The origins of segregated education in central Australia: a tale of two families

This article re-examines a seminal moment of early Alice Springs history–the 1914 establishment of the Bungalow (Alice Springs’ ‘half-caste’ children’s home). It is commonly stated that the institution was created by Robert Stott in a moment of paternalistic kindness, to help the Arabana widow Topsy Smith and her seven children. However, a close reading of the records reveals that this story was fabricated and circulated to enshroud the illegal forced institutionalisation of the Smith family. In 1914 Stott’s wife, Agnes, was on the verge of taking Robert Stott’s children to Sydney, so they could receive an education. Robert Stott attained funding for a school in Alice Springs, provided it educate light-skinned Aboriginal children in the district. He erected a shed and interned the Smith family against their will, thereafter separating many other Aboriginal children from their parents. Originally, these removals were to populate the school, ensuring that Stott’s family would stay together in Alice Springs. Stott went to trial for this act in 1917, but he escaped repercussions. In 1923, Baldwin Spencer transcribed a sanitised version of Stott’s defence testimony, thereby sowing the commonly cited fallacy of Stott’s paternal kindness into the archive.