Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Home

Item details


Name of item:	Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Home
Other name/s:	Cootamundra Girls' Home; Aboriginal Girls' Training Home; Bimbadeen Bible College;
Type of item:	Built
Group/Collection:	Aboriginal
Category:	Place of significance
Location:	Lat: -34.6405825701 Long: 148.0456601470
Primary address:	39 Rinkin Street, Cootamundra, NSW 2590
Parish:	Cootamundra
County:	Harden
Local govt. area:	Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional
Local Aboriginal Land Council:	Young

Property description

Lot/Volume Code	Lot/Volume Number	Plan/Folio Code	Plan/Folio Number
LOT	230	DP	753601
LOT	351	DP	753601
LOT	502	DP	753601
LOT	544	DP	753601

Boundary:

Boundary of the four lots

All addresses

Street Address	Suburb/town	LGA	Parish	County	Type
39 Rinkin Street	Cootamundra	Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional	Cootamundra	Harden	Primary Address

Owner/s

Organisation Name	Owner Category	Date Ownership Updated
Young Local Aboriginal Land Council	Community Group

Statement of significance:


	Apologies to Aboriginal people for the ideology and language discussed here which is historic and not the views of the Heritage Council. Please note there are also references to deceased persons within the text. The former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home provides tangible evidence of the Government policy and practice of taking Aboriginal children away from their families and communities, severing all ties with their culture in order to assimilate them into mainstream Australian society. Placement of Aboriginal girls in the institution of the Cootamundra Girls' Home has caused cultural dislocation for the former residents and ongoing associated problems within the Aboriginal community. The place as a means to reconnect to the past is associated with commemoration and healing of these individuals and communities. The former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home provides historical evidence of the Government policy of assimilation that was based on Social Darwinism or the premise that "full blood" Aborigines would die out and the "mixed race" Aboriginals would soon have their Aboriginality bred out. The former Home is evidence of the plan to train Aboriginal girls to become domestic servants demonstrating the prevalent ideology of the early to mid twentieth century, that Aboriginal people were inferior in intelligence and only fit to become the servants of the rest of society. The Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home provides an example of the historical practice of Aboriginal wards of the State being denied their Aboriginality and cultural heritage which was the subject of a National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from the Families in 1997 (Commission of Inquiry). The nation was made aware of how widespread the practice of removal was, which affected every Aboriginal community but was outside the consciousness of mainstream Australians. The Cootamundra Girls' Home provides contemporary Australia with physical evidence as a means to comprehend the pain and suffering of past assimilation practices. The former Home is a rare example of an Aboriginal Girls' Training Home in NSW and has the potential to provide insight into the accommodation and training of Aboriginal wards of the State in the first half of the twentieth century.
	Date significance updated: 25 May 11
	Note: The State Heritage Inventory provides information about heritage items listed by local and State government agencies. The State Heritage Inventory is continually being updated by local and State agencies as new information becomes available. Read the Department of Premier and Cabinet copyright and disclaimer.

