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In the early years the regular barge service he provided to island and coastal communities, many inaccessible
by road from Darwin or cut off in the wet season, made an appreciable difference to the life style in those areas.
For 20 years, each ship in the Perkins’ fleet was an adaptation of or an evolution from Army landing craft.
As mining developments expanded at Gove and on Groote Eylandt, so did the company. In the 1970s, Perkins was
involved in the revival of the live cattle export trade and in 1978, the company began regular services to Singapore
that were extended later to Indonesian and New Guinea ports. In 1992, the pride of his fleet was the 3 200 tonne
Coringle Bay. By that year the company had offices Gove and Groote Eylandt and major agencies in Singapore
and other ports, worldwide. The company employed 150 people in operations which included marine workshops,
a slipway and road transport. There were then four ships in the fleet.
During Cyclone Tracy, the company lost none of its ships though the shore establishment was badly damaged.
The Royal Australian Navy, as part of the cleanup operation, chartered several of his craft for several months.
The facilities available in Darwin are also of considerable benefit to Darwin, particularly in times of adversity.
This was amply demonstrated in 1974 when Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin. Perkins was declared an essential service
facility because of the utilisation of machinery for the clean up, the ship’s electricity generating and food storage
capacity and the company vessels to ship to shore transport and supplies.
His contribution to the development of the north was recognised in a ‘Big Country’ segment filmed by the
Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1978 and entitled ‘Perkins Navy’. Bruce Perkins was most amused some
weeks after it had been aired to receive a letter addressed ‘The Admiral, Darwin’ which the Post Office had placed
straight into his box.
Over the years, Perkins had many other interests besides ships though he never put any of the company’s
money into his pet projects. In 1972, he was a founder shareholder and director of Darwin’s Channel 8 television
station and he was still a director when he died, though Packer interests then owned the station. At one time, he
was something of a land baron. In partnership with Kerry Manolas and Richard Morris, he owned Manbulloo,
Gorrie and Dry River stations. As the major shareholder in partnership with Kerry Ambrose Pearce and architect,
Gary Hunt, he developed the Desert Springs Country Club in Alice Springs. The golf course was brought up
to international standard and the adjoining residential estate that they established allowed the construction of
private homes to a high standard. Perkins was also on the board of the short-lived government enterprise Northern
Airlines.
His love of the sea was reflected in his membership of yacht clubs in Singapore and Malaysia, and he was
a member and patron of the Darwin Sailing Club. Bruce Perkins served as Chairman of the Northern Territory
Museums and Art Galleries Board from 1988 to 1991. When asked whether he would become chair he asked
the Minister flippantly whether he was to become an exhibit. He was the Territory delegate to the national Trade
Development Council. He also had an active commitment with St John Ambulance Australia (Northern Territory),
serving (as President from 1988 until his death) on St John Council since 1977 and President from 1988 until his
death. In December 1989, he was appointed a Commander Brother in the Order of St John. In June 1989, he was
awarded Membership of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘for service to the transport industry, particularly shipping’.
On 20 February 1954 in Singapore, he married Barbara Joan Smith and there were two children, Shauna
(Mandy) and Antony. The marriage was dissolved and on 13 November 1979 he married Jocelyn Marie Strickland,
their daughter Penelope being born on 3 February 1981. He became an Australian citizen on 26 January 1981.
Bruce Perkins died suddenly on 2 November 1992 survived by his wife and three children. At his memorial
service, held in his own shipyard, the eulogy was given by the Administrator who said that Bruce Perkins had ‘not
only left his mark, he had maintained a constant vision... that Australia’s future was in the north’. Fred Finch,
Minister for Transport and Works, recorded that ‘Bruce Perkins’ faith in the Northern Territory is well reflected
in his local and international successes’ but he was very much a man of the community’. At the next sittings of
Parliament Chief Minister Marshall Perron, in a detailed celebration of Perkins’ contribution to the Territory, noted
particularly the value of the introduction of the ‘international shipping line’.
In 1993, Perkins Shipping began to sponsor the annual Darwin to Ambon Yacht Race and the Bruce Perkins
Memorial Trophy is also given for line honours. In association with St John Ambulance, his company also sponsors
the Bruce Perkins Memorial Scholarship, an award that encourages current or past members of St John to undertake
full-time study in a medical, nursing or allied health field.
Family records; Northern Territory News, 3 November 1992, 4 November 1992; Northern Territory Parliamentary Record, 17 November 1992;
P A Rosenzweig, For Service, 1995.
JOCELYN PERKINS and HELEN J WILSON, Vol 3.
PERMIEN (also PERMAIN), THOMAS HANBURY (c1815/1820–1874), surveyor and explorer, is believed
to have been born in Ireland between 1815 and 1820 but in the 1990s his Australian descendants were still trying
to glean facts on his origin.
Permien’s father was Joachim Christopher Permien (1773–1841), who was born in Hamburg, Germany and
had served in the Bengal Artillery in 1795 in India. As a young man, Thomas, his son, had served with the East
India Company in India as a surveyor in various locations between 1835 and 1852. Contracting jungle fever,
he was discharged from that service. He moved to Victoria during the gold rush period of the mid 1850s and
appears to have married Mary McDonald there. A daughter was born in 1855.
Permien then seems to have travelled to Rockhampton, Queensland. Between 1860 and 1870, he was a ‘valued
resident’ of that town. He undertook the first survey of the lands in the Dawson and Mackenzie Rivers, ‘a very
dangerous undertaking in consequence of the hostility of the blacks to white people.’ Permien also surveyed and