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some 40 years later, when the Army paid compensation to his family. There are several photographs of Gagai in
the Donald Thomson Papers in the Museum of Victoria.
R Hall, The Black Diggers, 1989; L Lamilami, Lamilami Speaks: An Autobiography, 1974; M McKenzie, Mission to Arnhem Land, 1976;
E Shepherdson, Half a Century in Arnhem Land, 1981; D Thomson, Donald Thomson in Arnhem Land, 1983, ‘Arnhem Land’, in Geographical
Journal, vol 112, 1948, vol 113, 1949 and vol 114, 1949, ‘War-Time Exploration in Dutch New Guinea’, in Geographical Journal, vol 119,
1953; Australian Military Forces Certificate of Discharge, in Australian War Memorial; files AWM 54 628/1/1, 54 628/4/5 & 54 741/5/9;
D Thomson Papers, Museum of Victoria and Mrs D Thomson; other research material held by J Rich.
JENNY RICH, Vol 2.
GAJIYUMA (‘KING BOB’) (?–1909), pilot, a man of the Mara people who owned the lower Roper River region,
Gajiyuma was a prominent Aboriginal person during the early era of white activity in his lands. He was one of the
first Aborigines to associate himself with the Overland Telegraph construction team when a depot was established
on the Roper River in 1871. To circumvent the impassable wet-season terrain, supplies were brought to the depot
by ship. Gajiyuma’s knowledge of the river was put to advantage and he was employed as a pilot, joining vessels
such as Omeo and Young Australian at the mouth of the river and guiding their passage upstream to the bar.
Gajiyuma was then nicknamed ‘Bob’.
After the departure of the Overland Telegraph teams in 1873, the need for Gajiyuma’s services declined but did
not disappear. Ships still brought supplies for the store and police station at Roper Bar and for cattle stations in the
region as well as occasionally shipping out ore from as far away as Pine Creek. Gajiyuma and his family camped
at the mouth of the river awaiting ships requiring a pilot. By the early 1900s, he was known as ‘Old Bob’, some
piloting being undertaken by his son ‘Bob’. Gajiyuma closely monitored happenings in his region. It was possibly
his knowledge of Europeans which saved him from death along with the hundreds of his kinfolk massacred early
this century by the hunting gangs of the Eastern and African Cold Storage Company in their attempt to exterminate
all who stood in the way of their projected cattle empire. Gajiyuma sought out the explorer, Alfred Giles, who was
in the region in 1906, emphatically stating his ownership of the land.
When Bishop White in Francis Pritt sought a site for a Church of England mission in 1906, he met Gajiyuma
at the mouth of the Roper and together they selected a site 110 kilometres upstream. Gajiyuma welcomed the
missionaries in 1908 and became known as ‘King Bob’. He spent the last few months of his life scouring the
region to locate the hunted and scattered remnants of his people and lead them to safety at the mission. He died in
February 1909 at the mission.
G White, Thirty Years in Tropical Australia, 1918; K Cole, Roper River Mission 1908–1968, 1969; A Giles, ‘Report of Tour of Inspection of
Roper River’, MS 1906; Oral traditions at Ngukurr (Roper River).
JOHN HARRIS, Vol 1.
GALLACHER, JAMES DOUGLAS (JIM) (1923–1990), soldier, teacher and public servant, was born on
12 September 1923 at Warrnambool, Victoria, the eldest child of Walter McLean Gallacher and Helena Elizabeth
Gallacher, nee Quinn. Jim Gallacher’s great-grandfather and his brother emigrated from Scotland in 1838.
They obtained farming property in the Western District of Victoria which his grandfather, an engineer, subsequently
sold. Jim’s grandfather later assisted his son to purchase a grocery store in Jamieson Street, Warrnambool, and the
home in which Jim, his sister Jean and brother Ronald, grew up was attached to the rear of the family store.
Except for an absence in Canberra between 1960 and 1961, the Northern Territory was Jim Gallacher’s home
from 1951 until his death. The first Aboriginal schools run by the Commonwealth Office of Education (COE) were
established in the Territory in 1950. As a young, inexperienced school teacher, accompanied by his wife of just two
days, Jim arrived in Alice Springs on 19 March 1951 en route to the central Australian Aboriginal community of
Areyonga, where he had been appointed the community’s first teacher. Forty years later, a long-standing colleague,
Les Penhall, spoke of Jim as ‘the best school teacher ever to come to the Territory’ and as ‘completely dedicated’.
His contribution to education was officially recognized in 1976, when he became the first Fellow of the Northern
Territory Chapter of the Australian College of Education, and in 1978, when he was made a Member of the Order
of the British Empire (MBE).
Jim Gallacher unfailingly demonstrated his belief that education and training held the key to the future well
being and self-sufficiency of Aboriginal peoples. However, his varied interests and many achievements extended
well beyond his pioneering work in education to distinguish him as a man whose great enthusiasm for Territory
life, and the welfare of its people, never waned.
Jim was educated in Warrnambool. After completing his Leaving Certificate at Warrnambool High School his
plans to join a local accounting firm were cut short by the Second World War. As an 18-year-old of less than his
full height of five feet eight inches, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 26 August 1942. He saw
action, mainly in New Guinea, until discharged with the rank of Sergeant in July 1946. His army enlistment records
describe him as five feet five and one-half inches tall and weighing 140 pounds, with fair hair, fair complexion and
blue eyes. He had a strong, cheerful countenance and striking blue eyes, which never lost their depth or clarity.
Although Jim spoke little of his wartime experiences to his family, he became a member of the Darwin Branch
of the Returned Services League (RSL), and died just hours after formally completing his term as President
of Darwin Legacy. And in organizing the contributions of wartime mates to the traditional Anzac Day two-up
school, Jim combined an ethos of ‘mateship’ with his love of a wager. For some years he was a member and
Steward of the Darwin Turf Club and, as the architect of racing tips for ‘Pegasus’, a segment in the Australian