Description


Designer/Maker:	Morell and Kemp
Construction years:	1912-1974
Physical description:	Site and Setting: The former Cootamundra Hospital and the former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home were built upon a hill north east of Cootamundra. The property is comprised of a large parcel of land which had room for buildings as well as orchards and livestock such as dairy cows. The buildings are surrounded by extensive lawns and some large trees, such as pepper trees (Schinus molle var. areira) and eucalypts. The tennis court is still insitu although not maintained. There is an original dairy to the south of the main building which is in poor condition. A caretaker's cottage was constructed between 1920 and 1940 at the front gate. There was a boiler which has had test excavation and can be regarded as a potential archaeological resource. Buildings: The earliest building on the site is a face brick early Federation style building built in 1887 as the first Cootamundra hospital. The layout of the hospital includes a large central room under a hip roof which was the ward and later became a dormitory utilising the same hospital beds. The ward faces south west and has highlight windows above the front verandah roof. The front of the building faced south west towards the town of Cootamundra. A circular carriageway was on what is now lawn in front of the verandah. The verandah was extended along its length and enclosed during the time of the Girls' Home and used as a second dormitory. The enclosed extension has since been demolished due to termite damage. In the south eastern corners of the central ward/dormitory are two square rooms with pyramidal roofs originally used as a bathroom and latrines with another verandah in between. This verandah was also enclosed by the Girls' Home and used as a box room. An additional room was added to this in the 1940s for use as an infants' dormitory. At the north western end of the main dormitory is a transverse brick wing with a hip roof joined to the main ward by a hall and used as a Matron's room and locker room. This building is intersected by another hip roof building originally housing the operating theatre and then the Matron's bedroom. The north east side of the building also had a verandah which was extended and enclosed for use as a dining room by the Girls' Home. Beyond this was a separate brick kitchen. In between the kitchen and the main building were an assembly area and a well. Adjacent to the kitchen was an old morgue which had been moved several times on the site and was used by the Girls' Home as a store room and also a punishment room; it has since been demolished however the foundation slab remains. After the closure of the Girls' Home the site was taken up by the Bimbadeen Evangelical College. Bimbadeen has added to and made alterations to the main Girls' Home complex. The area between the kitchen and the main building has been fully enclosed for use as an auditorium. A large dining room has been added to the north of the kitchen. A blockwork ablutions building has been constructed on the site of an earlier building. A large farm shed and six new residences have been added along the northern boundary away from the main complex. The circular carriageway used by the hospital is no longer evident and the main entrance is in the location of the old well.
Physical condition and/or Archaeological potential:	Reasonable condition.
	Date condition updated:03 Mar 11
Modifications and dates:	1912 Adapted for use as Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home. 1979 Adapted for use by Bimbadeen Aboriginal Evangelical College.


Current use:	Bible College
Former use:	Aboriginal land, (old, former) hospital complex, Aboriginal Girls' Training Home

History

Historical notes:

Cootamundra district history:
ABORIGINAL LAND
The traditional owners of Cootamundra are the Wiradjuri, for whom the Murrumbidgee River was a plentiful source of shellfish and fish. Plants, tubers and nuts of the country between the major rivers supplied seasonal food. Larger game such as possums, kangaroos and emus were captured by groups of hunters to make up a varied and nutritious diet. (Heritage Branch, 1996, p132).

The dislocation by European colonists of normal Aboriginal routines of life was increasingly severe from the 1830s and the new diseases took a terrible toll. There were predictable problems over cattle. A series of incidents along the Murrumbidgee near Narrandera c1840 have been called the 'Wiradjuri wars'. The end result was that the Wiradjuri were deprived of their riverine territory and driven to the hills or to local employment on the stations. Men worked as cattlemen, general hands, sheep-shearers and flour grinders, and women as domestic servants and child carers. Ultimately many Wiradjuri people ended up living in the towns established to service those who had supplanted them. By the late nineteenth century few of the surviving Wiradjuri people lived a traditional life. The numerous towns of the area, which became closely settled with irrigation schemes during the twentieth century, contained an increasing Aboriginal population. Today in the region, most Wiradjuri people live in Narrandera and Griffith, with significant numbers in Wagga Wagga, Leeton and Tumut and smaller communities in Junee, Harden, Young and Cootamundra (Heritage Branch, 1996, p132-133).

The name Cootamundra was likely derived from the Wiradjuri word guudhamang for 'turtle', as the town is aroudn a low-lying marshland, which is ideal turtle habitat (Cootamundra Heritage Centre & Visitor Information Centre, 2020, 1).

COLONISATION AND EARLY HISTORY OF COOTAMUNDRA
In 1829 the first British explorer Charles Sturt ventured into the Murrumbidgee Valley. Within 15 years most of the water frontages along the Murrumbidgee were occupied by pastoralists. John Hurley and Patrick Fennell obtained permissions to pasture stock on the Coramundra Run in the 1830s, which by 1849 had grown to 50,000 acres with an estimated grazing capacity of 600 cattle and 3000 sheep (Caskie, 2000, 1; CLHS, 2008). Meat prices soared in the 1850s and the Murrumbidgee stations 'became a vast fattening paddock'.

Cootamundry was surveyed and a plan of the proposed village was drawn up by surveyor P. Adams in 1861 on a site that was originally the horse paddock of John Hurley's station. The first town lots were sold in 1862. Like many other towns in the Riverina, Cootamundra's population increased with the brief gold rush of the 1860s. By 1866, the village had a population of 100, a post office, a police station and two hotels. The succeeding decades saw the triumph of sheep over cattle particularly on the saltbush plains at the western end of the region. The corollary of this pastoral expansion was the clearing of much of the bush, the sinking of wells, the building of dams for stock and the systematic fencing of paddocks. (Heritage Branch, 1996, p133-5; Wikipedia, 'Cootamundra').

