Deebing Creek and Purga Aboriginal Missions near Ipswich 1892-1948

By Christina Ealing-Goldbold, Research Librarian, Library and Client Services | 6 September 2024

Large group of Aboriginal Australian men, women and children posing outside a house, Deebing Creek Mission, Queensland, ca. 1896-1897, State Library of Queensland, Negative number: 18939

Near to the city of Ipswich, a mission named Deebing Creek was founded by the Aboriginal Protection Society around in approximately 1892. Located at South Deebing Creek Road, aboutRoad, about 8 km from Ipswich in the area now known as Yamanto, the mission was a reserve initially and then later became an Industrial School. The Reserve accommodated Aboriginal people from all over Queensland —- Normanton, Burketown, Cooktown, Townsville, Barcaldine, St George, Alpha, Mitchell, Cunnamulla, Roma, and even New South Wales. Others were from regions adjacent to the mission such as Logan, Beaudesert and Boonah and from nearby Ipswich, Purga and Deebing Creek itself. Deebing Creek had a relatively short life and in 1915, it was transferred in its entirely to Purga mission about 6six kilometres further to the south.

The first Aboriginal Protection societies arose in the 1840s and it took many decades for the successful assignment of a reserve area in the Ipswich region. A motivation on behalf of Government, Protection societies and citizens of Ipswich was to move Aboriginal persons away from the camp in Queens Park in Ipswich which was at the centre of the city.

The Presbyterians were the primary religious group behind the establishment of Deebing Creek. In 1892, Reverend E Fuller asked some Queens Park campers to come with him to settle at Deebing Creek. Fuller lived in a tent and it is believed he had 25 fellow residents living on the land at Deebing Creek, with the families living in tents or humpies. Unlike later reserves, it is interesting to note that residents could come and go as they wished.

Detail from Geological map of the Ipswich coal field map no. 1 to accompany report by Walter E. Cameron, 1899, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.

The Queensland Government sent provisions for the settlement. First, the land was cleared and then by July of that year, grapevines were planted along with peach, apple and other fruit trees. Residents were given a daily food ration of one pound of flour, one pound of beef and four ounces of sugar. In the early times this was supplemented by vegetables grown by the residents. In 1894, a grant of 250 pounds per annum was authorised.

Archibald Meston, the self-proclaimed expert in Indigenous affairs and languages who became the Protector of Aborigines for Southern Queensland reported in 1896 that the mission provided a home for 150 people, while educating children with a ‘plain school’ education. There was a mission house and rough shelter for the First Nations residents. Meston’s recommendations in his 1895 and 1896 reports led to the 1897 Act which was brutal in its removal of First Nations families to missions and reserves away from their traditional lands and country.

Salvation Jacko and family sitting in front of tent at Deebing Creek Mission, Ipswich District, ca. 1900, State Library of Queensland, Negative number: 10422

As a result of better water availability, improved land fertility and the greater distance from the expanding town of Ipswich, it was decided to relocate the mission to Purga, 14 kilometres from Ipswich. It was thought that this greater distance from Ipswich would make it more difficult for the residents to source alcohol. The Purga mission began in 1915 with 20 acres of land under cultivation, growing sufficient produce for the mission and producing prize winning herds of pigs and dairy and beef cattle. The Purga mission was eventually taken over by the Salvation Army and continued in the form of an Industrial School until it was closed in 1948.

The Purga Mission Industrial School, run by the Salvation Army, was established sometime around 1920 when the Salvation Army took control of the Purga Creek Mission. The Industrial School was on the Purga Mission Station (renamed by the Salvation Army as the Purga Aboriginal Colony), which was established in 1915 and situated between the end of Carmichaels Road and Deebing Creek near Ipswich. The School was licensed in 1937 under the State Children Act 1911. State children were first admitted to the Industrial School in 1941, at which time there were 16 children under 16 years old at the school. It closed in 1948, at which time nine State children from the Industrial School were transferred to the custody of the Director of Native Affairs and placed in homes under his Department.

Find and Connect, Industrial School, Purga Mission Station

Many First Nations residents of the Ipswich region had some familiarity with these two reserves. Both were closed by 1948. Scholars have argued that it was the Deebing Creek Mission was the trial for the 1897 Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act which allowed for the removal of adults and children to reserves.

Records of Deebing Creek and Purga

Records of Deebing Creek are held at Queensland State Archives.

Correspondence relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 1894-1915 – Deebing Creek
The correspondence records of the Home Secretary’s Office from 1894 to 1905 and from 1906 to 1915, Chief Protector of Aboriginals and the Southern Protector of Aboriginals Offices relating to Deebing Creek and Purga Missions are a valuable source of information relating to Deebing Creek.