1. The Church of England in Australia officially became the Anglican Church of Australia by a canon of the Australian General Synod in 1966.

2. White, Gilbert, Mitchell River Aboriginal Mission (Thursday Island: n.p., 1905), pp. 5, 6.Google Scholar Another version appears in Round About the Torres Straits (London: Central Board of Mission, 1917), p. 23Google Scholar, which makes less conscious effort to render the address in an Aboriginal English style. It is substantially the same as the 1905 version but with the addition of the words, ‘We teach children read and write in school’. An almost identical version of the 1905 text appears in Thirty Years in Tropical Australia (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1919), p. 124.

3. White, Gilbert, ‘Report to the A.B.M.’Google Scholar, typescript, 6 October 1928, ABM collection, Mitchell Library MSS 4503, Add on 1822, Guide 1(4). He was quite clear that Mitchell River was part of the wider Church's initiative rather than just a local venture, ‘I regarded the Mission as an extension of Yarrabah’. The Australian Board of Missions concurred, ‘When we have allowed to Yarrabah the widest sphere of influence, there still remain in the North of Queensland alone some 13,000 natives who cannot possibly be reached by it. These are found in the greatest numbers in the well- watered and low-lying plains on the other or Western side of the Peninsula, between the two great rivers, the Mitchell and the Gilbert. Here the natives are still largely untouched by the evils of semi-civilization’. Quoted from Missionary Notes, March 1903, in ‘History of Mitchell River Mission’ (typescript, no date; Australian Board of Missions, Needham Library, Box 2D, item entitled ‘Australian Aborigines-Frank Stevens’).

4. White, Gilbert, 20 01 1905Google Scholar, ‘Mitchell River Mission’ (printed appeal for funds from church supporters), Chief Protector of Aboriginals Office, A/58855, Health and Home Affairs Department Batch Files 1936–1939, Queensland State Archives (QSA).

5. Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (Sydney: Commonwealth of Australia, 1997), pp. 71–72.Google Scholar

6. Kidd, Rosalind, The Way We Civilise (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1997), pp. 36–46, 60–68.Google Scholar

7. White, G., Across Australia (Thursday Island: RS Hews & Co., 1901), p. 32.Google Scholar

8. Thiele, F.O., One Hundred Years of the Lutheran Church in Queensland (Brisbane: Lutheran Publishing House, 1938 and facsimile edition, Adelaide, 1985), p. 115.Google Scholar

9. Bardon, R., The Centenary History of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland (Brisbane: WR Smith and Paterson, 1949), p. 83.Google Scholar

10. Newspaper clipping, ‘The Race Problem: A Bishop on Northern Australia’, 16 09 1901Google Scholar, Gilbert White Papers, 10/1, ABM.

11. Endicott, Michael A., The Augustinians in Far North Queensland (Brookvale, NSW: Augustinian Historical Commission, 1988), p. 183.Google Scholar

12. White, to Foxton, , 10 10 1901Google Scholar, 01:16265, Director's Inwards Correspondence relating to Mitchell River, DFSAIA.

13. Hutson, William to Commissioner of Police, 24 06 1896Google Scholar, 96:07188, Highbury Station, A/41590, QSA.

14. White, Gilbert, Answer! Australia: Being the Book Prepared for the Committee of the Combined Campaign for Missions for Presentation to the Church on St Andrew's Day, 1927 (Sydney: A.B.M. Office, 1927), p. 21.Google Scholar

15. Roth, to Under Secretary, Home Secretary's Office, 11 05 1906Google Scholar, 06:907, Chief Protector of Aboriginals Correspondence, OF 31, DFSAIA.

16. Matthews, Henry, diary entry for 7 07 1907.Google Scholar

17. Mission diary entries for 21 July 1916 (Lane), 23 May 1925 (Chapman), 8 July 1927 (Done), 26 April 1931 (Chapman), 7 November 1932 (Chapman), 1 August 1936 (McLeod).

18. North Queensland Register, 9 10 1905.Google Scholar ‘Thomas Simpson has been appointed manager of Dunbar Station, vice Mr Tonner, deceased’. (Tonner had only been manager at Dunbar for two years at the time of his death, his appointment having been announced in the Croydon Mining News, 13 08 1903.)Google Scholar

19. Roth, to Under Secretary for Lands, 11 08 1903, A/58783, QSA.Google Scholar

20. Matthews, Henry, diary entry for 13 07 1907.Google Scholar Sloper had been ‘admitted’ to the Mission on 29 05 1907Google Scholar, and had been sought on two occasions by pastoralists, by Grant, on 7 06 1907Google Scholar and by McLean, on 10 06 1907.Google Scholar On each occasion they had been refused. His attempts to move out from their influence may have been the catalyst for the show of force on 13 July 1907.

