August 13.
Artwork by Glenn Loughrey
The Coniston massacre
Mounted Constable William George Murray...was a military man, a Light Horse veteran of World War I who had also served over seven years in the Victorian Mounted Rifles militia prior to 1914. Murray, like most Northern and Central Australian Territory police officers at that time, received no formal police training on enlistment into the Police Force…
Murray arrived at Coniston on 12 August and ordered that any Aboriginal people coming into to the station be arrested and questioned. On 15 August two Aboriginal men, Padygar and Woolingar, arrived at the Aboriginal camp near the homestead on their own business. During their arrest by Murray’s ‘trackers’, Paddy and Major, they attempted to escape. On hearing the scuffle, Murray rushed to the scene and was attacked by Woolingar, whom he shot above the eye. Padygar and Woolingar were later chained to a tree overnight. [1] According to his police report, Murray ascertained at Coniston the names of 20 Aboriginal people implicated in Brooks’ murder and promptly formed a party to locate the killers. None of the legislative requirements to swear members of this party in as special constables were complied with, so the non-police members were nothing more than vigilantes…
[Receiving a report Brooks had been killed] on 16 August, Murray departed Coniston with Alex Wilson, Stafford, the prospector John Saxby, itinerant worker Billy Briscoe, ‘trackers’ Paddy and Major, Dodger, and the two prisoners who had ‘volunteered’ to show Murray the whereabouts of an Aboriginal camp near the murder scene. Later that day the group came across a party of some 23 Aboriginal people and at Murray’s order formed an extended line — in the tradition of the Light Horse — with Murray in the centre. [2]...According to Murray’s...evidence to the Board of Enquiry, [he] ordered the Aboriginal party to disarm and when they failed to do so a fight ensued, during which shots were fired. After the melee it was discovered that four Warlpiri were killed outright, including one woman, and another woman was wounded and died within an hour, bringing the total number killed to five. [3] ‘Tracker’ Major conveniently identified the dead as Brooks’ killers. [4]
...An Aboriginal account of this first encounter may provide a clue as to why Stafford soon left the party: there were Aborigines scattered in all directions at one stage, he [Stafford] pursued the person, calling on them to stop and when they didn’t and it was like a young man or person at least running away, he fired and the person fell down either shot through the heart, through the back or mortally wounded instantly and Stafford rode up and I think the person who had been shot had fallen and rolled over and it was a young woman. He was actually appalled that he’d shot a woman and he stopped and withdrew from the patrol and would have nothing else to do with it anymore. [5]
According to Murray the party returned to Coniston on 18 August and departed on the morning of 19 August, leaving behind Stafford, the two prisoners, and Lala. [6]...On 19 August on the Lander north of Coniston the remaining party met six Aboriginal people, who ignored warnings to disarm and threw boomerangs. Murray claimed that, after dismounting, he ‘received several blows from boomerangs and yam- sticks and was compelled to use my revolver’. [7] Three were killed and three wounded; all the wounded later died, leaving six dead. Murray declared that the three wounded were identified as murderers of Brooks, without stating by whom they had been identified. [8]
On 22 August, west of Coniston, another two Warlpiri were killed, this time attempting to escape from Murray and ‘Tracker’ Paddy. Their killing was clearly not in self-defence, as Paddy revealed to the Board of Enquiry that he shot and killed a boy running away from him, having chased him over two hills. [9] Another three Walpiri men were killed (one dying of wounds) 60km west of the third encounter, once again after Murray had dismounted. [10]
...On 30 August the party returned to Coniston and on the following day Woolingar died of the head wound given him by Murray on 12 August. [11] This brought the official total number of Aboriginal people killed thus far to seventeen.
...Another incident occurred while Murray was in Alice Springs, leading him back to the Coniston area and further conflict with the Walpiri. On 28 August, the co-owner of Broadmeadows Station, William John (‘Nugget’) Morton, had been attacked by a group of 15 Warlpiri. [12] A Warlpiri oral history suggests that Morton was attacked because of his abuse of Aboriginal women.
The Aboriginal version of events is that several Aboriginal people attacked Morton with sticks and boomerangs and tried to kill him, however Morton, resisting fiercely, was able to fire his revolver and kill two of his attackers. [13]
In his initial statement Morton neglected to mention that he had killed any of his assailants with his revolver. [14]...On 7 September Alice Springs police received written word that Morton had been attacked. [15] Murray was despatched to investigate.
Strehlow’s diaries corroborate the Aboriginal oral accounts of Morton’s cruelty to Aboriginal people, especially young women...In detailing the allegations against Morton, Strehlow provided a useful insight into his character:
‘Nugget’ Morton was keeping a Western Australian lubra there for his stockwork: she had tried to run away ... but Morton had got her back (and the other two) each time and inflicted a severe hiding as a deterrent against further attempts to run away. [He] also employed one or two other little native girls, 9 or 10 years of age, whom he had raped. [16]
Arriving at Broadmeadows on 24 September, Murray formed another party comprising himself, Morton, Alex Wilson and ‘a small Aboriginal boy’. [17] The party soon captured three young Aboriginal boys who, after some persuasion from Murray, [18] eventually led them to an Aboriginal camp at Tomahawk Waterhole on the Lander. Here four were killed, three dying from wounds. Morton identified the four dead as some of his attackers. [19]
The following day at Circle Well, north-east of Tomahawk Waterhole, another two Warlpiri were killed — one shot, the other killed by Murray with a tomahawk. Several days later on the lower Hanson River the party came upon a group of some 40 Aboriginal people; Murray again dismounted and a fight ensued, this time eight were killed. [20]
Aboriginal accounts differ in the names of the places where attacks occurred but they do confirm attacks on camps where people were sleeping and the rounding up of whole camps ‘just like cattle’. [21] In many cases towards the end of the police action the people who were attacked and killed had not even heard of the troubles at Coniston and Broadmeadows but were instead going about their usual business, in one case taking part in a ceremony at Wajinpulungk. [22] Oral history also suggests the Aboriginal men at Wajinpulungk were tied to trees and later shot. [23] It may well be that the official police reports of the incident were falsified.
