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a few kilometres away. In 1930, Amy Johnson landed at Alexandria during her historic flight, the first woman to
complete the trip between England and Australia.
In 1925, Johnston married Ellen (Nell) Gertrude Staunton. Nell was born on 17 January 1904 and her parents,
Michael and Gwen Lillian Staunton, nee Weirman, had a hotel at Duchess and later at Cloncurry. Two of her
brothers Dennis (Danny) and John (Jack) were carriers for stations on the Barkly while other siblings included
Patrick (Paddy), Molly, and Michael. When Nell married Cay Johnston, she became the first white woman to live
permanently on Alexandria. Although kept busy raising their three children, Cay (born 1926), Patricia (1928) and
Tony (1933), Nell missed contact with the outside world. Of Cay she later recalled, ‘He’d only get home to sign
the cheques and pay the men and go again’. Nell eagerly awaited the mail. It came to Alexandria fortnightly by
packhorse, but in the wet, no mail came for months. Supplies travelled by ship from Brisbane to Burketown and
thence to Alexandria by horse-drawn wagons. From the 1920s, motor transport was used.
Because of communication difficulties, the Barkly stations felt isolated from the Territory and any news
was usually from Queensland. A highlight for Nell, however, was the Administrator’s visit from Darwin once
a year. This was reciprocated in 1926 when she and other managers’ wives drove to Darwin in the Johnston’s
Oldsmobile and stayed at the Administrator’s residence. Brunette, Alexandria and Alroy also used to have monthly
social gatherings where the managers, their wives and usually the bookkeepers would meet and play tennis and
card games such as bridge. The evenings would conclude with a singsong around the piano or the gramophone.
The yearly Ranken Races were also a highlight. As Nell Johnston recalled of her time on Alexandria: ‘I was never
frightened that I wouldn’t be able to cope... but I did feel much better when we got the flying doctor’.
After 15 years as manager, the Johnstons left Alexandria in 1938 because of Cay’s ill health caused by the
responsibility of such a huge station. He managed the Post Office Hotel at Cloncurry, owned by Burns Philp,
and then returned to the pastoral industry when he managed the sheep property, Cammeray, outside Julia Creek.
He relieved at Victoria River Downs Station before retiring to Townsville. The highlight of his working life,
however, had been his time on Alexandria. As he recalled in later years about the station, ‘Everybody spoke well
of it. Everybody talked about working there. The men that worked there never left... they stayed till they died...
I’d have died there’. Cay died in Townsville on 2 November 1983 and Nell on 11 June 1990.
M Kowald & W R Johnston, You Can’t Make It Rain, 1992; North Queensland Register, 3 March 1979; C & E Johnston, oral interview
26 May 1981, Northern Territory Archives Service, NTRS 226, TS 250.
MARGARET KOWALD, Vol 3.JOHNSTON, ERIC EUGENE (1933– ), naval officer and Administrator of the Northern Territory, was born in
Shanghai in Kiangsu Province of China on 29 July 1933, the son of Captain V V Johnston of the Royal Australian
Navy (RAN). He was educated at Frankston High School in Victoria and the Royal Australian Naval College
in 1947–1950 (which he entered as a Cadet Midshipman at the age of 13), while he later attended the United
States Naval War College on Rhode Island in 1970–1971. He saw maritime service between 1950 and 1955 on
Her Majesty’s Ships Devonshire and Maidstone, and Her Majesty’s Australian Ships Australia, Culgoa and Tobruk.
He graduated from a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare and Damage Control specialisation course in the
United Kingdom (1955–1957) and was posted as Executive Officer at the Royal Naval NBC Damage Control
Training School (1957–1959). After staff postings to the Cadet Training Ship HMAS Swan (1959–1962) and
Britannia Royal Naval College (1962–1964), he served with HMAS Melbourne (1964–1966), including service
off the Malay Peninsula during the confrontation. He was appointed Executive Officer at the RAN Trials and
Assessing Unit (1967–1968) with the rank of Commander, and was then Executive Officer at the Recruit Training
Establishment HMAS Leeuwin (1968–1969).
He joined HMAS Vendetta as her Commanding Officer and was deployed with the United States Seventh Fleet
in waters off Vietnam in 1969–1970; this was the first Australian-built warship to serve in Vietnam and was the first
Daring-class destroyer to be deployed in the role for which they were designed, naval gunfire support. Commander
Johnston received both a United States Commander-in-Chief-Pacific Commendation and an appointment as Officer
of the Order of the British Empire in the Military Division (OBE) in 1971. Following this, Johnston attended the
United States Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island and then was Chief of Staff to the South East Asia Treaty
Organisation Exercise Director (1971–1972) and Director of Personnel Services (1972–1973), being promoted to
Captain in 1973.
His long association with the Northern Territory began in December 1973 when he was appointed Naval
Officer Commanding North Australia (NOCNA); he was also an Honorary Aide-de-Camp to the Governor-General
from 1974 to 1977. He was caught in the rubble of Naval Headquarters in Darwin following Cyclone Tracy on
Christmas Eve 1974, and was responsible for leading Operation ‘Navy Help’ in Darwin in the wake of Tracy, ‘with
unflagging energy and good humour’. The Court House, which had survived the Japanese raids of February 1942,
had, since October 1942, been occupied by the Navy as Naval Headquarters, HMAS Melville. Captain Johnston
received a warning call at 2.00 pm Central Standard Time on 24 December 1974, and by 4.30 the following
morning the Operations Room was totally destroyed, with NOCNA and three staff trapped within the ruins. As his
Headquarters was falling down around him Captain Johnston and two sailors crawled out of the rubble to take
refuge in the Cell Bar (a mess established in one of the original cells behind the building). All but one escaped,
the other being extricated at first light.
The damage that Tracy wreaked on the city of Darwin was exceeded in magnitude only by the Navy’s clean-up
effort under the capable guidance of Captain Johnston from a new office in the MLC Building, christened
HMAS MLC. He was appointed a Member in the Military Division of the Order of Australia (AM) on 17 June 1975