Western Districts Survivors

Framlingham and the Survival of the Western Victorian Nations: Wadawurrung, Gunditjmara, and Kirrae Wurrung, 1850–1900

MLA Educational Series — Indigenous History, Missions, and Continuity in Western Victoria

Established in 1861 near Warrnambool, Framlingham Aboriginal Station became one of the most significant sites of survival and adaptation for Indigenous peoples of Western Victoria. Intended by colonial authorities as a means to “protect and civilise” Aboriginal people displaced by frontier expansion, Framlingham instead became a centre of cultural endurance.

The Wadawurrung, Gunditjmara, and Kirrae Wurrung peoples — along with families from the Wotjobaluk and other nations — maintained their language, kinship, and spirituality under the constraints of mission life. This article explores Framlingham’s establishment, its daily life, the survival of families such as that of Purranmurnin Tullawurnin and Fanny, and its transformation from a colonial mission into a symbol of Aboriginal resilience and land rights.

Origins: From Dispossession to Mission Control

By the 1850s, much of Victoria’s Indigenous population had been displaced from traditional lands through pastoral expansion, massacre, and disease. The Wadawurrung of the Geelong and Ballarat regions, the Kirrae Wurrung from the Hopkins River, and the Gunditjmara from the volcanic plains around Portland and Lake Condah faced widespread dispossession (Clark, 1995; Critchett, 1990).

The government’s solution was the creation of “Aboriginal stations” — reserves run by church and state, where survivors would be settled, rationed, and educated. Framlingham was one of several such institutions, alongside Coranderrk (Healesville) and Lake Tyers (Gippsland).

In 1861, Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer, under the Board for the Protection of Aborigines, selected a site along the Hopkins River near Warrnambool. The fertile land once used by Gunditjmara and Kirrae Wurrung for eel trapping and agriculture became the foundation of Framlingham Aboriginal Station (Barwick, 1998; Broome, 2005).

Life on the Mission: Regulation and Routine

Life at Framlingham was governed by strict rules. The station superintendent — later figures such as John Goodall (1870s) — controlled food distribution, travel permits, and employment. Residents were expected to farm, attend church, and send children to mission schools.

Despite this control, the community resisted assimilation. Families continued to practise ceremony in private, maintain kinship ties across Country, and use fragments of language in daily conversation. Fishing, weaving, and bush medicine remained vital.

Goodall’s journals (1872–1875) provide a rare insight into mission life. He wrote of “women from the Barwon and the volcanic country to the north” — a clear reference to Wadawurrung survivors such as Purranmurnin Tullawurnin, who lived there in her later years. Goodall recorded her as “a woman of the old world, keeper of the river stories,” reflecting her status as Elder and storyteller (Goodall, Journals, 1873; Pritchard, 2012).

The mission’s daily life thus blended Christian routines with deep cultural persistence — a quiet form of resistance within the colonial system.

Interwoven Nations: Wadawurrung, Gunditjmara, and Kirrae Wurrung Kinship

Although Framlingham was established on Kirrae Wurrung and Gunditjmara Country, it became home to survivors from across Western Victoria. Government officials grouped distinct nations together, ignoring clan boundaries, yet kinship ties and shared experience of loss created new cultural alliances.

The Wadawurrung families who arrived — including descendants of Purranmurnin Tullawurnin — joined communities already shaped by Gunditjmara fishing and Kirrae Wurrung ceremony. Over time, these groups became intertwined through marriage, storytelling, and shared identity as survivors of colonisation (Pritchard, 2012; Broome, 2005).

A record from 1874 lists at least eight Wadawurrung individuals resident at Framlingham, including Fanny and her children, as well as families identified as “Barrabool and Barwon people.” Despite attempts to erase distinctions, people maintained memory of their own clan estates and language terms.

Through these interwoven communities, Framlingham became a microcosm of survival — a living mosaic of nations adapting together under oppressive conditions.

The Role of Women: Healers, Storytellers, and Survivors

Women were central to Framlingham’s continuity. Under conditions of surveillance and deprivation, they remained the transmitters of language, kinship, and ecological knowledge.

Figures such as Purranmurnin Tullawurnin, Fanny, and Mary Winter (Kirrae Wurrung) were described in journals and oral accounts as respected Elders who taught younger generations songs of the rivers and sky. These stories often merged spiritual knowledge with practical survival — teaching when to harvest murnong, gather reeds, or prepare eel traps.

