Hubert Ernest De May WARREN

WARREN, HUBERT ERNEST DE MAY (b. Melbourne, Vic, 2 March 1885; d. 19 Oct 1934). Anglican clergyman and missionary.

Warren grew up in Windsor, Melbourne, and was educated at All Saints' Church Grammar School, St Kilda. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a firm of marine engineers and after 6 years graduated as an engineer. His training later was of the greatest help to him in his missionary work in the ‘uncivilised’ parts of remote Arnhem Land. He was called to missionary work among the Aboriginal people through his friend Rex Joynt (q.v.), who was one of the founding missionaries of the new Roper River Mission in Arnhem Land in 1908. He had committed his life fully to the service of Christ, and was accepted provisionally by the CMA to be a missionary on the condition that he was first ordained. He studied at MTC, but was not academically a good student. Despite his academic weakness he soon made his mark in the College, and was elected senior student in his last year. He was ordained deacon 21 Dec 1910 and priest 21 Dec 1911. After a further two years' curacy at St Clement's, Marrickville, he was accepted by the Victorian CMA for missionary service at Roper River.

Warren found the Roper River Mission to be in a deplorable state when he arrived in June 1913. The primitive living conditions, the isolation of the station, the trying climate and continual sickness had resulted in conflict among the handful of missionaries. As superintendent he quickly put the mission in order and then made a quick trip South to discuss with the CMS officials the possibility of starting a 'chain of mission stations' along the east coast of Arnhem Land and on Groote Eylandt. While in Sydney he married Ellie May Potter, a school teacher, who was the greatest support to him in the various experiences he had for the remainder of his life.

During 1916 and 1917 Warren and his missionary and half-caste helpers made three journeys of exploration to Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which resulted in the establishment of a mission there in 1921. The report of his second exploratory journey in Nov and Dec 1916 led to his recognition by the Royal Geographic Society as one of the pioneer explorers of Australia. Warren started building the Emerald River Mission on Groote Eylandt on 1 Aug 1921, and in Sept 1924 he transferred 35 half-caste boys and girls there from the Roper River Mission. Towards the end of the 1920s the Victorian CMS adopted a new policy of caring for the Groote Eylandt Aborigines instead of the imported half-caste young people, many of whom by now had grown up and were being married. To his great sorrow Warren was recalled and the work placed in the charge of others. However, because of staffing problems, he served at the Roper River Mission from April 1930-March 1931.

Warren was the leader of the world-acclaimed CMS Peace Expedition in 1933-34, when he, with the Rev A J Dyer (q.v.) and D H Fowler, journeyed from Groote Eylandt to the east Arnhem Land coast, and persuaded the Aboriginal killers of the five Japanese at Caledon Bay and the killers of Constable A S McColl and two other Europeans, to give themselves up and go to Darwin. This move, they explained, would prevent a massacre of Aborigines by a police punitive expedition. The farce of the trials, the inadequacy of existing Australian law to meet the distinct cultural background of Aboriginal society, the severity of the sentences, and the disappearance of Tuckiar, the self-confessed killer of Constable McColl, led to a number of law reforms for Aboriginal people.

Warren returned to his parish at Cullenswood, Tasmania at the end of the Peace Expedition. Soon afterwards he was lost on the aircraft Miss Hobart which left Launceston for Melbourne on 19 Oct 1934 and disappeared over Bass Strait. Of the many tributes that were paid to him on his death the most moving was the one which came from a group of the half-castes at Roper River, who said, 'We can never repay you for all you have done for us. You were like our father and you treated us like your children'.

K Cole, Groote Eyland Pioneer (Melbourne, 1971)

KEITH COLE