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‘You’ll learn’. Adams said that in time he did learn, and to keep his mouth shut on any subject except mining.
He was, however, a member of a Select Committee on the Licensing Ordinance and one outcome of this was the
establishment of Wayside Inn licences, much the same as had operated in Western Australia for many years.
During Adams’ term on the Council legislation was either enacted or amended ranging from machinery
inspection, explosives, authorities to prospect, mining and petroleum prospecting, silicosis and tuberculosis
(mineworkers) to name some of the more important. The Mining Ordinance was substantially amended to provide
for Authorities to Prospect more appropriate to modern trends in mineral exploration. He was a member of the
Port Authority and Chairman of the Petroleum Advisory Board.
The period of Adams’ service as Director of Mines saw a tremendous increase in mining activity and importantly
an increasing interest by the great mining groups such as BHP and Mt Isa mines. It covered gold, copper and
bismuth at Tennant Creek, which originated with a Bureau of Mineral Resources drill hole at Peko which was then
a small gold mine, and extended to a chain of small mines in the area discovered by Geopeko, the prospecting arm
of Peko, manganese at Groote Eylandt, Alumina at Gove and natural gas in Central Australia. Mt Isa found a huge
deposit of silver-lead-zinc at Macarthur River. Over the period the value of mineral production increased some
nine times, from 1.6 million to 13.9 million Pounds.
Apart from his efforts to successfully build up the Mines Branch in the face of many difficulties, Adams found
a water supply for Tennant Creek. Not long after he arrived in the Territory he was told by Jock Nelson, the
Territory’s only member of the Commonwealth parliament, that the Government had a plan to move all the people
out of Tennant Creek because of the water supply problem. Some little time later he was with Paul Hasluck,
Minister for Territories, in Tennant Creek and the Minister said to him and Len Purkiss, ‘My files show that
Tennant Creek is a dying mining town and nothing can be done about it’. At the time there was a certain amount
of unrest in the town and people were pressing for the expenditure of further money on bores in areas which were
known to be uncertain.
Now Adams had recognised some travertine limestone in the Cabbage Gum area a few miles south of Tennant
Creek and this he knew as a good indicator of underground water. So he asked Hasluck to accompany him and
they spent the next couple of days looking around the entire area. The upshot was that Adams was given approval
to sink some wells, which he did, and of seven sunk five produced water. At that stage he again met Hasluck in
Tennant Creek, took him out to the wells and said, ‘This is going to cost about a quarter of a million pounds to
put a pipeline through.’ Hasluck was very direct and said, ‘Mr Adams, you get the water and I’ll get the money’.
The result was an adequate supply of reticulated water, not only for the town, but for the mines. There was mutual
respect between the two men as the following illustrates. Many years later Adams’ daughter Christine met Hasluck
at his office and during the brief conversation he said to Christine, ‘tell Mr Adams that if ever he should go back
there (the Territory) there is no-one I would rather go back with’.
Adams and his Branch assisted other worthy causes. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Darwin decided to build
a cathedral out of Larrakeyah stone, which occurs in the cliffs at the seafront of Darwin, and he used to call at the
Mines Branch to seek advice—not that they had much. However, one day Adams visited the quarry and there was
the Bishop in boots, socks, a tattered pair of shorts and a singlet picking up bits of stone and trying to saw them.
Shortly afterwards Adams hosted a conference of State Chief Inspectors of Mines. In an interval between sessions
he took them down to the quarry and introduced them to the aforedescribed rough-looking character. ‘Gentlemen,
this is the Right Reverend Dr J P O’Loughlin, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Darwin’. There was initial disbelief
but finally the visitors accepted that he was in fact the Bishop of Darwin and he did not spend all his time in his
robes of office. The upshot was that the Chief Inspector for South Australia sent up a great deal of material, which
gave the Bishop the answers he was seeking.
After his retirement in 1970 Adams served as a consultant to the government of Papua New Guinea on the
revision of its mining laws for some 12 months.
Adams’ main contributions to the Territory were the building up of a thoroughly professional Mines Branch
carrying practically all the functions of a state Mines Department which formed the basis of the present Department
of Mines and Energy. The finding of a water supply for Tennant Creek he regards as his greatest achievement.
His efforts were not unnoticed by others. It was reported to the Administrator that his success was due ‘almost
miraculously... by the demonstration of personal interest in Tennant Creek by the Director of Mines, by the
practical success he is having in the search for permanent waters and by the general respect that he engenders’.
I was closely associated with Adams over several years and quickly came to respect his opinions and
judgments. He told me that he always believed that ‘people are more important than the system; if you can get
people to work properly and contentedly you can do nearly anything. I think the crux in life is to understand
people, not systems’.
National Archives of Australia Northern Territory, CRS F1 1955/976; personal information.
TIMOTHY G JONES, Vol 3.ADAMSON, DUDLEY PLAYFORD (DUD) (1895–1962), postal official and soldier, was born at Tanunda in
South Australia on 14 October 1895, one of six children of an immigrant Swede who became a member of the
South Australian Mounted Police Force and married a South Australian girl, Katherine Welbourne. Adamson lived
with his family in such country towns as Tanunda, Carrieton, Riverton and Gawler, before finally moving to
Adelaide. He joined the Postmaster General’s Department as a messenger at 13 years of age and served in various
places in South Australia.