How success and failure were defined during Dick Harris’s tenure, and in our contemporary culture, vary greatly, from both Christian perspectives and secular worldviews.

Overview of the Primary Sources

During the research phase of this dissertation, access was given to me by my extended family to use my grandparents’ documents for the work. Included in the collection are personal diaries recorded in school-type exercise books; Dick’s original schoolboy books with his arithmetic, history studies, etc; extensive correspondence between Dick and the CMS Aborigines Committee; artefacts such as Dick’s clerical collar, Freemason apron, original Kunwinjku language Bible translation phonetic exercise books, typed versions of translations, mission design blueprints for Angurugu on Groote Eylandt, and even menu pamphlets from his first voyage North. I have noted the tremendous amount of assorted handwritten and typed language primers that Nell Harris compiled for the development of the first Kunwinkju language Gospels. Mixed within folders of carbon-copied correspondence, I find church newsletters, ephemera such as photos, cards, telegrams, medical certificates, Dick Harris’s chest x-rays(!), authorisation documents from bishops, magazine and newspaper clippings, signed blank bank cheques, many sermon notes, cassette tapes, love letters and more. The amount of correspondence that was evidently handwritten as a draft, and then typed laboriously before being sent to the CMS organisations, is quite phenomenal. The impression this leaves me with is that many of the controversial issues that were addressed over the years were written with conviction and meant on many occasions as position statements that were immovable- “I am not in the habit of being a ‘yes man...’ as one example of Dick’s pragmatic style.

The contrast between Dick and Nell is evident in their attitudes towards saving and even hoarding letters and memorabilia. There is hardly any correspondence addressed to Nell that has been retained, whereas Dick has three suitcases and the wooden travel chest of material. Personal letters from Nell, however, had been kept by Dick in some cases. Later in life, Nell would be asked to record her memoir by her son Stephen, who recognised that in many cases the wives of missionaries were overlooked, whereas Dick’s personal journals and letters contributed towards much of his 246-page My Story memoir. A contemporary of Dick and Nell’s was Keith Hart, who saw the importance of recording the women’s side of missionary experience and wrote Little Em, a short biography about Gwen Evans, a CMS missionary wife on Groote Eylandt. She was recorded in the CMS records during their tenure, but her name was not included but only noted by a small ‘m’ after her husband’s name. Attitudes towards women missionaries, and staff under Harris’s authority will be discussed in Chapter 2, with references to Hilary Carey’s writing on Women Missionaries. Some of Nell Harris’s writing has been traced to the CMS publication The Open Door. An article she was asked to contribute, called “Things I have Seen”, will be discussed in Chapter 2 regarding her life on the mission. A significant inclusion in the Mitchell Library’s archive is the only letter that Nell ever wrote to CMS, which specifically spoke into the heightened issue of the ‘tobacco controversy’. This will be included in the findings around the tobacco payments controversy in Chapter 1. To support a more complete story around Dick and Nell Harris’s experience and contribution to the Arnhem Land work, excerpts from the original formal CMS Minutes and correspondence have been accessed in the Mitchell Library’s CMS Archives, and with kind permission from Lynette Milton, senior CMS Archivist, I have had access to multiple documents from the CMS Offsite collections. These documents assist in viewing the workings of the contemporary General Secretaries who managed the Harris’s in the field. To assist with understanding the multi-layered management structures of both mission and government, I have created a short summary of the key organisational structures and personnel that existed in the stated period of time between 1929 and 1965 in Appendix 3.

Appendix 3 Organisational Chart of Mission Management Groups

Church Missionary Society (CMS): This was the primary organisation Harris served under, and it had several layers of authority he interacted with.

· Federal Council of CMS: This body established overall policy, notably regarding the location of the Half caste institution. The Federal Council made decisions without necessarily consulting field staff, and led to significant disputation with Dick and Nell Harris. One of the influential men in Dick Harris’s life was H. M. (Bert) Arrowsmith, who was Acting General Secretary of CMS NSW 1940-45 and Federal Secretary 1943-45

· Aborigines Committee: This committee within CMS was responsible for administrative matters, arranging furloughs, receiving reports, making decisions about staffing and mission work, and reacting to external reports and government advice. They received letters from missionaries and discussed matters like the tobacco issue and staffing appointments. (Bishop Clive Kerle was head of this committee at one point.)

· Regional Secretary for Aborigines: Initially Dick Harris reported to Rev. J. W. Ferrier; J. Bruce Montgomerie held this role from early 1947. He was the main point of contact between the field missionaries like Harris and the Committee/Head Office in Sydney. He visited the missions and handled correspondence regarding staffing, policy issues, and mission administration. He appointed Harris as Senior Missionary and the Committee’s Representative in the Field, but only after Harris was ordained.

