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In 1913 he transferred to the Alice Springs Telegraph Station where he worked as a telegraphist. He met and
became a very close friend of Bill Heffernan and for a time became his partner in Ti Tree Station.
The two friends, together with Alf Turner, a Centralian pastoralist, were the first Territorians to volunteer for
service in the First World War. Adamson travelled as camp cook with a mob of Hayes’s cattle to Oodnadatta and
enlisted in Adelaide. He was classified, however, as being in an essential service. It was not until he wrote to the
then Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, that his application for release was successful. His enlistment took effect from
17 August 1915, initially with the Citizen Forces and then as a Signaller in the Australian Imperial Force. Before
he could be posted overseas he suffered from peritonitis and was discharged on medical grounds on 16 April 1916.
When fully recovered he re-enlisted in the First Signal Squadron on 27 August 1917. He served in Egypt. At war’s
end he returned to Australia and was discharged in July 1919.
Adamson returned to work at the Alice Springs Telegraph Station. There he met an attractive young lady,
Mabel Wilkinson, who had arrived in The Alice with her parents in May 1920 after a long journey by horse and
buggy from the railhead at Oodnadatta in South Australia. At that time only five white women lived in the town.
Adamson and Mabel were married in Adelaide in July 1923 and once again undertook the long wintry journey by
horse and buggy to their future home in The Alice.
A family of five girls and three boys followed as the Adamsons lived at the various towns and cities where
Dud Adamson’s work took him. In 1932 he became the first Postmaster at the new post office in Alice Springs when
it opened for business. He also worked in Victor Harbour, Kadina, Port Adelaide and the city of Adelaide, all in
South Australia. At the time of his retirement in 1960 he had been Postmaster at the Grenfell Street Post Office for
eight years. Formerly President of the South Australian Branch of the Postmasters’ Association, Adamson was one
of the best-known postmasters in South Australia. He passed away at his home in Adelaide on 29 June 1962.
The Adamsons took an active part in the social life of Alice Springs, supporting church and school activities.
Dud Adamson was President of the local branch of the Returned Services League from 1934 until 1936 when the
memorial was planned and built on Anzac Hill and in that capacity he unveiled the plaque and his wife laid the first
wreath. The Reverend Harry Griffith dedicated the memorial. The whole family loved music and Mabel Adamson
and the girls were accomplished pianists. Their friends often joined them in musical evenings and they often
entertained troops in their home during the Second World War.
Alice Springs had a firm grip on the hearts of the family and the town returned this love. Two of the girls,
Marie Parkinson of Alice Springs and Jean Lovegrove of Darwin, continued to live in the Territory and another,
Dorothy Gill, returned to live in The Alice. Mabel Adamson regularly visited her old hometown. All the family
continued a close relationship with it and in 1992 11 of Adamson’s grandchildren and 16 of his great grandchildren
resided there.
Dud Adamson was a true Territory pioneer who chose to live in what was then a very lonely and remote part of
Australia and who, with other such committed pioneers, helped to make it a comfortable place.
Adamson family records; Anzac Hill private records; Army records, Melbourne; South Australian Post Office and Overland Telegraph
records.
JEAN LOVEGROVE, Vol 2.
ADCOCK, HERBERT HENRY (1859–1908), businessman, was born in June 1859 at Richmond, Victoria,
the youngest son of George Charles Adcock. He arrived in the Territory in 1877 to join an elder brother,
William Eddrup Adcock, then carrying on a successful storekeeping business. At the time there were high hopes
for the Territory’s success and as the Northern Territory Times and Gazette lyrically put it, the young Adcock was
‘one of the cheeriest and brightest and most sanguine among the crowded seekers after fortune then congregated
in this incipient eldorado’.
He was representative of the second generation of pioneers in the north. Like his predecessors he was involved
in gold mining and in 1884 became Director of the Extended Union Gold Mining Company. He was promoter
of the Exelsior Gold Mining Company at Howley in 1888 and in 1889 he held minerals licences in land near
Mount Wells.
He and his brother, with V V Brown, traded as Adcock Brothers until 9 September 1887 when the partnership
was dissolved. This was partially brought about by the collapse of the Town and Country Bank to whom the
partners were indebted. At the time most mortgages were held ‘at call’ so a mortgagee in difficulties immediately
called in its debts. On 1 October Adcock assigned his estate to the Bank’s liquidators and though declared insolvent
in February 1888 it was an error, as an apology in April 1888 publicly recorded. He did, however, lose all the real
estate in which he had any interest. In 1882 he had built ‘commodious offices’ for the shipping business. He had
purchased the lease of Lot 306 in 1886 for 2 350 Pounds, the cost of which included the Terminus Hotel and he
also had an interest in Lot 530 on which the Exchange Hotel stood. His brother, W E Adcock, chose a different path
and having failed to cooperate with the liquidators spent four years in Adelaide Gaol for debt.
H H Adcock and V V Brown joined J A V Brown and formed the Port Darwin Mercantile Agency
Company, auctioneers, shipping and customs agents. Adcock personally held the Lloyds Agency for many years.
In February 1895, at a time of considerable depression in Palmerston, the Mercantile Agency also went into
voluntary liquidation. As soon as he was permitted Adcock ran a small agency business on his own account.
Between 1884 and 1892 Adcock was regularly elected to the Palmerston District Council and served as
Chairman for several years. In that capacity he welcomed the Governor of South Australia, Lord Kintore, when
he visited in 1891. As Council Chairman Adcock was appointed to the first local Board of Health in Palmerston in
June 1885; he continued to serve on this body for the next seven years.