21. Brisbane Courier, 30 09 1910, p. 5.Google Scholar

22. Lane, Frere, diary entry for 21 07 1916.Google Scholar This incident left Lane, the acting superintendent, feeling guilty that he had been taken in by Campbell and, ‘made me resolve to write him on the matter warning against a recurrence of such tactics’.

23. Chapman, Joseph, diary entry for 23 05 1925.Google Scholar

24. Done, John, diary entry for 8 07 1927.Google Scholar Constable Schultz from Normanton arrived at the Mission to investigate the incident on 16 August 1927. Strangely, Done did not seek to have Dudley prosecuted, telling Schultz that the Mission would be satisfied, ‘provided he was warned to keep off [the] mission’.

25. Chapman, Joseph, diary entry for 26 04 1931.Google Scholar

26. Chapman, Joseph, diary entry for 7 11 1932.Google Scholar

27. McLeod, Alec, diary entry for 1 08 1936.Google Scholar A closing of ranks by the whites who witnessed the event, Hughes and Barr, contradicted the account given to McLeod by Willie Koolatah. They maintained that Campbell did not have his revolver.

28. ABM Review, 15 02 1911, p. 217.Google Scholar The solution proposed was still guarded, ‘We should be far more respected if we spoke out sometimes and showed our independence of popular favour’ (my emphasis).

29. White, to Bowman, , 10 08 1911Google Scholar, copy transcribed as diary entry for 10 August 1911.

30. Currington, Wiffie, Memoirs, typescript, 1984, p. 37.Google Scholar Describing his period as Superintendent in the 1940s and 1950s he commented, ‘Each Saturday morning was always a holiday and I would have the parents take their children out and go hunting’.

31. Matthews, Henry, diary entry for 13 06 1912.Google Scholar

32. Matthews, Henry, diary entry for 21 07 1912.Google Scholar ‘Sent Bunburraduberra [sic] from Mission for misconduct with May, some time this morning’.

33. Matthews, Henry, diary entry for 28 07 1912.Google Scholar ‘Some trouble between May and Luke. May ran away, and Luke followed and found her talking to Bunburraduberra [sic]’.

34. Matthews, Henry, diary entry for 25 08 1912Google Scholar, ‘Boys brought Bunberraduberra in tonight’, and diary entry for 1 September 1912, ‘Held meeting of boys at 9.30 at which C.P.A. [Howard] spoke on misconduct’.

35. Matthews, to Howard, , 25 10 1912Google Scholar, 12:02301, Chief Protector of Aboriginals inwards correspondence, OF 46.

36. See Hardy, Dennis, Alternative Communities in Nineteenth Century England (London: Longman, 1979)Google Scholar, for a discussion of utopian aspirations for community in England.

37. Hudson, to Mussett, , 17 02 1953.Google Scholar (Correspondence in the possession of the recipient, Mrs Beth Pidsley [nee Mussett], Townsville.)

38. White, , Thirty Years, p. 134.Google Scholar

39. Housden, James, taped interview, Caloundra, 18 08 1987.Google Scholar

40. Koolatah, Maudie, taped interview, Kowanyama, 27 03 1988.Google Scholar

41. Currington, Wiffie, taped interview, Normanton, 7 07 1987.Google Scholar

42. Currington, Wiffie, diary entry for 5 05 1948.Google Scholar

43. Chapman, Joseph, diary entry for 29 01 1936.Google Scholar

44. Newton, Henry, diary entry for 31 10 1915.Google Scholar

45. StDonaldson, Clair, ABM Review, 1 10 1917, p. 133.Google Scholar

46. Cole, Bert, diary entry for 7 10 1917.Google Scholar

47. Preamble of ‘The order of the administration of the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion’, Book of Common Prayer, p. 287.Google Scholar

48. Bishop's Day Book, 1901–1952, OM.AV/126/1, JOL.

49. Newton, to Cole, , 27 04 1917Google Scholar, folio 76, Bishop's Outward Correspondence, OM.AV/61/2, JOL.

50. Newton, to Cole, , 27 04 1917Google Scholar, folio 75, Bishop's Outward Correspondence, OM.AV/61/2, JOL.

51. Cole, Bert, diary entry for 10 06 1917.Google Scholar

52. Chapman, Joseph, diary entry for 4 08 1924.Google Scholar

53. Norton, Herbert, diary entry for 26 07 1948.Google Scholar

54. Currington, Wiffie, diary entry for 17 01 1949.Google Scholar

55. Davies, to O'Leary, , 8 10 1947.Google Scholar 17A.11 Administration—Mitchell River, Marriages. QSA Interim Transfer R254.

56. Henry Matthews quoted in Pitts, H., The Australian Aboriginal and the Christian Church (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1914), p. 115.Google Scholar

57. Hawkey, to Shearman, , 13 03 1972Google Scholar, Bishop's Correspondence, Thursday Island Registry.