Joseph Croft

Joseph "Joe" Croft (c.1925 - 22 August 1996) was a Gurindji and Mudburra man who was a member of the Stolen Generations who spent his early childhood in government institutions and, in 1944, he became the first Aboriginal person to attend an Australian University.

Throughout his life he was an Aboriginal activist and advocated for Indigenous rights throughout his life. At this home Croft was able to stay with his mother until 1931, when he was approximately 6 years-old, and he was transferred, along with 27 other boys, to the Pine Creek Home in Pine Creek. Then, when the home closed in 1933, Croft was sent to The Bungalow in Alice Springs; another child who was also transferred was Alec Kruger.

While at The Bungalow Croft did well in his classes and received high marks in the 1939 qualifying certificate examinations and in 1940, with the support of Father Percy Smith and his teacher Wally Boehm, won a government scholarship to attend All Souls' School in Charters Towers. At All Souls' Croft was the first Aboriginal student and during his final year in 1943 he was school captain as well as being captain of the football, cricket and swimming teams. Croft was inspired to study engineering by childhood memories at Pine Creek watching the trains go by.

On 3 March 1945, at Townsville, Croft enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force and completed infantry training and was appointed lance corporal a month before the war ended. He was discharged on 30 September 1946 and returned to university in 1947 but left soon after without completing his degree. He then worked in various jobs, including cane cutting, until 1950. However, when his family again moved to the Northern Rivers region in 1968 and, when needing a copy of his birth certificate to apply for a loan, he wrote to Harry Giese, Director of Welfare in the Northern Territory, and found that his mother was alive and was working as a laundress at the Retta Dixon Home. Croft was also told that he had a number of siblings. After the finding out that his mother was alive, Croft was able to begin a correspondence with his her via Amelia Shankleton, a missionary at the home. A series of other roles in the public sector followed, including as the treasurer of the ACT Koories Club (later known as the Aboriginal Corporation for Sporting and Recreational Activities), which was chaired by his friend and fellow former Bungalow resident Charles Perkins. The Joseph and Lindsay Croft memorial scholarship at the Australian National University; this scholarship also honours his son Lindsay who was killed in a car accident on 3 August 1996.