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| A Corroboree near Broome, WA, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 31 March 1927 |
1600s
The first recorded European contact on the west coast of Australia was in 1616, when Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog landed after been blown off course while en route to Batavia, current day Jakarta. He left behind a pewter plate, now known as the Hartog plate, on which he scratched a
record of his visit to Australia. (Original of Dirk Hartog's plate in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
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| Original of Dirk Hartog's plate in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?curid=1590801 |
In 1828, Gerrit Frederikszoon de Witt recorded the general outline of the
coastal region of Dampier, when strong head winds drove the ship
Vianen so far south that she ran aground in the vicinity of Barrow Island on the northwest coast of Australia.
Abel Janszoon Tasman sailed along the western portion of present-day Australia’s northern coastline in 1844.
In 1688, William Dampier, an explorer and pirate, was the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today's Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He was the first European explorer to document the Dampier Peninsula. His observations included detailed notes on the landscape, flora, fauna, and the Aboriginal peoples he encountered. Read, Voyages and descriptions by, Dampier, William, 1651-1715 author
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| William Dampier. Portrait by Thomas Murray, c. 1697–1698 |
1800s
The French expedition of discovery, 1801-1803, led by Captain Nicholas Baudin, explored large parts of Australia's western and southern coasts. The French made many notes about Aboriginal people and the flora and fauna.
A confidential report from one of the explorers on the Nicholas Baudin expedition shows the French considered destroying the British colony, but Peron ( chief zoologist) instead recommended keeping it because they could use it. Read here
Phillip Parker King (1818) surveyed as far as Van Diemen Gulf (between the Northern Territory and Timor) and had many meetings with Aboriginal Australians and proas sailed by Makassans.
The overland expedition of Edward John Eyre in 1841 removed all doubt of any creeks or outlets from an inland sea existing between Port Lincoln and King George's Sound.
Between 1863 and 1865, the port of Cossack and the town of Roebourne were founded.
The British were largely immune to diseases like chicken pox and small pox, as such diseases had decimated large parts of the world for thousands of years. Theses diseases which came from living in close proximity to farm animals, came along with the British, but were lethal to Aboriginal people who had been isolated from the rest of the world and did not farm animals.
1870s
In 1879 Alexander Forrest led an expedition of eight men from Roeburne, up the coast to Beagle Bay, then inland into the area now known as the Kimberleys. His Journal of an Expedition from De Gray to Port Darwin was published in 1880.
1890s
The Beagle Bay community was established by Trappist monks around 1890.
The first Catholic school was established by the Trappist Fathers at Beagle Bay in 1892.
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| Aboriginal people from Beagle Bay, WA, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Friday 24 September 1897 |
1900s
In 1901, Pallottine fathers from Germany took over the Beagle Bay Mission with two priests and four brothers.
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| Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1929), Thursday 1 August 1901 |
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| W.A. Record (Perth, WA : 1888 - 1922), Saturday 13 April 1901 |
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| Beagle Bay Mission, WA, W.A. Record (Perth, WA : 1888 - 1922), Saturday 23 December 1905 |
In 1907, the St John of God Sisters began to run a mission school at Beagle Bay.
