Kate Cocks: Pt V(b): The Stolen Generation

Kate Cocks: Pt V(b): The Stolen Generation

 “It was proposed that a small cottage home be established for young women whose moral weaknesses have led them into difficulties from which they are unable to extricate themselves without some competent spiritual and material assistance, and which may necessitate their remaining hidden from the public for a time, or a severance from undesirable environment and influences”.

(Kate Cocks quoted in Mission Story, Ivor Bailey May 1987 p.50.)

  Goings on at The Kate Cocks Memorial Home for Babies were shrouded in secrecy, out of sight, out of mind. The reasons were two-fold in the eyes of the board. Firstly they considered an unwed mother a shameful act, secondly, keeping an air of secrecy about what the service does, would hopefully prevent children adopted out, coming back to the home later in life, asking questions about their mothers.
The pregnant mothers themselves were forced to earn their keep scrubbing floors, and doing dishes and other chores around the complex until their babies were born.

 The outrage that followed the scandal of the Stolen Generation, The Forgotten Children and the Forced Adoption scandal was palpable, and repercussions from it, are still being felt today.
  Victims often felt coerced, and it was common practice to ignore the three-week adopting out policy, and get the paperwork signed before the young mother could change her mind.

The Uniting Church issued the following apology in 2011 for the part they played in the scandal after being exposed to a Government inquiry

Apology

 If mothers involved in the Kate Cocks Memorial Babies Home were coerced or forced to give their children up for adoption we unreservedly apologise to those affected. If children involved in the Kate Cocks Memorial Babies Home were forcibly removed from their parents, we unreservedly apologise to those affected.

Kate Cocks is much revered in some circles as South Australia’s first policewoman, as a social reformer, and as a strong and influential woman who changed lives. In other circles, she is seen as a single-minded, brash opportunist who at every turn tried to force her religious views on society, to some she is baby stealer and a wrecker of family stability.

 Whether you are for, against, or sit on the fence with your opinion of Kate Cocks and the life she led, one must remember that in the times that she lived, she forged ahead with what she believed and left her mark on the world, a single woman in a man’s world.

 Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2018

Bibliography

1917 '"AUBERT" OF SYDNEY', Daily Herald (Adelaide, SA: 1910 - 1924), 17 August, p. 3. , viewed 15 Aug 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article124862828

1917 'FORTUNE TELLERS', Daily Herald (Adelaide, SA: 1910 - 1924), 25 June, p. 3. , viewed 15 Aug 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article105413206

1929 'FORTUNE TELLING AT THE SHOW', Chronicle (Adelaide, SA: 1895 - 1954), 26 September, p. 51. , viewed 15 Aug 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90054332

1936 'Life Story Of Miss Kate Cocks', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA: 1931 - 1954), 6 October, p. 8. , viewed 07 Aug 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47749666

1936 'MINLATON', The Pioneer (Yorketown, SA: 1898 - 1954), 10 July, p. 1. , viewed 15 Aug 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199187964

1936 'The Record of a Pioneer Woman', The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA: 1931 - 1954), 13 October, p. 10. , viewed 07 Aug 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article74327050

Bailey, Ivor (1987). Mission story: the story of the Adelaide Central Mission. The Mission, [Adelaide}

Cole, Christine A & Kashin, Janice & New South Wales. Department of Community Services (2008). Releasing the past: mothers' stories of their stolen babies. Sasko Veljanov, Yagoona, N.S.W

Find & Connect, 2018, Methodist Home for Babies and Unmarried Mothers (1937 - 1954), Commonwealth of Australia, viewed 6 August 2018, https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/sa/SE01222

https://eagoodlife.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/bits-and-bobs/

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/what-was-life-like-for-sas-first-female-cops/news-story/b1e6f00debd310fa8f9561ae0c17f871

Kelton, S., (2015, April 27). What was life like for SA’s first female cops?, The Advertiser, retrieved from https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/what-was-life-like-for-sas-first-female-cops/news-story/b1e6f00debd310fa8f9561ae0c17f871

Kemp, M, (2011). Uniting Church admits to forced adoption, The Advertiser. Retrieved from https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/uniting-church-admits-to-forced-adoption/news-story/365457a0b160eed0e4d0a5d43186f6df

Marie Mune, 'Cocks, Fanny Kate (1875–1954)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cocks-fanny-kate-5705/text9645, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 15 August 2018.

