About Uncle Bill — Biography & My Journey to Peace

Biography

Uncle Bill Lemson

Read his Brief Biography just below, then his own ‘Journey to Peace’

Uncle Bill Lemson is a respected First Nations Elder whose public work on behalf of First Nations peoples is centred on story, memory, cultural witness, and advocacy for justice. Mitakoodi by descent, and born in Cloncurry in North Queensland in the mid-twentieth century, he is now active in Brisbane / Magandjin.

Who are the Mitakoodi people?

The Mitakoodi are the Traditional Custodians of Country surrounding Cloncurry, in north-west Queensland. The Country extends from the vicinity of Cloncurry and Julia Creek and runs northward across the headwaters and tributaries of the Cloncurry River. In Mitakoodi language, the place now called Cloncurry is Pimurra. The Mitakoodi are known as the River people, for their long custodianship of these waterways and the lands they sustain.

On 22 August 2024, after a legal effort that began in 1996, the Federal Court of Australia formally recognised the Mitakoodi and Mayi peoples as Native Title holders over Country lining the Cloncurry River and its tributaries. The determination was a long-overdue acknowledgement that, before sovereignty, the land and waters of this Country were traditionally owned by the Mitakoodi and Mayi people, and that their laws and customs survive and remain strong.

Uncle Bill is a Mitakoodi man by descent — born at Cloncurry, on Pimurra Country — and now lives and works on the Country of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples in Brisbane / Magandjin. For more on Mitakoodi people, visit the Mitakoodi Elders Council — the Mitakoodi-led organisation in Cloncurry.

What does “Magandjin” mean?

Magandjin is an Aboriginal name for the place now called Brisbane. It comes from magan, the Yagara word for the native tulipwood tree, which grew at the riverbend on which the colonial city was first established. The suffix -djin indicates a place or district. Magandjin therefore means, roughly, “place of the tulipwood trees.”

The name is one of several recorded transliterations — Meanjin and Mienjin are also in current use, with different etymologies and from different traditional sources. This site follows the spelling preferred by First Nations Allies Magandjin, the local Elder-led group of which Uncle Bill is Co-Chair, and adopted by the Yagara–Magandjin Aboriginal Corporation in their work to repatriate language.

The lands on which Magandjin sits are the Country of the Turrbal people (traditionally north of the Brisbane River) and the Jagera people (traditionally south of it). Both peoples are Traditional Custodians, and both have a continuing presence in the city today.

A respected member of the St John’s Anglican Cathedral community in Brisbane, Uncle Bill hosts and facilitates regular Yarning Circle gatherings at the Cathedral — quiet, considered spaces for listening, truth-telling, reflection and connection.

Through this work he helps foster deeper understanding of First Nations stories and lived experience within the congregation and the wider Brisbane community, creating opportunities for people to hear directly from leading First Nations Elders, leaders, and survivors of the Stolen Generation.

His work is practical and relational: bringing people together, encouraging listening, and helping non-Indigenous communities face the historical and continuing realities of colonisation.

Uncle Bill Lemson, wearing a ‘No Stadium Victoria Park’ cap and a First Nations Allies t-shirt, speaks into a handheld microphone at a podium. Beside him stands fellow Elder Uncle Michael Williams in a tropical-print shirt and grey flat cap, with one arm around Uncle Bill’s shoulder. — Uncle Bill Lemson speaking at a Truth-Telling Session, Mitchelton Library, May 2026, with fellow Elder Uncle Michael Williams.Photograph by David Hickey.

Uncle Bill’s public voice is active beyond the Cathedral as well:

He served as emcee at the Brisbane Invasion/Survival Day rally in January 2025, where he spoke critically about the Queensland government’s move to end the state’s Truth-Telling inquiry
He delivers Acknowledgement of Country in community settings
He spoke at the Truth-Telling event held at Wynnum Library in October 2025 alongside Aunty Denise Adams
As Co-Chair and Ambassador, he is a leading figure in First Nations Allies Magandjin
He helps deliver the annual Dundalli Commemoration gatherings
He mentors young Aboriginal men

The Yarning Circle at St John’s sits naturally within the Cathedral’s stated commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including respect for the Turrbal and Jagera peoples, support for self-determination, and recognition that sovereignty was never ceded. Uncle Bill’s facilitation gives that commitment practical, lived expression.

Across all of this his work helps sustain First Nations tradition and memory, and invites wider Australian communities into more honest relationship with history, justice, rights, and sovereignty.

In His Own Words

My Journey to Peace

by Uncle Bill Lemson,
as told to Svyetlana Hadgraft

Adapted from The Eagle Magazine, St John’s Cathedral Brisbane, August 2025

Uncle Bill Lemson, seated at home, wearing a quilted vest, looking calmly toward the camera. — Uncle Bill Lemson at home in Brisbane.
Photograph courtesy of Uncle Bill & *The Eagle*, St John’s Cathedral.

