Kahlin Compound Darwin, Northern Territory | |||||||||||||||
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![]() Children at the Kahlin Compound in 1921 | |||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 12°27′10″S130°49′43″E / 12.452728°S 130.828682°E Coordinates: 12°27′10″S130°49′43″E / 12.452728°S 130.828682°E | ||||||||||||||
LGA(s) | City of Darwin | ||||||||||||||
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Kahlin Compound was an institution for part-Aboriginal people in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia between 1913 and 1939. After 1924, "half-caste" children were separated from their parents and other adults and moved to an institution at Myilly Point.
In 1913 the Northern Territory Protector of Aborigines, anthropologist Walter Baldwin Spencer decided to solve what he called the "half-caste problem" by rounding up hundreds of Aboriginal children and removing them from the "native camp". The Kahlin Compound and Half Caste Home was established on Lambell Terrace at Myilly Point, overlooking Mindil Beach in Darwin. [1] Spencer envisaged that the compound would be self-sufficient, providing housing, schooling and domestic training for each Aboriginal family. The whole compound was to be fenced with access for Aboriginal people and Departmental officials only. [2]
A 1923 Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry headed by the South Australian Senator John Newland included an investigation of conditions at the Compound. Newland recommended that it be moved to a site further from the town, but this did not happen (perhaps because the residents were a source of cheap labour). [3]
A subsequent inquiry appointed by the NT Administrator also recommended the establishment of a new compound be established and also that "half-caste" children should be separated from adults, in a separate institution where they could be disciplined and integrated into the [white] community. The new "Half-Caste Home" was opened at Myilly Point in 1924, and most of the Kahlin children were moved there. [3]
The compound was damaged in the 1937 cyclone. [4]
All residents were moved to the new Bagot Aboriginal Reserve in 1938. The Kahlin Compound closed in 1939 and was revoked as an Aboriginal Reserve on 3 July 1940. [3]
The site was used as an emergency hospital during a meningitis outbreak in 1940, [5] with patients housed in tents. [6] It then became part of the permanent Darwin Hospital grounds from 1942 until the hospital was demolished in the 1990s. [6] [7]
An attempt made in 2003 to have the site listed on the Northern Territory Heritage Register as recognition of its cultural history was unsuccessful. [8]
In February 2017, the Northern Territory Government announced that a new $50 million museum would be built on the site, recognising both the hospital and in particular, the significance of the Kahlin Compound as part of Territory's multicultural heritage. [9] [10] In October of that year, the site was found to be contaminated with asbestos, requiring additional remediation works. [11] The expensive museum proposal proved unpopular with the community, and the plans were abandoned in 2018. [12] [9]
Removal of asbestos from the site was completed by 2021, with the area landscaped and opened as a public park including a large children's playground, skate park and basketball court. [13]
The rounding up and deporting of Aboriginal people to such compounds across Australia has been described as a crime against humanity. [14]
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.
Robert Tudawali, also known as Bobby Wilson and Bob Wilson, was an Australian actor and Indigenous activist. He is known for his leading role in the 1955 Australian film Jedda, which made him the first Indigenous Australian film star, and also his position as Vice-President of the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights.
Crime in the Northern Territory is managed by the Northern Territory Police, the territory government's Department of the Attorney-General and Justice and Territory Families.
The office of the Protector of Aborigines was established pursuant to a recommendation contained in the Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes, of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes. On 31 January 1838, Lord Glenelg, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies sent Governor Gipps the report. The office of Chief Protector of Aborigines was established in some states, and in Queensland the title was Protector of Aboriginals.
The Larrakia people are an Aboriginal Australian people in and around Darwin in the Northern Territory. The Larrakia, who refer to themselves as "Saltwater People", had a vibrant traditional society based on a close relationship with the sea and trade with neighbouring groups such as the Tiwi, Wadjiginy and Djerimanga. These groups shared ceremonies and songlines, and intermarried.
Half-Caste Act was the common name given to Acts of Parliament passed in Victoria and Western Australia in 1886. They became the model for legislation to control Aboriginal people throughout Australia, such as the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 in Queensland.
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The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is the main museum in the Northern Territory. The museum is located in the inner Darwin suburb of Fannie Bay. The MAGNT is governed by the Board of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and is supported by the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory Foundation. Each year the MAGNT presents both internally developed exhibitions and travelling exhibitions from around Australia. It is also the home of the annual Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Australia's longest-running set of awards for Indigenous Australian artists.
An Aboriginal reserve, also called simply reserve, was a government-run settlement for Aboriginal Australians, created under various state and federal legislation. Along with missions and other institutions, they were used from the 19th century to the 1960s to keep Aboriginal people separate from the white Australian population, for various reasons perceived by the government of the day. The Aboriginal reserve laws gave governments much power over all aspects of Aboriginal people’s lives.
Cecil Evelyn Aufrere (Mick) Cook was an Australian physician and medical administrator, who specialised in tropical diseases and public health. He was appointed as Chief Medical Officer and Protector of Aborigines for the Northern Territory in 1927. He established much of the infrastructure of the public health system there, including four hospitals, a tuberculosis clinic, a nursing school and the Nurses’ Board of North Australia. He started the Northern Territory Aerial Medical Service together with Dr Clyde Fenton, and he was founding chairman of the Northern Territory Medical Board.
Burnett House is a historic building that forms part of the Myilly Point Precinct in Darwin, Northern Territory. It is the only remaining two storey house designed by architect Beni Burnett. It is managed by the National Trust of Australia.
Bagot Community is an Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory of Australia located in Ludmilla, a northern suburb of the city of Darwin. It was established in 1938 as the Bagot Aboriginal Reserve, when the Aboriginal residents were moved from the Kahlin Compound, it was also sometimes referred to as the Bagot Road Aboriginal Reserve.
The Retta Dixon Home was an institution for Aboriginal children in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia from 1946 until 1982. It was located on the Bagot Aboriginal Reserve.
Pirlangimpi, formerly Garden Point, is a populated place on Melville Island in the Northern Territory, Australia.
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Joseph Daniel McGinness (1914–2003), known as "Uncle Joe", was an Aboriginal Australian activist and the first Aboriginal president of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI).
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The COVID-19 pandemic in the Northern Territory is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
The Darwin Hospital was a former hospital that was located at Myilly Point in Larrakeyah, an inner suburb of Darwin, Northern Territory in Australia. It was the second public hospital to be built in the city, replacing a facility that had originally opened in 1874 nearby on Packard Street, Larrakeyah. The hospital had a short but eventful history, being extensively damaged by air-raids during World War II and by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. For most of its operating life, the hospital maintained segregated wards for Aboriginal patients, a policy that did not extend to those of mixed race or Asian descent. It was replaced by Royal Darwin Hospital in the early 1980s.