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Director of the North Australia Research Unit (NARU, ANU) in Darwin in 1981 the link with RSSS was
maintained.
An interest in the political economy of the Northern Territory predated Peter’s 1981 appointment to NARU.
Among his impressive list of publications are two jointly edited with Dean Jaensch which bear witness to this
fact: Elections in the Northern Territory, 1974–1977, (1979) and Under One Flag: The 1980 Northern Territory
Election, (1980). During his term at NARU Peter encouraged scholarly writing on topics related to various aspects
of northern Australia, its economy, its ecology, and its history. A large number of monographs, edited conference
papers and discussion papers were published in the decade Peter was at NARU.
In order to sustain such an ambitious publication programme Peter opened up the environment at NARU to
many scholars. Visitors to the Unit (which moved to a final and permanent home during his directorship) reflected
his wide interests and special attention to comparative studies. Scholars in the fields of anthropology, archaeology,
marine biology, economics, ecology, geography, history and law, visited from interstate, and from the United
Kingdom, North America, Europe and Scandinavia. Many took up research fellowships. As well as their research,
they participated in regular seminars, and assisted in the mentoring of graduate and post-graduate students, and
post-doctoral fellows, attached to NARU. The effect was the establishment of a significant international network
of scholars.
Because NARU, under Peter’s direction, began to highlight the importance, and relevance, of Aboriginal
communities to life in northern Australia, a number of research projects were initiated that emphasised indigenous,
or ‘first nations’, peoples. Among the issues investigated were Aboriginal housing, employment, economic
enterprises and involvement in the political economy of the north. Articles, or book chapters, authored by Peter
himself include: ‘Indigenous and Electoral Administration, Australia and Canada’ (with Jaensch) in Electoral
Studies 6 (1) 1987; ‘Local Government in Aboriginal Communities from the Assimilation Period to the 1970s in
J Wolfe, That Community Mob, Local Government in Small Northern Territory Communities, 1989; ‘Northern
Political Trends’ (with Jaensch) in P Jull and S Roberts (eds), The Challenge of Northern Regions, 1991.
During his time in the Northern Territory Peter also found time to follow his hobbies, tennis, bushwalking
and sailing. He also served the Territory community as a member of various committees and boards including
the Northern Territory (NT) University Planning Authority for several years, NT History Awards Committee
and Council of the University College of the NT, among others. Local historians also benefited from Peter’s
editing skills. He and his wife, Baiba, worked for example, with Pearl Ogden on her publication From Humpy to
Homestead, the Biography of Sabu, Darwin, 1992.
At the end of 1991, Peter and Baiba retired to Sydney, but maintained strong links with, and an active interest in
the Territory. They researched a Northern Territory University commissioned monograph they were writing on the
history of post-secondary education in the Territory. In 1992, Peter was made a Member of the Order of Australia
(AM) for services to education in the Northern Territory.
P Hetherington, The Making of a Labor Politician, 1982; Who’s Who in Australia, 1996, 1995; personal conversations and correspondence
with the author.
LYN A RIDDETT, Vol 3.LOVEGROVE, JOHN CREED (JACK or LOVEY) (1885–1954), policeman, was born on 27 September 1885,
at Wellington East on the Murray River in South Australia. He was the fifth child of John Ducket Lovegrove and
Margaret, nee Mason.
His grandfather, Leonard Lewis Lovegrove, was born in Roughly Park, North Horsham, Sussex, England
on 5 April 1817 and came to Australia on the ship Calphurnia in 1849. His occupation is shown as ‘veterinary
surgeon, Pound’ in the records of the South Australian Maritime Museum. Oral family records say he completed
three years of medicine before coming to Australia. L L Lovegrove married an Irish lass, Mary Creed, at the
Blakeston Church of England in South Australia in 1850. Mary Creed was born in County Cork, Ireland in about- She immigrated to Australia on the sailing ship Elgin with another 19 Irish girls who came upon the payment
of one hundred sovereigns by the Australia Company. She was a schoolteacher. It was from his grandmother that
John Creed and three further generations of males in the family obtained ‘Creed’ as one of their given names.
John Creed’s mother was the daughter of George Ezekial Mason and Agnes (nee Litchfield) whose brother, Fred,
was the first discoverer of gold in the Northern Territory and whose name has been commemorated in Litchfield
Park, Litchfield Shire and Fred’s Pass Reserve in the Top End. The Lovegroves finally settled in Meningie on Lake
Albert near the mouth of the Coorong in South Australia.
Little is known at this stage about John Creed Lovegrove’s first 25 years. It is evident from his writings that
he must have had a comparatively good education for a country boy of those days. Photographs of him as a young
man about town suggest that he took care with his appearance. When he joined the South Australian Police Force
as a Mounted Constable on 1 October 1910, he gave his previous occupation as farm labourer. In the next five
years, he relieved at police districts at Kingston, Millicent, Hergott Springs and Frances in South Australia. He had
also been stationed in Adelaide, Port Augusta, Renmark and Karoonda.
On 1 October 1915, he transferred to the Northern Territory Police Force and retired from that Force on medical
grounds on 12 September 1942. The continuity of his service in South Australia and the Northern Territory was
recognised and in a seniority list published in the Commonwealth Gazette of 3 September 1931 the date of his
appointment is shown as 1 July 1910. Although he was commonly called ‘Creed’ in South Australia, he was always
called ‘Jack Lovegrove’ in the Northern Territory.
In his early years, Jack served in a number of bush stations and carried out patrols to remote areas. He told his
son, Thomas Creed, of patrols he carried out in the Bulman area and into Arnhem Land. In 1924, he led a search