Lake Tyers Mission
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Lake Tyers Mission Victoria |
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 Lake Tyers Mission
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| Coordinates | 37°50′22″S 148°05′57″E / 37.839363°S 148.099066°ECoordinates: 37°50′22″S 148°05′57″E / 37.839363°S 148.099066°E | ||||||||
| Postcode(s) | 3909 | ||||||||
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| LGA(s) | Shire of East Gippsland | ||||||||
| State electorate(s) | Gippsland East | ||||||||
| Federal Division(s) | Gippsland | ||||||||
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Lake Tyers Mission also known as ‘Bung Yarnda’ was an Aboriginal mission established in 1863 on the shore of Lake Tyers in Victoria‘s Gippsland region as a centralised place for Aboriginal people from around Victoria.
The Lake Tyers Mission Station was established by the Church of England missionary Reverend John Bulmer in 1863 following decades of conflict between the Gunaikurnai (Ganai) people and white settlers in Gippsland. Bulmer had previously sought to establish a mission south of Buchan in 1861, but moved south to the coast with the few Aboriginal survivors of the conflict. The chosen site was on a peninsula, with a lake on each side, known to traditional owners as Bung Yarnda. In the early twentieth century, Aboriginal people from a number of other Victorian missions, were relocated to Lake Tyers including Ramahyuck, Condah and Coranderrk, were moved to Lake Tyers. The Ramahyuck Mission (established in 1863 by Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer on the Avon River near Lake Wellington) was closed in 1908 and the Ganai survivors from west and central Gippsland were moved to Lake Tyers. The Ebenezer Mission was closed in 1904 due to low numbers and in the following twenty years many Wergaia people from north-western Victoria were forcibly moved to Lake Tyers. Lake Tyers was taken over by the Victorian Government in 1908.
In 1916 the Government of Victoria decided to concentrate Aboriginal people from across Victoria at Lake Tyers, with the Aboriginal Protection Board establishing a policy in 1917 to concentrate all 'full-blood' and 'half-caste' Aboriginal people on the Lake Tyers Station. In 1957 the Board for the Protection of Aborigines was abolished, and in the 1960s the Victorian Government decided to try to close the settlement, and assimilate residents into the generally community. Some were moved to distant parts of the state, but not necessarily their traditional lands.
Protests in the 1950s and 60s for an independent, Aboriginal run farming cooperative at Lake Tyers received support and assistance from the Aborigines Advancement League in Melbourne. Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls campaigned on their behalf, but when the Board moved to close Lake Tyers, Nichols resigned his position in protest. In 1965, however, the mission was declared a Permanent Reserve.
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Wikipedia