Whatever might eventually prove to be the ultimate policy of the Federal Government in respect of the Myall Aboriginal, it was clearly necessary in 1934 to recognise that the best interests of both races demanded that the detribalised aboriginal already living permanently or semi-permanently in contact with white settlement must be educated without delay to living comfortably and habitually at a standard, legally and socially compatible with complete acceptance by the general Australian Community.
Meantime, intact tribes sheltered from alien disruption and protected from disease might be left in their tribal areas to adapt at leisure to the new social order, perhaps with the guidance of those of their number already familiar with and successfully integrated into it.
To this end it was recommended to the Minister that Kahlin Compound be replaced by an Aboriginal settlement near Darwin where detribalised aborigines could be housed in hygienic accommodation designed to advance the individual and the family from bush Wurley and scrap iron hut to a conventional type home conforming to the European standards prescribed by the Building Regulations of the Territory, each with its own kitchen, ablution and toilet facilities and a garden. The settlement would have its own isolation hospital and outpatients department and special clinics, antenatal and Infant Welfare – its own police force and a school for the education of aboriginal children in accordance with Education Department standards. Here it was hoped the aboriginal child, youth and adult without any conflict with tribal culture would learn to understand and accept the responsibilities of the individual living in a settled community and would learn quickly to conform in habit and behaviour to the hygienic principles and social obligations of orderly community life. Special attention was to be given by the Hospital and Clinic Staff to inculcating in both sexes and all ages, a confident trust in medical officers, medical assistants and nurses. For this purpose, the unity of the Medical Service with the Aboriginal Protection Staff was expected to be invaluable.
In this environment under close medical observation with a controlled and educative dietary and supervised hygiene, it was proposed to study the problems to be confronted and the techniques to be developed for use on missions, settlements and elsewhere in educating the detribalised individual and his family to comfortable and acceptable independent co-existence in the white community.
It was recognised that this would require basic education, but in addition it demanded inculcation of a sense of communal responsibility and the voluntary adoption of certain standards of behaviour and spontaneous compliance with community sanctions. This must include acceptable standards of personal and domestic hygiene, recognition of social obligations and the responsibility to report illness and comply with prophylactic ritual and maintenance therapy in the prevention of communicable disease.
It was hoped this training in social responsibilities and self-discipline could be extended to the individual himself accepting the obligation to induce conformity in his fellows.
It was fully realised that genetic factors in the individual and in the mas could defeat these purpose but the imperative need to prove the reality or otherwise of this possibility made the attempt obligatory.
Primarily the camp was designed as a residential village for Aboriginals working in Darwin and to replace the isolation hospital and services of Kahlin Compound, as accommodation for the sick, infirm or in transit. It would provide also for opportunity for ambulatory patients and other unemployed concentrated there to be trained in horticulture and other various activities likely to be useful to rural employees.
As a first step, in anticipation of transfer to a new reserve at Bagot, a special teacher was appointed to the Compound staff and a school for aboriginal children set up at Kahlin Compound in 1939. By the end of the year 42 aboriginal children were enrolled with a daily average attendance of 36.
Antenatal and infant welfare clinics in charge of triple certificated nurses were established at Bagot and also at Katherine. Attendance were encouraging at Bagot but proved to be irregular at Katherine but infants requiring correction of malnutrition could be removed from camps and placed under the control of nurses and trained attendants who prepared feeds and supervised feeding.
Co-operation of the aboriginal mothers with medical and nursing staff at Bagot proved, as expected, much more satisfactory than it had been at Kahlin Compound, and Infant Welfare Studies early demonstrated the value of the change.
The development of an Aboriginal Village of this sort presented opportunities to study the factors underlying depopulation. It was possible, for instance, to show that a major factor of depopulation was a high neonatal and infant death rate due to malnutrition. This could be readily corrected by arranging for the Infant Health staff to supervise or themselves to undertake the feeding of infants during and after the weaning period but it remained to solve the problem of infant feeding in the home. A special investigation must be undertaken to establish, if cow’s milk was to be the basic food, how it could be made safe in the tropics under camp conditions. This became a study of high priority but transfer of the care of the Aboriginals to a new department of Native Affairs in 1939 brought it to an end.
Although Clinic Accommodation available and in use at Bagot in 1938 the Institution as a whole was not completed for occupation and designed use when it was transferred from the Northern Territory Medical Service in April, 1939. Indeed, it was never put to its planned use – the new Native Affairs Officers had neither the knowledge nor the background experience to take advantage of its purpose nor the inspiration to exploit the opportunities it offered.
The Kahlin Compound site was vacated in 1938 to permit construction of a new Darwin Hospital but industrial disputes delayed building at Bagot and necessitated the use of temporary structures. The Institution had not been completed to planned designed when it was transferred from the Northern Territory Medical Service in 1939. Subsequent transfer of the Aboriginal Camp to Berrima to oblige the Army gave the project its coup de grace.