Valentine Bynoe McGinness

Valentine Bynoe McGinness usually known as Val McGinness (14 February 1910 – 1 November 1988) was an Aboriginal rights activist in Australia. He was a Larrakia and Kungarakany man.

Life in the Northern Territory

McGinness was the son of Stephen Joseph McGinness, a miner and prospector, and his wife Alyandabu, who was also known as Lucy McGinness. His mother was a Kungarakany woman and, as such, he was officially designated a 'half-caste' when he was born, the fourth of five children.

McGuinness spent the first eight years of his life at his family's mine, called Lucy Mine (after his mother), nearby to Batchelor, until the death of his father in 1918. The Kungarakany name for the area of the mine is Mugudiber. Following his father's death he and his brother, Joe McGinness, became wards of the 'chief protector of Aborigines', because their mother was an Aboriginal woman, and were taken to the Kahlin Compound in Darwin. Wanting to be close to her children Alyandabu went with them and got a job there working as a cook, however, she was able to have only limited contact with them. McGinness remembered his time there unfavourably and recalled grim living conditions, substandard food and a poor standard of education stating that he never had any tuition. He remembered the following of his teacher:

McGinness and Joe escaped from the home in 1923, when he was 13, and the authorities chose not to interfere and McGinness and his brother stayed with their sister Margaret and her husband Harry Edwards who lived in Darwin. He became an apprentice to Harry and qualified as a blacksmith and wheelwright in 1927.

On 20 December 1930 McGinness married Isabella Hume, who was from Borroloola, but the marriage was a short one and they later divorced.

McGinness and Herbert began working together regularly and McGinness assisted Herbert when he was the relieving superintendent of the Kahlin Compound for 8 moths in 1935 - 1936 and they worked together to try to improve conditions there. They also undertook mining ventures together and McGinness took Herbert to visit the Lucy Mine and they travelled there together by bicycle.

In 1938, following the ending of the League, McGinness moved the Cairns where he worked primarily as a mechanic although he also took work on the goldfields, on pearling boats and for the Queensland Irrigation and Water Supply Commission. and on 27 March 1967 he married Jaina Thompson.

He died 1 November 1988 in Atherton, Queensland.

Resources about McGinness recorded four oral history interviews with Library & Archives NT in 1979, 1982, 1983 and 1987.

An oral history, recorded by the National Library of Australia in 1982, is also available online via Trove.