The Retta Dixon Home was an institution for Aboriginal children in

Darwin, Northern Territory Darwin ( ; Larrakia: ) is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. With an estimated population of 147,255 as of 2019, the city contains the majority of the residents of the sparsely populated Northern Territory. It is the smalle ...

, Australia, from 1946 until 1982. It was located on the

Bagot Aboriginal Reserve Bagot Community is an Australian Aboriginal, Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory of Australia located in Ludmilla, Northern Territory, Ludmilla, a northern suburb of the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. It was established ...

, and run by Aborigines Inland Mission of Australia.

History

The Retta Dixon Home was established in 1946 by the Aborigines Inland Mission of Australia (AIM), now renamed Australian Indigenous Ministries. Retta Dixon was a woman who in 1896 took over the Petersham Christian Endeavour Society at La Perouse, near

Botany Bay Botany Bay (Dharawal: ''Kamay''), an open oceanic embayment, is located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, south of the Sydney central business district. Its source is the confluence of the Georges River at Taren Point and the Cook ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, before moving to the

Singleton Singleton may refer to: Sciences, technology Mathematics * Singleton (mathematics), a set with exactly one element * Singleton field, used in conformal field theory Computing * Singleton pattern, a design pattern that allows only one instance ...

area in the

Hunter Valley The Hunter Region, also commonly known as the Hunter Valley, is a region of New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney. It contains the Hunter River and its tributaries with highland areas to the north and so ...

in 1905, where the Aborigines Inland Mission of Australia was formed. She married Leonard Long and around 1909, AIM set up a centre at

Herberton Herberton is a rural town and locality in the Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Herberton had a population of 855 people. Geography Herberton is on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland. It is situa ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

. AIM began working in the

Top End The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory is a geographical region encompassing the northernmost section of the Northern Territory, which aside from the Cape York Peninsula is the northernmost part of the Australian continent. It covers a ra ...

in the 1930s. In 1941 an AIM representative was invited to Bagot Aboriginal Reserve to take charge of "part-coloured" or "

half-caste Half-caste (an offensive term for the offspring of parents of different racial groups or cultures) is a term used for individuals of multiracial descent. It is derived from the term ''caste'', which comes from the Latin ''castus'', meaning pu ...

" Aboriginal women and children. With the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the then superintendent, Miss Shankelton, evacuated 72 children to

Balaklava Balaklava ( uk, Балаклáва, russian: Балаклáва, crh, Balıqlava, ) is a settlement on the Crimean Peninsula and part of the city of Sevastopol. It is an administrative center of Balaklava Raion that used to be part of the Crim ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

in 1942. Upon returning to Darwin in 1946, the AIM set up the Retta Dixon Home as an institution to provide care for these children. The Retta Dixon Home was destroyed by

Cyclone Tracy Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from 24 to 26 December 1974. The small, developing easterly storm had been observed passing clear of the city initially, but then turned t ...

in 1974, and is now a vacant block. A memorial plaque marks the location where the home once stood. It reads:

This plaque is in recognition of Aboriginal children displaced from mother and country. Karu Park accommodated a children's institution named Retta Dixon Home. Similar institutions were established at Kahlin, Garden Point,
Croker Island Croker Island is an island in the Arafura Sea off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia, northeast of Darwin. It was the site of the Croker Island Mission between 1940 and 1968. Indigenous peoples At the earliest time of European co ...
and
Groote Eylandt Groote Eylandt ( Anindilyakwa: ''Ayangkidarrba'' meaning "island" ) is the largest island in the Gulf of Carpentaria and the fourth largest island in Australia. It was named by the explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and is Dutch for "Large Island" in ...
. This plaque is dedicated to the memory of those children and their mission workers.

Royal commission into sexual abuse

Allegations of child sexual abuse at the Retta Dixon Home were investigated at the

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Government of Australia, Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 t ...

in 2015. Ten former residents gave evidence, describing their experiences of rape, molestation and abuse at the home. The findings released on 19 August 2015, found that AIM "did not meet the obligations that it had to children in its care, including protection from sexual abuse". The Commissioners found that AIM did not provide sufficient training to its staff on how to detect or respond to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Compensation

As a result of an out-of-court settlement, 71 people were awarded compensation in 2017. As of September 2021, a least ten people had applied for compensation under the Australian Government's

National Redress Scheme The National Redress Scheme (NRS) was established in 2018 by the Australian Government as a result of a recommendation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It aims to offer support to survivors of abuse suffe ...

(NRS), which was set up for people who have experienced institutional child abuse. However the government prevented Australian Indigenous Ministries (AIM) from being a participant in the NRS, for the stated reason that the group could not afford to pay out potential claimants. There was a possibility that funding could be drawn from a government body, as a "funder of last resort", during the 2021 review of the scheme. Claimants and the AIM were exploring ways in which AIM could make a meaningful apology to survivors of abuse suffered at the home. In September 2021, a

civil lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

brought by a man in his 50s against AIM and the Commonwealth in 2020 for abuse suffered by him at the home was concluded, with compensation paid after agreement was reached in a court-ordered mediation process.

References

{{coord, -12.415142, 130.855726, format=dms, type:landmark_region:AU-NT, display=title Buildings and structures in Darwin, Northern Territory 1946 establishments in Australia 1982 disestablishments in Australia