S.A.’s Greats: The men and women of the North Terrace plaques, edited by John Healey (Adelaide: Historical Society of South Australia Inc., 2001

Uniting Church of South Australia & UnitingCare Wesley Adelaide Inc (2011), Joint Submission to the Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices 2011 Inquiry - Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.unitingcommunities.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Joint-Submission-to-the-Senate-Inquiry-on-Former-Forced-Adoption-Policies.pdf

Williamson, B., (2015, Dec 3), A controversial start: Celebrating 100 years of women in South Australian Police force, ABC Radio

 Adelaide. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-01/celebrating-100-years-of-women-in-the-south-australian-police/6989272:

Kate Cocks: Pt V(a): The Stolen Generation

Kate Cocks: Pt V(a): The Stolen Generation

 (As this is a long and contentious issue, this post will be spread out over a couple of weeks.)

In 1935, after serving 20 years in the South Australian Police Force, Kate Cocks retired from her position. Her main reason for leaving the police force was to care for her elderly dying mother.
 Cocks, during her career in the police force, had often given so much of herself helping others, that she became known as “the friend of the down and outs”.
 Often, she had allowed homeless girls to stay at her house at Parkside and later suggested the Methodist Women’s Association open a home for women and children to find shelter. That home was eventually opened, located at 46 Wattle Avenue, Brighton in Old Oxford House, a former training college for young Methodist men, then a nursing home for a short time.

The Methodist Women’s Home Mission Association invited Cocks to become a voluntary superintendent of the home. Cocks, even in retirement, worked tirelessly in the home, taking in unmarried girls and their newly born babies. Cocks relied on her strong religious faith, with her welfare efforts an extension of her unwavering religious zeal and enforcing her own personal motto; “prevention is better than reformation”.
 For Cocks, taking children away from a situation that could cause them harm, whether it be an abusive father, a poor family, or a mentally unstable parent, was better for a child in the long term over reformation.

  Additions to The Methodist Home for Babies and Unmarried Mothers included the Wyld Maternity Home, an enclosed playground, and an extension of the wards and rooms. Later, in 1967, The Kate Cocks Memorial Adoption Agency was added to the complex.
 After her death in 1954, the complex was renamed in Cocks honour as The Kate Cocks Memorial Babies Home until 1976 when the institution was closed. 

 The organisation continued as a daycare facility as part of the Central Methodists Mission, with the Adoption section of the organisation closing in 1978.

 The Kate Cocks Memorial Babies Home and many other church organisations have been accused of taking part in forced adoptions and being directly involved with the Aboriginal stolen generation.

 The following Women’s Welfare Department Annual Report from 1954 emphasis’s the organisation's view of unwed mothers, adopting out of their children, and the shame it brought to the mother and her family.
 According to the organisation;

 ‘Of the sins in this world a babe out of wedlock is not the worst, but the young mother carries the whole burden, often in the face of resentful intolerance. It is to help her through the difficult time and to make it possible for a new start and a second chance that the Methodist Home for Girls exists. Worked in conjunction with the Babies’ Home and with the facilities of the Wyld Maternity Home, the girls live normal lives under careful supervision; and the babes make their appearance with the help of qualified staff and doctors. It is not for these tiny people to bear the burden of their parents’ wrong-doing and whether they go home with the mother, stay on in the Babies’ Home, or are adopted into new families, their first few weeks are spend under their mothers’ care, and Matron’s supervision. Fifty girls have passed through the Home during the year.’

 Women’s Welfare Department Annual Report – Methodist Conference – 1954 PR 9/38

 According to an Advertiser article published in 2011, The Uniting Church of South Australia had previously denied the practise of forced adoptions but now accepted that it was “highly likely” (as quoted by Uniting Care Wesley chief executive, Simon Schrapel, 2011).

Schrapel was also stated in the article; “He said the decision to accept responsibility came after church leaders had read moving accounts to a current Senate inquiry into forced adoptions, which many victims said occurred at the Kate Cocks Memorial Babies Home at Brighton.”

 Next Week: Kate Cocks: Pt V(b): The Stolen Generation

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2018

Bibliography on final post.