How Propaganda Hid Abuse at Kinchela Boys Home, Australia
The role a national magazine played in masking the pain of the Stolen Generations—and how Survivors are changing the narrative
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that the following material contains images, voices, and names of deceased persons. This exhibit also contains material that may trigger traumatic memories for viewers, particularly survivors of past abuse, violence, or childhood trauma.
Officials inspecting Kinchela Boys Home by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
For almost five decades, state authorities kidnapped and sent Aboriginal children to Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home (KBH), where they were abused and cut off from their families and culture.
Survivors describe KBH as a concentration camp—yet these conditions were hidden from the outside world. In interviews, they recount how they were dressed up and paraded around; when the photographers left, the boys were made to give back those clothes and put back in their rags.
KBH was just one of a network of state institutions created with the goal of forcibly assimilating First Nations' children into white society. The children who were kidnapped from their homes and imprisoned in these institutions are today known as the "Stolen Generations," although KBH Survivors prefer to be recognized as the "Kidnapped Generations."
In interviews with World Monuments Fund (WMF), Kinchela Survivors talk about how photos were staged to create a rosy impression of KBH—and tell the real story behind the posed images.
Dawn was a monthly magazine issued by the New South Wales Aborigines Welfare Board between 1952 and 1969. Both the Aborigines Welfare Board (AWB) and its predecessor, the Aborigines Protection Board (APB), were created by the state government with the purpose of managing and controlling the lives of Aboriginal people in New South Wales. The APB also established KBH and other institutions like it.
Dawn spread about Kinchela Boys Home. Boys featured, from left to right: Alan Cooper, Oliver Schmutter, Trevor Elwood. by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
"[The children] were dressed up by the Dawn magazine...but you'll see that they ain't got no shoes on, of course."
Propagandistic by nature, Dawn supported the state government’s goal of making Aboriginal people adopt white culture. In the first issue, Chief Secretary Clive Evatt wrote that Dawn represented "a further step in your progress towards…your assimilation as a race."
Close-up of Dawn image caption (1952) by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
The caption to the cover of the June 1958 issue of Dawn predicts that "rapid progress towards assimilation" will give the child a better life than their mother had in the "wild Warburton Ranges." This mother would have also experienced the forcibly removal of her children, as policies like those in New South Wales existed across Australia.
The subjects of Dawn photographers—like the mother in the previous image—were often not told what their image would be used for or asked for their consent to have their likenesses used to promote the New South Wales government's assimilation policy.
Kinchela Boys Home and other such institutions were frequent topics of Dawn articles. Writers often reported on sporting competitions, farming achievements, educational opportunities, and artwork, presenting a rosy picture of life at KBH.
Contrary to the optimistic text accompanying the previous image, the boy in the photo—KBH Survivor Harry Penrith—went on to testify about the abuses he experienced during his time there as part of the 1995 National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. He changed his name to Burnum Burnum to honor his Aboriginal identity and became a prominent activist, actor, and author.
Drawing by a Kinchela boy that appeared in Dawn by Albert CooperWorld Monuments Fund
The inclusion of drawings, such as this one by Albert Cooper, who was in KBH at the time, was meant to show how happy children were. The article it accompanies claims that "it's almost like a country club at Kinchela."
Spread in the 1965 issue of Dawn claiming that "It's Almost Like a Country Club at Kinchela" (1965) by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
But testimonies from survivors tell a very different story.
Lester Maher
Biripi people, taken from Sydney
Assigned #11 at KBH
Kinchela Boys Home was anything but a country club, as government officials were well aware. In the 1930s, for instance, the APB reprimanded manager Arthur James McQuiggan for drunkenness and the violence he displayed towards the boys but declined to fire him.
When McQuiggan was later transferred to Coomeragunja, an Aboriginal reserve, residents staged a walk-out to protest his cruelty and neglect.
Group photo of boys at Kinchela (1930s) by UnknownWorld Monuments Fund
"In those days it was called the Aboriginal Protection Board...I always wondered what they were protecting us from."
As Kinchela survivors testify, photo shoots with Dawn were carefully staged in order to project a positive image of Australia’s child removal policy. Articles claimed that Kinchela boys were rescued from abusive households and now lived in idyllic conditions.
Boys at KinchelaWorld Monuments Fund
Aboriginal children were often taken from loving families on falsified charges of neglect; at Kinchela, by contrast, violence and mistreatment were a fact of life once the cameras were put away.
KBH was built on a flood plain. The boy on horseback amid the floodwaters is KBH Survivor Leslie Franks. The Aborigines Welfare Board did not always record the names of the children it photographed; it was Uncle Leslie who identified himself in this photo at a Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation healing gathering in 2013. (1949) by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
"They wanted to 'breed us out.'"
Dawn article on the conditions at Kinchela by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
"I had a whopping great big smile on my face, yeah, I was happy! To be away from that place!"
