A. O. Neville
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Neville in 1936
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| Chief Protector of Aborigines in Western Australia | |
| In office 25 March 1915 – 1936 | |
| Preceded by | Charles Gale |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Commissioner of Native Affairs in Western Australia | |
| In office 1936–1940 | |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Francis Illingworth Bray |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Auber Octavius Neville (1875-11-20)November 20, 1875 Ford, Northumberland, United Kingdom |
| Died | April 18, 1954(1954-04-18) (aged 78) Perth, Australia |
| Spouse |
Maryan Florence Low (m. 1910) |
| Children | 5 |
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Auber Octavius Neville (20 November 1875 – 18 April 1954) was a British-Australian public servant who served as the Chief Protector of Aborigines and Commissioner of Native Affairs in Western Australia.
Neville was supporter of eugenics and believed that Aboriginal Australians could be bred out. As Chief Protector and Commissioner, he helped shaped Western Australia's policy towards Aboriginal Australians.[1] Neville has become an infamous historical figure in Australia for his role in the genocide of Indigenous Australians,[2] in part due to his portrayal in Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Auber Octavius Neville was born on 20 November 1875 in Ford, Northumberland, United Kingdom. After spending ten years in Victoria, Neville moved in 1897 to Western Australia where his brother was practising law.[3]
After arriving in Western Australia, Neville joined the Department of Works as a records clerk and quickly rose through the ranks due to his efficiency. In 1900, he was appointed registrar of a sub-department of Premier John Forrest's office. In 1902, he was promoted to registrar of the Colonial Secretary's Department.[3]
In 1906, Neville became an immigration officer. He was then appointed as the secretary of a new department organising immigration and tourism in 1910, which saw him assisting in fostering the migration of 40,000 British people to Western Australia between 1910 and 1914. Following the outbreak of World War I, he was appointed as secretary of the War Patriotic Fund.[4][3]
On 25 March 1915, Neville became the state's second appointment to the role of the Chief Protector of Aborigines.[5] Neville worked from Murray Street, Perth and had under him a secretary and either five or six clerks. He also had only one travelling inspector, E.C. Mitchell, from 1925 to 1930 when he was forced to sack him due to the Great Depression. His administration had a budget of one pound and nine shillings per Indigenous Australia.[6]
During the next quarter-century, he presided over the controversial policy of removing Aboriginal children from their families; children who came to be called the Stolen Generations.
Early on as Chief Protector, Neville took control of the mission at Carrolup and expanded it to be self-reliant. In 1918, a mission opened at Moore River. In northern Western Australia, Neville wanted to take control of missions and transform them into self-reliant cattle stations with Moola Bulla in the Kimberley as his model. This was seen by Neville as a way to save government money, but also to give Aboriginal residents on the missions something to do. Neville is quoted as saying that "scores of the children are growing up without any prospect of a future before them, being alienated from their old bush life, and rendered more or less useless for the condition of life being forced upon them".[7]
Neville acquired the former pastoral stations of Munja in 1926 and Violet Valley in 1935 with the purpose of establishing them as stations to "pacify the natives and accustom them to white man's ways and thus enable further settlement". Despite this, no other missions were established in the north during Neville's time in office. Some Aboriginal Australians were forcibly forced onto missions, with at least 500 Aboriginal people (around a quarter of the native population in southern Western Australia) being removed to missions from 1915 to 1920. At age 14, children of mixed descent were sent out from missions to work, and as a result a high proportion of girls returned pregnant. Neville was annoyed at the burden it placed on the government to look after the babies, but did not feel that this was an important issue.[7]
By the 1930s, Neville refined his beliefs of integrating Indigenous Australians into white culture. The practice of removing mixed race Aboriginal/European children from their families was advocated at the time as part of a plan to "breed out the colour"[8] by having those children brought up as though they were white, with the idea that they would marry people with light and lighter skin tones over successive generations, until there would be no Aboriginal people in Australia at all.[9] At the time it was believed that "full-blooded" Aboriginal people were dying out.[10]
At the time, non-Indigenous people in Western Australia expressed mixed-feelings towards his policies of miscegenation.[7]
In 1934, the WA government set up the Moseley Royal Commission, to examine the state of Aboriginal people with regard to the role of Chief Protector. The result was that the Chief Protector was given more authority over the lives of Western Australian Aboriginal people which, some say, only increased their suffering.
In 1936, Neville became the Commissioner for Native Affairs, a post he held until his retirement in 1940.[3]
Neville represented WA at the Conference of Commonwealth and State Aboriginal Authorities held in Canberra from April 21 to 23 in 1937. The conference saw several of Neville's policies of absorption and assimilation adopted nationwide, with the first resolution stating that " the destiny of the natives of aboriginal origin, but not of the full blood, lies in their ultimate absorption by the people of the Commonwealth, and it therefore recommends that all efforts be directed to that end".[11] Neville himself was one of the most influential delegates at the conference,[12] with him declaring:
Are we going to have one million blacks in the Commonwealth or are we going to merge them into our white community and eventually forget that there were any Aborigines in Australia?[13]
Neville believed that biological absorption was the key to 'uplifting the Native race.'[14] Speaking at the Moseley Royal Commission, he defended the policies of forced settlement, removing children from parents, surveillance, discipline and punishment, arguing that:
"[T]hey have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon's knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patient's will."[14]
Neville stated that children had not been removed indiscriminately, saying that:
"[T]he children who have been removed as wards of the Chief Protector have been removed because I desired to be satisfied that the conditions surrounding their upbringing were satisfactory, which they certainly were not."[14]
Policies adopted by the conference ended with the outbreak of the Second World War.[1]
In 1940, Neville retired from his role as Commissioner due to him reaching the retirement age of 65.[6] He was succeeded by Francis Bray.[7]
In 1947, he published Australia's Coloured Minority,[10] a text outlining his plan for the biological absorption of Aboriginal people into non-Aboriginal Australia. The book defends his policy but also acknowledges that Aboriginal people had been harmed by European intervention. For that reason, he said, more had to be done to assist them:
"I make no apologies for writing the book, because there are things which need to be said. So few of our own people as a whole are aware of the position [of Aboriginies]. Yet we have had the coloured man amongst us for a hundred years or more. He has died in his hundreds, nay thousands, in pain, misery and squalor, and through avoidable ill-health. Innumerable little children have perished through neglect and ignorance. The position, in some vital respects, is not much better today than it was fifty years ago. Man is entitled to a measure of happiness in his life. Yet most of these people have never known real happiness. Some are never likely to know it. The causes of their condition are many. Mainly it is not their fault, it is ours, just as it lies with us to put the matter right."[15]
In 1947, following his retirement, he was invited to represent the State of Western Australia on discussions regarding Aboriginal Welfare in connection with the Woomera Test Range, prior to its establishment.[16]
In London on 1 June 1910, Neville became married to Maryan Florence Low. Together, they had five children - three daughters and two sons.[3]
Neville was an Anglican like his father, participating as a lay-reader and chorister.[3]
Neville was a notable resident of Darlington, and was a regular user of the Eastern Railway which closed a few months before his death.[citation needed] He died in Perth on 18 April 1954 survived by his wife and two of his children. He was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.[3]
Neville has been portrayed in artistic works as the public face of this policy in the 2002 film Rabbit-Proof Fence (played by Kenneth Branagh), and in Jack Davis' 1985 play, No Sugar.
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