Joseph (Joe) Croft (c.1925 - 22 August 1996) was a Gurindji and Mudburra man who was a member of the Stolen Generations who spent his early childhood in government institutions and, in 1944, he became the first Aboriginal person to attend an Australian University.
[2][7] While at The Bungalow Croft did well in his classes and received high marks in the 1939 qualifying certificate examinations and in 1940, with the support of Father Percy Smith and his teacher Wally Boehm, won a government scholarship to attend All Souls' School in Charters Towers.
[2] From 1950 to 1971 he became a contracting surveyor, using skills that drew from his engineering studies, on dam building and railway line rebuilding projects.
[2] For many years Croft had been working under the assumption that his mother, Bessie had died, as he had ceased receiving letters from her in 1940, when he had left The Bungalow.
[2] In 1972 the family purchased a newsagency at Woodburn and, during this time, Croft worked closely with the Bundjalung people living at Cabbage Tree Island and helped establish an arts and craft business.
[17] A series of other roles in the public sector followed, including as the treasurer of the ACT Koories Club (later known as the Aboriginal Corporation for Sporting and Recreational Activities), which was chaired by his friend and fellow former Bungalow resident Charles Perkins.
Later, following a significant injury for which he had to remain in hospital for over a year, he entered aged care and died of Leukemia on 22 July 1996.