· Federal Secretary: one of whom was Rev. A. Jack Dain was appointed Federal Secretary and became involved in staffing decisions and controversies, sometimes strongly disagreeing with arrangements made in the field.

· General Committee: Chaired by the Archbishop, this committee discussed significant issues like the tobacco policy.

· Superintendents: Harris himself served as Superintendent at Oenpelli and temporarily at Groote Eylandt. He also worked under Superintendents like Mr. Dyer at Oenpelli, and John Mercer at Groote. Superintendents were responsible for the day-to-day running and management of the staff on the missions.

· Senior Missionary and Representative in the Field: A role Harris was appointed to in his last term, giving him authority to visit other missions, iron out problems, and decide the location of missionaries.

Government Departments and Officials:

To receive subsidies for mission operational funding, several government departments were set up to oversee the institutional and operational health of each of the

Native Affairs Department / Department of Native Affairs / Director of Native Affairs: This department was involved in policy regarding Aborigines and Half-castes, sanctioning mission work, and overseeing welfare. Dr Cecil Cook, Chief Protector of Aboriginals and Chief Medical Officer of the Northern Territory during the inter-war period.

Mr. Chinnery was Director of Native Affairs and was described as considerate and helpful to the missions. Mr. Giese later held the title of Director of Aboriginal Welfare.

Department of the Interior: This department, and specifically the Minister for the Interior, issued directives that affected mission operations, such as the mandatory issue of tobacco. They also considered major policy matters, such as the site for the half-caste settlements. Mr. Hasluck served as Minister for the Interior. Harris corresponded with him regarding a supposed report on mission strategy.

Welfare Officers: Officials from Welfare Departments (under Native Affairs or Interior) visited missions to inspect administration, finances, and conditions. They could influence staffing decisions and policies. Bill Harney was an early Welfare Officer who co-authored a critical report. Ted Evans was a Senior Welfare Officer, and Ted Milliken was the Deputy Director of Welfare. Dick interacted with them all.

Commonwealth Department of Education: An officer from this department, Mr. Newby, visited Roper Mission.

Superintendent of Police / Constables: Law enforcement officers like Superintendent Stretton, Constable Jock Mahony, and Constable Jim Mannion interacted with the missions, sometimes regarding law and order issues or patrols....

Other Organisations/Individuals with Influence:

Church of England: Archbishop Mowll had concern for Dick Harris, offering to ordain him in Sydney. He was provided with roles in Wiseman’s Ferry and the Wollongong region.

British & Foreign Bible Society: NSW branch would assist with Nell Harris’s Kunwinjku Bible translation, and was overseen by their mentor Bert Arrowsmith who was earlier NSW Secretary in 1932, then Commonwealth Secretary of the Bible Society- and became Chairman of the United Bible Societies.

Australian Board of Missions (ABM): CMS considered transferring its half-caste work to ABM.

Methodist Missions: Although a separate entity, CMS missionaries interacted with them, utilised their transportation, and recognised their expertise in areas such as radio communication, Bible translation, and collaboration with challenging mail delivery.

Royal Australian Air Force: the missions on Groote Eylandt were affected by the air force personnel; the Umbakumba airstrip was a key strategic defence location. Dick Harris and Len Harris were Coastwatchers during the WWII period, provided with tele-radios, reporting to the command regularly.

Academics/Experts: Individuals like Dr. A. Capell (linguist/anthropologist) provided commentary and opinions on mission policy and practices, which were considered by CMS leadership, where he eventually joined the Aborigines Committee. Ron and Catherine Berndt also wrote a critical report on Oenpelli. Another prominent figure that influenced Dick and Nell Harris and CMS operation philosophy as the academic and Anglican clergyman, Prof. A. P. Elkin, who Dick studied under at Sydney University.

I welcome comments and feedback that would benefit the history research I am involved in. The final publication will be peer-reviewed and submitted to the Indigenous descendants of the people of Arnhem Land for feedback and critique.

Research Question and Aims

Much has been written on mission history, including the Oenpelli mission, in recent years, but the focus has mostly been on negative impacts on indigenous people groups, or on missionaries as tools of the imperialistic advance of European settlement, etc. There has been little focus on the missionaries themselves, let alone the human cost of missions on the missionaries, or the question of why such Australian men and women willingly sacrificed Western lifestyles and comfort for lives of immense hardship, complexity and near poverty. Additionally, a rich vein of newly discovered sources allows for a fresh assessment of missionary experience that goes beyond the “official” record of published memoirs and missionary exploits. The raw human side of missions is evident in these sources.

