Reconciliation in action | Heroes forgotten: The Lovett brothers' untold legacy

Five sons from one family.

Sons of James and Hannah Lovett.

Imagine five of your children on the other side of the world fighting for their country. The uncertainty — not knowing if they were alive, wounded, or the unthinkable, killed in action. Dreading the arrival of the letter with the words. “We regret to inform you…”

Miraculously, all five Lovett brothers returned safely.

Five soldiers who had served their country.

But there was a difference for these soldiers. They returned home to their family at the Lake Condah Mission.

These soldiers were proud Gunditjmara men – Aboriginal men.

They returned home only to find the Mission was being closed.

The Victorian Board for the Protection of Aborigines (BPA) wanted to sell the land to the Closer Settlement Board for the establishment of soldier settlement blocks and to move all residents to Lake Tyers on the other side of the state.

The Lovett men, who had served our country, returned home to find they no longer had a home. They were forced to move off the Mission, and the BPA ultimately leased the land for grazing.

None of the Lovetts received a soldier settlement block nor recognition of their service. Their names were not even included on the local war memorials.

Aboriginal soldiers, who had bravely fought alongside their fellow countrymen and who had hoped their service would lead to a change in government policies and community attitudes, came back home only to face the same prejudices and racism that existed before the war.

They were not considered citizens of the nation they were defending — despite their ancestors having been on this continent for more than 65,000 years — and faced ongoing erosion of land and rights. Their children continued to be taken from their families and communities.

Closer to home, the words on the war memorial in Mooroopna also tell a similar story of a lack of recognition.

“For many years, it has pained us to see the continued lack of recognition for our Elders who rose up to fight a war for a country in which they were not recognised as citizens. This inequality has been forever present in the omission from war memorials across the region.”

“Our Yorta Yorta ancestors contributed in any way they could to the war effort, and their recognition here now is well overdue, fitting, and appreciated. We know they will be gathered around standing guard — just as they always have.”

Unveiled in 2020, almost 102 years since the end of World War I, it is telling that it took so long for this acknowledgement of service to occur.

This struggle is also told in the work of the project, Serving Our Country: A History of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in Defence of Australia. Led by well-known Yawuru man Mick Dodson, the team investigated the contributions of First Nations people from the Boer War onwards — wars and other military involvements declared by the governments on behalf of the British Empire and, after 1901, the new nation of Australia.

Interviews across the nation recorded many stories of veterans, their families and descendants — living stories talking about the impacts of war and service. These form the narrative of the companion book Our Mob Served: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories of War and Defending Australia.

There are aspects of the stories that many veterans may identify with, such as missing family, loss, and pride in service to the country.

But there is one major difference: in this remembering, there is a collective honouring of those who defended their country and were not properly acknowledged — a telling to counter the silence and ignorance about an important part of our history.

A recognition that these stories need to be included to give a more formed story of our nation.

But there is another story about the defence of the Country — a story that we as a nation are still struggling with.

This is the story that goes back to the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet.

Now sometimes called the ‘Frontier Wars’, this period covers the battles, skirmishes, massacres and conflicts that spanned decades, decimated the numbers of First Nations peoples and were part of the violent genesis of our country.

John Lovett, a descendent of Herbert, Alfred, Edward, Leo and Fred — those five Lovett servicemen — explained in his interview in the book Our Mob Served:

“There is a history of the defence of this country, by us, the Indigenous people of this country… from… early white settlement right through to the First World War for my family, right through to Afghanistan a couple of years ago…”

It was a defence of the country.

The ground-breaking work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria is providing us with an opportunity to be brave, to step into this truth-telling space, and to consider how the long arc of the Frontier Wars conflict leads all the way to the present day.

It is a story that is starting to be told. A story that holds many uncomfortable truths, that has shaped how we think about ourselves as Australians and who we are as a nation today.

The question for us all now is: Are we mature enough to enter this space, to hear and acknowledge the truths of our past, as we have heard and acknowledged the defence service of First Nations men and women?

To find out more, visit your local library and borrow:

Our Mob Served: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories of war and defending Australia, Allison Cadzow and Mary Anne Jebb (editors), 2019 Aboriginal Studies Press.

Serving Our Country: Indigenous Australians, war, defence and citizenship, Joan Beaumont and Allison Cadzow (editors), NewSouth Publishing 2018