William Cooper (abt. 1860 - 1941)

Born about 18 Dec 1860 in Echuca, Victoria, Australia

Husband of Annie Clarendon (Murrie) Cooper — married 1884 (to 1889) in Moama, Colony of New South Wales

Husband of Agnes Hamilton — married 1893 (to 1910) in Cumeroogunga, New South Wales, Australia

Died 29 Mar 1941 at about age 80 in Mooroopna, Victoria, Australia

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Biography

William Cooper is an Indigenous Australian.

William Cooper is Notable.

There is some uncertainty over whether William Cooper was born on 18 December 1860 or 1861^[1]. His 1941 Death Certificate has 1861 but he had written to a Mrs W A Norman in August 1940 that he would be 80 years of age on 18 December. Attwood & Markus have the birth year as 1861^[2] but with no source given.

His father was James Cooper, a 'whitefella' Labourer, and his mother Kitty Cooper (nee Lewis - the Victoria, Death Index record confirms her maiden name as Lewis and his father's name as James Cooper), a Wollithica woman from around Echuca in Yorta Yorta country, where William was born. Yorta Yorta or Jotijota country, lies north of Melbourne, in northeastern Victoria and southern New South Wales, around the junction of the Murray and Goulburn Rivers^[3].

William was the 5th of 8 children, mentioned as 'half-caste' (see Diane Barwick, 1981), who were forced to work on Moira and Ulupna Stations (27kms north and 70kms northeast of Echuca respectively) by the Station managers, even as a child. These Stations were owned by Sir John O'Shanassy, who was to employ William (see below).

Some of the family, including William, brother Bobby and mother Kitty, moved to Maloga Aboriginal Mission station on 4 August 1874, when William was a teenager, and a School had been started in that year^[4]. The Mission was run privately by Daniel and brother William Matthews, with Daniel's wife Janet teaching at the school.

Billy was a quick learner, soon becoming literate, and from 1881 was being educated by Thomas Shadrach James, a highly educated Tamil from Mauritius, who had moved to Maloga to become the resident teacher. He learnt about the indigenous rights movements in North America and New Zealand by reading about them, and by 1884 told Daniel Matthews that he wanted to devote his life to God, although he was the last of his siblings to convert to Christianity.

Diane Barwick (1981) has that "William ... was later sent to the Melbourne home of Sir John O'Shanassy^[5] as coachman". A newspaper article headed "Aborigines petition the King" by Clive Turnbull, has that William "had but seven month's regular schooling when he was a youth. Much of his childhood was spent in the household of Sir John O'Shanassy, in Camberwell, and his young manhood he spent on pastoral properies."^[6] The Attwood & Markus pdf reference has that William was 7 years old when he was taken to Camberwell, Melbourne, by O'Shanassy, where he lived with the family for 3 years or so.

The Mission also required able-bodied men to work to support their dependants, and in 1884 William had his first marriage, to an orphaned Joti-jota 'half-caste' Annie Clarendon Murri, on 17 June. ^[7] They had 2 children, Bartlett and Emma, before Annie died in 1889. Bartlett had also passed away by then.

Two years before, in 1887, William began his life long campaign for Aboriginal rights, particularly land rights, as one of 11 signatories of the Maloga Petition, presented to the Governor of New South Wales, Lord Carrington-700, during his visit to Moama, requesting that Queen Victoria grant land to the community^[8]. Six years earlier, in 1881, a petition presented to the Governor, then Augustus Loftus-544, by Daniel Matthews on behalf of 42 of the Yorta Yorta men at the Maloga Mission, had resulted in land being reserved to create the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve close by the Maloga Mission. By 1888, the Aborigines Protection Association removed the Maloga buildings to Cummeragunja Reserve so that William and his family moved there as well.

On 31 March 1893, William married his 2nd wife Agnes Hamilton, ^[9] a 'quarter-caste' born at Swan Hill and reared at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station near Melbourne (see Diane Barwick, 1981), actually near Healsville, Victoria. They were married at the Nathalia Methodist parsonage in Victoria about 30kms east of Echuca and Moama in the Moira Shire. They had 6 children before Agnes died in 1910, Daniel, Amy, Gillison, Jessie, Sarah and Lynch. Daniel Cooper-20412 served and died with the Australian Imperial Force in World War I. Amy (later Mrs Henry Charles) became matron of the first Aboriginal hostel established in Melbourne in 1959. Gillison, born in 1898, was employed by Victorian Railways all his working life. Sarah (b.c.1910) was known as 'Sally', and later became Sally Russell. Lynch Cooper-20413 was a champion runner, winner of the 1928 Stawell Gift and the 1929 World Sprint.

