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do with the facts of the alleged offence. In August 1923, Presley was charged with selling beer containing a certain
percentage of alcohol, without a licence. On this occasion, he was sentenced to six months in jail. An appeal was
again successful.
Presley continued to run the store for a short time after his wife died and sustained himself on an old age
pension until his own death on 14 July 1934 aged about 75, survived by three sons and a daughter. He left a small
estate to his children but a debt due to his son in law left nothing for his sons.
At one time, he was Secretary of Darwin Hospital and he was a prison guard for a short period during Gilruth’s
administration. It was as a result of an incident during this time that he gave evidence at the 1920 Royal Commission.
A street in Stuart Park in Darwin is named after him.
D Lockwood, The Front Door, 1969; Northern Standard, 29 February 1921, 4 November 1921, 17 July 1934; Northern Territory Times and
Gazette, 23 October 1908, 26 March 1909, 14 January 1910, 18 February 1910, 29 December 1911, 10 June 1915, 24 June 1915, 10 June 1920,
11 August 1923, 27 June 1924, 20 July 1926, 11 March 1927, 28 June 1927; Government Gazette, 12 December 1913, 4 June 1914; Northern
Territory Archives Service, E103 8/38.
HELEN J WILSON and EDNA NEILSON, Vol 2.PRICE, EDWARD WILLIAM (1832–1893), magistrate and Government Resident, was born in Dublin in 1832.
He appears on the muster of HMS Ajax on 9 July as a midshipman from Queenstown (now Gobh), County Cork,
in Ireland. While on Ajax in later 1852, his commander, Captain Quin, was concerned at the misconduct of the
20-year-old Price and reported this to Admiral Sir Thomas Briggs of Portsmouth; but Price continued to serve with
Ajax through 1851 to 1852 and was discharged as sick to Haslar Hospital, and appointed to HMS Simoon.
Price entered HMS Simoon on 28 November 1852. During the Crimean War, the ship sailed for the Black Sea.
Price served until the end of the Russian War (in 1856), for which he received the England and Turkish medals.
On 4 September 1856, he was discharged from naval service at his own request.
He sailed for South Australia in 1859 and entered the Civil Service there in 1860. For two or three years, he was
clerk of the local court at Gawler. He received a promotion to clerk of the Adelaide Police Court under Magistrate
S Beddome. Price had married Mina Hamilton, from Ireland, the sister of E L Hamilton, who held the office of
Protector of Aborigines in South Australia. In 1873, he was sent to the Territory with his family as Stipendiary
Magistrate. In February 1875, Mina Price embarked with her five children, en route to Adelaide, on Gothenburg
to arrange for the education of the family. She and the children (Undine Mina Josephine, 12, Edward Cromwell,
10; Ida Lilian Kate, seven; Juanita Berge, two; and Ethel, 10 months) drowned near Bowen in Queensland when
the ship foundered. The tragedy of the loss of his whole family was a terrific blow to Price and this affected his
health.
Nevertheless, he took up the task again as magistrate and commissioner of the circuit court and was able to put
lucid points before the jury in his court work. In 1876, on the departure of G B Scott, Price became Government
Resident and embarked upon pushing the country ahead in this formulative period up to 1883.
In 1876, he visited the gold reefs and ordered road improvements. He was impressed with the idea of a rail link
to Pine Creek and this eventuated after his departure. He reported on A W Sergison’s exploration to the Fitzmaurice
River in 1877. He visited the Lewis-Levi buffalo operation at Port Essington in that year, provided the impetus for
development of a school in Darwin and began to renew old buildings of Goyder’s time with timber cut at Indian
Island. He encouraged the erection of a steam sawmill in Darwin to help construction. He also encouraged plans
for plantations of sugar cane and Liberian coffee in 1879 and in 1881 and 1882; pressed for a temporary hospital at
the goldfields and arranged for 350 men to work at Fannie Bay on the experimental nursery under Maurice Holtze.
Price also saw the first cattle mobs arrive from Queensland—Travers with 1000 head in 1878, Abraham Wallace
to stock Elsey in 1880. Price’s period of administration was one of consolidation for South Australia. Despite the
fact that he suffered from impaired eyesight and chronic rheumatism, he travelled around the north and was well
accepted by all, including the Chinese in the community. He saw the opening of the new Town Hall designed by
J G Knight in 1883 (which survived later as the Museum until Cyclone Tracy) before he took his departure in
SS Bowen in 1882, after nine years in the north. He returned to England on retirement in 1884 and died in London
on 14 November 1893.
P Mennell, Dictionary of Australian Biography, 1892; Adelaide Observer, 23 December 1893; ADM, 38/2342, 2/1281, 38/9033; Government
Resident’s Reports, 1876–1883, SAA 790/1876/453, CRS A1640, 1879–1883.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 1.PRICE, FREDERICK ALFRED (FRED) (1867–1924), post and telegraph officer, and PRICE, ISABELLE
VIOLET nee HESKETH (1877–1957), pastoralist. Fred Price was born at Norwood, South Australia, on
22 July 1867. His father was a schoolteacher at Whyte Yarcowie, South Australia, when, at the age of 14, Fred started
working there as a post boy. However, like F J Gillen, it would seem that he secured a transfer to Adelaide and
attended night classes at the School of Mines to study telegraphy. In 1891, he was posted to Palmerston as one of
the Overland Telegraph staff receiving and transmitting the overseas cables.
Isabelle Hesketh was born in England on 25 April 1877. At the age of 17, she sailed for Australia to visit two
married sisters, one on Thursday Island and the other in Palmerston. First, she went for a two-year stay with Mary,
who was married to Tom Clarkson, a Thursday Island pearling fleet operator. However, her time there may have
been shorter for on hearing of the other sister’s serious illness she returned to Palmerston to care for her and the
children. In this outpost community, she soon met Fred Price. They were married in the Port Darwin Church of
England on 5 March 1898.