The rail network helped in the growth of farming industries. Cootamundra's train station, linking into the main southern railway that links Sydney and Melbourne, opened in 1877. The development of Cootamundra was slow and steady and it was gazetted on May 20, 1884 as a municipality of 3010 acres. The town was finally gazetted as Cootamundra in 1952, changed from the official name of Cootamundry by which it had been known since 1860. The locals had always used the name Cootamundra (CLHS 2008). It became a quiet yet prosperous agricultural community. Today, Cootamundra has a population of around 7500 in the whole shire with a further 2000 in the surrounding district. (CSC, 2009)(Rappoport, 2011, p22-23).

COOTAMUNDRA EARLY AVIATION HISTORY
The aviation history of Cootamundra began in 1917 when Mr W.J. Stutt landed in a paddock near the Cootamundra Showground in his Curtiss biplane during a flight that established a long-distance record for Australia (Windsor and Richmond Gazette Friday 16 November 1917).

By 1921 the strategic advantage of Cootamundra's location about mid-way between Sydney and Melbourne led to the Australian Government purchasing 75 acres of Quinlan's paddock on the northern edge of the town, making Cootamundra one of NSW's earliest rural aerodromes (Dannecker, 1976, 4-8, quoted in Rappoport, 2011, p37-38). With the implementation of an airmail service between Australia and Britain, Cootamundra was chosen as the southern terminus. The airfield was used as a base for airmail contracts temporarily from 1934 by Butler Air Transport, providing connection to QANTAS services between Brisbane and Darwin. However the company relocated its base to Sydney when the airmail contract was withdrawn in 1938 (Wikipedia "Cootamundra Airport").

WORLD WAR II AND AVIATION IN AUSTRALIA
When Australia entered World War II in September 1939 on the side of Great Britain, the war was far distant in Europe. However Australia soon became part of an international scheme to train pilots and aircrew across the British Empire. Known as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), the scheme was instrumental in up-skilling many of the airmen who fought in Europe, the Middle East and the Mediterranean (Kass, in Robertson & Hindmarsh, Vol.2, 41-4).

Cootamundra Girls' Home - BACKGROUND
Historically Aboriginal children were separated from their families from the earliest days of the colony. Governor Macquarie established the first Native Institution in Parramatta as early as 1814 and in 1823 another Native Institution was started in Blacktown. Both these institutions were considered failures, one reason being that once parents realised their children wouldn't be allowed to come home, they wouldn't give them up to the institutions. (5051312) The Government also subsidised missionary activity among the Aboriginal people, including that of the London Missionary Society in the 1820s and 1830s (State Records). On the frontier of Wellington Valley the Reverend Watson gained a reputation for stealing Aboriginal children and as a consequence the Wiradjuri hid their children from the white men.

With the spread of settlers and their livestock came conflict and dispossession. The first bill for the Protection of Aborigines was drafted in 1838 after the Myall Creek Massacre in June that year (5056626). Thus began a systemic government approach to the regulation and control of the lives of Aboriginal people that got tighter and tighter until the 1967 referendum finally brought significant change.

Until 1881 Aboriginal people were under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Secretary, Police and the Lands Department. In 1880 a private body known as the Association for the Protection of Aborigines was formed and following agitation by this body, the Government appointed a Protector of Aborigines, Mr. George Thornton MLC (State Records). The Board for the Protection of Aborigines was subsequently created in 1883. "The objectives of the Board were to provide asylum for the aged and sick, who are dependent on others for help and support; but also, and of at least equal importance to train and teach the young, to fit them to take their places amongst the rest of the community" (State Records). This objective became the basis of future child removal policy: that the inferiority of the Aborigines would only be dealt with by removing the children and educating them in white ways.

In Darlington Point Reverend Gribble established Warangesda Mission in 1880 and one of his concerns was what he perceived to be the vulnerability of young Aboriginal women in an environment that was dominated by immoral white men. A separate girls' dormitory was set up at Warangesda in 1883 and was first supervised by Mrs. Gribble as a home to mothers with their young children, single women, and girls. Although there was a school at Warangesda, the dormitory followed the institutional model of its time, and taught housekeeping skills to the girls to prepare them for respectable employment in menial duties on nearby stations. It also housed them separately in a building which included a dining room and kitchen as well as the dormitory room. Girls were brought in from many places and kept under supervision of dormitory matrons as well as Mrs. Gribble or the wives of later managers. (Warangesda HOD 5055095).