Attwood & Markus' pdf have that he left the Cumerajunga Mission before Agnes died, due to a dispute with the management, and went to live near the Murray River on the Victorian side. This was the period when he found work interstate as a "shearer, drover, horse-breaker and general rural labourer in Queensland, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria" (Attwood and Markus, 2004, p.3. in Biography 1). Much of his life William had worked on Mission Stations at Maloga, Warangesda (200kms NNE of Echuca), and Cumerajunga.

William married Sarah Nelson nee McCrae, ^[10] of Wahgunyah and Coranderrk, the marriage again taking place at Nathalia, but on 4 August 1928. There were no more children. He must have gone back to Cumerajunga after marrying Sarah, as the following paragraph indicates that he was there by 1933.

After unsuccessful attempts to get assistance, for drought relief in the 1920s and 1930s, for dispersed communities in central Victoria and western New South Wales, through his membership of the Australian Workers' Union, he decided to leave the Cumerajunga Mission in 1933, to allow him to get the old age pension, which he couldn't if he lived on a Mission Station. He moved to Footscray, in western Melbourne, Victoria.

By 1935, he had become the Secretary of the Australian Aborigines League (AAL), which he had helped to establish. In that capacity, he circulated a petition seeking direct representation in parliament, enfranchisement and land rights, and made up his mind to petition King George V. He and his colleagues collected 1814 signatures overtime. The text of the petition was:- “Whereas it was not only a moral duty, but also a strict injunction included in the commission issued to those who came to people Australia that the original occupants and we, their heirs and successors, should be adequately cared for; and whereas the terms of the commission have not been adhered to, in that (a) our lands have been expropriated by your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth, (b) legal status is denied to us by your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth; and whereas all petitions made in our behalf to your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth have failed: your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Majesty will intervene in our behalf and through the instrument of your Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth grant to our people representation in the Federal Parliament, either in the person of one of our own blood or by a white man known to have studied our needs and to be in sympathy with our race.”

In 1935, he had been part of the first aboriginal deputation to meet with a Commonwealth Minister.

In 1936, William and Sarah Cooper were on the Electoral Rolls in West Melbourne at 27 Federal Street, Footscray, with their son Lynch.

The petition was received by the Commonwealth Government in August 1937. However, by February 1938, it was clear that the Cabinet led by Joseph Aloysius Lyons-1422, the 10th Prime Minister, had decided that it should not be submitted to the King, who, by this time, was George VI. William Cooper was part of the first deputation to meet with a Prime Minister, in 1938, but it had no effect. "However, in March 1938, the Australian Government decided not to send the petition to King George VI (George V had died in 1936). It argued that no 'good purpose' would be served by doing so. Cooper, deeply disappointed after years of effort, was ignored. He was told that the question of the welfare of Aboriginal people was receiving 'sympathetic consideration' by the Australian Government and state governments."^[11].

On 27 December 1937, he wrote a letter as Hon. Secretary of the AAL that would initiate 'National Aborigines Day', from 43 Mackay Street, Yarraville, also an inner suburb of Melbourne on the west side.

On 'Australia Day' 1938, in Sydney, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of colonisation, William was part of the first combined, interstate protest by Australian Aborigines, a 'Day of Mourning' for the invasion, when he stood to say: "Now is our chance to have things altered. We must fight our very hardest in this cause. I know we could proudly hold our own with others if given the chance. We should all work in cooperation for the progress of Aborigines throughout the Commonwealth."

On 6 December 1938, after the pogrom against Jews, held throughout Nazi Germany on 9-10 November 1938, Cooper led a delegation of the AAL to the German Consulate in Melbourne to deliver a petition that condemned the "cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany." The protest has been referred to as "the only private protest against the Germans for their pogrom. The German Consulate did not accept the petition.

