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steadily declined. Over the next decade or so several luggers were wrecked in storms and the schooner sold, so that
by the time he died Edwards only retained three luggers, Maggie, Ena and Runic.
For many years Edwards was de facto Harbourmaster, the South Australian and Commonwealth governments
not deeming it necessary to appoint qualified mariners to that position. He was the nautical assessor in several
courts of marine inquiry. In September 1901, for example, he sat with the Harbourmaster as the nautical expert
when an inquiry was held into the loss of the steamer Thomas Andreas. On 1 June 1912 he was appointed Examiner
of Master and Mates.
In addition to his maritime interests Edwards had a brief foray into mining and in 1889 held mineral leases in
the McArthur River area. Between 1897 and 1909 he owned Lot 552 in Mitchell Street. In 1912 Edwards’s wife,
Jessie, purchased Lot 658 on the Esplanade where the family home was built.
He was ‘well known and highly respected’ in Palmerston though unsuccessful when he stood for the District
Council in 1901. He was Vice President of the cricket club in 1899 and was a very keen euchre player, progressive
euchre parties being a common social event of the day. In 1905 he offered a prize in the miscellaneous section
of the annual agricultural, horticultural and industrial show. In August 1912 he was appointed a Member of the
Licensing Bench, on which he sat until hotels were taken over by the government in 1915.
He died at his home on 25 June 1929, survived by his second wife, Jessie Emma, nee Turpin, and two sons.
His first wife and two children from that marriage predeceased him. He was buried in the General Cemetery,
Darwin, after a graveside service conducted jointly by Anglican and Methodist clergymen. His estate, left to his
wife, was sworn in at 6 548 Pounds.
Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 16 February 1889, 7 April 1899, 12 November 1900, 20 January 1901, 21 June 1901, 5 July 1901,
20 September 1901, 5 June 1903, 19 June 1903, 25 March 1904, 24 March 1905, 3 January 1908, 2 August 1912; North Australian, 28 January
1889; Northern Standard, 28 June 1929; Northern Territory Archives Service, E103/24/29, E96/199.
HELEN J WILSON , Vol 2.
EDWARDS, IDA: see ASHBURNER, IDA
EDWARDS, ROY MAXWELL (1906–1992), cable operator, aviator and pastoralist, was born in the family
home, Iona, in Mitchell Street, Palmerston, on 6 July 1906. He was the son of Henry Charles Edwards and his
second wife, Jessie Emma, nee Turpin.
Edwards attended the public school in Cavenagh Street, Darwin. His teachers were Victor Lampe and Joe King.
The family lived in a house on the Esplanade. Edwards later remembered visiting Inspector Paul Foelsche as a
youngster and being cautioned by him when he and other boys went into China Town, a place that was considered
out of bounds to them. When Edwards was 12 he and Jock Nelson perched in a tree to watch the march on
Government House by angry unionists during the ‘Darwin Rebellion’ in December 1918. The boys were good
friends even though their fathers often held widely differing opinions; Jock’s father, Harold Nelson was a union
leader, while Henry Edwards employed indentured labour. Edwards regularly travelled to Fannie Bay Gaol in the
back of a buggy with an Aboriginal tracker when his father went out there on business. Edwards and his brother
often went to Lamaroo Beach with some of the Aborigines, a couple of whom worked for the Edwards, and
paddled a canoe over to Channel Island to camp and catch fish and crabs.
Edwards’s first job was with the Eastern Extension Cable Company, which was situated beside the old Post
Office on the Esplanade. Val and Boyne Litchfield worked with him. Often when they started evening shift a pile
of work was waiting to be sent on to Adelaide, Batavia (now Jakarta) or Singapore. Edwards went to Adelaide for
three years to train as an operator. He later visited Batavia and Singapore for a year to help the local operators.
When the company was taken over by the Cable and Wireless Company Edwards was asked to stay on but finally
decided not to.
Edwards learned to fly in Darwin and in 1932 he went to Brisbane to acquire a private pilot’s licence. While there
he bought an aeroplane for 250 Pounds and flew it back to Darwin. He later returned to Brisbane to obtain his
commercial licence. Early in 1940 he made a mercy dash in a Moth aeroplane to Pine Creek through threatening
monsoon storms to bring Fred Hardy of Goodparla Station to the Darwin Hospital after he had badly broken his
leg.
Edwards formed the company Koolpinyah Cool Stores with Evan and Oscar Herbert and Dennie Conners in
- The company supplied the Army in the Top End with beef before and during the Second World War.
Edwards married his first wife, the famous nurse Ida Ashburner, in Darwin in 1939 and between that year
and 1940 flew an ambulance aeroplane. In 1940 he flew down to assist the settlers on the flooded Roper River.
On the way the motor stopped and he crash-landed. He had to swim flooded creeks and walk to the Roper before
he reached the safety of Elsey Station. Edwards often flew for Dr Clyde Fenton while the latter was away from
the Northern Territory. When war threatened Darwin in late 1941, Ida Edwards was evacuated south. After war
service Edwards later joined Australian National Airways in Adelaide and flew many of its routes.
Edwards bought the huge Newcastle Waters Station in 1945. He subsequently developed it into one of the best
known and most efficiently run cattle properties in the Northern Territory.
An Aborigine, George Mongaloo (Edwards) had been with the Edwards family since he was a boy. He worked
on pearling luggers with Henry Edwards and was then at Newcastle Waters with Roy as housekeeper and gardener
before moving to Darwin when the station was sold in 1980. When George died in 1986 Edwards flew his body
from Darwin to Delissaville for burial.
Ida died in 1961 and Edwards married Marjory Norman, daughter of Zacharia Herbert Jones and his wife
Ida Linda, nee Hewett, in Adelaide on 4 August 1962. He had no children from either marriage.