people living on the eastern goldfields were in desperate need of food and medicine, and handed Rason a letter of support signed by the local Justices of the Peace. Harris also met Henry Charles Prinsep, to try to persuade his Aborigines Department to supply rations, clothes and medicine to those starving and diseased. In 1926, Harris formed an Aboriginal peoples' union in response to the persecution inflicted upon Aboriginal people by the Western Australian Aborigines Department and its officials. He was particularly concerned about conditions at Mogumber (Moore River Native Settlement) after A. O. Neville (who had succeeded Prinsep as the Chief Protector of Aborigines) changed the settlements purpose from an Aboriginal farming community to an internment camp. Harris also headed the first Aboriginal deputation to meet with a Western Australian Premier. In 1928 he, Edward Harris (his brother), Norman Harris (his nephew), Wilfred Morrison, Edward Jacobs, Arthur Kickett and William Bodney met with the Premier, Philip Collier. They asked Collier to repeal the Aborigines Act (1905), and give Aboriginal people the same rights as the white community. Describing the conditions at Mogumber as intolerable, they implored him to close it down. They also asked about Aboriginal people being barred from the popular White City, Perth amusement park. William Harris also told Premier Collier that Daisy Bates and Chief Protector Neville were the "worst enemies" of the Aboriginal people, according to a contemporary newspaper account. Their representations were ultimately unsuccessful: The Aborigines Act (1905) continued to govern the lives of all Aboriginal people in Western Australia until it was repealed by the Native Welfare Act 1963; and Mogumber continued as a segregation facility until 1974. In 1930 William Harris moved to the town of Geraldton, where he died on 13 July 1931. He is buried in the Aboriginal cemetery at Utacarra, Geraldton. References 1867 births 1931 deaths Australian indigenous rights activists Australian civil rights activists People from Western Australia