When Warangesda Mission became an Aboriginal Station in 1884 the Aboriginal Protection Board continued to send Aboriginal girls to the Warangesda girls' dormitory. It was the Warangesda Mission/Station girls' dormitory which became the model or prototype for the girls' home established at Cootamundra. When Warengesda closed the policy had been for a number of years to send the girls from the dormitory to the Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home.

Frustrated by the lack of legislative power to control the education and lives of Aboriginal children the Aborigines Protection Board successfully lobbied for a new act which was introduced in 1909. The Board's Annual Reports of 1909 and 1911 show the emphasis on training of Aboriginal children. The Board felt limited by the Act because it only gave them direct control over children over 14 who could be apprenticed. To remove younger children they had to apply to the magistrate under the Neglected Children and Juvenile Offenders Act 1905. The Board was of the opinion that the children would only become good and proper members of "industrial society" if they were completely removed and not allowed to return. (Brindley, p48, A board official quoted by P Read and C Edwards.) The underlying assumption, as ever, was that Aboriginal people lacked the intellect to undertake anything but menial tasks. This later translated into the limits on the types of training provided; girls training for domestic service and the boys for labouring.

The Aborigines Protection Act was amended in 1915 and again in 1918 giving the Board the right "to assume full control and custody of the child of any aborigine, if after due inquiry it is satisfied that such a course is in the interest of the moral or physical welfare of such child. The Board may remove such child to such control and care as it thinks best." (Aborigines Protection Amending Act, 1915, 4.13A). A court hearing was no longer necessary. If the parents wanted to appeal, it was up to them to go to the court.

The depression and drought years of the 1920s and 1930s were particularly difficult for Aboriginal people. Conditions in the reserves remaining from the soldier settlement land redistribution, were poor, often overcrowded, and it was easy for the government to prove neglect and remove Aboriginal children. In 1937, in response to public pressure from academic and missionary groups sympathetic to Aboriginal people, a meeting was convened of State and Commonwealth Aboriginal authorities. The result was an official assimilation policy formed on the premise that "full-blood" Aborigines would be soon extinct and the "half-caste" should be absorbed into society. Meanwhile the Aboriginal people were organising to become a force of resistance. The Sesquicentenary was marked by a National Day of Mourning and a call for the Abolition of the Protection Board. (/The Abo Call', 1st September, 1938).

The Aborigines Protection Board was finally abolished and replaced by the Aborigines Welfare Board in 1940. Aboriginal children were then subject to the Child Welfare Act 1939 which required a magistrate's hearing and the child had to be proven neglected or uncontrollable. Aboriginal children continued to be sent to Cootamundra, Bomaderry and Kinchela, some went to Mittagong or Boystown. There were no specific homes for uncontrollable Aboriginal children so these were sent to State corrective institutions such as Mt. Penang or Parramatta Girls (Home) (Brindley, p60). The education of Aboriginal children had generally been one of segregation until, in 1940, the Department of Education officially took on the role.

In the 1960s the work of British psychiatrist John Bowlby on "attachment theory", began to influence the institutional care of children in Australia. That an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally: rather than only being treated with affection as a reward (Cupboard Love) which was the prevailing theory of the 1940s (Wikipedia). Fostering then became the preferred option and a more common occurrence. In accordance with the assimilation policy which was still prevalent, Aboriginal children were fostered with non-Aboriginal parents.

In May 1967 a referendum changed the Australian constitution bringing positive changes for the Aboriginal people. One resultant change was the abolition of the Aborigines Welfare Board in 1969. After this time non-Aboriginal girls were admitted to Cootamundra Girls Home.

HISTORY OF COOTAMUNDRA ABORIGINAL GIRLS' TRAINING HOME
The former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home is located on lands described by Tindale as those of the Wiradjuri language group (Tindale). Aboriginal people from the area identify themselves as being part of the Wiradjuri nation. Wiradjuri means 'people of the three rivers', these being the Macquarie, Lachlan and Murrumbidgee. Clashes between the new European settlers and the local Aboriginal people were common around the Murrumbidgee and even further north, particularly between 1839 and 1841. These violent incidents have been termed the 'Wiradjuri wars' (Read).

