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community virtues aspired to in age-old Chinese philosophies. He balanced a strong sense of Chinese tradition in
domestic life with an appreciation for Western etiquette in his energetic and astute business life in Australia.
Kwong Sue Duk was remembered as a kind, honest and vibrant man, whom friends say was always a gentleman.
Almost a legend in Australian immigration history, the story of Kwong Sue Duk with his wives and children has
woven an unusual and colourful tapestry into the fabric of Australia’s recent history. His descendants in 1995
numbered around 780 and and included five generations.
Nui Bo Kwong, personal communication; Nui Bo & Victor Kwong, ‘Biographical Sketch of Kwong Sue Duk’, 1982; C R May, ‘The Chinese
in the Cairns District, 1876–1920’; H Reynolds (ed), Race Relations in North Queensland, 1978; C R May, Topsawyers, 1984; E Toohey,
Kie Daudai, 1994.
WARREN LEE LONG and ROSALIE HIAH, Vol 3.KYLE-LITTLE, SYDNEY (SYD) (1918– ), was born on 8 November 1918 at Darwin Hospital, son of Arthur
Sydney Hamilton Little and Florence, nee Goodman. Many years later Syd changed his surname to Kyle-Little.
His father joined the Northern Territory Mounted Police about 1913 and served at Rankine River, Roper River,
Katherine, Pine Creek. He resigned on 31 January 1917. That year in Darwin he married Florence Goodman, ‘a real
Territorian’. Florence’s father was the head lighthouse keeper at Point Charles lighthouse. Her sister Margaret
married Wilfred Widdup, the Head Gaoler at Fannie Bay gaol; her older brother George managed Humpty Doo
Station for a time and her younger brother Cecil later owned Annaburroo (which is now the ‘Bark Hut’).
The Little family left Darwin soon after the birth of Syd’s second brother and settled in Brisbane, although
Syd spent holidays in the Territory with his uncle George, helping out at Humpty Doo station. In 1937 Kyle-Little
returned to Darwin as part of the Darwin Mobile Force. He had joined the regular Army in Brisbane and then
transferred to Darwin where he served from 1937 until the outbreak of war in 1939. After the beginning of the
Second World War Syd Kyle-Little was transferred south as an instructor for the Australian Imperial Force but
was later returned to Darwin. He was serving as Warrant Officer Class Two, stationed at Parap, with Third Field
Regiment during the first bombing raid on Darwin by the Japanese. He spent some time in Darwin and later served
in New Guinea, New Britain Island and Borneo (Kalimantan).
Towards the end of the war, while in a military hospital at Concord in Sydney, to which he had been evacuated
with wounds, Kyle-Little read a newspaper advertisement for Cadet Patrol Officers. He applied and was interviewed
by E P Chinnery, who suggested that because of his family connections he might prefer to work in the Northern
Territory rather than New Guinea.
Syd Kyle-Little returned to the Territory in time to see the end of the Second World War (although Jeremy
Long gives this date as June 1946) and began work as a cadet patrol officer with the Native Affairs Branch of the
Northern Territory Administration. He had attended the basic cadet’s training for patrol officers; the specialised
course under A P Elkin at the University of Sydney covering anthropology, criminal law and tropical medicine.
In the dry season of 1946 Kyle-Little began work in the Northern Territory in earnest. He sailed from Goulburn
Island on a mission lugger that hove to off Entrance Island at the mouth of the Liverpool River. There they
launched a dugout and with the assistance of two Aborigines from the mission, paddled to shore, and landed at
Juda Point. Here Kyle-Little met Oondabund, a man he was to immortalise in Territory writing and with whom he
maintained a lifelong friendship. Together with Oondabund the party travelled overland to Oenpelli in the first of
a series of long foot patrols, he undertook in Arnhem Land to apprehend killers in ‘tribal murders’. He undertook
further patrols in the Maranboy and Mataranka areas and made another trip to Alice Springs before beginning a
study of Aboriginal workers in the buffalo industry. When the cases came to court Kyle-Little was criticised by
the judiciary for interfering in police matters. (In turn, Kyle-Little was himself critical of the judiciary whom he
considered biased against the Welfare Branch and prejudiced in favour of the police.) Kyle-Little commented,
‘In all the murder cases I never ever used handcuffs or chains as did the Police, my prisoners walked in with me,
and I never lost any prisoners. This was a sore point with some members of the Northern Territory Police Force’.
In September 1948 Kyle-Little patrolled the Victoria River district and then later in the year conducted a
horseback patrol, from Borroloola, of the Gulf district. Early in the next year, he was back in Arnhem Land
pursuing the murderer of Raiwala, who had been Donald Thomson’s assistant in the 1936/1937 fieldwork and
Sergeant in the North Australia Observer Unit 1942/1943. Raiwala was discovered alive; this fact in itself typical
of the misinformation that was current about Arnhem Land, but which again attracted more criticism of the patrol
officers.
Kyle-Little moved on to pursue a project he had been recommending for some time, the permanent stationing
of a patrol officer in Arnhem Land. He and a cadet, Jack Doolan, were given the task of setting up a trading station
in the Arnhem Land Reserve at the Liverpool River area. This was both an attempt to halt the westerly drift of
Aborigines towards the urban centres of Katherine and Darwin and to assist the Arnhem Landers to move towards
economic self-sufficiency. The patrol officers set up trepang camps, shot crocodiles and collected Aboriginal
artefacts for sale including mats and baskets. The station was closed for the wet season of 1949. The attempt
at the trading station was short-lived, much to the disappointment of Kyle-Little and Doolan. Only the name,
Maningrida, was a reminder of ‘Munin-grida’ which Kyle-Little called the trading station, on local advice from
the ‘Guna-vidji’.
Kyle-Little was posted to Melville Island to look after the Snake Bay settlement. Although he continued to lobby
the department to continue the Maningrida project, nothing else was done there in the short-term. Disappointed
Kyle-Little took long leave and did a world tour, travelling to North and South America. While in the United States
the Korean War broke out and Kyle-Little volunteered for the American forces but was not accepted. He then