Church of St James Lockhart Old Site

Revisiting the ruins of the Church of St James, Lockhart River Mission, Old Site, with dad and brother John. Dad and the Lockhart community, including children, built this church in only 6 weeks. Think about it! It was the catalyst for bringing everyone together. Sadly, cyclones torn down the remaining structure, and the community had no choice but to bulldoze the rest.

In the fifty-year period prior to the establishment of the Anglican Mission in 1924, Lockhart River people were in contact with Torres Strait Islander people, along with Japanese, Chinese, Papuans and Europeans. Many of the Lockhart River men participated in the harvesting of bêche-de-mer, trochus shell and pearl shell, and on land they worked in the sandalwood industry. Labour exploitation was common during this era.
The Anglican Mission's first site was at the 'Waterhole' in Lloyd Bay, some 40 kilometres south of Lockhart River community's present site. This original mission location is referred to by community people today as 'Old Site'. The mission was disbanded during the Second World War.
During the 1950s, the Lockhart River Anglican Mission cooperated with the trade union movement to counter the exploitation of the Indigenous people (see Kylie Tennant's Speak You So Gently of 1959 and John Warby's You-Me Mates Eh! of 1999). Lockhart River is proud of its history of enterprising innovation, as Johnson Chippendale, Mayor of the Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Council, advises in the Lockhart River Community Plan 2004--2008. He writes in that publication:
In 1954, our ancestors at 'Old Site' were the first in Australia to create an Aboriginal Cooperative for trochus shell, pearl shell and bêche-de-mer which created self-employment for the men of the community. Now, many years on, we are again following in their footsteps by creating a fishing company -- Puchiwu Fishing Company Pty Ltd -- to offer self-employment for the people of Lockhart River and enable them to have real jobs and develop more skills.
In 1967, the Anglican Mission handed over governance of the community to the Queensland Government and a decision was made to transfer the community in 1971 to its new location near Quintel Beach, which became known as 'New Site'. Attempts by the government to relocate the entire population of Lockhart River to Bamaga on the northern tip of the Cape met strong resistance from the community. http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/docs/OurWayEducationKit.pdf

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