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various Notices to Mariners ‘in a conspicuous place’ in the Palmerston Marine Board office, but ‘no such place
exists’ he advised the Board Secretary. ‘All the other officers, some with wives and families and some single—
Government boatmen and Storekeeper have good quarters supplied them by the Government, I am the only one
left out although with the exception of the Inspector of Police I have been the longest time up here, viz 7 years.
I believe that it is the general opinion that the “Cloud” is all cabin.’
Marsh went on to state that the ship had been much altered some four years before as she was not a good sea
boat and much too small. The rebuilding allowed the ship to carry a crew of 11 Malays, and to provide space for
the cypress pine logs then being cut on Indian Island for building purposes at Palmerston. What had been his
accommodation now carried stores and provisions in addition to the necessary charts and navigational instruments.
It would not have been seemly for him to live with the crew ‘so I have no place but under the awning on deck
to live in either the Wet or Dry season.’ Despite support from the Marine Board and the Government Resident,
who had been advised by the Medical Officer that Marsh’s health would suffer without proper quarters, the South
Australian government would not approve the necessary funds.
Two years later Marsh was forced to raise the subject again. In a letter to a member of parliament he complained
of ‘no other home but the small dog kennel of a cabin in the Flying Cloud.’ He had had two days’ leave of
absence in nine years and had not seen his wife or younger children in that time. The letter did bring some result.
In December 1881, a house having been acquired, the cost of a passage for his wife and half the cost of the fares
for four children was paid the government.
In 1882 when a parliamentary party led by the Minister Controlling, J L Parsons, visited the Northern Territory,
Marsh skippered Maggie when it intended to visit the Cox Peninsula. W J Sowden, in his narrative of the visit,
described Marsh as a man with a ‘cheery face’ and his photograph shows a man with the watchful eyes of a
mariner. On that occasion, the weather deteriorated to the point where Marsh deemed it prudent to turn back, much
against the wishes of the Minister. A raging storm later that evening proved the value of his judgment.
The port ran smoothly under Marsh’s hands and he was highly respected by his colleagues. No question with
maritime implications was ever asked of the Government Resident without Marsh’s advice being sought. It was,
for example, Marsh’s duty to identify and report on the 19 vessels lost during the cyclone in January 1897 when
at least 15 men perished. With the Government Resident as Chairman, he sat as the marine assessor whenever a
Board of Enquiry was held. One such was the stranding of Brisbane in October 1881. Neither life nor cargo was
lost during this incident, which must reflect credit on Marsh who was in charge of the salvage operation after the
ship was declared a total loss. In 1883, in a promotion report, the Government Resident, E W Price, declared that
Marsh ‘serves with zeal and diligence and entirely to my satisfaction’. This was praise indeed as Price had served
for a long time in the Royal Navy and considered himself a ‘professional seaman’.
The Harbourmaster, as the first contact with visiting ships, was always at risk if infectious disease was on
board. In February 1887, Marsh spent some weeks in quarantine on board the hulk Ellengowan after the arrival of
a ship from Hong Kong with cases of smallpox among its passengers.
He married Mary Askew Hogg in Adelaide on 19 February 1851 and four sons and a daughter were born.
In 1890, Mrs Marsh, then living in Adelaide, felt compelled to complain that her husband had not had a holiday
for 17 years. He went south in November 1897, initially for three months’ leave, having ‘been our harbourmaster
for as long as we can remember’ as the Northern Territory Times and Gazette informed its readers. But he did not
return and formally resigned on 15 September 1898. He died on 24 December 1909 at the home of his daughter in
Ashfield, New South Wales, at the age of about 90, leaving ‘another blank in the fast thinning ranks of early day
NT pioneers.’ It was not until 1958 that a master mariner was again appointed Harbourmaster of Darwin. Marsh
Shoal, a dangerous reef in the western approaches of the Cumberland Strait, bears his name.
W J Sowden, The Northern Territory as It Is, 1882; North Australian, 11 February 1887; Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 30 March 1876,
15 October 1881, 31 December 1909; South Australian Parliamentary Papers, Blue Books; Northern Territory Archives Service, NTRS 790;
State Records of South Australia, GRG-51/17, 2512/1880, 3914/1881, GRS 1–173/1873, 333/1878, 293/1881, 560/1881, 11/1882, 130/1883,
106/1884, 91/1890, 238/1890.
HELEN J WILSON and RICHARD J WILSON, Vol 2.
MARTIN, ALFRED (ALF) (1876–1950), butcher, stockman, drover and station manager, was born in South
Australia in 1876. He moved to Western Australia as a young man and worked in one of the butcher shops run
by Connor, Doherty and Durack in Perth. When the firm left the butchering business, he moved to the Kimberley
region in Western Australia at the turn of the century to work for the same firm as a drover. All four of his brothers
also settled in north Australia. In 1906, he married Beatrice Edwards, whom he had met in Wyndham, Western
Australia. They subsequently had eight children. In 1909, he joined Bovril Australian Estates, a British company,
as Manager of its Carlton Hill Station near Wyndham. He remained in this position until 1926.
Martin was appointed Manager of Bovril’s Victoria River Downs Station, the ‘big run’ that covered a huge
area in the north west of the Northern Territory, in August 1926. Often referred to as ‘Hell-fire-Alf’ because of his
dangerous driving, he surprised some observers by becoming a first rate administrator. As the historian Jock Makin
later remarked, ‘He knew all there was to be known of the meat industry.’ He chose able men to run stock camps
and achieved deep loyalty from his employees.
The difficult Depression period put his skills to a considerable test. There was a lack of finance for station
improvements and a shortage of horses. In 1928, Bovrils summoned him to London where he advised the company’s
directors that a thorough muster was needed to clarify the numbers of cattle. The board, though, concluded that
this was too expensive and decided to accept Martin’s own estimate. In June 1933, he travelled to Canberra, where