The Old Doomadgee Mission was run by the Open Brethren. The Mission was located at Dumaji at Bayley Point Aboriginal reserve, on Gangalidda land. It opened in 1933 and following a cyclone, relocated to a site on the Nicholson River in 1936.
The Old Doomadgee Mission is described as growing “rapidly with the arrival of 10 Aboriginal boys and 10 Aboriginal girls from the Burketown Mission in 1934. The boys were initially housed in tents, while the girls lived in a house…” While not officially recorded, it is also reported that children were removed from Turn Off Lagoons and brought to Old Doomadgee Mission.
Children on the Mission were placed in dormitories as shown by an early photograph of the ‘Boys’ house’ at Old Doomadgee, dated from the early 1930s.
By 1935 it had become clear that the site was unsuitable as a mission due to the lack of a reliable water supply and its remoteness. Following a cyclone in 1936 the Mission and the 50 children and 20 adults then living there, were moved to a new site on the Nicholson River.
From
1933
To
1936
Alternative Names
Bayley Point Reserve
1933 - 1936
The Old Doomadgee Mission was situated at Bayley Point, Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland (Building Demolished)
Subsequent