Mission officials often misinterpreted these gatherings as “idle gossip,” but they were acts of cultural preservation. Even within the confines of the church, women’s knowledge ensured that sacred ties to biik (earth) and wurneet (water) endured (Clark, 1990; Pritchard, 2012).

Resistance and Defiance

Though framed as institutions of charity, missions were also instruments of control. Residents needed permission to leave, could be punished for disobedience, and were often underfed and overworked.

Yet defiance was constant. Men left to work on farms or shear sheep and smuggled earnings back to their families. Women conducted ceremonies in the bush at night. Letters from Framlingham residents to the Board for the Protection of Aborigines demanded fair treatment, echoing the activism that led to Coranderrk’s 1881 petition.

Goodall himself noted that despite attempts at religious conversion, “the old songs are still sung softly in the camps” — a testament to resilience even within colonial confinement (Goodall, 1873).

The Late Nineteenth Century: “Dying Race” Myth and Survival Reality

By the 1880s, newspapers and anthropologists described Framlingham as a “refuge for the last remnants” of Western Victoria’s Aboriginal people. These reports perpetuated the myth of extinction, cataloguing residents by “blood fractions” and treating them as anthropological curiosities.

In reality, Framlingham’s population was stable — around 60 to 100 residents — sustained by internal family networks. People moved between Framlingham, Lake Condah, Coranderrk, and Ballarat, visiting relatives and maintaining connections across Country.

Even as the government’s 1886 Half-Caste Act forced many off the missions, those expelled continued to gather on the fringes of towns, often returning unofficially to Framlingham for ceremony and funerals (Broome, 2005; Barwick, 1998).

In this way, the mission that colonial authorities expected to disappear instead became a hub of continuity — the spiritual heart of survival for multiple nations.

Framlingham into the Twentieth Century

By the early 1900s, Framlingham had changed from a controlled mission to a self-governed Aboriginal community. Families such as the Clarke, Saunders, Lovett, Egan, and Cooper families — many with mixed Gunditjmara, Kirrae Wurrung, and Wadawurrung ancestry — formed the foundation of the region’s enduring Aboriginal population.

These families produced some of Victoria’s most prominent cultural and political figures, including descendants who would later serve in World Wars, lead land rights movements, and contribute to the modern Treaty process. Framlingham thus became a living link between the dispossession of the 1830s and the cultural resurgence of the twenty-first century (Pritchard, 2012; Wadawurrung TOAC, 2022).

Legacy and Significance

Framlingham remains sacred ground — a symbol of both trauma and survival. For the Wadawurrung, it preserves the memory of ancestors like Purranmurnin Tullawurnin, who carried knowledge from the Barwon and Moorabool rivers into the mission era. For the Gunditjmara and Kirrae Wurrung, it represents resilience against attempts to erase their culture.

Today, the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust continues to manage the site, maintaining its spiritual and historical importance. Annual gatherings, language revival programs, and truth-telling projects reaffirm its role as a centre of renewal.

Rather than a relic of “the last remnants,” Framlingham stands as a testament to continuity — a living community born from the ashes of colonisation.

Conclusion

Between 1850 and 1900, Framlingham became a meeting place for the surviving families of Western Victoria — Wadawurrung, Gunditjmara, and Kirrae Wurrung. Under the control of mission authorities, people endured restriction, poverty, and surveillance, yet they preserved law, story, and kinship through determination and quiet resistance. Figures like Purranmurnin Tullawurnin, her daughter Fanny, and countless others remind us that Aboriginal survival was not passive — it was active, deliberate, and deeply rooted in connection to Country. Framlingham’s legacy continues to shape Victoria’s cultural identity today, standing as both a site of memory and a symbol of the strength of the First Peoples who refused to disappear.

References

Barwick, D. (1998). Rebellion at Coranderrk. Canberra: Aboriginal History Inc.
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clark, I. D. (1990). Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Clayton: Monash Publications in Geography.
Clark, I. D. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803–1859. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Critchett, J. (1990). A Distant Field of Murder: Western District Frontiers, 1834–1848. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Goodall, J. (1870–1875). Framlingham Mission Journals. Manuscript Collection, State Library of Victoria.
Pritchard, J. (2012). Untold Stories: Framlingham and Its People. Warrnambool: Jan Pritchard.
Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation (2022). Oral Histories and Cultural Narratives Project. Geelong.

Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter and Uncle Reg Abrahams (22 October 2025)

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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.