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Elizabeth’s maternal grandfather, Charles Edward Gore, was also a well-known Territory character. He was
captain of a 15-tonne vessel, Venture, which plied between Darwin and Borroloola for at least 10 years. In the
1930s Elizabeth remembered him well, telling her children about him, especially his deep Devonshire sailor’s
voice that used to frighten her when she was a child.
Most of Elizabeth’s family were born in the Territory, and they lived their lives there, overcoming the hazards
of rocky, scrubby country, wet and dry season, snakes, wild bulls, floods, droughts, mineral strikes and bush-fires.
Elizabeth was no doubt familiar with all of these.
She was apparently sent to a convent in Darwin for a few years, where she later sent her eldest daughter
Alice. This education was of great help in the founding of Mallapunyah Springs cattle station and in the bush
correspondence lessons of her own large family of sons and daughters.
In 1912 she married John William Hopkins, an Englishman, who lived and worked as a drover in the
Pine Creek—Adelaide River—Darwin area. Father Gsell, later Bishop Gsell, at the hospital in Darwin, married
them and two nurses were their witnesses. Their first child was born at Adelaide River and was called Adelaide,
although always known by her second name, Alice. Later they had another child, William Walter Hopkins, born
at Pine Creek.
By 1918 work was hard to find. John Hopkins was 47 and too old to go to war for his native England’s defence.
The family thus decided to try Queensland. On the way, with their plant of at least 10 horses, John worked at
Brunette Downs, mending fences. In September 1918 he died there, at Number Two Bore, probably from the
effects of broken ribs received in a bad fall from a horse the previous day.
Elizabeth, now aged 23, with two young children, decided to return home to Pine Creek where her mother was
living. The manager of Brunette Downs arranged for her to be escorted as far as Borroloola by George Darcy,
a strapping young Queenslander of 28, who had a wagon and horses and was carrying stores from Borroloola to
the Barkly Tableland stations. After a safe arrival at Borroloola, and the loading of the wagon for his return trip,
George became ill with a devastating attack of ‘sandy blight’, which completely, though temporarily, blinded him.
Elizabeth helped him back to Brunette Downs with the wagon—she told him she could harness horses as well as
any man—and then they decided to stay together.
The first young Darcy was born in Darwin, but afterward Elizabeth, a tall, wee-built healthy woman, with soft,
curling brown hair and a sweet smile, must have decided the travelling was not worth it. She was to have another
12 children, including two sets of twins, in the bush, without benefit of doctors or trained nurses. On Elizabeth’s
return to Borroloola from Darwin with her new baby, she found George away with the wagon. She settled down to
cook in one of the hotels for a few months until he appeared on the bush road again.
They lived at several places before settling at Mallapunyah Springs in 1928. They had spent time at Top
Springs, a waterhole on the old road and present stock route, some 15 kilometres west of Mallapunyah, and at
the Kilgour, south of the later homestead. In both these places Elizabeth and George added to their family, the
remainder being born at Mallapunyah.
Elizabeth was well known for her kindly attitude to the occasional nomadic Aborigines who came past the
family home. They would want to exchange sugarbag honey, lily bulbs and fish for flour and tobacco, or fruits from
the garden, or perhaps show off their new babies to her, or ask for medical advice.
Locally, she was much admired for her standards—ironed tablecloths on Sunday, stockings when visitors were
accepted, and for bringing up a large family, with aspirin and castor oil, and sometimes a spoonful of treacle, for
a medicine chest.
Over the first 10 years of their lives at Mallapunyah, George and Elizabeth Darcy, who had earlier been married
on the banks of the Kilgour River by a visiting Methodist minister, worked incredibly hard. While her husband
was away earning money with the wagon, Elizabeth built the house walls of sandstone blocks carried from the
surrounding hills. For mortar her elder children, still under 10, carried the sand by horse and buggy. Elizabeth
selected limestone and built a funnel-shaped kiln in the steep banks of the creek, where the limestone was burnt
down with snappy gum. When mixed with the sand and water, it made a first-class cement, most of it still in place
50 years later. The house had four bedrooms, with a large central breezeway and a three-metre wide verandah
on all four sides. The roof came down low enough to prevent the sweeping monsoon winds, bearing their heavy
burdens of water, from wetting children’s beds standing against the inner walls. Later a separate kitchen, dining
room, bathroom, storehouse, workshop and garages were added. She made beds and tables out of native timber and
hide and carved toys for the little ones.
As well as helping her husband with his wagon, Elizabeth broke in draught horses, tended the milking cows,
and their increasing flock of goats used for milk, meat and hides. She and her children also grew an impressive
garden. The area of deep alluvial soil surrounding the springs was fenced, and channels dug to let the spring water
flow gently where it was needed. A great variety of fruit trees and vegetables were planted. These were not only to
feed the family but also to sell, and indeed became the main means of support for years.
George bought a motor vehicle, a Chevrolet 4, and converted it into a utility. Loads of mangoes, pawpaws, sweet
potatoes, bananas, tomatoes, chillies, shallots, pumpkins, cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, beans and pineapples
were sold to travellers on the road and to stations all over the Barkly Tableland. Tobacco was grown and cured for
George, bananas dried and ground for coffee, jams made and fruit preserved. When the children’s correspondence
lessons came, by monthly packhorse mail from Camooweal, Elizabeth would supervise them all. It was Elizabeth
who wrote letters to the Department of Lands to take up various leases that later comprised the 4 077 square
kilometres of top grazing property. The first lease was dated 1928. For many long months at a time she would be
alone with the children, while George was away working. For many years theirs was the only family in the area