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Constable E McNab brought the first casualties to the hospital and later Goy and Chaplain Jack Cosgrove (Roman
Catholic) buried many unknown casualties in joint services for the burial of the dead.
With the air attacks came the complete evacuation of civilian personnel from Darwin and this included the staff
of the Inter-church Club. Goy negotiated for the continued conduct of the club by the YMCA for the duration of
the war and six months thereafter. Now a full-time chaplain, he had himself appointed as the officer commanding
Entertainments. He carried out this task with considerable flair and tremendous success. One of his major successes
was the introduction of several mobile cinema units and arrangements for regular screening of movies in the camps.
This kind of posting was not one that would normally be given to a chaplain and so later in 1942, when Major
General Edmund Herring assumed command in the north, Goy was transferred out of the Territory. He was
very upset at this, knowing that because of his age he had little chance of a posting outside Australia. When this
was confirmed after his arrival in Melbourne, he offered his resignation to the Chaplain-General and soon after
accepted a call to the Ewing Memorial Church in East Malvern, Victoria. John Flynn was disappointed at this
development and commented at the time, ‘Chris appears to have forgotten his responsibility to the AIM’.
He had a most successful ministry at East Malvern, serving on many church committees and continuing to give
leadership. He was elected to the high office of Moderator of the Victorian General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in 1956, an office he filled with dignity. During his term in office as Moderator he attended the opening
and dedication of the John Flynn Memorial Church in Alice Springs. He maintained his interest and service to the
Northern Territory by serving as a valued member of the AIM Board.
In 1963 he was honoured by Her Majesty the Queen with the award of Officer of the Order of the British
Empire (OBE) for his services to the Territory. He retired from East Malvern in 1967 but later, despite his age
of 70 years, accepted a call to Scots Church in Sydney and remained there for three years, retiring again only to
provide pastoral and preaching services at the Ashburton Presbyterian Church for about another six years. It was
while still serving in Ahsburton that he died while mowing his lawn on 28 August 1982. His wife Irene had died
earlier, on 14 August 1979. Four children survived him.
C T F Goy, A Man Is His Friends, 1979; Minutes of Darwin Inter-church Committee, Mitchell Library, Sydney; Journal of the Reverend
K F Partridge, in possession of author.
A W GRANT, Vol 1.GOYDER, GEORGE WOODRUFFE (1826–1898), surveyor, was born on 24 June 1826 in Liverpool,
England, eldest son of David George Goyder, physician and Swedenborgian minister, and his wife, the former
Sarah Etherington, of Westminster. The boy attended Glasgow High School, showing a bent towards engineering.
He joined an engineering firm in Glasgow and trained in surveying. He later moved to another engineering firm,
with branches in Liverpool and Warrington. However, it was probably his inclination to fieldwork that prompted
him to migrate to New South Wales in 1848, where his sister Sarah and her husband were living. In Sydney, he spent
three years with the auctioneering firm of John Bientham Neales. He moved to Adelaide and on 10 June 1851 was
appointed a draftsman in the South Australian government’s Engineering Department. On 10 December he married
Frances Mary Smith at Christchurch, North Adelaide.
On 17 January 1853, Goyder joined the Department of Lands and Survey as chief clerk with the starting salary
of 200 Pounds a year. On 14 September 1854 he was promoted to Acting Deputy Surveyor-General. In April 1857,
having been appointed Assistant Surveyor-General under Colonel Freeling, Goyder led a party north with the
objective of making a survey of the Flinders Ranges before pastoralists took up occupation. He reported the
existence of an ‘inland sea’ of fresh water at Lake Torrens, instead of the ‘hopeless desert and pitiless brine
springs’ E J Eyre had found in 1839. Freeling and his party returned to the area in September, only to find that
the floodwaters had by now dissipated. The criticism that followed this news, both from Freeling and prospective
pastoralists, did not diminish Goyder’s enthusiasm for further exploration, as he still considered the Lake Eyre
and Lake Torrens district a ‘stockholders’ paradise’ at the right time of year. In 1859 he led a survey party into
drought-ridden country to look for water and triangulate the land north of Mount Serle. On Freeling’s retirement,
Goyder was appointed Surveyor-General on 19 January 1861, at a salary of 700 Pounds a year.
Goyder also had to operate in the capacity of inspector of mines and land valuer. In answer to the increasing
demands of pastoralists for the modification of their leases, he went north to evaluate rents, grazing leases and rights
of renewal. He visited 83 stations over a period of 20 months, travelling some 48 000 kilometres on horseback.
Throughout this remarkably arduous survey Goyder made sure to communicate with his office by correspondence
every night. On consideration of his reports on the lush grass and herbage of the area, the government placed
an annual fee on every animal grazed. His valuations resulted in bitter complaints from the outback lessees,
demands for reassessment and condemnation of concessions to graziers. In 1865, when three commissioners were
sent north to reassess the problem, drought had struck. It became necessary to define the limits within which
agricultural settlement should be encouraged and the task of fixing this line of demarcation was entrusted to
Goyder. His famous line, based on estimates of rainfall, is still regarded as defining the northern boundary of
South Australia’s wheat-growing area. Growers venturing beyond Goyder’s line were immediately in trouble and
many were ruined. Goyder’s imaginary line influenced urban land reformers in the general election in April 1868.
Under the leadership of H B T Strangways, ‘Agricultural Areas’ measuring up to 320 acres (130 hectares) were
demarcated. These were available on credit through auction, thus encouraging competition between petty farmers
and their wealthier counterparts. By the introduction of the new Act in January 1801, Goyder had selected areas
with easy coastal accessibility.