‘Uncle’ returns to Country after 130 years, as Elders re-bury ancestor taken to England

The remains of an Aboriginal man taken from his grave more than a century ago have been returned from England and reburied on Country near Berowra Creek (north of Sydney) following years of advocacy by First Nations communities and repatriation teams.

The man – referred to as ‘Uncle’ by those involved in bringing him home – was removed from his resting place in the late 1890s and taken to London in 1900. This week, Elders conducted a reburial ceremony at a confidential site, using clapsticks and smoke as birds called through the surrounding eucalypts.

For Aboriginal families and communities, repatriation is not only about correcting the record of how ancestors were collected and stored… but about restoring cultural and spiritual responsibilities interrupted by colonial violence. It can also be deeply practical: returning remains allows proper ceremony, reburial and ongoing care for places and stories connected to the person.

The journey to return ‘Uncle’ began in 2017, when a collective of eight Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, alongside the Australian Government, formally sought the repatriation of ancestors’ remains held overseas. In 2023, Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum committed to return the remains of 11 ancestors to representatives of the relevant communities and the Australian Government.

That decision was marked by a handover ceremony in Oxford, with the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History involved in returning the remains of the 11 Aboriginal ancestors, according to the Museums Association.

Australia’s Office for the Arts, which supports Indigenous repatriation work, says the Australian Government facilitates the return of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains and certain cultural objects, including through research to help establish provenance.

Despite progress, advocates say many ancestors are still waiting to come home. The ABC report notes calls for all First Nations remains held overseas to be returned to Country – a demand echoed in museums and universities around the world as institutions reassess how human remains entered collections, and who should decide their future.

For the communities involved, this week’s reburial is a reminder that repatriation is not an abstract debate about collections… but a lived process of care and (for some families) the first step in healing work that will continue long after ceremonies end.