Early History

Names of residents in cottages, 1889. 1. Edward Kropinyeri 8. H. Lampard 14. John Davison Amelia Kropinyeri Agnes Lampard Three children Three children Five children 15. Clara Rankine 2. Alfred Cameron 9. Peter Gollan Two children Jessie Cameron Elizabeth Gollan 16. Joanna Kropinyeri Two children Four children Two children 3. Phillip Sumner 10. Albert Karloan 17. Albert Kartinyeri Agnes Sumner Flora Karloan Ellen Kartinyeri One child One child One child 4. William Kropinyeri 11. Charlotte Laelinyeri 18. Henry Ulingbow Jean Kropinyeri Lucy Morley Mary Ulingbow Two children Louisa Robinson One child 5. William McHughes 12. Philip Rigney 19. Pompey Jackson Sarah McHughes Isabella Rigney Preitpul Jackson Three children Three children One child 6. Eva Carter (widow) 13. James Unaipon 20. John Wilson Four children Nymbulda Unaipon ?Eliza Wilson 7. Bertie Tripp Leah Unaipon ? children Minnie Tripp Mary Hewitt 21. John Rankine Two children 1 Child Ellen Rankine Three children 22. John Sumner Rebecca Sumner Seven children Rachel Polteena undated: PMLB, August/September 1889: p. 42

The Mission superintendent was in the habit of sending a group of children into Adelaide for the AFA’s public Annual Meeting, to give recitations and perform songs and dances. Usually, the darker children were sent in, to make a more favourable impression on the pockets of potential donors: pale Aboriginal children may have given the wrong impression of the needs of the Mission. As Blackwell wrote to the AFA Secretary, Collison:

Yours of 30th September to hand and I will try to attend to your wishes. Of those coming, none can play any instrument. I have practised the children in singing 12 hymns from Sankey’s Songs and Solos as used in the school. There are about 10 children who are learning a piece each to recite, but as mentioned earlier, none can make much show - being nearly all little ones. I have no photographs - Mrs. Taplin [his mother-in-law, living at Hindmarsh] may have some. (1.9.1889)
There was very little mobility of school-age children to and from Point McLeay School in the 1880s: as the frontier pushed north, ‘foundlings’ and ‘orphan’ children were collected and sent south, some to the Mission at Point McLeay. But it was a trickle rather than a flood. Occasionally, but much more rarely than is usually assumed, young people finishing their schooling were put into service.