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if the Commonwealth did not take over administration of the Territory, then South Australia should build the
railway line itself. He wanted mining legislation improved and miners to be given more encouragement, records
relating to Territory administration (particularly mining and land records) to be kept in Darwin, fewer cattle kings,
more moderately well to do settlers and smaller pastoral leases. He also wanted legislation dealing with Aborigines
and part-Aborigines, government resources put into finding permanent water supplies and better communication
by telegraph and telephone with outside places. The Commonwealth Government took over administration
of the Northern Territory in January 1911 and Brown thereby ceased to be a Member of the South Australian
Parliament.
He became a Justice of the Peace in 1910 and was appointed to the Council of the South Australian School
of Mines in 1914, holding this position until 1941, when he was elected Honorary Correspondent, the highest
honour the Council had power to bestow. He served on the magistrate’s bench at Brighton and was well known
for his strict but fair treatment and good advice to offenders. He was a proud member of the Pioneers Association
of South Australia and gave the address at several Commemoration Day meetings in the late 1930s. He was strict
but kind, softly spoken, well respected and popular, a man of integrity and principle who was fair and honest in
all his dealings. He died on 14 March 1945 at Brighton and was buried in the Brown family section of St Jude’s
Cemetery. His wife pre-deceased him and two sons and three daughters survived him. His daughter Dorothy
founded the John Alexander Voules Brown prize at the South Australian School of Mines (now South Australian
Institute of Technology) in his memory. There are photographs of him in the W V Brown family papers and in
J Rich’s Gum Leaf and Cow Hide.
J Rich, Gum Leaf and Cow Hide, 1986; Adelaide Advertiser, 17 March 1945; W V Brown family papers; H J Burgess, ed, Cyclopedia of South
Australia, 1909, vol 2; Northern Territory Times, 5 October 1894, 18 March 1910, ‘Election meeting’, 25 November 1910; SA PD 1910,
Research material held by author.
JENNY RICH, Vol 1.BROWN, MAY, ‘The Wolfram Queen’ (1875–1939), Northern Territory miner, publican and pioneer was born on
24 May 1875 in Sydney, the sixth of seven children, to Charles James and Mary, nee Chiodette, Weedon.
May’s first visit to the Territory appears to have been in June 1890 when she arrived on Chingtu to join her
sister Florence, who had married a Territory saddler and publican, Sydney Budgen in 1885 and moved with him
to the Top End where they ran hotels for many years. Two of their brothers, Sydney and Percy Weedon, had also
come to the Territory to work and remained in the Darwin and Pine Creek areas until after the First World War.
May’s arrival in Darwin coincided with the building of the Victoria Hotel that, thirty years later, she would lease
and manage as perhaps the most colourful of all the hotel’s long string of publicans.
May made several visits to the Territory during the next decade but in 1901, when she was 26, she married a
former Australian amateur boxing champion, George Scale and settled in Sydney. At the time of their marriage
George was the owner of the Sydney Gymnastics Club in Castlereagh Street and one of Sydney’s most popular
sporting personalities.
In 1902 they had a son, George Scale Jr, May’s only child, who later married a Territory girl, Mary Fisher.
When George Sr died in 1906, his sporting colleagues held a benefit to raise money for May and young George.
A little more than six months after George’s death, in October 1906, May married a Territory wolfram miner,
James Burns and returned with him to Pine Creek, the nearest town to his Wolfram Creek and Crest of the
Wave mines. When James bought out his other partners, May joined him, along with Chinese tributors, in working
the mines.
In February 1909, malaria broke out on the nearby Umbrawarra mining field to which hundreds had flocked
when new finds of tin were discovered. May nursed the sick miners, until she herself eventually succumbed to the
fever and had to be taken to Pine Creek for treatment. The reputation she gained at this time for compassion and
kindness remained with her throughout her life and served to balance some of the more aggressive and at times
arrogant aspects of her personality.
In November 1912 James died, and the Wolfram Creek Mine ceased production for a while until the estate was
administered. It was eventually transferred to May and her third husband, Charles Albert (Bert) Brown, a pastoralist
from Campbell Springs whom she had married in the Methodist parsonage in Darwin in June 1913.
In the following year the Northern Territory Times paid tribute to May, who personally ran and managed the
mines: ‘Many and varied have been the owners of the Crest of the Wave... However, there is one of the partners
who has shown unbounded faith in the mine since first becoming interested in it and that one is Mrs Brown
of Wolfram fame. Mrs Brown owns, also, that well known wolfram mine at Wolfram Camp... [she] is to be
congratulated on being the proud possessor of two such brilliant properties.’
Although May helped work the mines herself, she relied heavily on her Chinese tributers, led for most of the
time by the enterprising Mee Wah, whose association with May apparently went back many years. The price of
wolfram skyrocketed during the First World War and in 1918 May refused 14 000 Pounds for her Crest of the
Wave mine.
May also joined the newly formed but very active Red Cross movement, led in the Territory by the Administrator’s
wife, Jeanne Gilruth, and helped raise hundreds of pounds through subscriptions and raffles in the Pine Creek
area.
When the Armistice was signed, the market for wolfram plummeted and by 1919 mining from Wolfram Hill
had virtually ceased, although the Crest of the Wave mine continued to give profitable yields of ore through much
of the 1920s. However, it became clear that May needed to diversify her financial activities.