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what he considered was approaching a fair compensation for the settlement and for the work he had done there in
an honorary capacity.
The Grays settled at Berrimah just south of Darwin. In 1967 Marjorie decided to return permanently to England to
care for her aged father. Though separated, they still remained good friends. In 1974, after the government resumed
the Berrimah property, Gray moved to the Nineteen Mile and set up house and kennels there. He discontinued the
care of animals but continued to live in the area at Howard Springs.
Fred Gray was one of the great personalities of the Top End. Quietly spoken, he maintained his English accent
throughout the whole of his life. He was an adventurer but a gentleman. He was very paternalistic in his dealings
with the Umbakumba Aborigines but they loved him. His homes on Groote Eylandt and near Darwin were open to
them. They came and went as they wished, provided they did not have alcohol. His secret lay in his openness and
friendliness and the fact that he could be trusted. His 20 years’ caring service to the first Australians of Umbakumba
will be recalled with affection for generations to come.
K Cole, Fred Gray of Umbakumba, 1985; K Cole, Groote Eylandt Mission, 1971; National Geographic Magazine, vol CIII; personal papers,
documents and photographs of F H Gray; CMS records, Melbourne.
KEITH COLE, Vol 2.GRAY, ISABELLA (ELLA): see SHEPHERDSON, ISABELLA (ELLA)GRAY, WILLIAM HENRY (1808–1896), investor, builder, developer and speculator, was born in Bermondsey,
London, in 1808. One of his boyhood memories was of ‘being lifted upon the servant’s shoulders at the gate of his
home in the Old Kent Road, London, to see the Duke of Wellington returning from Waterloo’.
As a young man he was involved in the tanning industry, but in 1835 he purchased three South Australian
preliminary land orders, and in October the following year he set out for the new colony in John Renwick. He arrived
in South Australia in February 1837, less than two months after the colony was proclaimed, with his household
goods, and his Land Orders, and with some extra capital to invest.
He liked to remember taking part as a volunteer in the survey of Adelaide, helping the founder, Colonel Light,
‘burn the kangaroo grass which was growing upon the ground where Rundle Street now is’. And he built with
his own hands, in 1838, a row of four cottages, among the first to be erected in the city. Eventually he owned and
developed a number of Town Acres in Adelaide, 10 of them in the northwest section of the city, where Gray Street
is named after him. He also purchased and farmed an estate which included what is now the Adelaide Airport,
the nearby extensive West Beach Reserve, and parts of adjacent suburbs. In a region, which was then largely
agricultural, he was Chairman of the West Torrens District Council for 12 years.
At the age of 53, he married the 20-year-old Rosetta Bagshaw, daughter of John Stokes Bagshaw, a pioneer
manufacturer of agricultural implements. (The firm of Horwood Bagshaw is still active.) There were nine children
of the marriage.
Having been so successful in Adelaide he was quick to take advantage of the possibilities of the Northern
Territory when the South Australian government offered speculators the chance to purchase land orders which
would allow a holder to select one half acre town lot and a 160 acre rural lot for every land order held. The first
sales were held in 1863 and Gray bought a number at a cost of 60 Pounds each. By the time Goyder’s survey
of Palmerston and Southport was complete six years later, many investors had become disillusioned with their
investment and in order to keep their support the amount of country land allowed for each purchase order had been
doubled. When selections were possible, and they had to be made personally or through an agent, Gray determined
to see the country for himself so he left Adelaide for Port Darwin, in May 1870, in Bengal. A fellow-passenger
was the explorer John McKinlay who had made known his intention to re-visit the Territory to act as guide for
land-selectors. Bengal made a faster passage than did Gulnare, on which was the Government Resident, Captain
Bloomfield Douglas, and the two ships arrived in Darwin (then called Palmerston) on the same day. McKinlay
and the land-selectors examined Palmerston from the plans and on the actual site, then sailed in the Government
steamer Midge to the site of Southport. From there they walked to Tumbling Waters, where they took a refreshing
bathe. On the way the giant anthills impressed them.
Back in Palmerston, then a settlement of bush timber and tents, they attended the selection of town lands
before setting off on another exploring trip to choose the country land. The party of nine had with them a dozen
horses, and a dray, and two Aboriginal men of the Larrakia tribe accompanied them. After camping the first night
at Knuckey’s Lagoon, they made their way, in leisurely stages, to Fred’s Pass and the Adelaide River plains.
Then they travelled westward to Southport, examining the country round the Manton, Berry and Darwin Rivers
on the way. A third excursion, out from Southport, took them along the Annie, Charlotte and Blackmore Rivers,
and along the Finniss towards what would later be called the Rum Jungle country. As the time for the selection of
country lands was drawing near, they ‘reluctantly returned to Southport, where the boat met them and bore them
away, fair wind and tide, to Fort Point, 48 kilometres, in four hours’.
Gray returned to Adelaide in Omeo, with McKinlay again as fellow-passenger. During his time in Palmerston,
and later, he selected a great number of town allotments both in Palmerston and Southport, and many sections in
the country area that he had walked over with the explorer.
In 1884, at the age of 76, Gray, accompanied by his 16-year-old third son Herbert, paid a second visit to the
Territory, reaching Palmerston on 12 August, in the steamer Menmuir. They visited the De Lissaville Sugar Plantation
and in the steam launch Maggie, on board which were also the Government Resident, J Langdon Parsons, and
the Duke of Manchester, sailed some way up the Adelaide River. Then, again on Maggie, Gray took a party to