The focus of this dissertation, therefore, is on two broad questions:

First, what were the key professional challenges faced by Nell and Dick Harris? And how did these challenges shape their own evolving understanding of their work and vocation over time?

And second, what was the human cost of the mission—personally, physically and relationally—on Nell and Dick Harris and their family?

Why write?

In answering these questions, the aim of this dissertation is, therefore, to humanise Dick and Nell, and by extension the missionaries’ experience, by sharing directly from their personal diaries, letters and ephemera, as well as providing first-hand accounts from their children and mission contemporaries who reflect on their personalities and work. By assessing the accounts, the dissertation will highlight the difficulty and complexity of the professional challenges they faced. Through many personal anecdotes, Dick and Nell and their contemporaries would lament the declining state of Aboriginal health; the disconnected, and in some cases, frustratingly inept, attitudes of their distant managing body, the CMS Aborigines Committee; and the questionable impact that they were having on their charges who were still emerging from the bush for the first time. Their praxis would evolve over time, particularly towards a focus on language translation and communication of the Gospel in the heart language of local people. The dissertation will also detail the profound human cost of inadequate training, support, and resourcing, as well as revealing the multi-generational trauma that the Harris’s children and grandchildren experienced.

Another core aim of the dissertation is to uncover, as far as is historically possible, the actual lived experience of Dick and Nell Harris as discovered in their private journals and correspondence. These primary documents will expose their developing worldview towards the indigenous people in their care, and will shed light on the relational, physical, and spiritual reality of their shared lives on mission in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.

These unpublished documents also show their missionary praxis developing throughout their years of service between 1929 and 1965. Dick and Nell Harris’s mission praxis seems to have been a work in progress. Throughout their theological training and right through to the end of their tenure, the Harrises continually debated with CMS and their peers, and wrestled with the outworking of their theology. Nevertheless, with the help of “the great artificer who is my mate”, his wife Ellen (Nell), Dick will be seen to have grown and developed in his own spiritual convictions in areas such as prayer, healing, hermeneutics, and self-discipline.

Regarding the Aboriginal management issues he faced, he became known as the “hard man” yet a fair man as he navigated the extremely complex problems posed by missionary work. Oenpelli station became a headquarters, but for different periods of his 30 years of tenure, he was called to move between all of the regions of Arnhem Land where CMS worked. He constantly faced cultural decisions in relation to traditional marriage, the rights of Aboriginal women, and effective punishment and disciplinary measures, all blended with the unfolding conviction he had of protecting and partnering with them around issues such as land rights throughout his working life. Because of the long-term service to the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land, Dick Harris was awarded the recognition of an M.B.E.. He made one of the Darwin Council’s “200 Remarkable Territorians”. The percentage of women recognised by the Council is not known. The Aborigines Committee notes members suggesting some kind of recommendation to the honours list for Dick Harris, but the glaring lack of respect for the work of the missionary women is evident today, although it seemingly was not the norm in the 1960s cultural and Christian mentalities. Stephen Harris, Dick and Nell’s son, would later see the lack of recognition of Nell Harris’s part in the mission work as a severe imbalance. And it was because of this that he and his wife, Joy Harris, encouraged Nell to write down or audibly record her stories on cassette tapes. As editors of a memoir of Nell’s life, The Field Has Its Flowers, they prefaced the work with the motivation to record the stories:

We often walked in the Darwin Esplanade park where memorial tiles honouring the contribution of “200 Remarkable Territorians” had been laid in the lawn in a 1988 bicentennial project. Looking at those tiles made up our mind, because Dad was recorded as “Dick Harris, missionary,” yet the Shepherdsons who were the Uniting Church’s equivalent to Mum and Dad were recorded as “Harold and Ella Shepherdson, missionaries”. Dad received several honours in his life, including an MBE in 1966, a book about his life by Keith Cole, and being made a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral in Darwin – and Mum nothing. Not that it bothered her. She never even noticed the imbalance in recognition between herself and her husband.[1]

The records were added to handwritten stories and memories that Nell’s grandson, Daniel Harris, asked her to write down. These were then published in 1998. Although Nell Harris’s autobiography/memoir is significantly limited by its compilation during the 1990s, following the passage of time, compared to the immediacy of Dick Harris’s handwritten personal daily journals, Nell’s recollections are validated by her children and many of her peers from her missionary era. It was common during the Harris era of mission to not hear from women in religious spheres, but the lack of original correspondence or documentation remaining is reflected in Nell’s own personality of “no fuss” humility, rarely drawing attention to her achievements. The title of the autobiography, The Field Has Its Flowers, is taken from the name of one of William Henry Margetson’s paintings. Of the belongings that Nell took to Oenpelli, only two articles of decoration were in her possession when she moved to join Dick on the mission in 1933 – two Margetson print copies. Recalling her arrival with the prints, Dick bluntly comments on Nell’s possessions: “‘We don’t need any pictures, just look outside.’”[2]

