to make grants of land to Aboriginal farmers.

Macquarie obtained a house in Parramatta, established Shelley as a manager, and on 10 December 1814 gazetted the rules and regulations for the Native Institution. The Parramatta Institution opened on 18 January 1815 taking four pupils initially, but that figure grew after another four children were captured during a punitive expedition between May and June 1816. The addition of several other children, as well as two recorded absconders, brought the total number of children to 13 by 9 September 1816. William and Elizabeth Shelley provided the instruction.

More children came to be educated at the Parramatta Institution over the coming years, with the institution's enrolment reaching more than 20 students at some times. During these years the institution continued to hold an annual public conference at which the local Aboriginal people could gather and reunite with their children in the institution. Macquarie concurrently made the first land grant to Aboriginal people, granting 30 acres to Colebee and Nurragingy on Richmond Road in 1816. The settlement on and around the land grant flourished and by the 1820s it had become known as the "Black Town".

Maria Cook, who later became an early Dharug and Aboriginal landowner, was one pupil. The achievement of an Aboriginal girl, aged 14, believed to be Cook, winning first prize in a New South Wales examination ahead of approximately 120 other students was reported in the Sydney Gazette on 17 April 1819. Her teachers reported her to be well ahead of the other students, with an early grasp on the English language and above-average educational performance.

In his 1819 book on Australia, William Charles Wentworth wrote that "by the last accounts from the colony, it contained eighteen native children, who had been voluntarily placed there by their parents, and were making equal progress in their studies with European children of the same age."

In 1823 the institution was moved by Governor Brisbane (who succeeded Macquarie as governor on 1 December 1821) to land adjoining the new settlement along Richmond Road at Black Town. While the Parramatta phase of the school was considered by settlers as a success, primarily because the students had acquired European skills, the Blacktown stage, by contrast, was viewed by Europeans as a failure.

The Blacktown Native Institution operated from 1823 to 1829 under the direction of the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Brisbane appointed Samuel Marsden of the CMS as the school committee's chairman, while the day-to-day running of the school was overseen by George and Martha Clarke. The Clarkes were CMS missionaries originally destined for New Zealand, but they remained in New South Wales after they were appointed to the settlement by Marsden. The Clarkes took up their position at the Blacktown Native Institution on New Years Day 1823, when the children were transferred from the care of Mrs Shelley of the Parramatta Institution.

During this early period of establishment, the Blacktown Institution housed up to 14 pupils with only a few sheds and a small timber hut in which the Clarkes lived. A more substantial building would not be constructed for another six months. The students dug gardens and planted flowers and on Sundays Clarke acted as chaplain for the settlement and local convict labourers.

From 1821 to 1823 government spending on the institution increased sharply, covering the building program (commenced on the 26 April 1822) and the purchase of Sylvanus Williams' 12 hectares of farming land north across Richmond Road from the institution. In 1823 an assistant school teacher, John Harper, was also appointed. When construction was completed, the institution house was two-stories, with four bedrooms upstairs, two large rooms and four small bedrooms downstairs and two outside rooms (with a verandah in front and at each end). There was also a separate kitchen, stable and coach house and a well may have been sunk. In February 1824, the Clarkes left the institution, resuming their trip to New Zealand, presumably leaving the children in the care of John Harper.

In early 1824 the administration of the Native Institution was reorganised following Brisbane's dismissal of the committee. Brisbane placed the institution under the control of his Methodist protegee William Walker who retained all the female students while the boys were transferred to Robert Cartwright at Liverpool. The population of the settlement increased somewhat after the arrival of Walker in 1824 but the settlement appears to have been unstable during this period, perhaps due to the proximity of traditional Aboriginal people and convicts living nearby. At the end of 1824 Brisbane closed the institution, amalgamating native and orphan schools and moving the few remaining girls with Walker to his new post at the Female Orphan School.

During 1825 the institution was abandoned. In May 1825, Archdeacon Thomas Hobbes Scott announced that he had received instruction to re-open the Blacktown institution and in June he proposed that the schoolhouse be repaired and that in the meantime Frederick Wilkinson take up residence as manager of a private boarding house for European children. This proposal, including repairs to the house, was carried out during 1826 and in January 1827 Wilkinson, along with his family and a number of boarders, removed to Parramatta, having been in residence for one year.

These instructions can be viewed within the context of a change in policy, with Governor Darling being instructed to seek advice from Church of England Archdeacon Scott regarding the conversion of Aboriginal people. Because of its relative remoteness, Blacktown was seen as an appropriate location for such a task and so CMS missionary Hall, and his wife were charged with re-opening the school. Black children from the various male and female orphanages were taken there and at Marsden's persuasion, Maori children were also taken there from his Parramatta school. Hall was directed by Scott to instruct the children in "the Common Elements of Education" and religious instruction, but also to teach the boys carpentry and the girls plain needlework and spinning.

In October 1826 Hall received six girls from the Female Orphan Institution, adding to the three Maori children who were already acting as servants to his family. Between December 1826 and January 1827 Hall also received boys from Cartwright's Male Orphan Institution, including Billy, probably the son of Nurragingy. Additional children arrived and by late 1827 the school housed 17 Aboriginal and five Maori pupils, although this was still well below the building's capacity of 60 students.

The documented records relating to this period of the institution's operation suggest that there was often difficulty acquiring and sustaining student enrolments at the institution, the children frequently absconded or were removed by their parents. The rebellion of the children against the strictures of their educators was also an ongoing problem. Added to these issues was the rising cost of the institution's operation, which had gone from being 17 pounds per head in 1820 to around 28 pounds per head under Hall's supervision. It was in light of these difficulties that early in 1829 the recommendation was made for the institution to be closed and the children moved to Cartwright at Liverpool. Cartwright resigned from the Male Orphan School and took charge of ten "Native" children in April for the sum of 250 pounds per annum. Hall subsequently purchased Cartwright's 500 acres at the Black Town in April 1829 and constructed a cottage where his family ran a small boarding school. In 1831, Hall reported that the Native Institution building was deteriorating.

In 1832 Governor Bourke requested a report from the Surveyor-General on the extent and status of the institution land and buildings. On 2 November 1833 the assistant-surveyor Felton Matthews surveyed the site of the 'Crown Reserve and Schoolhouse at Blacktown'; his sketch marks the location of the house, kitchens, stable, gardens and creek, still known at that time as "Gidley Chain of Ponds". In 1833 the Native Institution Reserve (including its buildings) was advertised for sale, and subsequently sold at auction to William Bell, a lieutenant on half-pay, who renamed the property "Epping" or "Epping Forest". Bell died in 1843 and his daughter Maria who inherited the property, died in 1876.

Sydney Burdekin bought the property as his country residence in September 1877, renaming it "Lloydhurst". Burdekin was a prominent figure within colonial society and entertained lavishly at the residence. He made additions to the original Native Institution building, including a ballroom. After Burdekin's death in 1899, the family sold the property to Mr L.J. David in 1906. It passed to Robert Smith and then to merchant Harry Woolnough in 1910. The site was subdivided into small farm blocks and advertised for auction on 5 December 1914. It was bought by the Wardrop family in 1920 for 2,030 pounds. The old schoolhouse was destroyed by fire in 1924.