Hockey was manager at Brewarinna Aboriginal station in the early 1900s, before moving to Edgerton station in 1911 and then McLeay River station in 1915. Hockey has been described as an 'active Christian Endeavourer'. Hockey worked to teach male residents farming skills such as fencing, rabbiting, shearing, marking sheep and branding calves and construction skills such as building and pulling down and reconstructing huts. Female residents were taught domestic duties by Hockey's wife, the matron of the stations, and had lessons in cooking and needlework. Such training helped young girls be moved to 'suitable situations' when 'old enough'. Brewarinna station was one of the first stations to routinely send young Aboriginal women into servitude, a practice that grew in scope across the state in the twentieth century. It separated children from parents and saw some young women be sexually abused and wages kept from them.
References:
Legislative Assembly, New South Wales, 'Report of Board for the Protection of Aborigines, for year 1907', William Appelgate Gullick, Government Printer, Sydney, 1908, p. 7.
Victoria Haskins, ''& So We are Slave Owners!' : Employers and the NSW Aborigines Protection Board Trust Funds', Labour History, No. 88, May 2005, pp. 147-164, pp. 149-151.
Mundoonan Aboriginal School,
Herbert E Hockey
Found in Transcriptions
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R F Beardsmore to Howitt 18 September 1907Pages 1Registration Number XM27Author —Physical Description Letter, typed on letterhead. One side only. Good condition
Also found in
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re Mathews in ManRegistration Number XM257Author Howitt, Mr Alfred WilliamPhysical Description Notes, handwritten in ink, undated. Single sheet, one page only. Condition: good. -
Handwritten notesRegistration Number XM705Author Howitt, Mr Alfred WilliamPhysical Description Draft article, handwritten in ink, undated. Possibly incomplete as a no covering page with title or date present. Seven quarto sheets, seven pages. Numbered 2 to 8. Condition: good.