In 2017 a significant collection of archive materials relating to the Pallottine Mission in Western Australia was donated to our collection so that they could be available to Aboriginal people as a priority. The collection includes documents, photos and film that record work by the Pallottine Fathers as linguists and as teachers in the Tardun Mission School, and a complete set of the school’s administrative records from 1984 to 2004.
Over two years, we reviewed, organised and described the collection, in consultation with organisations including Mackillop Family Services, the National Archives and the National Library, the Care Leavers Australasia Network and the National Redress Scheme. In May 2019, AIATSIS met with Aboriginal people who attended Tardun School; representatives from Kinchela Boys Home, Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls and the Care Leavers Australasia Network; Find and Connect staff; and researchers to explore how people who had attended Tardun might like to complete their school records.
The culmination was a visit by an AIATSIS delegation to Geraldton, where a large community of former Tardun School students still live, in March 2020. Our staff set up an ‘AIATSIS in Geraldton’ display in a welcoming space, with access to the photographic database, the catalogue and samples from the collection related to the local area, with a focus on the Pallottines collection. Yamatji Elder Dawn Gilchrist gave our staff a private Welcome to Country and endorsed our invitation to local community members to visit.
Over two days, more than 70 community members visited, including many former Tardun School students. We identified and provided copies of relevant documents and images to individuals and communities, and explained their ‘right to reply’—their right to speak back to the records made by the Pallottine Fathers and school administrators. Family History Unit staff provided research assistance and social support to people reconnecting with their past. The entire Pallottines photographic collection, 4,516 colour slides, was digitised and available for viewing.
The original metadata relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who are the main subjects was sparse, with most labelled ‘unidentified’. Many of the former students provided additional information including nicknames, maiden names, and information on what life was like at Tardun. In all, 283 previously unknown individuals were identified in 246 photographs, making those images more accessible for generations to come.