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trepanging for Alf Brown. Sunter took up trepanging and recruited Mamitpa to work for him, describing him
as very hardworking, honest and wise, ‘an excellent fellow, a most valuable old man and chock full of wisdom
collected during the past sixty years.’ Mamitpa died and was buried at Gudji (Fort Wellington), Raffles Bay in
September 1931.
It is unusual to find so much written in white people’s documents about an Aboriginal man like Mamitpa. He was
respected by his fellow countrymen, both black and white. During his life, he learned many new skills, including
how to sail ships and how to speak several languages. He had the ability to live and work with the Macassans and
white men who came to the Cobourg Peninsula, as well as maintaining his own language and culture.
G Chaloupka, Croker Island, c1979; E Hill, The Territory, 1951; A Searcy, By Flood and Field, 1912, In Australian Tropics, 1909, In Northern
Seas, 1905; G Sunter, Adventures of a Trepang Fisher, 1937; Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 21 January 1882, 1 April 1882,
25 February 1888, 11 July 1890; South Australian Parliamentary Papers, 1893/64; State Records of South Australia, GRS 1/1908/175;
information from N Muluriny.
JENNY RICH, Vol 2.MANNION, JAMES JOSEPH (JIM) (1912–1968), policeman and soldier, was born on 1 August 1912 at Broken
Hill, New South Wales, the son of Martin Henry Mannion and his wife Marcella Ellen, nee Marron. His mother
died when he was two and he was reared in Adelaide by a maiden aunt and a bachelor uncle. He was educated in
Adelaide but spent his holidays and the first few years after he left school in the Spalding District working on the
wheat farms of family and friends.
He joined the Northern Territory Police Force on 29 March 1936 and spent several months in Darwin in
preliminary training. Here he early showed the courage he was always to exhibit during his police career when
on one occasion he defended himself and other police from a gang of sailors intent on getting one of their number
released from police custody. Boxing had early been an interest and at the age of 18, he had been the Australian
correspondent for The Ring, a boxing magazine.
In January 1937, he was posted to Tennant Creek, then a roistering gold mining town, where he was married
on 26 February 1938 to Nancy Gwennyth Collins, daughter of William Andrew and his wife Flora Daisy Collins
of Adelaide. They had met in Tennant Creek, where Nancy, in the spirit of adventure, was working as a waitress.
Conditions being rough, Mannion patrolled the local mineral fields on a donkey. After his marriage, he was posted
to Brock’s Creek, the remote Lake Nash station and Mataranka. It was from Mataranka that Nancy was evacuated
by air to Darwin, as an emergency caesarean was needed for the birth of their first child, daughter Nancy.
Mannion saw service as a Private with the Second Seventh Battalion in the Middle East and New Guinea
during the Second World War and resumed duty in the police force on 15 January 1945. He was then posted to the
Roper River. His family lived in Adelaide during the war and in December 1944, a second child, Robert, was born
there, also by caesarean section. Nancy Mannion joined her husband as soon as she was able. Having travelled to
Alice Springs on the Ghan, she, with the two children, was driven to Roper River by a young man with a utility
truck, the trip taking two days. Lengthy patrols were routine for the ‘outback’ policeman and on one occasion when
Mannion was away from the Roper River station Robert contracted diphtheria and only the efforts of all associated
with the radio network, the aero medical service and the Darwin Hospital saved his life.
Mannion was promoted Sergeant in March 1948 and for the next 11 years served at Katherine and Tennant
Creek, with short periods in Darwin and Alice Springs. In June 1952 when Sergeant in Charge at Katherine
Mannion was shot and wounded, and Constable Condon was killed, by a man who was later sentenced to death,
but acquitted on a retrial on the grounds of insanity. For his part in this incident Mannion was commended for
bravery.
Courage was an integral part of his character. On 3 December 1956, an explosion rocked Tennant Creek when
9 091 litres (2 000 gallons) of fuel at Campbell’s Garage blew up. Most of the town’s commercial centre was
damaged. One man died and more than 40 others received injuries, some seriously. As a result of his heroism that
evening Mannion was awarded the George Medal (GM), then the second highest civilian decoration for gallantry.
True to form, he was embarrassed by the news and claimed that his wife had a bit of a shock. The investiture
was held in Darwin in December 1959 and the citation read: ‘Sergeant Mannion entered the first building after...
an explosion to ensure that no one was trapped inside. He was well aware of the contents of the building and
the dangers. Despite this knowledge he continued his search.’ He was a very self-effacing man. At the time,
the Tennant Creek Times reported that Mannion’s evidence at the inquest on his part in the fire ‘is this year’s
masterpiece of under-statement.’ Long after his death, his widow commented, in reference to the incident, that he
was just doing his job.
Prior to his return to Tennant Creek, in late 1955, Mannion had been stationed in Darwin where his diligence
in raiding and prosecuting illegal gambling dens had made him unpopular in certain quarters. He was known
in the town as the Sergeant in charge of gambling and though he was considered ‘a man of great integrity as a
police officer’, his claim in court that a particular illegal bookmaker had been singled out for attention because
of orders from a ‘superior authority’ saw him transferred to Tennant Creek within the month. The 1950s was a
time of turmoil in Northern Territory policing. There were frequent ‘temporary’ transfers and it was claimed that
the northern men were forced to operate with ‘out of date methods and lack of scientific equipment’. Such was
Mannion’s reputation as a tough officer who upheld the law that in Tennant Creek in 1956 the ‘good old times’
were referred to as BM—before Mannion.
In July 1957, he was sent back to Darwin as Acting Inspector and in June 1958 his promotion was confirmed
and he was appointed Head of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. In June 1959, he was appointed Senior Inspector,