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C
CAHILL, PATRICK (PADDY) (1863?–1923), was born at Laidley, near Toowoomba, in Queensland. His birth
was not registered. He was the son of Thomas Cahill who was a blacksmith, and his wife Sarah, nee Scahill.
Patrick Cahill was a great horseman and, with his brothers Tom and Matt and the Gordon brothers, joined
Nat Buchanan in 1883 in the overlanding of 20 000 cattle from western Queensland to the Northern Territory.
After arriving in the Northern Territory, Cahill became aware of reports of up to 60 000 wild buffalo on the
Alligator River floodplains not far from Darwin. He went into partnership with William Johnston to shoot buffalo
for their hides and horns. Groups of Aborigines were employed during the dry season in semi-mobile camps.
Cahill was one of the first to shoot buffalo from horseback, and much of his success was attributed to his fast,
intelligent horse named St Lawrence. In 1898 Cahill wrote a series of articles for the Northern Territory Times
about buffalo hunting.
When he visited Darwin as a journalist in 1898, Banjo Paterson listed the main topics of interest in the town at
that time as the cyclone of 1897, the Government Resident and Paddy Cahill. Paddy Cahill was probably the most
popular man in the Territory at this time. His photographs show him as a man of great confidence. On 18 October
1899 he married Maria Pickford at St Mary’s Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Darwin.
At about this time, buffalo shooting was becoming less profitable, and Cahill purchased a pearling lugger called
the Ethel. In 1899, soon after his wedding, he rode 320 kilometres to bring assistance to his partner Johnston, who
had been seriously gored. This was recognised as an outstanding feat of endurance.
In 1906 Cahill and Johnston began the establishment of a farm at Oenpelli on the edge of Arnhem Land.
The Kakadu people participated in the farm, which grew fruit, vegetables, sisal, cotton and other products.
Cahill showed an interest in Aboriginal culture, learning languages and using tribal names. He worked to
minimise contacts with Europeans, including missionaries. In 1912 he was appointed a Protector of Aborigines,
and given authority to manage a reserve around Oenpelli. In the same year Cahill was a major source of information
about Aboriginal society for W B Spencer. As a result of this association he supplied the National Museum of
Victoria with zoological specimens and a most significant collection of bark paintings.
Other visitors to the farm at Oenpelli were Elsie Masson and Carl Warburton. Spencer, Masson and Warburton
were all impressed by the house and the farm.
In 1915 J A Gilruth, Administrator of the Northern Territory, selected Oenpelli as the site of a government
experimental dairy. The government provided some cows, and butter was manufactured. Unionists in Darwin
boycotted the produce because it was produced by black labour. An attempt was made in 1917 by one of Cahill’s
trusted Aboriginal workers to poison him and his family.
Cahill was friendly with Gilruth. During the Gilruth uprising he served as a special constable to protect
Government House and was said to have antagonised the rioters. He was described by N K Ewing, who was the
Royal Commissioner into the events, as a decent man, but sometimes careless. It was also implied that he had
gained advantage for his son through his association with Gilruth.
Paddy Cahill was a lover of horses and horseracing. He went south for the Melbourne Cup in 1922 with
his wife and son. A previous influenza bout recurred, and he died at the home of his brother Tom in Sydney on
4 February 1923. He is buried in Randwick cemetery.
He is commemorated in the naming of Mount Cahill, Cahill’s Landing and Cahill’s Crossing in Arnhem Land.
Cahill Crescent in the Darwin suburb of Nakara is also named after him.
K Cole, Oenpelli Pioneer, 1972; K Cole, A History of Oenpelli, 1975; E Hill, The Territory, 1951; E R Masson, An Untamed Territory, 1915;
D J Mulvaney & J H Calaby, So Much That Is New, 1979; W B Spencer, Wanderings in Wild Australia, 1928; C Warburton & W K Robertson,
Buffaloes, 1934; Argus, 18 February 1923; Bulletin, 31 December 1898; (Sydney) Daily Telegraph, 7 February 1923; Northern Territory Times,
17 March, 20 October & 10 November 1899; Sydney Mail, 27 June 1899; Sydney Morning Herald, 6 February 1923.
M A CLINCH, Vol 1.CALDER, STEPHEN EDWARD (SAM) (1916– ), clerk, aviator, pastoralist, businessman and politician, was
born in Toorak, Melbourne, on 10 August 1916, third son of Horace Calder and his wife Dorothy Louise, nee Carter.
While both his parents were British born, his paternal grandparents were from New Zealand, where at one time
his grandfather was a member of the New Zealand parliament. He attended Grimwade House, the prep school for
Melbourne Grammar School where he completed his education. Although bright and hard working, he did not
matriculate and it was the sports masters whom he considered most influential in his school life. He excelled at
most sports; tennis in particular was to become lifelong interest. Between 1932 and 1939 he was a member of the
Fourth Brigade of Mounted Artillery, a Citizen Military Forces unit, and reached the rank of Sergeant.
His ambition was to go on the land though he was later to say that ‘it was a pretty impossible sort of thing to just
walk straight out of the city on to a property. And, looking back at it, I wouldn’t agree with it anyhow, because it
takes years and years to have reasonable sort of experience to be able to run a property with any degree of success
in the areas where I was interested, which was Central Australia’. He was a teenager during the Depression years
and though his family was comfortably off he learned the value of money.
His first job, about 1933, was as a ‘very junior clerk’ for a biscuit factory at Port Melbourne. After a year he
joined the English Scottish and Australasian Chartered Bank and remained there for the next three or four years.
During this time he met Eddie Connellan and Damian Miller, both of whom became very good friends, and