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the deaths of his father and mother. At the age of 14 he and his sister and stepbrothers were put in an orphanage
until they could be placed with relatives. Bill went to live with an aunt and uncle in York.
Bill obtained a position as a junior clerk. On his way to work one day he saw an immigration poster advertising
‘Sunny Queensland’. This stirred his imagination and he persuaded his relatives to let him emigrate. He left
England with two Shillings and six Pence in his pocket, and had his 15th birthday aboard Demosthenes en route
to Australia. Bill worked for a number of years on cattle stations in western Queensland, and then went fencing.
It was through this work that he met his future wife Ina.
Ina Vera McCoy was born at Cobar, New South Wales, on 3 August 1917. Her parents were Adam McCoy and
Ina Vida Gibson. Ina’s father was a fencing contractor.
Bill and Ina had a family of four children by the time he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in 1942.
He first came to the Northern Territory in 1945 with 201 Flight when he was involved with the servicing of
Liberator bombers. Following his discharge from the Air Force after the Second World War, Bill worked in
forestry camps in Queensland.
Early in 1948 Bill was appointed to the Department of Native Affairs in the Northern Territory as a Superintendent.
His first posting was to the Catfish Settlement (Hooker Creek), on the edge of the Tanami Desert.
When the family flew from Brisbane to Darwin on a DC3 aircraft a few months later to join Bill, the journey
took all day. They lived for a while in a Sidney Williams hut at Winnellie while they waited for the Wet Season to
end.
When the roads were dry enough to travel Bill set out with his young son, also called Bill, and some Aborigines
from the area. After reaching Katherine they followed the ‘Dry River’ track through Montejinnie Station, on to
Wave Hill Station and finally reached the isolated outpost of Catfish late at night. The place looked desolate.
The only building was a Sidney Williams hut with a dirt floor, which had been used as a store. It had been
ransacked.
With the help of the Aborigines Bill set about cleaning up the camp area and providing accommodation for his
family. The bore was not working, so 200 litre (44 gallon) drums had to be rolled into the ‘Catfish Waterhole’ and
rolled out again. In order to make the water drinkable, a number of things were tried. These included the use of
ashes and finally cement powder. While the latter cleared the water, it did not improve the taste. Fortunately the
bore was made operational before too much damage was done to the community’s digestive systems.
Tall and of lean build, Bill possessed great physical strength developed during his years as a fencing
contractor, when no mechanical aids were available. He was also a skilled carpenter with a bushman’s flair for
improvisation.
Bill put all of these skills to good use, and many buildings were constructed while he was at Catfish. Work was
commenced on the airstrip (which is still in use to this day). He was surprised at the size of some of the stumps
which had to be removed, an indication that very large trees had once grown there.
The first Wet Season brought home the real feeling of isolation. After a week of rain the family woke one
morning to find itself with floodwater on three sides and with snakes, lizards and other wild life all trying to reach
the higher ground. This seemed incredible in what was usually such a dry place.
Towards the end of 1950, Bill was transferred to Beswick Station, just out of Katherine. A settlement had
been attempted at nearby Tadangal, and another on the western bank of the Waterhouse River adjoining Beswick
Station. During the 1950–1951 Wet Season the area became waterlogged, and an influenza epidemic broke out.
The site was condemned as unhealthy, and a new site was chosen on Beswick Creek, about 13 kilometres from
Maranboy Police Station. This is now the Barunga Community.
Lack of funds and suitable equipment was always a problem, but despite all of this, building continued.
Sometimes structures had to be dismantled at one site before being erected at another. A garden provided produce
to vary the diet, and a goatherd supplied milk.
During one particularly trying Wet Season, roads were impassable, and supplies had to be transported by pack
mules. One of the mules bolted, and went crashing through the trees. The contents of the packsaddles were damaged.
As a result of this, for weeks after, all the bread tasted of napthalene as the flour had been contaminated.
Ina taught the Aboriginal women to sew and cook and also basic child care. At all of the settlements she was
involved with the day-to-day medical care. She supervised the cooking of meals for the elderly, nursing mothers
and children. She also had to attend to the needs of her own six children.
The Grimsters moved to Snake Bay settlement on Melville Island at the beginning of 1954. Here the story was
much the same, old equipment needing maintenance and little money available for building. A sawmill, which had
fallen into disrepair, was made functional again. The problem of getting the timber to the mill was solved by having
the Aboriginal men cut down the cypress pine trees then float them down the arms of the rivers. Some of the timber
was used at the settlement and the rest was sent by barge to Darwin.
The water supply for the settlement came from a spring on the beach. This had a rock wall built around it.
On high tides the seawater would flow in and the water would be brackish for days. Bill increased the size of the
rock wall and this ensured the water was always fresh. He also erected a 113 750 litre (25 000 gallon) tank, which
provided improved water storage.
Bill gave on the job training to the Aboriginal men to equip them with the necessary building and maintenance
skills. His role at the settlements was to try to make them as self sufficient as possible, and they were all well on
the way to achieving this when he left. He was a tireless worker, used to working seven days a week.
The educational needs and employment prospects of his growing family necessitated Bill’s transfer to Brisbane
in 1955. Bill and Ina also lived there in retirement. They had two sons and six daughters.