My first day at school was also my last. I was five years old. Along with two other Aboriginal children, I was sent to the head teacher who, for no reason we knew, caned us. I felt the pain, watched my hand swell, and I bolted. I never went back.

When my parents broke up in 1955, my mother took us kids from Cloncurry to live with her parents in Charters Towers. But I wanted to be with my dad. Eventually, I did get back to him, and at the age of twelve, I started work on the cattle station where he worked. I was a “cow boy”, meaning I milked the cows and did all the bits and pieces jobs about the place. During my teens, my dad taught me how to handle a grader, and also a bull dozer.

At fifteen, I started to get close to a girl I’d known for a while, but who now became special.

Life on the station was quite lonely, and my girl wanted to go back to her home town, Mt Isa. We made the move, and I got work with Theiss Brothers, contractors to Mt Isa Mines. When I was twenty-one, we got married, and had a family of four: three girls and a boy.

Aerial view of Mt Isa Mines and the surrounding town, showing the smelter stack, mine workings and residential streets stretching into the desert hills. — Mt Isa Mines, 1970s — the surrounding country where Uncle Bill worked for Theiss Brothers and later at the phosphate mine.
Peter Laurisen Collection, Mt Isa City Library.

I moved on to a phosphate mine where I was seen to be a potential supervisor, but I was illiterate, so they sent me to Brisbane to plug that gap.

During that time, I was involved in moving a bulldozer on a floater from Mt Isa to the Kimberley. Driving in the pilot car with a company man, I listened for five days to Bible stories, and his commentaries. Some time later, one of the miners was very sick with diabetes, so when it was suggested that we pray for him, I joined in. Charlie’s amazing improvement convinced me of the power of prayer, so in 1970, I began to embrace Christianity.

Alcohol had always induced a false sense of confidence, but it was beginning to take its toll on me. I decided to live by the values Jesus taught, and stopped drinking. Sober, I began to see what was going on, and decided to live the teachings of Jesus.

The phosphate mine closed down and I moved to Collinsville to work at the open cut coal mine for some years. When I retired I went to Brisbane.

The terraced walls of the Collinsville open cut coal mine, with haul roads cut into the rock and machinery visible at the upper levels. — The Collinsville open cut coal mine, where Uncle Bill worked for some years before retiring to Brisbane.
Image courtesy of Glencore, glencore.com.au.

I discovered that there were many more Aborigines around than I had realised, and that there were activists working for social justice and an end to discrimination. Working at the station, and at the mines, I was not aware of any discrimination — we were all men working together.

I did witness police brutality in Townsville, and once in Melbourne I experienced discrimination, but over all, not much. Now, I started to learn more about my people, both the culture, and the darker, post-colonial history, the massacres and the dispossession.

In 2011, my brother found me. He was one of the stolen generation, taken from our mother as a baby, on the grounds that she could not care for him, even though she was living with her parents.

I heard about Dundalli, an inspirational hero, a general for surrounding tribes who campaigned in the 1840s and 50s for recognition of his people’s humanity, including women, and justice. He was hanged in the old gaol. There is a commemorative plaque at the Post Office. Brisbane’s history would be more complete if he was publicly recognised as a fearless leader. This is something on which I am working.

Pencil sketch portrait of Dundalli by Silvester Diggles, drawn from life on 5 December 1854. A young Aboriginal man with curling hair and beard, looking directly at the viewer, wearing an open smock shirt. — Dundalli, sketched from life by Silvester Diggles on 5 December 1854 — one month before his public execution.
State Library of Queensland, John Oxley Library (Negative number 11307).

Bronze memorial plaque to Aboriginal leader Dundalli at the Brisbane GPO, with raised gold lettering on a dark patinated background, set into a stone surround. — The Dundalli memorial plaque at the Brisbane GPO, on the site of the old gaol where Dundalli was publicly executed on 5 January 1854. A memorial ceremony is held each year on that date.
Photograph by Paul Budde (2022), *Old Brisbane Album*.

I have found that the values of Indigenous culture mesh very well with those of Christianity, sharing, helping those in need and the importance of community. So I take young Aboriginal men under my wing to help them lead a better life.

My Christian faith eased my bereavement when I lost my wife, my son and my brother, through the promise of the resurrection, and their release from pain. My faith brought peace.

St John's Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane, twin sandstone spires rising against a blue sky, framed by trees and modern city buildings. — St John’s Anglican Cathedral, Brisbane — where Uncle Bill is part of the congregation and facilitates the regular Yarning Circle.

Church attendance matters. I quite enjoy the ritual, but it doesn’t shape my thinking. The Eucharist brings it all together. For me, Communion means being Christian, because Communion is also community.

If something in this story has spoken to you, you can write to Uncle Bill at connect@unclebill.online. He reads what arrives.

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