5 MINUTE HISTORY

Wongutha CAPS

BY KARLI FLORISSON

Wongutha CAPS is a boarding school for Aboriginal students, located on a farm near Esperance. Wongutha has been a longstanding part of the Esperance community and has been providing vocational education for young Indigenous people from all over the state for over sixty-five years.

In 1921, a missionary called Rodolphe Schenk came to the Goldfields of WA from Victoria. Schenk and his wife Mysie established the Mount Margaret Mission near Laverton, 350 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie. Schenk became unpopular with the local station owners because of his policy of paying wages (albeit very modest wages) to the Aboriginal people who came to work at the mission. From 1927 onwards, Mount Margaret Mission became home for some of the Aboriginal children who were removed from their parents under the government policies at the time, children who became part of the ‘Stolen Generation’.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WONGUTHA CAPS

Mount Margaret Mission differed from some of the other facilities in that the families of the children who were taken away were allowed to come and stay at the mission, and other families could bring their children freely to gain an education. The Mission did not have the same reputation for cruelty as the Moore River government settlement near Perth. Mount Margaret Mission also became a rationing station for the area, distributing the Government rations to the Aboriginal people who had lost access to their land as settlers moved in. The Mission had a strong emphasis on education and practical vocational training which has left a lasting legacy in the area.

In 1954, Rodolphe Schenk’s son Rod, an agriculture school graduate, decided to establish a training centre for young Aboriginal men from the Goldfields to gain vocational training. At the time, there was a high demand for farmworkers in the Esperance district, as farming land was being taken up at a fast rate. Twenty-year-old Rod purchased 1,000 acres of land near Gibson at the cost of three shillings an acre and, together with his friend John May, began to establish Wongutha Mission Training Farm.

The farm was named ‘Wongutha’ after the language group of the Aboriginal people of the Mount Margaret area where Rod grew up. Rod and John started clearing the land and built a ten by twelve foot shed to store their super and seed, and also to sleep in. In their first year, two young Aboriginal men joined them, learning the basics of farm work and finding employment in the district. In their second year, four young men came to Wongutha. The establishment of Wongutha coincided with a period of rapid growth; at the start of the 1950s, the population of Esperance was only 700 people. By 1962, with hundreds of new farms added in the district, the population of Esperance had increased to over 4,000.

Rod and John, along with their wives Ruth and Pat, continued to clear the land and establish buildings; a boy’s dormitory, kitchen and dining room, staff quarters, and a shearing shed. Some of these original buildings are still in use at Wongutha today. Wongutha was supported by Esperance locals, including Rod’s father Rodolphe Schenk, who had retired from Mount Margaret by that time. John and Pat May remember the training farm quickly developed a good reputation in Esperance. The young men easily found jobs and were well thought of, hard workers. The Wongutha hockey and football teams also became a big part of the town’s sporting scene. A board of local people was established to manage the oversight of Wongutha.

In 1981, a group of Aboriginal parents from the Goldfields, who were educated at Mount Margaret, became concerned about the disconnection of their children with the education system. They established a school called CAPS, which stands for Christian Aboriginal Parent-directed School, in Coolgardie. As a nonGovernment school established in the historic St Anthony’s Convent building, CAPS Coolgardie has been run by a board of Aboriginal people since that time. Although established primarily for Aboriginal students, non-Aboriginal students are not excluded from enrolling. The school has provided quality primary and secondary education for 38 years, to students from the Goldfields and from other areas of the state who come to stay in the CAPS boarding residence. In 1987, the CAPS board established a primary school at Kurrawang community, between Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.

In 1990 the board of Wongutha invited CAPS to take over their training school. The CAPS board recognised the need for vocational training options for their students, so they took up the opportunity. Wongutha CAPS began catering for 12 male students. By 1993 the school had become co-ed. A hostel for girls was added, initially in the old Pedlar’s Hostel on Daphne Street in Esperance. For 20 years, under Principal Steve Florisson, the school grew rapidly. Wongutha now employs over 30 staff, under the leadership team of Principal Shane Meyer, Ngadju elder and Board Member Harry Graham (who has worked at Wongutha for 28 years) and Deputy Principal Brendan Franzone. Wongutha now accommodates 72 students in their two purposebuilt boarding residences and a separate self-contained trainee residence. Students come from all over the state, particularly the Kimberly region, and Wongutha graduates are employed in a range of fields across WA. Vocational courses in a range of certificates are offered, such as automotive, business, conservation and land management, construction, horticulture, hospitality, engineering and agri-food operations, alongside regular curriculum subjects. The farm at Wongutha continues to raise sheep, cattle and crops and provides on-farm traineeships for post-secondary students.

Mount Margaret Mission was handed over to the Aboriginal Movement for Outback Survival in 1976, an organisation run by past and present residents of the community. John May, one of the original founders of Wongutha, who worked there for 30 years, still lives in Esperance with his wife Pat.

To find more articles on the history of Esperance, please head to our website, esperancetide.com.