William Cooper's principal achievement was the establishment of 'National Aborigines Day' that was first celebrated in churches in 1940 and is still celebrated today but known from 1975 as NAIDOC week. It celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, in the first week of July every year^[12].

His influence also extended to his nephew and protege, Pastor Sir Douglas Nicholls-1415, ultimately resulting in the 1967 Australian Referendum.

William returned to 'country' in November 1940, to live at Barmah, near Echuca, Victoria, with his wife Sarah, and was made an honorary life member and president of the AAL. He never gave up protesting the injustice of the Australian treatment of its Indigenous people, until his death on 29 March 1941. ^[13] William Cooper was buried at Cumerajunga (Cumeroogunga).

In 2002, a plaque was unveiled at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne in honor of “the Aboriginal people for their actions protesting against the persecution of Jews by the Nazi Government of Germany in 1938.” The story of the protest is featured in the Jewish Holocaust Centre's permanent museum. In 2008, on the 70th anniversary of the protest, Cooper's grandson, Alfred "Boydie" Turner, was presented with a certificate from the Israeli Ambassador stating that 70 Australian trees were to be planted in Israel in honor of William Cooper. Further honours were bestowed in 2009 and 2010.

In honour of William Cooper's efforts as an indigenous rights campaigner, the William Cooper Justice Centre was opened in Melbourne on 5 October 2010.

On 21 March 2017, the Greater Shepparton Council approved a proposal from the William Cooper Memorial Committee to erect a statue at the Queen's Gardens to honour the life of William Cooper^[14].

In June 2018, the Australian Electoral Commission renamed the federal Division of Batman to Division of Cooper in Cooper's honour.

Sources

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cooper_(Aboriginal_Australian)
2. ↑ Attwood, B. & Markus, A. (2004) Thinking Black: William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines’ League, Aboriginal Studies Press: Canberra. Introduction archived at Wayback Machine 31 May 2009, retrieved 12 Feb 2021.
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorta_Yorta
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maloga_Mission
5. ↑ http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/oshanassy-sir-john-4347
6. ↑ http://greatershepparton.com.au/whats-happening/news/news-article/!/456/post/statue-in-honour-of-william-cooper-soon-to-be-created#overlay
7. ↑ New South Wales marriage registration 5992/1884 COOPER WILLIAM MURRIE ANNIE MOAMA
8. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maloga_Mission
9. ↑ Victorian marriage registration 1893: 00515,F,Hamilton,Agnes,Cooper,William,Kerang, 1893: 00515,M,Cooper,William,Hamilton,Agnes,New South Wales,
10. ↑ Victorian marriage registration 1928: 09525,,Cooper,William,Nelson,Sarah,, 1928: 09525,,Nelson,Sarah,Cooper,William,,
11. ↑ https://www.naa.gov.au/learn/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/first-australians/rights-and-freedoms/petition-king-george-v-aboriginal-inhabitants-australia
12. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAIDOC_Week#cite_note-NAIDOC_Hishydejhcj_,mv,v,,vtory_(NAIDOC_website)-1
13. ↑ Victorian death registration 1941: 16076,,Cooper,William,Cooper James,Lewis Kitty,Mpna,80,
14. ↑ http://greatershepparton.com.au/whats-happening/news/news-article/!/456/post/statue-in-honour-of-william-cooper-soon-to-be-created

• Biograpy 1: William Cooper (Aboriginal Australian) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
• Biography 2: Diane Barwick, 'Cooper, William (1861–1941)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cooper-william-5773/text9787, published first in hardcopy 1981.
• Marriage 3: Ancestry.com. Victoria, Australia, Marriage Index, 1837-1950 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018. Reference Number: 9525. The Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages; Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Victoria, Australia, Marriage Records.
• Residence: Ancestry.com. Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. 1936.
• Death: Ancestry.com. Victoria, Australia, Death Index, 1836-1988 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2018. Reference Number: 16076. Original data: Victoria, Australia, Death Index, 1836-1988. The Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Further Reading

• William Cooper's dreams of Indigenous representation in Parliament inch closer from the ABC Goulburn Murray / By Mikaela Ortolan, Rosa Ritchie, and Matt Dowling. Posted Wednesday 8th of June 2022. at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-08/william-cooper-dreams-of-indigenous-representation-inch-closer/101125428