Croker Island is an island in the Arafura Sea off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia, 250km (160mi) northeast of Darwin. It was the site of the Croker Island Mission between 1940 and 1968.
From around the 1600s, fleets of Macassan fishermen from the Dutch East Indies came to the region every year from January to April to harvest trepang or sea cucumber for the Chinese market. Their interactions with the local Indigenous people was at times violent but trade and employment opportunities also existed between the two groups.[3]
British trepangers started coming to the island in 1877 with Captain Francis Cadell harvesting sea-cucumbers using Aboriginal labour. However, his stay was brief as he also blackbirded around 40 Indigenous people from the region to labour on his pearling boats in the Torres Strait.[5]
In 1878, Edward Robinson and Thomas Wingfield established a permanent trepang station at Walka on the western coast of the island. They also utilised local Aboriginal labour and were known for their harsh treatment of their workers who they paid only with alcohol and tobacco. After Wingfield shot an Aboriginal man dead, retribution was swiftly achieved with a local strongman named Wandi Wandi killing Wingfield the same day.[3]
This dissuaded any further permanent colonisation of the island until the 1920s and 1930s when L.A. Buckingham established a trepang station and peanut farm, but this enterprise had shut down by the start of World War II.[6]
Croker Island Mission (1940 -1968)
Between 1940 and 1968, the Methodist Overseas Mission operated the Croker Island Mission at Minjilang.[7][8] Many Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families by the church, part of what is now termed the Stolen Generation.[9] The mission ran a school, and employed several of the male residents who had finished school.[10]
The Pacific theatre of World War II saw the Japanese military aerial bombing Darwin in February 1942. Non-Indigenous children from the island were evacuated. To avoid the bombing, missionary Margaret Somerville led 95 Indigenous children from the island's orphanage, part of the Croker Island Mission, on a journey that saw the party arrive on the Australian mainland. Travelling a distance overland, they boarded a train through central Australia, arriving in Sydney, New South Wales, on the east coast.[11] Over 44 days, the group covered 5,000 miles (8,000km).[12] The children returned to Croker Island in 1946.[7] This expedition was described by Somerville in her book They crossed a continent, and later explored in the ABC documentary Croker Island Exodus[12] (2012), directed and co-written by Steven McGregor and co-written by Danielle MacLean. Locals were cast to play all of the roles.[13][citation needed]
A class action was undertaken by 12 claimants against the Uniting Church in Australia for sexual and physical abuse which took place at the mission from the 1940s until the late 1960s. They finally received compensation in May 2023, through a private settlement.[9]
Croker Island, which lies about 250km (160mi) northeast of Darwin,[1] is separated from Cobourg Peninsula in the west by Bowen Strait, which is 2.5km (1.6mi) wide in the south and up to 7km (4.3mi) in the north, and 8.5km (5.3mi) long. In the north and east is the Arafura Sea, and in the south and southeast Mountnorris Bay. Croker Island measures 43km (27mi) from Point David (south, local name Inngirnatj) to Cape Croker (north), up to 15km (9.3mi) wide, and has an area of 331.5km2 (128.0sqmi) . At its highest point it is only 15m (49ft) above sea level. Croker Island is the largest island, and the only permanently inhabited island, in the Croker Group.[citation needed]
Settlements
The only notable settlement on Croker Island is the Aboriginal community of Minjilang, located on Mission Bay on the east coast. Apart from that, there are nine small family outstations, the largest one of which is Inngirnatj (Point David) at the southern end of the island. The settlements from north to south:
Alamirra (close to Somerville Bay 1.5km further the north)
Timor Springs (north of Minjilang, 8km by road)
Wanakutja (on Palm Bay in the north-west)
Minjilang (Mission Bay), the only village and main settlement of the island
Adjamarrago (800 metres north of Croker Island Aerodrome, west of Minjilang)
Keith William's Outstation (Arrgamumu, Arrgamurrmur) (south-east of Mission Bay)
Walka (Barge Landing) (south side of Mission Bay, with barge pier)
Sandy Bay (close to Sandy Bay on the east coast, but two kilometres to the coast)
Marramarrani (southwest coast)
Inngirnatj (Point David) (southern end, west side, with boat pier)
Environment
The island's beaches, bushland, wetlands and swamps are host to plentiful wildlife and flora.[1]
Croker Island has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen:Aw) with a wet season from November to April and a dry season from May to October.[17] The following climate data was taken from the airport. Extreme temperatures ranged from 37.3°C (99.1°F) on 2 November 2020 to 14.9°C (58.8°F) on 11 August 2025. The wettest recorded day was 21 November 2025 with 188.6mm (7.43in) of rainfall.[18]
12Reid, Gordon (1990). A Picnic with the Natives: Aboriginal-European Relations in the Northern Territory to 1910. Carlton: Melbourne University Press. ISBN0522844197.
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