Charles Sturt and George Macleay visited the area in 1829 and by 1837 John Hurley & Patrick Fennell were licensed to pasture stock on Coramundra Run, which grew to encompass 50,000 acres. By 1861 the town of Cootamundry was gazetted and the first lots were sold a year later coinciding with commencement of gold mining east of the town at Muttama gold fields. The opening of the railway in 1877 led to the expansion of the settlement.

Cootamundra Hospitals:
In 1889 the first Cootamundra Hospital was opened on a hill east of the town on a site of 35 acres after 5 years of fund raising. The hospital was designed by government architects, Morell and Kemp of Sydney. The original plan had the main brick building with verandas on four sides and a separate kitchen to the north. The large ward was in the centre of the building and later became the older girls' dormitory. The entry was from a circular drive in front of the southern verandah which faced the town below (Cootamundra Local History Society). Henry Parkes layed its foundation stone in 1887. It was set in large grounds (LEP, 2013).

In 1910 the Cootamundra District Hospital moved to a new more central site in town and the old hospital on the hill closed (Cootamundra Local History Society Inc).

In the meantime, the Aborigines Protection Board had been looking for accommodation for Aboriginal girls under 14 who were too young to enter domestic service. The (old) hospital buildings being set apart but close to a town and railway were considered suitable and in 1911 were purchased to become the Cootamundra Home for Orphan and Neglected Aboriginal Children. There is oral history reference to another building referred to as the nurses quarters, the fever hut and the old school (Brindley, 83). Its exact location isn't known at this stage. The original morgue, originally located near the well was moved in the 1950s to the other end of the kitchen and has since been demolished. The well was twelve metres deep and four metres across with a domed concrete lid, it was filled in in the 1980s. Water supplies were often unreliable until the town water was connected in the 1940s.

The operating theatre became matron's room; the committee room, her sitting room; the dispensary her office. The verandahs were enclosed for extra dormitory space on the southern and eastern sides. In the 1920s and 1930s the kitchen was extended and a new caretaker's cottage was built. A weather shed was built near the school, a pan-system toilet block, laundry and a dairy. There was also a windmill to pump water from a dam below the main building to the vegetable garden and orchard. In the paddocks Lucerne was grown to support six cows and there was a chicken run. The home must have been reasonably self sufficient however in the reports of the Board there is reference to the high cost of maintenance of Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home as compared to Kinchela Aboriginal Boys' Training Home. (Brindley 93 & 94) The Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home had its own school up until 1946 (Cootamundra East Aboriginal School). After 1946 the girls attended the Cootamundra Public School.

The climate at Cootamundra has an extreme range of temperatures which made conditions at the Home relatively harsh, particularly for those girls from more temperate or sub-tropical areas. The routine at the home has since been described by the former residents as very strict and the days were long. (Aboriginal Women's Heritage, Wagga Wagga 34)(BTH 55). The Home was planned according to early twentieth century social welfare policy which housed the children in dormitories according to age. The older girls were considered to be a corruptible influence on the younger ones and were therefore separated. The girls were looked after by staff who lived on the premises including a matron.

The removal of Aboriginal children from their families, culture and "Country" created a dislocation for the girls as was described by one submission to the Commission of Inquiry. "Cootamundra was so different from the North Coast, it was cold and dry. I missed the tall timbers and all the time I was away there was this loneliness inside of me."(BTH 54)

Girls were sent to Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home until the age of 14 and then they were sent out to work. Many girls became pregnant whilst in domestic service, only to have their children in turn removed and institutionalised back at Cootamundra or Bomaderry. Generations of Aboriginal women passed through Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home until its closure. (BTH Ch3) Some girls were sent to Parramatta Girls' Industrial School which was a correctional facility for all girls regardless of ethnicity.

In the 1950s the approach to child welfare institutions was to change when new theories were introduced and the concept of mother child bonds were considered more important. The numbers of girls at Cootamundra dropped significantly after this time when foster caring became a more regular occurrence, although the practice of assimilation continued with the girls being placed in "white" families.

