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amongst stock,... [who] was also one of the best bushmen in the Northern Territory, perfectly fearless, and able to
do journeys single-handed that would make some of the latter-day ‘explorers’ blush.’
Buchanan family records; G Buchanan, Packhorse and Waterhole, 1933; R Buchanan, ‘Old Bluey’, unpublished manuscript; Croker family
records; House of Commons Parliamentary Paper, No C6498, 1891 (Kintore report); Northern Territory Times and Gazette (various issues);
Pastoral claims map, 1878; Queenslander (various issues).
DARRELL LEWIS, Vol 3.CROME, (later DYER) MARY CATHERINE (?–1940), was a pioneer Church Missionary Society (CMS)
missionary working among the Aborigines of Arnhem Land. She trained as a nursing sister and also had teaching
experience that greatly helped in her later work as a missionary. She was accepted by the Church Missionary
Association (later CMS) of Victoria for service at the Roper River Mission in June 1913. During her first tour
from 1913 until 1916 she was of great assistance to the pioneer missionary Miss Charlotte Mary Hill and the
medical and educational work of the mission. On her second tour she married Alfred John Dyer at the Roper
River Mission on 24 February 1917. From that time onward she worked alongside her husband at Roper and also
on Groote Eylandt. She and her husband started the CMS Oenpelli Mission in 1925 and worked there with success
until near the end of 1934. During the previous few years she had been suffering from cancer from which she
eventually died at Guildford, New South Wales on 24 February 1940. The Dyers had no children.
K Cole, Oenpelli Pioneer, 1972; K Cole, Roper River Mission 1908–1968, 1969; K Cole, A History of Oenpelli, 1975; CMS Records, Melbourne;
Personal papers of the Reverend A J Dyer with parts of a journal of Mary Dyer.
KEITH COLE, Vol 1.CROOK, DOREEN ROSE: see BRAITLING, DOREEN ROSECROSS, LOUISA GLADYS (1884–197?), Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary to the Aborigines
in Arnhem Land, was born on 7 October 1884 at North Fitzroy, Victoria, the daughter of William Cross and
Louisa Rowe. She was educated at Essendon State School and Blinkbonnie Ladies’ College. She spent 1900 at
Melbourne University preparing herself for a teaching career. She taught for the next 18 years, although she had
trouble with her throat from time to time.
The Victorian CMS accepted Louisa Cross as a missionary for work among the Aborigines in north Australia
on 17 March 1919. She travelled to the Roper River Mission with Mrs H E Warren while the latter’s husband,
Hubert Warren travelled to the mission overland by car.
Louisa Cross spent the next 17 years teaching at the Roper River Mission and the Groote Eylandt Emerald
River Mission schools. Miss May Dove helped her for most of this time. Her pupils were mainly half-caste
children who later remembered her with affection. The continuous periods of service of these two missionaries
contributed greatly to the stability of the schoolwork. The CMS policy at the Emerald River Mission changed in
the early 1930s from the care of the half-caste children to that of the Groote Eylandt Aborigines. Louisa Cross
initiated the new programs to cater for these changes.
Cross started a troop of girl guides from among the half-caste girls on Groote Eylandt in 1929. The troop
continued for some years, drawing worldwide acclamation in guiding circles for the existence of this unique,
far-off group.
In 1935 Cross was allowed to return to Groote Eylandt for only one year’s service because of ill health. She
left the following year, arriving back in Melbourne on 28 September 1936. On her resignation the CMS recorded
‘its sincere appreciation of the valuable services tendered to the Society of both the Roper and Groote Eylandt
Stations by Miss L G Cross, extending for a period of seventeen years’. It continued: ‘As one of the pioneer
missionaries on Groote Eylandt, by her devoted work amongst the Euralian [half-caste] children, young people,
and later amongst the Aborigines of the Island, she has helped to establish the work of Christ’s Kingdom in a
manner that reflects much courageous and self-denying labour on her part...’.
K Cole, Roper River Mission 1908–1968, 1969; K Cole, Groote Eylandt Mission, 1971; CMS Victorian Branch records.
KEITH COLE, Vol 1.CRUSH, THOMAS GEORGE (TOM) (1865–1913), Territory miner, publican and pioneer Labor politician, was
born in 1865 in Plaistow, Essex, England, son of Mr and Mrs William Henry Crush. As a young man he followed
the profession of teaching, but in about 1888 decided to come to Australia, most probably arriving in Brisbane.
Seized by the gold fever of the time, he soon followed a number of mining rushes, finally arriving at Wandi in the
Northern Territory about 1897 or 1898.
On 3 August 1898, at the Palmerston Registry Office, he married the recently widowed Frances (Fanny) Cody
nee Domney. On their marriage certificate, Tom is described as a 33-year-old bachelor and miner, residing at
Wandi. His curly headed wife, who was destined to become one of the Territory’s most colourful personalities,
was described as a 27-year-old storekeeper and widow. Her first husband, Michael Cody, then a 55-year-old miner,
carrier and storekeeper at Wandi, had died of heat apoplexy two days before Christmas in 1897 and Fanny had
continued running the store, where she most probably met Crush. Fanny was among the first 82 Territory women
who enrolled to vote in the Northern Territory in 1895. Shortly after their marriage Tom and Fanny moved to the
evolving mining community of Brocks Creek where they chose a site on the flat in front of the railway station
and began to erect a hotel. By December 1899, as the hotel was nearing completion, the Northern Territory Times