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1908 he accepted and built up his department with characteristic energy. The university awarded him an honorary
doctorate in 1909.
In 1911 Prime Minister Andrew Fisher invited him to join a scientific mission to investigate the potential of the
Northern Territory. The mission leader, Professor (Sir) Baldwin Spencer was his colleague and friend and, as first
Commonwealth appointed Protector of Aborigines, later his adviser. Fired with enthusiasm for the potential of
Territory mining, agriculture and pastoralism, he quietly lobbied for the post of Administrator of the Northern
Territory and, in February 1912, received it. Two months later he arrived in Darwin to an enthusiastic welcome
from a heterogenous population which hoped that the Commonwealth was about to put an end to the economic
stagnation induced by 47 years of South Australian rule.
It did not happen. Commonwealth interest in the Northern Territory diminished rapidly after the First World War
broke out in August 1914 and Gilruth’s development plans received little support from a succession of ministers
and advisers with little knowledge of Territory conditions. He also had to contend with the rising power of the
Darwin branch of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), under its able organiser (later secretary), Harold Nelson.
Gilruth’s imperious nature led him to impose new hours of work on government employees in arbitrary fashion
and to crush without trace of concession an AWU members’ strike in May 1913. Nelson skilfully used the resultant
legacy of antagonism to rebuild union power, with himself at the head of it; and when Gilruth clashed with his own
officers over industrial matters and with Darwin employers over his attitude to town lands and the abolition of the
Palmerston Council, his isolation was virtually complete—except for the Territory’s pastoralists.
His interest in the cattle industry and marathon travels in his Talbot car to visit the stations brought him a
measure of acceptance there. So did his personal nature, shown in individual acts of kindness and consideration
to women and children—but the power struggle in Darwin over-shadowed all else. The focal point became the
Darwin meatworks erected by the giant English meat firm, Vesteys. Begun in 1914, this project was badly sited,
far from cattle country. It also suffered consistent industrial unrest and cost inflation, was not finished until 1917
and closed in 1920.
Two years before this, on 17 December 1918, union-orchestrated discontent reached a peak when a mob of
two or three hundred marched on Government House (Darwin) and demanded Gilruth’s resignation. He faced
them with courage; but in February 1919 the Commonwealth government recalled him ‘for consultation’ and
eight months later some of the Darwin citizenry forced the departure of three of his closest associates, H E Carey,
Director of the Northern Territory, D J D Bevan, Judge of the Supreme Court and R J Evans, Government
Secretary. These events, known as the ‘Darwin Rebellion’, have joined the Eureka Stockade in labour mythology,
but in fact did nothing to help the people of Darwin who exchanged one autocrat (Gilruth) for another (Nelson)
and whose economy collapsed soon after with Vesteys’ closure. Nelson used union power as a springboard to
Federal Parliament; Gilruth found himself the main target of an inquiry headed by Mr Justice N K Ewing who
promptly hired Nelson to assist him as ‘representative of the citizens of the Northern Territory’. Ewing’s report,
completed in April 1920, accused Gilruth of allowing irregular practices in the courts and Aborigines’ Department
and of personal impropriety in land and mining deals. A later judge of the Northern Territory Supreme Court,
Mr Justice Kriewaldt, described the report as ‘a shoddy piece of work’, with justification, since the evidence does
not support any of these findings; and the Commonwealth Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Garran confirmed it.
Gilruth battled through the 1920s as a private consultant until he joined the Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research (CSIR) as a consultant in 1929. He became acting head of the division of animal health in 1930 and
chief of that division in 1933. In 1934 he reported to the CSIR on beef cattle and general economic possibilities in
northern Australia, drawing fire from patriotic Territorians for his pessimism. He retired in 1935, regretted by his
senior colleagues. In 1933 he was elected to the presidency and in 1936 to honorary membership of the Australian
Veterinary Association. He published voluminously on veterinary research in the professional journals.
Gilruth died of a respiratory infection on 4 March 1937 at his home in South Yarra, Melbourne, and was
cremated. His wife, Jeannie, nee McLay, whom he married on 20 March 1899 at Dunedin, New Zealand, a son
and two daughters survived him. His name was commemorated in Gilruth Plains research station (Queensland) and
by the Gilruth prize of the Australian Veterinary Association. Darwin remembered him in the name of an avenue.
His portrait by John Longstaff hangs in the Animal Health Laboratory, Parkville, Melbourne.
F X Alcorta, Darwin Rebellion 1911–1919, 1994; A Powell, ‘Gilruth vs Ewing: The Royal Commission on Northern Territory Administration,
1920’, Northern Perspective, vol 4, no 2, 1981; Australian Veterinary Journal, June 1937; CSIR Reports, 1930–35; Gilruth Papers, Basset
Library, Canberra.
ALAN POWELL, Vol 1.
GOLDER, HAZEL CLARENCE (1894–1984), housekeeper/companion, manager and boarding house
proprietor, was born at Clarendon, South Australia, on 29 March 1894 the eldest of 11 children. Her mother,
Rhoda, nee Jacobs, was born at Cherry Gardens, South Australia and her father was thought to have been born at
Kangarilla. It is believed they were married at Cherry Gardens.
Hazel had very little schooling. Living on her parents’ farm at Mount Bold she had to travel almost 10 kilometres
to school in Kangarilla and although she did not enjoy it she attended school from the age of nine until she
was 14 and managed to pass in every class. She then went to work for a short time with a family at Unley as
housekeeper/companion to an old lady and her two daughters. Soon after, Hazel and her sister Vera went to
Innamincka to join their brother Claude to help him in the hotel there. From Innamincka Hazel went with Claude
to a similar operation at Oodnadatta, taking with her a Bismarck lamp that she carried for the rest of her life and
treasured right up until she died.