Vincent Warrior CopleyAM (born Vincent Gilbert Warrior; 24 December 1936 – 10 January 2022) was an Aboriginal Australian sportsman, activist, elder, and leader.
Early life
Vincent Gilbert Copley,[1] usually known as Vince, was born into poverty on a government mission, Point Pearce,[2] in South Australia on 24 December 1936.[1] He was primarily Ngadjuri, but also had Kaurna, Narungga, and Ngarrindjeri ancestry. Through his grandmother Maisie May Edwards (née Adams) Copley was descended from Kudnarto, a Kaurna woman who was the first Aboriginal woman to legally marry a white South Australian colonist on 27 January 1848, when she married Thomas Adams.[3] Copley's mother was Katie Edwards; her parents were Joe and Maisie May (née Adams). Maisie was a great-granddaughter of Kudnarto. Vincent was born the youngest of five surviving children: Winnie, Josie, Colin (who died as a teenager), and Maureen. "Papa Joe" was a Narungga man, a grandson of King Tommy, an important man who negotiated with settlers on the Yorke Peninsula.[4]
Copley's father was Frederick Warrior, the surname an anglicised form of his father's name, Barney Waria[3] (1873-1948).[5] Barney Waria was one of a few last initiated Ngadjuri men, and his stories were documented by anthropologist Ronald Berndt[6] and his wife Catherine Berndt.[3]
Several members of his family died prematurely, including his elder brother, Colin. Vince himself nearly died aged 15 of appendicitis, after hospitals in Ardrossan and Maitland refused to admit him. Fortunately, the hospital at Wallaroo did admit him and saved his life.[3]
Copley spent some years living and working in country towns, which were known for their racism. He worked as a sheep shearer in Curramulka on the Yorke Peninsula, and was recruited to play Aussie rules football with the local team, which he took to the premiership in 1957, 1958 and 1959. There, he stayed with the Thomas family, who included his future wife Brenda.[3] He was also a keen cricketer in his youth.[6]
In 1965 he joined Charlie Perkins and other Aboriginal activists, along with white students from New South Wales, on the Freedom Ride, to draw attention to segregationist policies and poor living conditions of Aboriginal people in the state.[6]
Around 1973, Copley was appointed as a project officer with the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs and assigned the task of creating an electoral roll of Aboriginal people, a job which required a lot of travel around the country.[1]
His friendship with Perkins led to a lot of work in Aboriginal activism and organisations from the 1970s through to the 1990s, when he would be asked by Perkins to stand in for him when he was unable to get to an event.
These organisations included:[3]
He worked with John Moriarty on NAIDOC, and was the first national secretary of the organisation.[1]
From 1982 until 1993 he worked at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (commonly known as ATSIC) as sports officer. In this role, he ran a series of competitions and carnivals at which new talent could be identified, and established an annual awards sports night for Aboriginal athletes, which ran for around a decade.[1]
In later life, Copley focused on reclaiming and protection Aboriginal cultural heritage, and was involved in several native title claims for the Kaurna and Narungga people.[2] He also worked with the World Archaeological Congress, promoting Indigenous rights across the world. He took on the role of Indigenous host of the WACs symposium on Indigenous Cultural Heritage held in Burra, South Australia in 2006.[1]
From 2002 until 2012, he was chair of the Ngadjuri Alspa Juri Lands and Heritage Association, and from 2012, chair of the Ngadjuri Elders Heritage and Landcare Council.[2]
After meeting in Burra, South Australia in 1998, Copley set up a research partnership with Claire Smith, and Gary Jackson of Flinders University continued for the rest of his life and beyond. In the early 2000s, working with his nephew Vincent Branson, he worked with Flinders to create Ngadjuri Heritage Project. This project identified more than 600 Ngadjuri sites, recorded oral histories, and did much research.[1] From 2018[2] he held a teaching role at Flinders University on projects relating to Ngadjuri heritage.[6]
His memoir, The Wonder of Little Things, published posthumously in December 2022, was created from Copley's hundreds of recollections, told orally as stories by Lea McInerney. Copley was able to review the complete manuscript and answer the publisher's questions on the final revision before his death. The book includes photographs as well as suggested reading, and a timeline of important events in Australian and Indigenous history.[3][8]
Josie Agius (1934–2016), one of South Australia's first Aboriginal health workers.[19][20] She was honoured with the 2014 NAIDOC Award "for improving the lives and welfare of Aboriginal peoples in South Australia" and by the 2017 renaming of Park 22 in the Adelaide Park Lands by the City of Adelaide to Josie Agius Park/Wikaparntu Wirra (Park 22).[21][22][23]
Death and legacy
Copley died on 10 January 2022 at his home in Goolwa. John Moriarty paid tribute to his friend.[6]
Copley's death preceded the end of the 30-year embargo on the work of Ronald and Catherine Berndt, so he was never able to see the stories told by his grandfather Barney Waria to them.[6][3]
Over the course of his life, Copley helped to reform South Australian race and marriage laws; to create the South Australian Lands Trust laws; and to get the Aboriginal Welfare Board legislation repealed in the state.[2] He helped to bring about the first Aboriginal education and training centre at the University of Adelaide, which later moved to UniSA.[1]
The Vince Copley Medal is an annual award recognising the "most outstanding cricketer" at the Lord's Taverners's Statewide Indigenous Carnival.[6][2]
^Copley, Vince; McInerney, Lea (2022). The Wonder of Little Things. Harper Collins. p. 8,10,12. ISBN978-1-4607-1483-6. And then there were cousins older than me who I called Aunty too, like Aunty Gladys.
