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Administration, Department of the Interior. In 1965, he became the Director of Agriculture for the Northern
Territory Administration and in 1966, he became Chief Agronomist with the Agricultural and Animal Industry
Branch of the Northern Territory Administration.
As Chief Agronomist he promoted wet season burning and the use of Townsville Stylo pasture; was involved
in the Douglas Daly experiments which demonstrated the cropping potential of Blain soils; and was involved in
the development of pilot farms in the upper Adelaide River region. In 1965, he had also been appointed to the
Northern Territory Land Board, of which he remained a member until 1987. As a member of the Land Board, he
was involved in rural land settlement policy, pastoral lease administration, and government land claim policy.
In 1967, Lawler began working on his property ‘Labasheeda’, outside Darwin, and he remained a pastoralist
until 1974 when he took up a position with the Lands Branch of the Northern Territory Administration. In 1975,
he became the Director of Lands and in 1976 he was appointed Assistant Secretary, Lands, Department of the
Northern Territory. He remained in Lands administration until 1987 when he retired from the Northern Territory
Land Board and the Northern Territory Department of Lands.
Tom Lawler held positions in several community organizations over the years. He was Chairman of the Northern
Farmers Association, 1967–1974; Chairman of the Buffalo Breeders Association, 1967–1974; Treasurer of the
Darwin Branch of the Returned Services League, 1975–1989; Chairman of the Adelaide River Show Society,
1967–1987, and he was made a life member in 1988.
His political involvement included helping to establish the Liberal Party in the Northern Territory, and with
Goff Letts, who later became Majority Leader of the Legislative Council, he helped establish the Country Liberal
Party. He was a member of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory from 1974 until 1988 and was on
the Pre-selection Committee for Darwin electorates for more than 10 years.
In October 1989 Tom Lawler semi-retired with his wife, Ella Stack, to a farming property outside of Moruya on
the south coast of New South Wales, where he breeds cattle. His interests involved his family, reading, community
work with Legacy, and Australian Rules Football.
Family information.
GREG COLEMAN and ELLA STACK, Vol 3.LEHMANN, FRIEDA CECILIA: see HEFFERNAN, FRIEDA CECILIALEICHHARDT, FRIEDRICH WILHELM LUDWIG (1813–1848), naturalist and explorer, with interests in
philosophy and languages, was born at Trebatsch in Prussia on 23 October 1813. He was the sixth of the eight
children of Christian Hieronymus Matthias Leichhardt and his wife Charlotte Sophie, nee Strahlow. His father was
a farmer and royal inspector of peat. Leichhardt was educated at Trebatsch, Zaue, Cottbus and the Universities
of Berlin (1831, 1834–36) and Gottingen (1833). John Nicholson, a fellow student at Gottingen, influenced him
to change his attention from philosophy and languages to the natural sciences. Nicholson’s brother, William,
and Leichhardt then studied medical and natural science from 1837 to mid-1841 in England, France, Italy and
Switzerland. Throughout this time, the two men lived on William Nicholson’s small income, and William then
provided Leichhardt with all necessities and 200 Pounds to travel to Australia.
Leichhardt had decided upon Australia because, from the European perspective, it was still an almost untapped
field for the study of the natural sciences. He boarded the ship Sir Edward Paget at London in October 1841 and
arrived in Sydney on 14 February 1842. His intention was to explore inland Australia, but his initial studies were of
the geology, flora and fauna of the Sydney and Hunter River Valley districts. He gave some lectures on the geology
and botany of Sydney, thus beginning the process by which he became known as ‘Doctor’; his contemporaries
acknowledged his dedication to knowledge of the natural sciences even though he was never to obtain a degree
from any university.
During 1843 and early 1844 he journeyed alone from Newcastle to Moreton Bay, always collecting, observing
and recording the geology, flora and fauna of the country. However, he was impatient to explore the vast inland
and, when the Legislative Assembly proposed an expedition and it was refused sanction by Governor Gipps,
Leichhardt arranged for private subscription. He and five men left Sydney in August 1844, were joined by four
more men in the Moreton Bay district, and left Jimbour—then an outpost of settlement—on 1 October 1844.
Shortly after the expedition set out two of the men decided to return, then on 28 June 1845 Aborigines attacked the
camp. John Gilbert, a brilliant young naturalist, was killed and two other members of the party, Roper and Calvert,
were severely wounded. The party hurriedly left the scene of the tragedy and, with a lesson harshly learned,
thereafter set up well-organised night-camps and kept regular night watches. They reached the Gulf of Carpentaria
and followed the coastal areas into the present-day Northern Territory. A major discovery was the Roper River,
vital as a navigable river, which allowed access to the northern end of the Overland Telegraph Line during its
construction in 1870–72. Here, however, four of the remaining 13 horses were drowned and Leichhardt was obliged
to discard most of his treasured botanical collection. By now, the party was in considerable trouble, their horses
ever-weakening and their food, in the main, being whatever bush tucker they could collect or shoot. However,
Leichhardt continued to keep a comprehensive daily journal that remains a valuable source of information about
the Aborigines and natural resources of the northern-most portions of the Northern Territory.
As the party travelled still further northwest other major features were named—such as the Limmen Bight
and Wickham River, and Leichhardt recorded everything possible of the geography, geology, flora, fauna and
ethnography of the country. Unfortunately, though, he was forced to discard more of his precious collections and
those that had been made by John Gilbert.