In 1969 the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board was abolished, Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home was passed over to the care of the NSW Department of Youth and Community Services and eventually closed its doors in 1974. Non- Aboriginal children were also sent to the Home after 1969. From the mid-1970s the NSW Department of Youth and Community Services began employing Aboriginal workers in the placement of Aboriginal children.

The 35 acre property that is the former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home has since passed on to the Young Local Aboriginal Land Council who, in turn, has leased the property, on a long term lease, to the Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship as a Christian vocational, cultural and agricultural training centre called Bimbadeen College.

Today, Bimbadeen College is administered by the Aboriginal Evangelical Fellowship as a Christian vocational, cultural and agricultural college (Kabaila, 2010).

Historic themes

Australian theme (abbrev)	New South Wales theme	Local theme
1. Environment-Tracing the evolution of a continent's special environments	Environment - naturally evolved-Activities associated with the physical surroundings that support human life and influence or shape human cultures.	Gardens-
1. Environment-Tracing the evolution of a continent's special environments	Environment - naturally evolved-Activities associated with the physical surroundings that support human life and influence or shape human cultures.	Other open space-
1. Environment-Tracing the evolution of a continent's special environments	Environment - naturally evolved-Activities associated with the physical surroundings that support human life and influence or shape human cultures.	Introduce cultural planting-
1. Environment-Tracing the evolution of a continent's special environments	Environment - naturally evolved-Activities associated with the physical surroundings that support human life and influence or shape human cultures.	Cultural: Plains and plateaux supporting human activities-
1. Environment-Tracing the evolution of a continent's special environments	Environment - naturally evolved-Activities associated with the physical surroundings that support human life and influence or shape human cultures.	Changing the environment-
2. Peopling-Peopling the continent	Aboriginal cultures and interactions with other cultures-Activities associated with maintaining, developing, experiencing and remembering Aboriginal cultural identities and practices, past and present.	All nations - living under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909-1969-
2. Peopling-Peopling the continent	Aboriginal cultures and interactions with other cultures-Activities associated with maintaining, developing, experiencing and remembering Aboriginal cultural identities and practices, past and present.	All nations - the stolen generations-
2. Peopling-Peopling the continent	Aboriginal cultures and interactions with other cultures-Activities associated with maintaining, developing, experiencing and remembering Aboriginal cultural identities and practices, past and present.	Wiradjuri Nation - places of detention and confinement-
2. Peopling-Peopling the continent	Aboriginal cultures and interactions with other cultures-Activities associated with maintaining, developing, experiencing and remembering Aboriginal cultural identities and practices, past and present.	All nations - controlling dispossesed peoples-
2. Peopling-Peopling the continent	Aboriginal cultures and interactions with other cultures-Activities associated with maintaining, developing, experiencing and remembering Aboriginal cultural identities and practices, past and present.	All nations - reconciliation events-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Environment - cultural landscape-Activities associated with the interactions between humans, human societies and the shaping of their physical surroundings	Developing local, regional and national economies-National Theme 3
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Environment - cultural landscape-Activities associated with the interactions between humans, human societies and the shaping of their physical surroundings	Landscapes of industrial production-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Environment - cultural landscape-Activities associated with the interactions between humans, human societies and the shaping of their physical surroundings	Landscapes and parklands of distinctive styles-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	Townships-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	Changing land uses - from rural to suburban-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	Administering and alienating Crown lands-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	19th century suburban developments-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	20th century Suburban Developments-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Beautifying towns and villages-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Institutions-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	20th Century infrastructure-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	19th Century Infrastructure-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Creating landmark structures and places in regional settings-
6. Educating-Educating	Education-Activities associated with teaching and learning by children and adults, formally and informally.	Private (religious) schooling-
6. Educating-Educating	Education-Activities associated with teaching and learning by children and adults, formally and informally.	Aboriginal Schools-
7. Governing-Governing	Government and Administration-Activities associated with the governance of local areas, regions, the State and the nation, and the administration of public programs - includes both principled and corrupt activities.	Developing roles for government - caring for orphans-
8. Culture-Developing cultural institutions and ways of life	Religion-Activities associated with particular systems of faith and worship	Providing schools and education-
8. Culture-Developing cultural institutions and ways of life	Religion-Activities associated with particular systems of faith and worship	Adaptive new use-

