A Brataualung man, born in the late 1830s or early 1840s. Tarra Bobby spent time at Coranderrk and Ramahyuck stations and advocated for his own and Gunaikurnai rights, such as access to land, after seeing the Taungurung living at Acheron station. His complaints about his treatment at Ramahyuck by Rev Hagenauer were amplified by local colonists and made the local press. Tarra Bobby had interactions with the law throughout his life, as clashes between colonial law and Aboriginal law, for misdemeanors due to the effects of colonisation and justified as 'looking after him' (for example arresting and jailing Tarra Bobby for vagrancy to stop him living off Ramahyuck station). Tarra Bobby died in Kew Asylum, despite medical doctors determining that whilst he was frail in physical health, he was not insane.
See: Bain Attwood, 'Tarra Bobby, A Brataualung Man', Aboriginal History, vol. 11, no. 1/2. pp. 41-57.
Phillip Pepper in collaboration with Tess De Araugo, The Kurnai of Gippsland: What Did Happen to the Aborigines of Victoria?, vol. 1, Hyland House Publishing Pty Ltd, South Yarra, 1985, p. 156
Tarra Bobby
Found in Transcriptions
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Letter from John Bulmer 15 April 1880Pages 1Registration Number XM81Author —Physical Description Letter, possibly incomplete, handwritten in ink. Signed and with an associated date in A W Howitt's handwriting top of first page. One sheet, three pages. Good condition. -
Notes on Kurnai 150 pagesPages 82Registration Number hw0404Author Howitt, Alfred WilliamPhysical Description Correspondence and notes.