Personal Background
Bandler's father, Peter Mussing, had been blackbirded from Ambrym Island, part of Vanuatu, in 1883, at the age of about 13. He was then sent to Mackay, Queensland before being sent to work on a sugar cane plantation. He later escaped and married Bandler's mother, a Scottish-Indian woman from New South Wales. Bandler cites stories of her father's harsh experience as a slave labourer as a strong motivation for her activism. Bandler grew up with her family on a farm near Murwillumbah, New South Wales. Her father died in 1924, when Bandler was just five years old. In 1934, Bandler left school and moved to Sydney, where she worked as a dressmaker's apprentice.
Read more about this topic: Faith Bandler
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“Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self-sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere conceded—a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance, wealth, family and position.”
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