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Lewis had four sons, James, Gilbert, Essington and Lancelot, and two daughters, Eleanor and Jane. Essington
led BHP on to the world stage and as Australia’s leading industrialist, was Director-General of Munitions, War
Organisation of Industry and Aircraft Production during the Second World War.
G Blainey, The Steel Master, 1971; T G Jones, Pegging the Northern Territory, 1987; J Lewis, Fought and Won, 1922 ; John Lewis Papers and
Diaries, (SAA); Who’s Who in Australia, 1927.
T G JONES, Vol 1.
LEYDIN, REGINALD SYLVESTER (1905– ), local government officer, public servant and Air Force
serviceman, was born in Fairfield, New South Wales, in 1905, the son of John Bartholomew Leydin. He joined
the Commonwealth Public Service as a young man and arrived in Darwin in 1926 as a clerk in the Internal Audit
Section of the Northern Territory Administration.
In 1928, he became Town Clerk of Darwin, having offered his services when the Mayor of the town told him of
the difficulties his Council was having with its paperwork. Leydin held the position during a period of vast changes
in Darwin. In 1930, the Councillors resigned rather than accept election by full adult suffrage. Thereafter, until
the Council was abolished at its own request in 1937, the Northern Territory Administration nominated Council
members. Darwin was garrisoned from 1932 and increasing demands were made on municipal facilities by the
growing defence forces, to the detriment of the public. The rate base, however, was not growing and Leydin was
later to claim that the idea of abolishing the Council was largely his own, as he could see no future for it, or for
himself. After its abolition, Leydin returned to the Northern Territory Administration.
Leydin worked very hard as Town Clerk and was well thought of for his efforts. He was undoubtedly most
efficient. Council meetings were reported in the press; the Town Clerk’s report was always lengthy and detailed
and financial matters were fully explained. The early 1930s marked a time of considerable unrest due to the level
of unemployment in the town. The Council offered relief work but on one occasion, Leydin had to defend himself
with his fists when a belligerent labourer assaulted him.
At the time of his appointment the only electricity reticulation in the town was delivered by F E Holmes (and
after 1929 his estate) at exorbitant cost and with little reliability. When the Town Council decided in 1934 to install
its own service, Holmes’s trustees fought a long and hard rearguard action. Dr C E Cook, the Chief Medical
Officer, later nominated Leydin as one of two men (the other Tom Harris) who caused changes to be made which
immeasurably improved life in Darwin. He referred specifically to the benefits of electricity ‘available at prices
the people could pay. Amenities for housewives were improved beyond their anticipations.’ In order to win public
support Leydin had called at each home explaining the benefits of a municipal owned scheme. The supporters of
the Holmes trustees had convinced the Administration that a referendum needed to be called on the subject and
when this endorsed the Council’s stand they took Supreme Court action and lost.
From 1937 until 1940, Leydin was Staff Clerk and Personal Secretary to the Administrator. In 1940, he was
promoted Chief Clerk (Administration) with responsibility for municipal matters, a task that became increasingly
difficult as defence needs expanded and the townsfolk’s requirements were increasingly ignored.
From December 1941, Leydin saw service in the Royal Australian Air Force and returned to the Northern
Territory as Acting Government Secretary in 1946. The appointment was confirmed the following year and in this
capacity, he took his seat as the senior Official Member when the Northern Territory Legislative Council held its
first sitting on 19 February 1948. He was to be an Official Member of the Council until 23 March 1954.
Leydin worked continually to foster ‘civic responsibility’ and municipal reform. In the years immediately
after the war, municipal matters were in the hands of a Town Management Board of which he was often critical.
Late in 1950, he was instructed to report on municipal matters generally and his report, completed in 1951 and
which recommended that a local government authority be set up by June 1953, was much debated during the next
few years, both within and outside the Legislative Council. It is for this report that he is best remembered in the
Northern Territory. F Walker later recalled that Leydin had made ‘perhaps the longest second-reading speech’ in
the first years of the Legislative Council’s history. It was to introduce a local government bill but it met much
resistance, as municipal services were then free. It had still not been passed when Leydin sat in the Legislative
Council for the last time. It was not until 1957 that a local government council was re-established in Darwin though
the legislation followed some of his recommendations.
In April 1954, Leydin was Acting Administrator when the Petrov incident hit the headlines. He was at the
airport when Mrs Petrov was rescued from her Soviet guards and it was he who first told her that her husband
was alive, contrary to the information she had been given. Later, under close security at Government House, she
told Leydin she wished to stay in Australia. Mrs Petrov was reported as saying that it was Leydin’s calmness and
sympathy that had helped her in her decision.
On 29 April 1954, it was announced that Leydin had been appointed Administrator of Nauru. On the public
announcement of the appointment, the Northern Territory News headline ran, ‘We’ll be sorry to lose him’.
He returned to the Northern Territory briefly in 1963 as Acting Administrator.
Leydin served as Administrator of Nauru from 1 July 1954 until 1958 when he was appointed Administrator
of Norfolk Island, where he remained until 1962. The same year he returned to Nauru. He was Administrator until
1966, Chief Secretary of the independent Republic of Nauru from 1969 until 1970 and in the latter year Australian
representative there. In 1963 and again in 1966 he was a special representative to the United Nations during the
negotiations on Nauru’s independence. He became a Director of the Nauru Phosphate Corporation in 1969 and
Chairman of the Nauru Royalty Trust in 1970. By 1971, he had returned to live in Victoria.