The Foundation

The principal aim of the Foundation is to ensure that no child from outback New South Wales is deprived of normal schooling through isolation or economic circumstances.

History

Dr Charles Huxtable, then serving with the Royal Flying Doctor Service at Broken Hill, initiated the establishment of the Bush Children’s Education Foundation in 1965.

He was shocked by the number of children who were not enrolled in any school and whose only contact with other children was through visits to a township and the occasional visits of the Bush Brothers from Brotherhood House in Dubbo. At that time there was no government financial assistance for these children, other than access to the Correspondence School, based at Darlington in Sydney.

Dr Huxtable, along with the Chief Justice of New South Wales, Sir Leslie Herron, the Right Honourable Ian Sinclair and Ian Hardy, prepared a Trust Deed for the Foundation, which was approved by the NSW Attorney General.

It provided funding for isolated children to board at the purpose-built Tibooburra Hostel. Subsequently other similar hostels were built in the far west of New South Wales. The Foundation appealed for individual and corporate donations so that bursaries could enable children to board at one of these hostels in order to attend school.

Ahead of public opinion at the time, the Foundation encouraged aboriginal families to apply for bursaries. They included the descendants of the Wadikali and Karengappa people, original tribal groups from the north west corner of New South Wales.

In the early years the occupations of the families covered the range of outback working life; from farmers, station hands, fencers and bore sinkers, to kangaroo shooters, prospectors and miners, and to bush nursing sisters, small business owners and itinerant circus people.

Over time many of these occupations have declined. Today the students assisted generally come from families associated directly or indirectly with farming and those who continue to work the circus and show circuit.