…On 27 November 1928, following much adverse press coverage and sustained lobbying from missionary and other humanitarian societies, the recently-returned Bruce- Page Government decided to appoint a Board of Enquiry into the killings in all three cases. [24]
The independence and integrity of the Board of Enquiry, officially appointed by the Governor General on 13 December, was compromised from the outset. The Board comprised Queensland Police Magistrate AH O’Kelly (chairman), South Australian Police Inspector PA Giles (who had served in the north of South Australia) and Cawood (Murray’s superior), who rightly should have been a witness.
...The findings of the Board, made public on 30 January 1929, were that in all cases the shootings were justified as self-defence and that settlers or police had given no provocation...
...The work of the Board was by no means exhaustive. There were further killings reported later that were not included. For example, Warlpiri people, Alex Wilson and John Saxby each reported that Murray and party visited other sites not mentioned in Murray’s reports or evidence to the Board, including Tippinba (Patirlirri), 24km west of Broadmeadows, where at least six more Warlpiri were killed. [25]
The killings at Coniston appear to have been more widespread and greater in number than the Board of Enquiry ever established. Aboriginal bushman Walter Smith told Alice Springs historian Dick Kimber that he believed over 200 people had been killed. [26] The lay missionary Annie Lock (whom the Board partly blamed for unsettling Aboriginal people by preaching the doctrine of the equality of man) [27] stated her belief, in a letter a year after the killings, that some 70 Aboriginal people had been killed:
The natives tell me that they simply shot them down like dogs and that they got the little children and hit them on the back of the neck and killed them and in front of the eyes of those they left they knocked the dogs in the head and threw them in the fire ... This is the natives’ verdict and we have to be careful and prove it, but, I questioned them in different ways and when they least expected it, even to boy and girls and they all say the same thing and instead of 34 it was over 70. [28]
Unfortunately, Lock never named her informants so it has not been possible to corroborate these statements. It is noteworthy that not only missionaries and Aboriginal people have made claims of a significantly higher Aboriginal death toll. Randall Stafford also believed that the number killed was at least twice the ‘official’ figure of 31.
Murray evidence to Board of Enquiry, 16 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2.
The dates of the encounters are from McLaren 1982, whose account offers the clearest chronology.
Murray evidence to Board of Enquiry, 16 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2
Stafford evidence to Board of Enquiry, 13 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2.
Interview with Dick Kimber by Justin O’Brien, 25 March 2002.
Murray evidence to Board of Enquiry, 16 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2. Cribbin however, has Stafford leave the party alone.
Murray evidence to Board of Enquiry, 16 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2.
Murray evidence to Board of Enquiry, 16 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2.
Paddy evidence to Board of Enquiry, 31 December 1928, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2. Hartwig places this encounter on 23 August.
Hartwig places this encounter on 27 August.
The date of the party’s return to Coniston and the death of Woolingar vary in accounts. What is clear from the Alice Springs Day Journal is that Murray returned from patrol during the evening of 1 September.
Letter dictated by W Morton to BS Sandford at Tea Tree Well, 30 August 1928, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 1.
Read and read 1991:42
Cribbin states Morton killed two Aboriginal men during the attack upon him, without citing any source but this was probably Read and Read 1991.
Alice Springs Police Day Journal 23/6/27 to 31/10/29, NT Archives, F255, entry 7 September 1928.
Strehlow, Diary begun April 1st 1937, SRC, Alice Springs, entry 28 April 1928. Strehlow also recorded that Skipper and Dodger were working for Morton at his Tin Field mine.
Murray evidence to Board of Enquiry, 16 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2.
Sunday Sun and Guardian, 5 February 1933. These are the three boys who mutilated their feet, contrary to Cribbin and Elder’s accounts.
Deposition by Morton to Board of Enquiry, 19 January 1929, NAA A431 1950 Part 2.
Murray and Morton evidence to Board of Enquiry, 16 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2
Read and Read 1991: 45. 22. Read and Read 1991: 49. 23. Read and Read 1991: 50.
Telegram, Prime Minister Bruce to Queensland Premier William McCormack, 27 November 1928, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 1.
Read and Read 1991: 44.
Kimber 1986: 109.
Finding of Board of Enquiry, 18 January 1929, NAA A431 1950/2768 Part 2.
Markus 1990: 163.
Acknowledgment: Bill Wilson and Justin O’Brien, “‘To infuse an universal terror’: a reappraisal of the Coniston killings”, Aboriginal History, Vol. 27 (2003), pp. 66-75.
Note:
* John Cribbin, The killing times: the Coniston massacre 1928, Fontana/Collins, Sydney, 1984. Reviewed by Isobel White in Aboriginal History, Vol. 10 (1986) pp. 204-205.
* Michael Bradley, Coniston, UWA Publishing, 2019.