Cecil Bowden
Portrait of Cecil Bowden by Mervyn Bishop, exhibited in the Sydney Elders exhibition.
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Cecil was born in 1939 in Cowra, NSW, and passed away in 2018. When he was a young child in 1941, he was taken from his family by the Australian government while his father was fighting for the country in the Second World War. Cecil Bowden first arrived in Redfern, Sydney in 1958 at the age of 18, and was able to reestablish connections with the Aboriginal community here.
Cecil was a member of the NSW Sorry Day committee, and through this work he educated the world about the Stolen Generations and the treatment of Aboriginal children. Throughout his life, Cecil protested against the treatment of Aboriginal people by the Australian government, including the NSW Police Force. He fought to improve conditions for Indigenous Australians today by providing truthful and personal stories to expose truths that have long been hidden by the Australian government.
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