>> Go Back - page - >> List of Entriess
CHINCHEWARRA: see TJINTJI-WARACHINCHI-WARA: see TJINTJI-WARACHINCY-WARRA: see TJINTJI-WARACHINNERY, ERNEST WILLIAM PEARSON (CHIN) (1887–1972), anthropologist and administrator,
was born on 5 November 1887 at Waterloo, Victoria, the son of John William Chinnery, a miner and later an
employee of the Victorian Railways, and his wife Grace, nee Pearson. Young Chinnery worked as a law clerk on
leaving school. At Christmas 1908 he won the Royal Humane Society’s Bronze Medal for his attempted rescue of a
drowning man near Warrnambool. In April 1909 he was appointed to the Papuan Service; Lieutenant Governor Sir
Hubert Murray commended his work in exploration and district administration with the magisterial service from- The eminent English anthropologist, A C Haddon, also commended him, for his perceptive descriptions of
Papuan initiation ceremonies.
Granted leave in 1917, he joined the Australian Flying Corps, trained as observer in England, and was
commissioned Lieutenant. After the Armistice he entered Cambridge University, studied under Haddon and
W H R Rivers and was awarded the Diploma of Anthropology in 1919. In 1920 the Royal Geographical Society
honoured him with the Cuthbert Peek Award for exploration.
Chinnery returned to Papua in 1920 and joined the New Guinea Copper Mines as controller of labour
organisation. He was appointed Government Anthropologist to the Mandated Territory of New Guinea in 1924,
and was Acting Commissioner of Native Affairs during 1928. In 1932 he was appointed the first director of the
new Department of District Services and Native Affairs, and in 1933 was appointed to the New Guinea Legislative
and Executive Councils.
During the 1930s, Chinnery’s experience, anthropological publications, and lectures in Europe, the United
States and Australia brought him eminence in the field. In 1938 he was invited by the Minister for the Interior, John
McEwen, to join his tour of the Northern Territory and report on Aboriginal policy. Chinnery’s recommendations
were set out in ‘Preliminary Notes on Trip to the NT’. As a result of this he was seconded from the New Guinea
Service to take up the new post of Director of Native Affairs, Northern Territory, and was appointed Commonwealth
Adviser on Native Affairs. The Native Affairs Branch was placed under the jurisdiction of the Administrator,
C L A Abbott, and he controlled the financial resources of the Branch.
After thorough investigation of Aboriginal living conditions in the Territory, Chinnery developed proposals
which, basically, aimed to discourage Aborigines drifting to the towns by making the reserves more habitable,
including the provision of water; to establish government stations to provide welfare, adequate health services
and training to enable the Aborigines to develop the resources of the reserves, and secure greater employment
opportunities; to increase subsidies to the missions to provide basic and technical education and appropriate
industries. Chinnery recommended that magistrates should hold Courts for Native Matters in places where
Aborigines congregated and elders could explain tribal customs.
The federal government approved; but the Administrator, though not entirely unsympathetic, was more
concerned with the needs of the pastoral industry; and with the coming of the Second World War, funds for
Aboriginal Affairs shrank and the increasing military demands took precedence. Much was done: patrol officers
were appointed; reserves were extended; mission subsidies were increased; part Aboriginal children already
in government institutions were placed in the care of island missionaries; child endowment was obtained for
Aborigines, and though endowment for nomadic Aborigines resident on missions was paid direct to the missions
(calculated on average weekly numbers of children), this was a great advance on no payment at all.
On 20 December 1941 Chinnery was suddenly ordered to act as welfare officer on an evacuation ship leaving
Darwin; then to join a Singapore evacuation ship at Perth. He arrived back in Darwin on 22 February 1942.
Increasingly, as the war progressed, Chinnery and his small staff were forced to react to military needs,
by evacuating Aborigines from Darwin, setting up work camps down the Stuart Highway as the Army realised the
value of Aboriginal labour, evacuating part-Aboriginal women and children to southern states for the duration.
Staff shortages became desperate. For a time Native Affairs office staff consisted of V J White and one secretary,
and patrol officers Bill Harney and Gordon Sweeney carried the fieldwork alone. In December 1945 the Branch
‘was completely at a standstill for funds’.
Chinnery was absent from the Territory for lengthy periods during 1942–43, establishing the evacuees, liaising
with the army on all aspects of their employment of Aborigines, consulting on legal, policy and social services
issues affecting Aborigines, and was periodically called upon to satisfy the urgent need of military and intelligence
agencies for advice on the New Guinea war zone. Though constantly in communication with his staff, Chinnery’s
absences, particularly on intelligence work, were a sore point with Administrator Abbott.
Back in the Territory during the last years of the war, Chinnery and his staff struggled on, attempting to
upgrade the Aborigines’ conditions with available facilities, often in the face of indifference and even hostility.
War’s end did not bring the staff or finance he needed to carry out McEwen’s ‘New Deal’. In the Northern Territory
context Chinnery was, in many ways, a man ahead of his times, and Commonwealth administrators in Darwin and
Canberra were slow to change the thinking of the 1930s.
Chinnery resigned from his post as Director of Native Affairs in November 1946, and his secondment to
the Department of the Interior ceased in November 1947. During 1947 and 1948 he attended United Nations
Trusteeship Council Meetings and a Visiting Mission in Africa and was Alternate Australian Commissioner of