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| Beagle Bay priests, WA, W.A. Record (Perth, WA : 1888 - 1922), Saturday 23 December 1905 |
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| (Nyulnyul people) Die Niol-Niol, ein Eingeborenenstamm in Nordwest-Australien (a German journal focused on the study of human societies, culture, and language, 1908 |
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| Native Camp at Beagle Bay, Western Australia - very early 1900s. Daisy May Bates, CBE (born Margaret Dwyer; 16 October 1859 – 18 April 1951) was an Irish-Australian journalist, welfare worker and self-taught anthropologist who conducted fieldwork amongst several Indigenous nations in western and southern Australia. Bates was a lifelong student of Australian Aboriginal culture and society and was the first anthropologist to carry out a detailed study of Australian Aboriginal culture. Kaye |
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| Schoolhouse & church, Beagle Bay, WA, Minutes and votes and proceedings of the Parliament ... with papers presented to both Houses.1910-11 |
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| Beagle Bay, WA, 1. Group of Mission Girls. 2. Mission Boys and Employees. Minutes and votes and proceedings of the Parliament ... with papers presented to both Houses.1910-11 |
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| Beagle Bay Mission Station, WA, W.A. Record (Perth, WA : 1888 - 1922), Saturday 4 May 1912 |
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| W.A. Record (Perth, WA : 1888 - 1922), Saturday 25 May 1912 |
In 1916 Sr Bridget Green identified signs of Hansen's Disease in Aboriginal people at Beagle Bay Mission. The leprosy patients were cared for at Beagle Bay until the Derby Leprosarium opened. (Leprosy is a rare mycobacterial infection that affects the skin, nerves and respiratory tract)
In 1917 the church opened.
The Native Tribes of Western Australia, was written by Daisy Bates, who lived for extended periods with Aboriginal people, during a period of service with the Western Australian Government from 1904 to 1912.
Daisy Bates spent some time at Beagle Bay which she wrote about: 'At Beagle Bay, the Spanish priests and monks had performed almost incredible labours in their ten years’ isolation, but there was little to show for it. Willie-willies and fires and tropic conditions had taken constant toll. When houses and crops and gardens were burnt, they had to start all over again. When their horses were lost, or died from eating poisonous weed, they harnessed themselves to the carts and logs, yet the conditions of the Mission seemed hopeless. The bark huts were dilapidated, the gardens smothered in growth of saplings and suckers, and some of the wells had fallen in.' (4.)
1920s
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| Beagle Bay Mission, WA, Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 15 November 1923 |
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| Aboriginal children at Beagle Bay, WA, Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 4 December 1924 |
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| Sisters of St. John of God and some of their pupils, Beagle Bay, W.A.Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 14 February 1924 |
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| At Beagle Bay, WA, Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 26 February 1925 |
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| "Joe,'" the pet emu of the girls on the Aboriginal Mission Station, expects them to share their food with him.Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 12 February 1925 |
SMITTEN BY THE RECENT CYCLONE AT BROOME : THE SCHOONER MINA LYING A TOTAL WRECK IN BEAGLE BAY. THE BOAT HAS A GROSS TONNAGE OF 84, AND IS OWNED BY MESSES. ROBISON AND NORMAN, OF BROOME. THE MINA BROKE TWO ANCHORS AT 8 30 A.M ON JANUARY 22 AND WAS BEACHED UPON A SANDY PATCH. THE WIND CHANGED, BLOWING THE BOAT OHT SHORE. WITH TREMENDOUS SEAS SMASHING AGAINST HER, THE MINA WAS DRIVEN UPON THE ROCKS WHERESHE LIES IN THIS PHOTOGRAPHWestern Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 18 February 1926
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| Felix and Madatine, the oldest residents of Beagle Bay, WA, Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1955), Sunday 16 May 1926 (sometimes the words 'King' or 'Queen' were used but Aboriginal people did not use these titles) |
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| Learning boxing at Beagle Bay, WA, Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1955), Sunday 23 May 1926 |
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| Madalim and relations at Beagle Bay, WA, Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1955), Sunday 23 May 1926 |
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| Aboriginal children at Beagle Bay, WA, Catholic Press (Sydney, NSW : 1895 - 1942), Thursday 26 May 1927 |
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| Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1955), Sunday 11 December 1927, |
