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June 1827 Fort Wellington was set up at Raffles Bay on the northern coast, the plan being that Fort Dundas be
retained until Fort Wellington was established and operable.
The new outpost fared little better. Relations with the Aborigines were at best strained, and ill health plagued
the new garrison from the outset. While on a visit to Raffles Bay soon after its creation, Campbell was compelled
to take the most serious of the scurvy patients back with him to Fort Dundas.
By October 1827 Governor Darling had been convinced that the Fort Dundas settlement had little to offer
in the way of a permanent establishment. In a dispatch to Downing Street he reported: ‘It is evident from this
communication [dispatches from Campbell] that motives of policy alone can render it desirable to keep possession
of that settlement, there appearing no other inducement whatever to retain it, but on the contrary strong reasons for
immediately abandoning it.’ Then followed a further dispatch by the Governor, drawing attention to the fact that
‘Major Campbell’s health appears to have suffered’.
In a letter dated 13 March 1828 from the Colonial Secretary, Alexander McLeay, Campbell received the
news he had been waiting for: ‘In consequence of the strong desire which you have expressed to be relieved,
His Excellency, the Governor has been pleased to appoint Captain Hartley of the 57th Regiment to succeed you.’
Captain Hartley arrived on Melville Island in April 1828, but by the end of the year willingly abandoned the
settlement at the Governor’s request.
There is every reason to believe that John Campbell made every effort to bring success to Fort Dundas but
the odds were against him and he became the victim of uncontrollable circumstances. His optimism carried him
through a period of time where perhaps others would have despaired much sooner. This inclination faded bitter
memories of Fort Dundas. Time and distance had lent enchantment to the extent that in 1834, at a meeting of the
Royal Geographical Society, he described nearby Port Essington as ‘the friendly hand of Australia’.
F H Bauer, Historical Geography of White Settlement in Part of Northern Australia, part 2, 1964; C P Conigrave, North Australia, 1936;
A Powell, Far Country, 1982; Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, vols xii and xiii, British Army Records, 1804 to 1829.
TED STREET, Vol 1.
CARNOCHAN, ELIZABETH AGNES (BETTY): see WASHINGTON, ELIZABETH AGNES
CAWOOD, JOHN CHARLES (c1882–?) was born in about 1882 in New South Wales. He was educated in
Parramatta and later at a Catholic High School. He spent 16 years in the state public service in various departments,
initially with the Government Statistician, the Public Works Department and its Timber and Export Branch for
Railway Public Works purposes. Cawood’s father lived to a great age at Victoria Barracks at Parramatta and was
considered to be the oldest volunteer in the British Empire.
Cawood married in 1903 and continued in the public service in the Lands Department (Forestry Branch) and
qualified as a district forester. He spent some years in the commercial field at Bellingen as Superintendent of
Northern River Agencies of Allen Taylor and Company Ltd. He left this to start his own business as a saw-miller.
He became a council member and President of the Bellingen Shire Council and was also a coroner and magistrate
there.
He had been associated with politics and was known to George Gollan, State Member for Parramatta in 1925,
who regarded him as a fine public-spirited citizen and a good organiser. Earle Page also knew him and it was he
who recommended to the Federal government his appointment to the Northern Territory in late 1926.
The appointment of Cawood as Government Resident of Central Australia was for a three-year period under
Section 48 of the Northern Australia Act, 1926, as from 15 December 1926. This appointment occurred when
the Territory was split into two administrations—the North Australia Commission and the Central Australia
Commission—under this Act in 1926. Major Robert Hunter Weddell was appointed Government Resident of
North Australia, residing at Government House in Darwin.
Cawood left Melbourne after consultations with the Department of Home and Territories on 22 February
1927 and was accompanied by V G Carrington, clerk, and his wife, arriving in Alice Springs by 1 March. Police
Sergeant Stott was asked to arrange initial accommodation. It appears that some temporary arrangement was
provided for Cawood and Carrington and his wife after their arrival and that the new administration houses (three of
them) and office buildings were not completed until November 1928.
Cawood’s term in Central Australia commenced on 1 March 1927 and he handed over in November 1929
to Carrington who had worked with him as his deputy. Carrington continued until 1931 when the Territory was
rejoined under Administrator Weddell and the North and Central Australia Commissions were abolished. Cawood
retired in 1930 to live at Cronulla. The Federal government’s initiative in decentralising control in the Northern
Territory in 1926 was not a success. Cawood found that he could not get early responses to urgent requests to
Canberra for assistance. He was also given administrative charge of the three-member Commission of Inquiry
into the 1928 killing of Aborigines at Coniston in Central Australia: A H O’Kelly, chairman, Cawood and Police
Inspector P A Giles. The Commission reported to government in 1929.
Later in 1929 his son, Stan Cawood, accompanied Constable Murray in locating the wreck of the Kookaburra,
where Anderson and Hitchcock perished in the Tanami Desert. Stan Cawood remained in the Territory in post-war
years in his own tourist business. He had, in 1925–26, before his father’s appointment as Government Resident,
Central Australia, been to Calcutta delivering horses from New South Wales to the remount depot there.
AA, Darwin CRS A 431 46/676; CRS A1 29/8727 & 29/2777; Oral history transcript, Stan Cawood, NTA.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 1.