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as an ‘officer with wide and varied experience in both office and outdoor duty, has proved he can handle men, is a
strict disciplinarian, has had experience in the New South Wales and Queensland police forces.’ On his retirement,
among the many tributes, was one from a Centralian station owner who expressed the feelings of his colleagues in
the remoter areas, ‘You have played the game over the years, and we are losing a sterling friend who carried out
his duties with justice and tact.’
McKinnon, in his recollections, later described the three years of camel patrols as the most satisfying years in
his whole career. He found his later years in the service far from satisfying and a particular grievance was that he
had been passed over for appointment as Commissioner by a man junior to him in the service. It particularly riled
as none of his contemporaries had had experience in the police force of another state. The Masonic Lodge was an
interest in which he played a leading part.
He and his wife retired to Buderim in Queensland, assisted by a 6 000 Pounds win in the New South Wales
lottery in 1957. Here he worked on his memoirs and wrote regularly to the local newspaper. McKinnon was a
meticulous record keeper and his personal papers held in the Northern Territory Archives form a valuable source
of material on police life of the day.
S Downer, Patrol Indefinite, 1977; NSW Police News, 1 July 1933; Queenslander, 9 March 1933; Walkabout, 1 December 1949; Northern
Territory News, 18 December 1959; Northern Territory Archives Service, NTRS 321 (personal papers), NTRS 226 TS88 (oral history
interview).
HELEN J WILSON, Vol 2.McLACHLAN, GEORGE GALBRAITH (1842–1873), surveyor and gold warden, was born in 1842, a nephew
of G W Goyder, his mother being a sister of the Surveyor-General.
McLachlan, a senior surveyor, was a member of Goyder’s party that sailed from Adelaide in the coastal barque
Moonta in December 1868 arriving in Port Darwin on 5 February 1869. The objectives of the expedition were to
establish a settlement in the tropical regions of South Australia and to survey the land for future settlement.
The surveyors laid out the site for Palmerston town on the familiar grid pattern of Adelaide. The survey team
worked hard and by the end of August 1869 the survey was complete; 665 866 acres (269 675 hectares) of town
and country lands had been surveyed. In September 1869, Goyder left for Adelaide leaving behind some of his
party to take charge of the new township. One of these was McLachlan who was in charge of the Lands and Survey
Office with a salary of 350 Pounds per annum.
In July 1870 McLachlan received instructions from the Government Resident, Bloomfield Douglas, to
undertake an expedition to Leichhardt’s crossing on the Roper River with a view to future telegraphic extension.
The idea was to assess the potential of timber supply for the telegraph poles, easy gradients to assist in the erection
of the overland telegraph and the accessibility of water and food for stock. McLachlan set off with five men on
a trip that was to take about three and a half months. The party rode out southward from Palmerston, their route
taking them down to the Mary River, through hills and ranges to Kekwick Springs and on to the Katherine River.
They continued southeast to the Waterhouse where three of the party remained and set up camp. McLachlan,
with the remaining members of the party, set off to explore the Roper River region. They found two horses that
Stuart’s party had left behind eight years previously. They reached the Chambers River and started homeward for
Palmerston on 26 August.
McLachlan’s report was favourable overall; he had located a practicable telegraph route through country well
timbered with a permanent adequate water supply suited for pastoral occupation. In addition, he verified positions
of two of Stuart’s camps that gave a more accurate picture of that explorer’s tracks. This expedition had taken place
in the dry season and therefore he had no indication of how different the region would be when heavy rains and
flooding rivers had occurred. It was on this expedition that he discovered gold 55 kilometres east of Pine Creek.
In October of the same year, 1870, McLachlan, at the request of Douglas, travelled in the government schooner
Gulnare to perform a general survey of the Roper River entrance and its channel. He had with him McMinn, who
was another of Goyder’s original party. On reaching the Roper, they transferred to a longboat and opened the river
highway, exploring and sounding for 150 kilometres to Leichardt’s Bar. There were problems with floods in the
wet season and the party was split in different locations, causing havoc with food and supplies. By the time they
had returned to Palmerston in March 1871, many were suffering health problems, including scurvy.
McLachlan made several trips of exploration and found small quantities of gold in the Pine Creek region.
He was appointed the Territory’s Gold Warden in 1871 and advised new prospectors ‘not to come rushing here
unless they provide themselves with stock, drays, provisions, took firearms etc for 12 or 18 months’; he knew that
the cost of living was inflated in the gold-rush days in the Northern Territory.
McLachlan contributed to the opening up of the Northern Territory by surveying the land for settlement and for
the installation of the Overland Telegraph. It is suggested by Threadgill that had McLachlan’s base in the Roper
region been used as headquarters for the construction of the Overland Telegraph instead of faraway Port Darwin,
both delay and difficulty could have been reduced. With the opening up of the Roper, stores and gear for the
hinterland could have been loaded by boats, thus giving the telegraph teams a shortcut of 240 kilometres south-west
to Daly Waters where the line would pass.
For the short time he was in the Northern Territory, February 1869 until his death from lung trouble in 1873,
he appears to have been an energetic person of high achievement who foresaw potential in the future of the
region.
E Hill, The Territory, 1981; M J Kerr, The Surveyors: The Story of the Founding of Darwin, 1971; D Lockwood, The Front Door, 1977;
A Powell, Far Country, 1982; B Threadgill, South Australian Land Exploration, 1856–1880, 1922.
J STEEL, Vol 1.