With the assistance of the CMS archivist in the Mitchell Library, I have access to the complete record of letters that Dick Harris sent to the Aborigines Committee, as well as those to which they responded. These fill in the gaps that are found in the Harris archive. They also provide more information that was written by female missionaries, including Nell Harris, where their observations can be examined in Newsletters such as The Open Door. Chapter 1 examines the opposition from Government bodies as well as internal CMS dissension. I have been corresponding with various mission contemporaries and retired missionaries to reflect on first-hand accounts of Dick and Nell’s personalities and method of mission. In most cases, Harris’s peers share his unswerving conviction in the efficacy of the Gospel, and how he and his wife, Nell, tried to work out the appropriate methods to challenge the behaviour of the “natives” by holding it up to the Bible. I have attempted to extract first-hand accounts of Aboriginal culture and ceremonial life, that Dick and Nell faced. After reviewing more recent academic theses and existing publications, I find that many of the situations Dick and Nell record are missing. These gaps are important to address because multiple examples of recent historical journal articles and publications appear to be revising or redirecting missionary history. Of note is the material collated by Andrew Markus in Governing Savages where he states,

The missionaries who remained in this environment dedicated their lives to bringing the Gospel to the heathen, to bringing Truth to those living in darkness. This involved, in nearly all cases, an attempt to destroy the culture of the Aborigines. Chief Protector Cook noted the irony that “the process of social disruption, so loudly lamented and deplored by missionaries, where its effects are seen, is deliberately commenced by them in areas where otherwise the native organization might remain intact for generations.” Governments dealing with “full-blood” Aborigines (as distinct from those of mixed descent) outside of Darwin were generally willing to limit their interference with tribal custom. The pastoralists taught Aborigines to respect “private property”, which could involve a period of violent conflict. They also taught “work” requirements to their employees: new skills, routines, dependability, but there was no necessity for them to interfere with the upbringing of children or ceremonial life…

The missionary, in contrast, was committed to a radical transformation of the Aborigines’ lives, within one or two generations, before people could be claimed by the grave.[3]

By revealing the personalised stories from the Harrises raw diaries, I hope to counter such revisionist opinions and generalised condemnation of missionary activity. The statement that “nearly all” missionaries attempted to destroy the culture is false.

This dissertation is not a defence of Dick and Nell’s behaviour per se, but is intended as a contribution towards substantially filling out the story of a more complex, jarring but necessary engagement with Arnhem Land’s first peoples. Dick and Nell Harris recognised their severe limitations and the efforts of their sponsoring agencies to prepare them for the task. According to their friend and confidant, the Rev. Dr John Harris, Dick himself was surprised in later life to discover cultural nuances that he had been ignorant of. John Harris shared with me that Dick was surprised to learn late in his career that a lifelong Aboriginal friend and head stockman had been a traditional ceremony boss.[4]

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and submitted to the Indigenous descendants of the people of Arnhem Land for feedback and critique.

Episode 1

…and [the] words Mr Hey said to me burned themselves indelibly on my mind. ‘You will find two things necessary in Aboriginal work. One, you will have to exercise strong discipline, and two, you will have to encourage them to accept responsibility.’

But he did not explain how!

George Richmond ‘Dick’ Harris (1981) [1]

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George Richmond (Dick) Harris arrives at his new remote mission post in 1929 to be told that he is the new ‘flagellator’. His role was to discipline the Aboriginal people that came under the auspices of the Anglican mission service Protectorate, partly funded by the Australian Government. Dick punched, slapped, flogged… but found that Dick was also flogged and punched by the Aboriginals under his care. He negotiated with those in polygamous marriages to redistribute wives to single men; confiscated spears and boomerangs to control pay-back fighting, and segregated children in dormitories from the camp life of child brides. Dick and Nell resisted the pressure from the missions committee and national government and eventually resigned in opposition to the payments of tobacco to the indigenous people.

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I have sought to understand the motivations, benefits and failings of a system in which missionaries may have been both the product of and victims of their era. Investigating the primary documents in the crumbling cache has left me both horrified and inspired by my ancestors’ actions.

I am a history student. I aspire to be a writer of stories about Australia's history. Welcome to my 'Substack'.

My siblings and extended family have chosen to donate the documents to the Northern Territory Archive and, in the interests of truth-telling, have opened them to researchers and commercial use.

If you find this journey inspiring, know that any subscription fees will go towards supporting Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, as they work to recover their health and cultural wellbeing. I would encourage anyone reading these stories to consider becoming a Friend of Arnhem and supporting Hope For Health.

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