Ten Victorian Women

A philanthropist and lobbyist
on behalf of Victorian Aborigines

Anne Fraser Bon arrived in Victoria from Scotland aboard the Acadia on 14 May 1858. She was 20 years old when she arrived, while her new husband was 33 years her senior and the owner of the Wappan pastoral run on the Delatite River near Mansfield. Bon bore three sons and a daughter between 1863 and 1868, the year her husband died suddenly of heart disease.

During her long life Anne Bon became a champion of those she considered to be the less fortunate of society, particularly Victorian Aborigines. Some of the Aborigines living on the Coranderrk Reserve near Healesville had once lived on her Mansfield property. Many returned each shearing season and Bon heard discouraging reports of the conditions and treatment at Coranderrk.

Her target became the Board for the Protection of Aborigines which, in her opinion, mishandled the administration of Coranderrk and several other stations. The Board wished to close Coranderrk and relocate its occupants to other reserves, but the Aborigines felt the area to be their land and their home. As a result of her interest in the issues, Anne Bon was made a member of the Board of Inquiry into Coranderrk, the report of which was published in 1882.

Despite the inquiry, conditions at Coranderrk did not improve significantly and the Board for the Protection of Aborigines continued its efforts to close the station. The following letter was written by Anne Bon from Kew, on 29 May 1882, to the Chief Secretary's Department:

My dear Mr Wilson,

I am sure you will not regard it presumption on my part to make a few suggestions regarding the future management of the Aborigines of Coranderrk. We have robbed them of their beautiful colony - deprived them of their hunting fields, and fishing grounds, and given them in return our vices and diseases which are rapidly doing their work.

Decency forbids me to mention the disease from which I have seen them suffer - even the little children sharing in its bad effects.

Coranderrk, they state they received from the Queen at the hands of Sir Henry Barkly, as a small substitute for the country they had lost. They regard it as their own property and are exceedingly attached - I may say wedded to it - then why drive them from it?

It is a fine estate of 4,800 acres and coveted by some of our land-grabbing neighbours. The first cry raised by their "Protectors" - the word is a misnomer - to get them driven away was the unhealthiness of the climate. The evidence of our leading medical men refutes that statement - so they have changed their tactics, and the cry now is, the nearness to Healesville, but there was no Healesville there when they took possession of Coranderrk and are they to be driven from place to place like a herd of cattle to make room for the white usurper? They are capable of feeling joy and sorrow as well as we and I believe their attachments are much stronger than ours.

They have held possession for 20 years and why punish them for the bad management of their "Protectors"? They are neither paupers, lunatics, nor criminals, then why treat them as such? In their primitive state their temporal wants were well supplied - they possess far more intellect than they get credit for - and the greatest crime of which they have been guilty is having been the "original owners of the soil". Coranderrk is the birthplace of their children, and in the station cemetery over 100 of their race lie buried.

One grand mistake has been ignoring of the suggestions made by the Royal Commission in 1877 one of which is - that "the land be vested in the names of trustees" another that "the place be properly fenced and suitably stocked", if such were done - with proper management - the place could be made self supporting.

The poor creatures have been deplorably neglected both in health and in sickness - sent to our large hospitals to die among strangers - although their dying request has invariably been - "take me home to die among my own people".

They have not even been provided with a small portion in God's Acre but have been put into paupers graves wherever convenient without even Christian burial.

A portion of ground should have been assigned to them in the Melbourne Cemetery as recommended in 1877 - so that when the race is extinct a rude monument could be erected over the spot to the memory of the "Primitive Lords of the Manor".

Forty years ago they were a numerous people. Now the total number in Victoria is about 500.

The number of pure blacks is very small indeed - then why not let them spend the last of their days in peace? They will soon be all dead and gone - and then, but not till then will Coranderrk legitimately revert to the Crown.

Let us provide them with the comforts - yea even the luxuries of this life, and above all things see that they are taught a little of that life beyond the grave.

I do not hesitate to say that notwithstanding the liberal annual vote by parliament, these poor people are without the bare necessities of life. They are an affectionate, grateful, and teachable people and feel the cruel treatment they receive very keenly. Upon the smallest pretext the assistance of the police is called in, they are taken to Court, but no Counsel is provided for them, they stand undefended. The Aboriginal belongs to a British community, but is denied that justice to which every British subject is entitled.

The present management is demoralizing - the Board has proved a perfect failure - and the only remedy is its abolition.

They make faithful servants, can work, and do work well - when they are honestly remunerated.

Punch about whom we have heard so much lately happens to be one of my boys. His mother the Chiefess of the tribe gave him to me many years ago to be my own "Picaninny" [sic] - He is a superior black - too much so for his "Protectors" - and when in my employ sometimes earns 12/ a day, with food and lodging. Many of them shear well - and the money they earn is spent on decent clothing, and furniture for their houses. The clothes they receive from their "Protectors" very much resembles those worn by the inmates of Pentridge.

They are allowed no furniture not even those articles without which habits of decency and self-respect cannot be maintained. They get no proper beds or bedding sheets, quilts, towels or handkerchiefs. Clothing sent up unbranded capable of being utilised by any one - I examined every hut but failed to find an easy-chair or couch on which the dying might recline - I found 45 unbaptised young people - and a child deaf and dumb of whom Mr Page knew nothing.

They have been refused straw and were sleeping on "rushes" and to add to their comfort they had plenty of bugs.

The accounts were to us a perfect puzzle, and contain some very objectionable items in money. The dresses have not yet been accounted for.

There is much more which I could tell you but will conclude with the words of Mr Murray Smith "Let us smooth their path to the grave" to act otherwise would be to furnish material for a dark chapter in the future history of this fair colony.

Believe me
Yours sincerely
Anne F Bon [1]

Bon continued as an eloquent and passionate defender of Aborigines, although she supported the belief that 'half-castes' should not live on the government-financed stations. She was subject to many of the prejudices and beliefs of her time, as the following letter demonstrates. Bon received a letter asking her to help some Aborigines who were without adequate food or shelter. She forwarded the letter to the Chairman of the Board for the Protection of Aborigines accompanied by the following letter of her own.

Wappan, Bonnie Doon, Jan. 2, 1903.

My dear Mr Murray, The inclosed note I received last night, but as I am not a Member of the Board of Protection I am sending it to you as Chairman of that Board, knowing as I do of your sympathy with this poor people - It may be said, well Sampson had no right to leave Cormeragungi, [probably Cummeragunga on the Murray River, NSW] but you know the desire to move about is inherent in the natives. I have not seen him for many years but remember him quite as a tiny boy with his parents, who spent much time at this place, where the [sic] always found a well provided house, - I wish the public could be made to understand that the Blacks are not under my care, neither am I empowered to deal out food and clothing on behalf of the Govt. - under your care they are in good hands, so be good enough at this festive season to see that neither Sampson nore [sic] his dumb friends are allowed to feel the pangs of hunger. - With best wishes for a bright New Year crowned with health and happiness

Believe me
Yours very sincerely
Anna Bon [2]

The Board deemed that the Aborigines in question were not Victoria's responsibility. Despite her previous antagonism towards its members, in 1904 Bon was finally made a member of the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, and remained so until her death in 1936 at the age of 98.

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