Assessment of significance


SHR Criteria a) [Historical significance]	The former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home provides tangible evidence of the social theory and subsequent Government 39 Rinkin Street, Cootamundra which controlled the lives of Aboriginal people throughout the 20th century. The belief that Aboriginal people were a "child" race and had to be protected for their own good, carried over from the 19th century and was enshrined as government policy through the Aborigines Protection Board, which later became the Aborigines Welfare Board. The Girls' Home is a direct example of how the Board's policies were implemented and the government acted as a paternalistic force in Aboriginal lives. The Girls' Home provides physical evidence of the Government policy of assimilation as a means to empty the Aboriginal Reserves and force Aboriginal people to live like white society. The training of children and removal from their families and culture was to provide them with the skills necessary, albeit as the servants to the rest of society. The Girls' Home as a training facility only offered Domestic Service as a career choice and demonstrates the entrenched social theory of the 19th and greater part of the 20th centuries that Aboriginal people were inferior in intelligence. The home provides historical evidence of the ethnocentric attitudes of mainstream Australian society which denied Aboriginal culture a place in that society until the 1967 Referendum. It demonstrates the implementation of Social Darwinism as government policy which believed that "full blood Aborigines" would become extinct and the rest of the "half caste " population would be assimilated or absorbed into white society.
SHR Criteria b) [Associative significance]	The former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home is directly associated with the Aborigines Protection Board and the Aborigines Welfare Board. The Home is associated with the Warangesda Aboriginal Station at which the prototype for training Aboriginal girls was first developed. The Home is associated with Kinchela Aboriginal Boys' Training Home to which many of the brothers of the girls sent to Cootamundra, were sent. The Home is also associated with Bomaderry Children's Home where young children were sent before being transferred to the Cootamundra Girls' or Kinchela Boys' Homes. Some young children, including boys, were kept at Cootamundra until being transferred to Bomaderry. The home is also associated with Parramatta Girls' Home. The Girls' Home provides an example of the historical practice of Aboriginal wards of the State being denied their Aboriginality and cultural heritage which was the subject of a National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from the Families in 1997 (Commission of Inquiry). The home is associated with the National Apology to the Stolen Generations in Federal Parliament in 2008 by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The property has association with Bimbadeen Bible College which occupies the property today.
SHR Criteria c) [Aesthetic significance]	The Home buildings are a representative example of a Federation style rural hospital. The building has undergone change and had large additions. Significant at a local level.
SHR Criteria d) [Social significance]	The Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home has strong social significance for the former residents and for the families and communities from whom the girls were removed. The place is associated with stories of deep personal grief and social and cultural dislocation and has also been demonstrated to be associated with ongoing heath issues for some past residents. The Home buildings provide a tangible link to the past for former residents. Memories associated with the place wether painful or not, are revisited when former residents visit the former home. Some former residents speak of the healing process experienced when returning whilst others don't ever want to return. The monument erected in 2006 commemorates the lives of the girls who passed through the home during its operation from 1912 to 1969 and demonstrates the importance the place holds to the generations of former residents. The Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home provides tangible evidence of the practice of removing children from Aboriginal families, a government practice which affected the lives of every Aboriginal community but was outside the consciousness of mainstream Australians. With the Bringing Them Home report (from the Commission of Inquiry) the nation was made aware of how widespread the practice of removal was. The Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home provides contemporary Australia with physical evidence as a means to comprehend the pain and suffering of past assimilation practices. The home provides evidence of the ongoing public debate which polarised the Australian community with the publication of the findings of the Commission of Inquiry in 1997. There was considerable debate, particularly over whether there should be a public apology to the so-called "stolen generations". In 2008 the Prime Minister issued a public apology. The assimilation policies and removal of children have created ongoing issues for contemporary Aboriginal communities which have to deal with the cultural divergence that is the result of some Aboriginal people being raised in non-Aboriginal families or institutions.
SHR Criteria e) [Research potential]	The former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home buildings provide evidence of the conditions experienced in the children's homes from 1912 until the 1970s. The original buildings and associated plans and descriptions of their former use provide an insight into the domestic routine and the life of the home and methods used in raising Aboriginal wards of the State. Many of the oral histories of former residents describe the routine at the home. The use of the former hospital buildings as an institution for Aboriginal girls reflects the early 20th century practice of placing children in dormitories, divided by age. This approach was to change when the 1950s theories were introduced and the concept of mother child bonds were considered more important. The numbers of girls at Cootamundra dropped significantly after this time when foster caring became a more regular occurrence, although the practice of assimilation continued with the girls being placed in "white" families.
SHR Criteria f) [Rarity]	The Cootamundra home is the only surviving Aboriginal Girls' Training Home in NSW. It was always the principle Aboriginal training facility for girls. The dormitory at Warangesda was a prototype but Cootamundra provides an example which was specifically used for the purpose between 1912 and 1975. The place has rarity as the only surviving evidence of the assimilation policies which dictated that Aboriginal girls be institutionalised and trained as domestic servants.
SHR Criteria g) [Representativeness]	The former Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home is representative of the systemic government practice of assimilation of Aboriginal people during the 20th century.
Integrity/Intactness:	The original buildings as used by the Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls' Training Home have been adapted but can still be clearly read amongst the additions.
Assessment criteria:	Items are assessed against the State Heritage Register (SHR) Criteria to determine the level of significance. Refer to the Listings below for the level of statutory protection.

