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way, and cattle offered the most hopeful prospect for extra revenue. Despite contracts negotiated in 1893 with the
Dutch colonial army to supply its forces with meat during the Atjeh campaign in northern Sumatra, the scourge of
cattle tick infestation in the Northern Territory effectively destroyed the industry. Dashwood hoped the Singapore
market and, later, the United States Army in the Philippines would compensate for the loss of the markets in the
Netherlands from the live cattle trade by its owners because of the lack of profit. Invincibly optimistic, Dashwood
in 1900 advocated the export of livestock and horses as cavalry remounts long after the effects of drought and
capital withdrawal had decimated pastoralism in the Territory.
The departure of SS Darwin isolated Palmerston, leaving it without a regular steamer service; the vessel
had brought two Chinese carpenters from Singapore, after the disastrous cyclone of January 1897 wrecked the
settlement, to repair the Port Darwin cable station. Dashwood had requested the government to allow about
20 Chinese carpenters to come from Singapore to help rebuild essential buildings in Palmerston but this was
denied and reconstruction had to wait until European carpenters (whose wages exceeded those of the Chinese)
could be brought from Sydney, despite the fact the government offices were almost totally destroyed. Dashwood
could not thwart the ‘White Australia’ policy even to restore the apparatus of government.
Dashwood tendered his resignation as Government Resident on 19 January 1905 to take effect from
31 March 1905. He had left Palmerston on leave of absence on 26 October 1904 and made his last appearance
at Port Darwin in May 1905, where he met his successor and the Governor Sir George Le Hunte, en route
from Hong Kong to Adelaide. Dashwood’s successor was C E Herbert, who as the local member in the South
Australian House of Assembly had conducted a sustained criticism of Dashwood’s administration. Herbert is
reported in September 1901 to have said, ‘I could pour into the ears of the Government for hours stories of the
maladministration of the Territory. The ‘GR’ is always likely to be a resourceless and ductile representative of
an impecunious and policy-wanting Ministry.’ S J Way, the Chief Justice of South Australia, said, ‘Dashwood
had been induced to resign to make room for Herbert, MP, who is the Government Whip, and no doubt this is
in payment of the price of his support.’ The inducement for Dashwood to leave Palmerston was the position of
Crown Solicitor in Adelaide, and appointment which did not receive approbation from the Honorary Magistrate
of 14 April 1905 which commented: ‘Mr Dashwood’s appointment has surprised and disappointed the profession.
The great considers that he will be a failure.’
Dashwood was not a conspicuous failure as crown solicitor. He was appointed King’s Council (KC) in
July 1906 and served until his retirement on 31 August 1916 when he was well over the statutory retirement age
of 70. During his term as crown solicitor he acquired the nickname of ‘Northern Territory Charlie’ because of his
propensity to relate many legal problems to the way things had been done in the Northern Territory. He married a
forty-one-year-old German spinster, Martha Margarethe Johanna Klevesahl, on 5 February 1916. There were no
children of this marriage. Dashwood died on 8 July 1919 from heart failure and is buried in Meadows cemetery.
He died intestate, a device which would ensure that his ex-nuptial son Robert could claim no more than one-third
of the estate, which amounted to 3 867 Pounds 32 Shillings.
Dashwood’s career and life mirrored the transition of early South Australian settler society from colonialism
to the establishment of the Australian federation. He had come from a tight-knit society of middle-class families
whose failure to share in the financial rewards gained from exploitative enterprises like pastoralism left only public
service to provide them with a living. His sister Millicent had married C H T Connor who owned land adjacent to
the Dashwood’s at Dashwood Gully and their son Connor Dashwood of Walderville was invited to Government
House in company with Charles Dashwood and his unmarried sisters. This was the social milieu in which
Dashwood lived during the early part of his life when he practised law and lived a bachelor life. The elevation of
his career to a responsible but isolated post, where his robust outlook allowed him to survive longer than any other
Government Resident, also provided Dashwood with opportunity to exercise talents he may never have been able
to demonstrate as a solicitor in Adelaide. When Banjo Patterson visited Palmerston in 1898 he remarked that there
were only three topics of conversation there—the cyclone, Paddy Cahill and the Government Resident. ‘A good
man as he doesn’t care a damn for anybody and starting from the safe position discharges his various duties with
a light heart.’
Dashwood was a genial second-rater but his doggedness in pursuing schemes for the betterment of the Territory
must make him memorable as a vital link in the continuation of the settlement—particularly, in the years 1900–
1905 when almost all enterprises had collapsed—until the Commonwealth could take it.
Dashwood failed in many respects but it is in his recognition of Aborigines having a special place in post-contact
Australian society that make him significant. R M and C H Berndt in their book End of an Era, remark, ‘An awareness
of the existence of human and social problems which were amenable to some kink of solution (but perhaps not at
that time) was manifested at least in the more liberal approach of Dashwood (1899)..’.
ADB, vol 1 & 6; Gizen-No-Teki, Coloyhobia: An Exposure of the White Australia Policy; Adelaide Observer, 30 July 1891; The Pictorial
Australian, August 1891; Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 1892–1905; Government Resident’s Report on NT, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1896,
1897, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1904; PP, S14 1888 No 58A 1893, No 64, 158, 1899, No 77, 45; PP, HR, 1901, 2 No A42; Parliamentary Debates
1 House of Assembly (8A) vol 1 1891, vol 1 1893, 2 Commonwealth 1901, 1902; Historical Studies of Australia and New Zealand, vol 10,
no 38, May 1962; South Australian Government Gazette, no 3, no 19; South Australian Supreme Court Papers, May 1868; ANL, MS 4653,
MS G072; SAA, 790/1892/37, 790/1893/28G, 790/ 1894/3G7, 790/1899/480, 790/1904/309, 1375/ 1141, Research Note no 3, Copies of Birth
Registration and Death Certificate; Personal information supplied by D G E Hall, Joyce Gibberd and A M Simon.
PETER ELDER, Vol 1.
DAVIES, FLORENCE ALICE: see BUDGEN , FLORENCE ALICE