The actual place where de Rougement; claimed to have ridden the turtles lies some 150 miles due east of Broome, West Australia, and Is known as Beagle Bay, and the riding of the turtle is not only possible, but is an almost daily event with , the Klmberley natives. A native will swim out to where a greenback turtle lies asleep on the water, and will grasp it and guide It ashore, holding its head up, so It cannot dive with the native on Its back. The strength of the turtle must be enormous, for often as many as two natives can be carried by the one turtle. The feast that follows is a happy recompense for the hunters' efforts, for the native aimply makes a fire, turns the luckless turtle on its back on the fire, and, using Its own shell as the receptable, literally stews it In Its own saucepan. They make a ludicrous sight, as many as four or five natives guiding their 'steeds shorewards, sometimes falling off, if they get too close to the flippers, for a turtle la so strong it can. easily break a man's leg with a blow from the front flipper. To those who have never had the good fortune to observe these things, It may be mentioned that the fish life that abounds on the north-west coast from Broome to the Gulf of Carpentaria Is the most weird and wonderful that could be. Imagined. There are fish that blow themselves up like a balloon; while others make a nest, and lay eggs even as a bird on land. There are fish in which the male acts as the mother, and carries the eggs round after the female has laid them. There is the fish that attaches Itself to the body of another fish, and is carried along as a veritable, "old man of the sea." Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Sunday 16 December 1928
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| Riding a turtle in the north-West, Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1955), Sunday 11 November 1923 |
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| Young boys from Beagle Bay, WA |
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| Some of the buildings of Beagle Bay, WA. Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 17 January 1929 |
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| Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 17 January 1929 |
1930s The Great Depression in Australia primarily occurred from 1929 to 1939, with unemployment peaking at around 32% in 1932.
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| Beagle Bay Church in the wilderness of North-Western Australia, built of coral cement. The BP magazine.Vol. 3 No. 2 (Mar. 1931) |
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| West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Wednesday 10 February 1932 |
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| A sister of the Beagle Bay Mission with children, WA, Catholic Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1932 - 1942), Thursday 30 August 1934 |
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| Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 25 April 1935 |
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| Notes at Beagler Bay, WA, of Daisy May Bates (1863-1951), welfare worker among Aboriginals and anthropologist, born on 16 October 1863 in Tipperary, Ireland.,Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 30 January 1936 |
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| Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1955), Wednesday 13 October 1937 |
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| Catholic Freeman's Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1932 - 1942), Thursday 1 December 1938 |
The Pallotine priest and linguist, Hermann Nekes, who worked with Ernst Alfred Worms (German missionary) in compiling dictionaries of Baardi and related languages. The Bardi divide their year up into six seasons whose time length varies.
1940s
In 1940, several missionaries at Beagle Bay Mission were arrested due to allegations of child welfare abuses and the treatment of Aboriginal children.
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| Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 20 June 1940, |
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| Beagle Bay, WA, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 25 July 1940, |
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| First Aboriginal women at Beagle Bay, WA, to becomes nuns, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Thursday 25 July 1940 |
Butter and milk was produced from about 800 goats during the war years.
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| The altar, Sacred Heart Church, Beagle Bay Mission, Western Australia, is decorated with pearl-shells.€” Walkabout.Vol. 7 No. 8 (1 June 1941) |
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| A vehicle on the miniature train that conveys passengers and goods from the ship to the town of Derby (nearly two miles distant), east of Beagle Bay. Walkabout.Vol. 7 No. 8 (1 June 1941) |
In February 1942, Aboriginal people of Broome were evacuated to the Beagle Bay mission.
On March 3, 1942, Broome was attacked by Japanese fighter planes, resulting in at least 88 deaths. The next
day twelve Japanese planes flew over Beagle Bay mission.
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| Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954), Wednesday 4 March 1942 |
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Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Wednesday 8 October 1947
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1950s
In 1957, a cyclone took the roofs off 20 homes on the mission and damaged five windmills.
Around Beagle Bay
The State Government has approved the transfer of approximately 2490ha of land on the Dampier Peninsula in the Kimberley to native title holders in 2026.
Things To See and Places To Go
Broome Visitor Centre
Sacred Heart Church is open to visitors, please check with the visitor centre for any closure advice before you travel. We remind visitors to be respectful around church service days and times, and respect any community closure advice.
Mass services are held in the Church on Sunday mornings from 9am to 10am and visitors are expected to be respectful during these hours and refrain from photography until service has concluded.
Donations can be made at the front entrance.More Information
