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While he was gone McArthur had the marines build him a hut at Black Point just south of Smith Point at the
entrance to the harbour where he could easily reach the settlement. Apparently he was quite impractical when
it came to domestic matters and did not know how to mix or cook his ration of flour, but his linguistic ability
stood him in good stead. He amazed everyone with the ease with which he was quickly able to converse with the
Aborigines, though a visitor, John Sweatman, laughed at the native humour, which led the Aborigines to teach
Confalonieri obscenities that he unwittingly used in his sermons to them.
Confalonieri was realistic enough to realise that he was making little headway in converting the adult Aborigines
and believed that civilising them would only begin when the children were separated from the parents; but the
nomadic habits of the Aborigines thwarted his plans. Added to this was the problem of introducing Christian
concepts to a culture having totemic beliefs. Confalonieri endured the wet season’s torrential rains and insect pests,
and during the Dry he ministered to Aborigines at Black Point who had developed a type of influenza that reached
epidemic proportions. A later church source claimed that Confalonieri made about 400 converts in two years;
but he faced occasional hostility and theft from some of the older Aborigines and at times was depressed about his
efforts at conversion, complaining that the Aborigines had no understanding but for their belly.
In other ways his achievements by the end of 1846 were quite significant. He had explored most of the Cobourg
Peninsula, preparing maps showing the clan areas of seven Aboriginal groups and had made a small vocabulary of
the seven dialects. His translations included the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Creed, a manuscript prayer book
and a short Catechism of Christian Doctrine, including the Ten Commandments and part of the New Testament
into the Port Essington dialect. These papers were sent to Archbishop Polding in Sydney on his death.
Father Angelo Confalonieri died of fever on 9 June 1848 in the hospital at Victoria where he was brought by
the marines after they had missed his regular visits. He was buried two days later according to his own instructions.
MacArthur wrote to Archbishop Polding: ‘We buried him with all honours. The entire settlement attended his
funeral.’ His Scapula and a small cross were sent to his sister in fulfilment of his dying wish.
Darwin remembered him in the name of Angelo Street, and commemorative plaques to Father Angelo
Confalonieri, James Fagan and Nicholas Hogan are in the crypt of St Mary’s Star of the Sea War Memorial
Church, Darwin.
Father Confalonieri’s grave lies in the loneliness of Victoria, Port Essington, a reminder of Christian
devotion.
F Flynn, Northern Gateway, 1963; T J Linane, J P O’Loughlin, From Abel to Zunolavich: Biographies of Priests on the Australian scene
up to 1900, vol 2; J P O’Loughlin, The History of the Catholic Church in the Northern Territory, 1986; A Powell, Far Country, 1982;
P G Spillett, Forsaken Settlement, 1972; St Mary’s Star of the Sea, Darwin, ‘War Memorial Cathedral’—Church Centenary edition, Darwin,
1982; R M Wiltgen, The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Oceania 1825 to 1850, 1981; A Corrie, Family information.
G PRYER, Vol 1.
CONNELLAN, EDWARD JOHN (EDDIE or E J) (1912–1983), teacher, aviator, businessman and pastoralist,
was born on 24 June 1912, at Donald, western Victoria, the eldest of seven children of Thomas and Lucy Connellan.
Connellan’s parents owned a farming and grazing property named Araluen, at East Laen near Donald, although
when he was still very young they moved to the Riverina district of New South Wales.
Connellan completed his secondary education as a boarder at Xavier College in Melbourne in 1928 and began
his working life as a schoolteacher at the Lake Boga State School in 1930 and the Swan Hill High School in 1931.
He began a degree by correspondence with the University of Melbourne and completed the first year of study but
soon realised that teaching would never enable him to raise the capital necessary to fulfil his ambitions of acquiring
a pastoral property in the Northern Territory, so resigned from the Department of Education in July 1933.
Connellan’s first business ventures, Rural Radio and London Aero Ads, both failed, but he succeeded in gaining
his private pilot’s licence on 8 July 1936. This gave him the means to visit Canberra to learn about economic
possibilities in the Northern Territory. During the course of his many visits to the national capital, Connellan
became firm friends with John McEwen, the Minister responsible for the Northern Territory.
After securing financial support from friends and pastoralists in western Victoria, Connellan embarked on two
aerial surveys of the Northern Territory in 1938, to assess the potential role of aviation in the development of the
Territory and also to select land for a cattle station for himself, his brother, Vin, and two friends, Fred and Geoff
O’Keefe. During the course of this 14-week survey Connellan met McEwen, who was touring parts of the region.
They discussed the idea of trying to establish the viability of an air service in the Territory and Connellan agreed
to trial such a scheme for three years.
Connellan successfully negotiated a subsidy from the federal government for a mail run between Alice Springs
and Wyndham together with a contract with the Flying Doctor Service for a service centred on Alice Springs.
His friend Damian Miller arranged a guarantee for the funds necessary to provide two Percival Gull VI aircraft and
a 1920s Silver Ghost Rolls Royce to provide ground transport. With these, Connellan arrived in Alice Springs on
4 July 1939 to establish Survey and Inland Transport.
The new aerial service began with Connellan flying the first medical flight with Dr Catalano to the Hermannsburg
Mission on 10 July 1939, while the second pilot and only engineer, Jack Kellow, flew the first official mail run on
8 August. Thereafter, the service operated fortnightly, leaving Alice Springs each Tuesday, following the arrival
of the Ghan train.
War threw Connellan’s plans into disarray. All of his ground staff joined the services and damage to aircraft
left him with only one operational aeroplane thus allowing Kellow to leave Alice Springs in October 1940 for a
position with the Whyalla Aero Club.