While this photo spread in Dawn gives the impression that Kinchela boys studied in the local school in Kempsey in happy mixed classrooms, in reality they were frequently excluded from these educational settings.
In 1947, the local inspector of schools proposed the amalgamation of the Kinchela Aboriginal School with the local Kinchela Lower School. The proposal was rejected at a meeting where of the 40 parents only one voted in favor of the integration, with 33 against and six abstaining.
The aim of Kinchela management was not to give students a broad education but to prepare them to work as farm hands, servants, and the like due to the belief that Aboriginal people were intellectually inferior to white Australians. Boys who did poorly were severely beaten.
"I went to school when I came outta the Boys Home, but my education was really bad. I couldn't even say the ABCs. I was so illiterate when I was a kid growing up. I had to find education through the course of work."
Willy Nixon
Gamilaroi people, taken from Gulargambone
Assigned #24 at KBH
Robert Paul Young
Gamilaroi people, taken from Oyster Bay
Assigned #24 at KBH
Dawn articles often remark on the cleanliness of KBH boys and their uniforms, but survivors recall being given costumes to wear for the duration of the photo shoots.
Group photo of Kinchela boys by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
"We had to polish the shoes so they were so shiny you could see your reflection in them. And if they weren't like that, we were punished."
Despite the carefully staged photo shoots, many Dawn images neglect to hide one giveaway detail: the fact that the boys at Kinchela were forced to go barefoot year round.
Group photo of Kinchela boys by Aboriginal Protection BoardWorld Monuments Fund
"I can't grow toenails now after those six years in there."
Dawn published its last issue in 1969, a year before the gates of Kinchela Boys Home closed for the last time. Now, survivors of institutions like Kinchela are telling the truth about what happened to them, combating decades of misinformation. Without truth telling, they argue, there can't be healing.
From left to right, front row: Uncle Paul Whitton, #31; Uncle Lindsay Suey, #45; Uncle Gus Wenberg. Middle row: Uncle Richard Campbell, #28; Uncle Lester Maher, #11; Uncle Leslie Reynolds, #17; Uncle Colin Davis, #50; Uncle Greg Thompson, #52. Back row: Uncle James Michael Widdy Welsh, #36; Nooky; Uncle Bobby Young, #24World Monuments Fund
The survivors who formed the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation have dedicated themselves to sharing their stories through school visits, interviews, and site tours.
For these KBH Survivors, sharing the truths about the past has been a crucial part of the healing process
Photo of Survivors of the Kinchela Boys Home and Cootamundra Girls Home, the latter being an institution where many of the the KBH Survivors' sisters were sent. Left to right, front row: Uncle Peter Elwood, #32; Aunty Lorraine Peeters; Aunty Shirley McGee; Aunty Isabel Reid; Aunty Doreen Webster. Back row: Uncle Harry Ritchie, #56; Uncle Richard Campbell, #28; Aunty Rose Atkinson; Uncle Lester Maher #11; Aunty Wilma Moran; Uncle James Michael Widdy Welsh, #36.World Monuments Fund
"I used to have nightmares of this dirty ocean coming to drown me. And since I've started speaking out, and people are listening, that dream's gone."
“Now we got the world that's listening to us and that's, that's, that's my healing. I enjoy it. You know, if the world hears me, you know, the healing will heal what happened to me myself, and my brothers from KBHAC, and also my in individual brothers and sisters, and my kids.”
Richard Campbell
Dunghutti & Gumbaynggir peoples, taken from Bowraville
Assigned #28 at KBH
Richard Campbell, an artist and KBH Survivor who is the Secretary of the KBHAC Board, created artwork for an animated film about Kinchela Boys Home and the Stolen Generations that is now used in Australian schools.
In 2019, KBHAC piloted Australia's first Stolen Generations Mobile Education Centre (MEC). The MEC is a former commuter bus that has been transformed to host an exhibition and cinema, taking the truth-telling mission of the KBH Survivors on the road.
The ultimate goal, however, is to turn the buildings and spaces of the Boys Home itself into a survivor-led living museum and healing center so that Kinchela's story may never be forgotten or repeated.
Kinchela Survivors discussing museum plans by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
"I keep telling people, 'Look, if a bunch of old men can create this [bus]...what can we do with KBH?'"
The KBH Survivors' vision is to transform the KBH site into a national site of truth telling and healing. But these plans have been frustrated by land ownership issues. Without the ability to own the site, the KBH Survivors' dream faces an uncertain future.
With the support of WMF, the KBH Brothers are hoping to gain support for their campaign to purchase the site of their former interment. It would be the culmination of years of effort—and a major step forward for the multi-generational healing of KBH Survivors, their families, their communities, and Australia.
Student looking at photos on a school visit to Kinchela by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
"If [the musem] does open, I'd be really proud to walk through those gates—and with my shoes on."
