Joy Williams, born Eileen Williams and also known as Joyce Riley Williams, Joy Williams Wiradjuri, and Janaka Wiradjuri (13 September 1942 – 22 September 2006) was an
Aboriginal Australian
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the T ...
author of poetry and Indigenous rights activist.
Biography
Joy Williams was born Eileen Williams at the
Crown Street Women's Hospital
Crown Street Women's Hospital (now-closed) was once the largest maternity hospital in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was located at 351 Crown Street (corner of Crown and Albion Streets), Surry Hills.
The hospital was one of several ...
in Sydney on 3 September 1942. Shortly after her birth Joy was taken from her mother by the Aboriginal Welfare Board and sent to the
Bomaderry Aboriginal Children's Home. At the age of six she was sent to the Lutanda Children's Home run by the
Plymouth Brethren
The Plymouth Brethren or Assemblies of Brethren are a low church and non-conformist Christian movement whose history can be traced back to Dublin, Ireland, in the mid to late 1820s, where they originated from Anglicanism. The group emphasize ...
, first at
Wentworth Falls and later to
Pennant Hills
Pennant Hills is a suburb in the Northern Sydney region, or Upper North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Pennant Hills is located 18 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of H ...
, Sydney. Williams was sent to Lutanda, where she was the only
Indigenous resident, rather than the
Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls because of her fair skin.
Williams went to
Hornsby Girls' High School and then at the insistence of the Brethren was sent to the Nurses' Home at
Parramatta District Hospital at sixteen to become a nurses' aide. She was later sent to the North Ryde Psychiatric ward and while on weekend leave she became pregnant with her first child, a daughter. Being heavily sedated, Williams was forced to sign adoption papers.
In the 1970s Williams received her birth certificate and eventually met her mother. She enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts, English/History at
Wollongong University and was the Regional Representative of the Aboriginal Consultative Group. Williams was actively involved with the Aboriginal Community Centre and the
Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Her interest was in Black Literature and hoped that one day this would be taught at all levels throughout the education system. Williams was the first Aboriginal compensation test case against the NSW State Government for negligence by the
Aboriginal Welfare Board
Aboriginal Protection Board, also known as Aborigines Protection Board, Board for the Protection of Aborigines, Aborigines Welfare Board (and in later sources, incorrectly as Aboriginal Welfare Board), and similar names, refers to a number of hi ...
who were responsible for her removal from her mother and the abuse she endured from the Homes she was sent to. She lost her case in the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
in August 1999. In 2000 Joy went to the
New South Wales Court of Appeal; her case was heard by Chief Justice
Spigelman, Justice Shellar and Justice
Heydon and lost that also. On 22 June 2001 the
High Court rejected an application for further leave to appeal.
Williams died on 22 September 2006 in
Primbee, New South Wales.
Writing
* ''Blackberry's Child''. Sydney, New South Wales : Breakout Press, 1991.
References
''Joy Williams''(31 July 2008). Retrieved 7 August 2008.
"Joy fights for all the stolen children"(29 September 1993). Retrieved 12 April 2019
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Joy
1942 births
2006 deaths
Indigenous Australian writers
20th-century Australian poets