120 Ballarat Road, Footscray

William Cooper – resident of Seddon and Footscray – was a prominent activist for Aboriginal citizenship rights. He was secretary of the Australian Aborigines’ League and actively campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal people at every opportunity.

The Seddon and Footscray residences of William Cooper were early headquarters of the Aboriginal Advancement League.

The weatherboard cottage on Ballarat Road was close by the Kinnear's Rope Works, Ballarat Road which employed a lot of Aboriginal people during the 1930s and 1940s. According to the sequences of Cooper’s letters, it seems to be that 120 Ballarat Road was the first of the three houses in the western suburbs that William Cooper lived in.

William Cooper was politically active from the house in Ballarat Road. It was from here that Cooper certainly authorised and signed many of the letters for which he is famous. He wrote to newspapers, Ministers, Missions. He campaigned tirelessly – often walking to meetings across Melbourne with people in Fitzroy (Doug Nicholls) or Spencer Street Station (Arthur Burdeu).