As you enter Bourke from Nyngan, on the left hand side of the highway before the water tower can be seen a sign announcing Percy Hobson Park. If you pull the car over onto the verge of the road you will see a dual row of trees. The trees, as well as the surrounding ground vegetation, are kept alive with the help of an in-ground watering system. Avenue of trees - Percy Hobson Park

Percy Hobson. Who was this man who has been acknowledged in Bourke by the preparation of soil and the planting of trees?

A book entitled Black Gold. The Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of Fame written by Colin Tatz and Paul Tatz and published by the Aboriginal Studies Press in 2000 is one source of information about Percy Hobson. (The Bourke Library in Mitchell Street, Bourke holds this book.)

Wesley Hobson gave the following photo of Percy Hobson to Tatz and Tatz (2000, p. 54)

Percy Hobson

Percy Hobson, the boy from Bourke (NSW), was born in 1943. As a youth he had to learn his craft by using a clothes-line strung up in the small back yard as his high jump apparatus. In 1962, he became the first Aboriginal youth to hold a national amateur athletics record, with a leap of 6ft 7ins (2.02m). Chosen to represent Australia in the Commonwealth Games in Perth in 1962, he was urged by athletics administrators ‘not to broadcast his ancestry’. This didn’t stop him from becoming the first able-bodied Aboriginal athlete to win a gold medal for Australia, with a leap of 6ft 11ins (2.12m). Cathy Freeman was the second Aboriginal athlete to win an athletics gold at these Games, in a relay at Auckland in 1990. Hobson remained bitter about the attempted disguise of his ancestry. His feats were remarkable and deserve greater recognition (Tatz and Tatz 2000, p. 54).

Percy Hobson Park
Next time we pass the sign stating Percy Hobson Park we can reflect on the achievements of Percy Hobson – the first Aboriginal to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games.

Further information:

www1.aiatsis.gov.au/dawn/names/name_HOBSON.htm