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Council. He completed his education at Nelson Boys’ College, the oldest secondary school in New Zealand.
His uncle, Dr William Still Littlejohn, was headmaster, later becoming the principal of Scotch College, Melbourne.
The influence of this notable headmaster encouraged the spirit of venturesome independence that characterised
Littlejohn’s whole career. His record at school sport, particularly football and tennis, was outstanding, as were his
standards of conduct and industry. He was confirmed in the Presbyterian Church and held fast to the faith of his
fathers.
He proceeded from his final secondary school examinations to an Air Force Training School in Christchurch
where he obtained his wireless operator’s certificate and his pilot’s licence, exhibiting his growing interest in
aviation. These qualifications prompted his decision to work his sea passage to England and to enlist in the Royal
Air Force. He served as a Sergeant Pilot in England during the closing stages of the First World War. On returning
to New Zealand, he joined the Eastern Extension Cable Company as a telegraph operator and after two years
was unexpectedly posted to Darwin. At the end of his second year in Darwin, one of his new friends, a young
constable, spoke to him about the adventuring career prospects within the police force. Littlejohn’s laconic reply
was ‘I’ll give it a go!’
He joined the Northern Territory Police Force in 1925 and after a preliminary spell in Darwin was transferred
to Alice Springs as a mounted trooper, to work under Sergeant R Stott. So began his notable span of service for
31 years as a Northern Territory policeman. He was now approaching 26 years of age, a gaunt six-footer with a
suntanned face, an accentuated nose and a head of straight black hair. He was characteristically slow of speech
but quick to make decisions. In character, he was an upholder of traditional morality, moderate in social habits
and a man who could mix good humour with official duty. Under the able guidance of Sergeant Stott, Constable
Littlejohn became well versed in police procedures and the requirements of law and gained practical expertise in
handling horses and camels, carrying out periodic patrols up the Tanami Track and to the borders of the Simpson
Desert. In 1926, he formed a close friendship with Alfred Traeger, the wireless expert who accompanied the
Reverend John Flynn to Alice Springs. Reviving his capacity as a telegraphic operator he helped Traeger and
Flynn in the erection of aerials and the installation of the equipment for the first successful experiment in bush
wireless in the engine room behind the nursing home that was in the course of construction. Being strong of body
and limb he became Flynn’s offsider in the laborious task of cutting and carting of logs to burn limestone rock for
the supply of lime for erection of the walls of the new buildings.
When the Australian Inland Mission Nursing Home was opened in Alice Springs in June 1926 Littlejohn was
typically to the forefront in helping the new nursing sisters to settle in. Nor was he slow in clinching a spontaneous
romance with one of them. At the conclusion of her two years’ nursing appointment, Sister Ellen Dorothy Small and
Constable Wilson Coleridge Littlejohn were married by the Reverend John Flynn in the Annandale Presbyterian
Church, Sydney, on ) June 1928. They made their first home in the Heavitree Gap (Alice Springs) police house.
Then followed a succession of appointments to various stations throughout the Northern Territory—Charlotte
Waters, Brock’s Creek, Pine Creek, Tennant Creek, Darwin, Anthony’s Lagoon and Darwin again. Littlejohn’s
record of service was characterised by an all-round unobtrusive efficiency. He was no seeker of public acclaim but
he won common respect among all corners for his strict sense of common justice. He climbed from rank to rank,
from Constable to Sergeant, to Inspector, to Police Superintendent, and on 21 April 1985 he came back to Alice
Springs from retirement for the Centenary Celebrations of the Heavitree Gap station, at the age of 86 and a half
years being the oldest living survivor of the pioneering band of mounted troopers. Littlejohn was never given to
extolling the various significant events of his life and unfortunately for historians he was disinclined to preserve
archival records of his personal attainments. Although he was the chief police officer in handling the arrest at
Darwin airport of the two Russian guards who were escorting Mrs Petrov back to Russia on 19 April 1954, it was
typical of the man to dismiss this dramatic happening as a normal part of his responsible office. The same honest
reticence applied to the quite outstanding service he gave during the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in
February 1942; and though he might well have been able to settle the long-running controversy over the behaviour
of Administrator C L A Abbott after the raids, he merely signed a bald statement in support of Abbott’s position
and never publicly referred to the matter again.
Retirement from his position as police superintendent came in 1956 when Littlejohn and his wife took up
residence in Springwood on the Blue Mountains. As age overtook them both they moved into a senior citizen’s
unit in Julianna Village at Miranda, Sydney. Mrs Littlejohn died on 1 September 1982 and Bill then made his
home with his daughter Margaret and her husband at Gymea Bay. He died in Garrawarrah Hospital, Sydney,
on 8 October 1987 at the age of 88 years, after a short illness. A Uniting Church thanksgiving service was held in
the Woronora Crematorium Sydney on 12 October 1987. One son, Ian, and one daughter, Margaret, both of whom
were reared in the Northern Territory, are now married with families of their own, living in New South Wales.
Wilson Coleridge Littlejohn holds a significant place in the history of the Northern Territory Police Force.
He served under the rugged pioneering conditions of the 1920s, and in the later war and post-war years of the
1940s and 1950s. He earned the eulogy given at his funeral service: ‘There was only one Bill Littlejohn! He was
singularly ‘his own man’—earthy, independent, unswervingly forthright, never a ‘Yes Man’, contemptuous of
bribes, true as steel in judgement and action.’
Family information.
J FRED McKAY, Vol 1.LIVERIS, LAZARUS (LES) (1923–1995), public servant, was born in Darwin Hospital on 28 October 1923,
youngest child of Andreas Kailis Liveris and his wife Maria, nee Constantinou. His father had first come to Darwin