Telling the forgotten story of Bourke’s tin camps

Maureen ‘Noddy’ Bates-McKay at the site of the old railway camp with Gertie Darrigo who grew up on the Sandhill Camp at North Bourke and Henry Morris  began life at the Railway Camp. Photo Ian Cole TWH

Story: Tricia Duffield

Bourke has a rich and colourful history, but there is a chapter missing from the history books – the story of the Aboriginal tin camps, now long gone, that were located on the outskirts of town.

The first recognition of that lost chapter came during last year’s NAIDOC Week, with a moving celebration and plaque unveiling at the Pound Yard tin camp on Anson Street.

However, there were many other tin camps dotted around the townsite, where some of Bourke’s most well-known families lived, raised their children, worked hard and endured extreme conditions. Today, there is almost no trace of those sites.   

Now, local Aboriginal identity Maureen ‘Noddy’ Bates-McKay wants to tell the full story of the tin camps. Maureen says the humble shacks of the Aboriginal camps deserve recognition.

“Last year during NAIDOC Week, we had the unveiling of the Pound Yard Pen, a place where a number of Bourke families grew up,” she said.   

“From that event, people began to ask, ‘what about the other camps, the fringe tin camps?’ They deserve recognition as well.

“There was a camp across the railway line near the Percy Hobson water tower - the railway camp, where Aboriginal families and bachelors lived.  There was also a  camp at the sand-hills behind the cricket oval at North Bourke, and another camp on the billabong at Horsfalls Billabong, running up to the Catholic church, where families like the Dixons, the Knights and the Lackeys lived. […]

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