Cosmo Newbery - WA

Cosmo Newberry has a very rich history. It first became a settled community in 1920. It has been a pastoral station, a penal colony, and an Aboriginal Mission during which time it was also a ration depot for the government under the ‘protectionist’ policy of the 1905 Aborigines Act. Today, it is a community that is operated and managed by local Aboriginal people. It is located 450 km from Kalgoorlie and 97 km north east of Laverton. It had been abandoned for a short period. All the services were taken out of the community including the school, which closed in 1986. Aboriginal families started returning to Cosmo Newberry in the early 1990s and services began operation. March 1993 saw the school reopened and in 1994 the first substantive Principal appointed to the school and remained for 5 years was an Aboriginal. Verna Vos is a local raised in the goldfields. She is a Tjupan woman born in Leonora and can lay claim to being the first Aboriginal female school Principal.