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  • Benjamin John Brown Gribble

    When Benjamin John Brown Gribble was born on 1 September , in Redruth, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, his father, Benjamin Gribble, was 37 and his mother, Mary Brown, was He married Mary Ann Elizabeth Bulmer on 4 February , in Chilwell, Victoria, Australia. They were the parents of at least 6 sons and 6 daughters. He died on 3 June , in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, at the age of 45, and was buried in Waverley, New South Wales, Australia.

    Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

    Life and Experiences of an Australian Missionary to the Aborigines : a brief history by Reverend E. R. B. Gribble
    MLMSS ADD-ON / Box 12 / Folder 18 / 13

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    Chapter 1

    I was born in Geelong, Victoria in the year , my father at that time and until I was about twelve years old being a Wesleyan Methodist Minister. My earliest recollections go back to the my first school days when the elder boys would way lay me after school hours, placing me upon a stump tree stump, would insist upon me preaching a sermon before they would allow me to return home. All this gave me a great distaste for the ministry and for many years I was determined that not become a Minister. In the year my father the with his family removed to Jerilderie and it was here that an event occurred which still remains deeply impressed upon my memory. This was the sticking up of the whole town by the Kelly gang of bushrangers. At most of the town consisted The town contained of about four hundred people and at one end of the main street stood the police station with the Court House just opposite, about three miles out of the town stood a roadside public house kept by a man named Davidson. Late one Friday night the Police Sergant was called up was aroused by a voice at his door calling

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    out that there was a great row at Davidson’s hotel. The Sergeant at once went to the door and was at once ordered to “bail up" and Ned Kelly and his brother Dan and his mates Steve Hart and Ned Byrne walked into the house. They made everything secure and of course made the Sergeant, this the mounted constable prisoners. Saturday morning came and the Sergeant’s Wife was ordered by Ned Kelly to attend to the butcher and baker as usual & was carefully watched that she gave no information as to the gang’s presence. During the day one of the gang accompanied the Sergeant’s wife across to the Court House in order to guard her while she got

    [Hunt, Su Jane, "The Gribble Affair: a study in colonial politics", Studies in Western Australian History, Dec. , VIII, pages ]

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    Author Hunt, Su Jane.

    Title The Gribble Affair: a study in colonial politics.

    Imprint

    Subject Gribble, J. B, (John Brown),

    Found In Studies in Western Australian History, Vol. VIII (Dec. ), p. , STU, .b

    The Gribble Affair: A Study in Colonial Politics

    SU-JANE HUNT

    In an Anglician churchman arrived in the colony of Western Australia to perform missionary work amongst the Aborigines of the settlement’s northern districts. Within six months this missionary, the Reverend John Brown Gribble, had caused a furore in the colony. In a booklet, Dark Deeds in a Sunny Land, published in , he alleged that a system of slavery existed in the north:

    that Australia itself, professedly the new home of liberty and light, should have become the theatre of dark deeds of oppression and cruelty; that a land not only blessed by the Great God, with cloudless skies and widespread prosperity and happiness to those who have been privileged to make it their home, and moreover a land which professes to reflect the noble institution of Great Britain, whose godly and philanthropic fabrics, which are not only England’s glory and boast, but the envy of the world beside; that a land so circumstanced and blessed by Divine Providence should have become the nursing mother of oppression and injustice, and that deeds of infamy should find toleration therein, is not only a cause for the greatest astonishment, but in itself constitutes the foulest blot that could possibly rest upon the escutcheon of Australia’s fame.[1]

    The context and ramifications of Gribble’s allegations comprise a complicated story of nineteenth-century missionary righteousness and fervour, the strong-arm tactics of a frontier squattocracy, and the intrigue and politiking of a conservative colonial elite.

    Gribble’s passionate expose of the ill-treatment of Aborg

    I am currently reading an excellent work by Richard Broome, Professor of History at LaTrobe University in Melbourne. He is a much-published researcher in the area of Aboriginal history. The book, entitled Aboriginal Australians: a history since , is comprehensive, providing many insights into the history of this country over the past years, with many challenges in the narrative. I will be pondering much of what Broome writes as I work my way through the pages of this book.

    Today I read about a minister-missionary, of whom I was previously unaware. He was the Rev. John B. Gribble, who came originally from Cornwall in Britain, travelling as a one year old with his parents as they set out for a new life down under.

    In October , Gribble was admitted to the ministry of the United Free Methodist Church, but subsequently he joined the Congregational Union of Victoria and served as a home missionary. Apparently he had an encounter with the Kelly Gang during their heyday.

    Over the years, Gribble worked with the Indigenous people, and in Gribble and his wife Mary opened the Warangesdah Aboriginal Mission at Darlington Point. The Bishop of the Church of England from Goulburn took on sponsorship of the mission, and then made Gribble a stipendiary reader in , deacon in and priest in

    In , Gribble was invited by Bishop Henry Parry of Perth to work in Western Australia. He went to England, where he raised funds and published Black but Comely, a description of Aboriginal life in Australia. In he opened a mission on the Gascoyne River but was strongly opposed by settlers who exploited native labour.

    In , Gribble published Dark Deeds in a Sunny Land. This was a fierce castigation of his opponents; it created a furore and the welfare of the Aborigines was obscured by the fierce debate that ensued, which impacted the reputation of Gribble for some decades.

    The booklet included an allegation that ‘quite sixty natives, men, women and children’ had been shot dead in one

  • One of the most important
  • In , Gribble published Dark Deeds