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for ageing pioneers of the outback by providing what he called ‘A Camp for Old Timers’. In 1949 he designed the
first cottage to be built at the Old Timers Settlement in Alice Springs.
Flynn proposed to retire by September 1951, but after a very short illness he died in Royal Prince Alfred
Hospital, Sydney, from abdominal cancer on Saturday 5 May 1951. There were thousands of letters and telegrams
of tribute. His funeral service was conducted in St Stephen’s Church, Sydney, on Wednesday 9 May and his ashes
flown to Alice Springs by the Commonwealth Government for interment near Mount Gillen, where a granite
boulder from the Devil’s Marbles surmounted a plinth built of quartzite from Heavitree Gap.
The John Flynn Memorial Church in Todd Street, Alice Springs, later the place of worship of the Uniting
Church, was opened and dedicated five years after Flynn’s death on 5 May 1956. The John Flynn Commemorative
Cairn at Three Ways on the Stuart Highway near Tennant Creek was erected by the Royal Flying Doctor Service and
dedicated in August 1953. At Moliagul and at Cloncurry, local citizens erected memorial obelisks. Flynn College
is a residential college within the James Cook University, Townsville. In Canberra Flynn was honoured by Flynn
Drive leading to Capital Hill, and in the flourishing suburb beyond Belconnen that bears his name.
J Bilton, The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, 1961; E Hill, Flying Doctor Calling, 1947; H Hudson, Flynn’s Flying Doctors, 1956;
I Idriess, Flynn of the Inland, 1932; M McKenzie, Flynn’s Last Camp, 1985; W S McPheat, John Flynn, Apostle to the Inland, 1963; M Page,
The Flying Doctor Story, 1977; AIM N UC Frontier Services Papers, NLA; Flynn Papers, NLA; Plowman Papers, NLA; Simpson Papers,
NLA.
J FRED McKAY, Vol 2.
FOELSCHE, MARY JANE: see ANDREWS, MARY JANE
FOELSCHE, PAUL HEINRICH MATTHIAS (1831–1914), police inspector, was born at Moorburg in
Hamburg, Germany, on 30 March 1831, the son of Matthias Foelsche, about whom nothing is known, the Hamburg
records having been destroyed during the Second World War. Apparently of ‘lower middle-class surroundings’,
Foelsche joined a Hussar regiment at the age of eighteen. In 1854 he sailed for South Australia, arriving in the brig
Reihersteig on 26 October. He joined the South Australian Police Force in November 1856 as a trooper third-class
and was stationed at Strathalbyn, rising steadily through the ranks until promoted Sub-Inspector in December 1869
as officer-in-charge of the first police detachment posted to the Northern Territory.
Foelsche had spent the whole period of his service at Strathalbyn. He had married Charlotte Georgina Smith,
daughter of a local man, in 1800 and they had two daughters, Mary and Emma. At Strathalbyn Foelsche had
established himself as a capable officer. A well-educated man, he was versed in the law and was said to be ‘the best
lawyer outside the South Australian Bar’. He was an expert on firearms and one of his hobbies was making rifle
sights and gun stocks and colouring the barrels of weapons used by local volunteers. At Strathalbyn also he was
said to have ‘acquired a considerable reputation as a dentist’, possessing many instruments frequently used to
‘relieve his neighbours of painful molars’, a skill he later practised in Palmerston.
Generally well liked, he had participated in local affairs and had been a member of the Angas lodge of
the International Order of Odd fellows for more than 10 years. He became a naturalised British subject on
9 December 1869 and, on the eve of his departure for the Territory, was given a farewell dinner, at which the
mayor of Strathalbyn praised him for his ‘courtesy, tact, kindness and ability. With six troopers, Foelsche sailed
with the first permanent party of government officers for Palmerston in Koh-i-nor, arriving at Port Darwin on
21 January 1870.
A portly, unflappable man, noted for his optimistic outlook, Foelsche, however, was sensitive of official
dignity. When one of the troopers, William Stretton, gave an old pair of his uniform trousers to a native in
November 1870, Foelsche threatened to make all his men suffer in reprisal. Another trooper, Edward Catchlove,
thought this threat ‘shows a meanness on the Inspector’s part which will not be forgotten’. Stretton, however,
bore Foelsche no ill will and said many years later that he was highly respected by all who knew him. According
to Stretton, Foelsche ruled the police force with a great sense of discipline and any penalty he inflicted upon his
subordinates was just but merciful.
Unlike many others at the time, Foelsche adapted well to the tropics and the deprivations of frontier life.
He was given a two-roomed tin hut as a residence at first, but late in 1870 he moved to new quarters in Mitchell
Street. The house was small, having two or three rooms, probably like the police station, which was composed of
poles and plaster and measured six metres by four. Foelsche set about establishing a garden on his small plot of
land to help meet the serious lack of vegetables, did all he could to beautify the place, then sent for his wife and
daughters. His wife and family helped to make their house ‘one of the most cheerful and comfortable homes in
the settlement’.
With the discovery of gold and the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line, the number of police officers
was increased. By 1873 it was 18—14 troopers, three water police stationed at Port Darwin and Foelsche himself,
who was promoted Inspector. Originally he was responsible directly to the Police Commissioner in Adelaide,
but the Government Resident was now given control of the police in the Top End. When police were later sent to
Central Australia, they remained under the control of the commissioner.
Foelsche never travelled extensively in the Territory, but from the outset he took an interest in the Aborigines.
He set out to learn local languages and gathered some ethnological information. His ‘Notes on the Aborigines
of North Australia’ were read to the Royal Society of South Australia in 1881. In the same year he sent material
on the Larakia of the Palmerston district and the Unalla of Raffles Bay to E M Curt, who included them in his
The Australian Race, published in 1887. Foelsche had developed an early enthusiasm for photography and after