Recommended management:

Recommendations

Management Category	Description	Date Updated
Recommended Management	Produce a Conservation Management Plan (CMP)
Recommended Management	Prepare a maintenance schedule or guidelines
Recommended Management	Carry out interpretation, promotion and/or education

Procedures /Exemptions

Section of act	Description	Title	Comments	Action date
57(2)	Exemption to allow work	Standard Exemptions	HERITAGE ACT 1977 ORDER UNDER SECTION 57(2) TO GRANT STANDARD EXEMPTIONS FROM APPROVAL I, Penny Sharpe, the Minister for Heritage, on the recommendation of the Heritage Council of New South Wales and under section 57(2) of the Heritage Act 1977: revoke the order made on 2 June 2022 and published in the Government Gazette Number 262 of 17 June 2022; and grant an exemption from section 57(1) of the Act in respect of the engaging in or carrying out the class of activities described in clause 2 Schedule A in such circumstances specified by the relevant standards in clause 2 Schedule A and General Conditions in clause 3 Schedule A. This Order takes effect on the date it is published in the NSW Government Gazette. Dated this 29th day of October 2025 The Hon Penny Sharpe MLC Minister for Heritage For more information on standard exemptions click on the link below.	Nov 7 2025

Standard exemptions for engaging in or carrying out activities / works otherwise prohibited by section 57(1) of the Heritage Act 1977

Listings

Heritage Listing	Listing Title	Listing Number	Gazette Date	Gazette Number	Gazette Page
Heritage Act - State Heritage Register		01873	17 Feb 12	20	464

Study details

Title	Year	Number	Author	Inspected by	Guidelines used
Cootamundra Shire Heritage Study	2010		Kabaila, Peter		Yes

References, internet links & images

Type	Author	Year	Title	Internet Links
Written	Brindley, Merryl - Leigh	1994	The Home on the Hill, The story behind Cootamundra Girl’s Home
Written	Caskie, Patricia	2000	Cootamundra (1901-1924): Past Imperfect
Written	Cootamundra Local History Society (CLSH)	2008	Cootamundra History Highlights: A selection of events in the history of Cootamundra
Written	Cootmundra Visitor Centre and Information Centre	2020	About Cootamundra	View detail
Written	Creative Spirits		Timeline of the Stolen Generations	View detail
Written	Heritage Branch	1996	Regional Histories of New South Wales
Written	Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission	1997	Bringing Them Home - National Inquiry into Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families	View detail
Written	Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission		Bringing Them Home Resource Sheets
Written	Jacobs, Geneveive	2022	Railway Station plaques recognise a tragic legacy for Stolen Generations	View detail
Written	Kass, Terry, in Robertson & Hindmarsh	2006	"Vol.2 Thematic History" in World Wars I and 2 Survey of Buildings Sites and Cultural Landscapes in NSW(Thematic Study)
Written	Peter Kabaila	1995	Wiradjuri Places Volume 1
Written	Peter Read	2007	The Stolen generations
Written	Prepared by Carol Kendall assisted by Peter Read		Link-Up Booklet
Written	Rappoport P/L	2011	Conservation Management Plan No.3 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot, Cootamundra NSW

Note: internet links may be to web pages, documents or images.

(Click on thumbnail for full size image and image details)

Data source


The information for this entry comes from the following source:
Name:	Heritage NSW
Database number:	5061346
File number:	11/10086

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