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the station homestead he buried it near the hut. The Brunette Downs personnel refurbished the grave, incorporating
the original roughly etched headstone, in 1981.
Readford, who could not live down his colourful past, should be remembered rather as an early pioneer of the
Northern Territory who followed closely in the footsteps of Nat Buchanan, the first and arguably the greatest of
the pathfinders.
E Hill, The Territory, 1951; M Durack, Kings in Grass Castles, 1959; M Durack, Sons in the Saddle, 1983; P H McCarthy, The Man They
Called Starlight, Sydney, 1987; Adelaide Advertiser, 6 April 1957; North Australian Monthly, vol 6, no 2, September 1959; Northern Territory
Times and Gazette, 2 & 9 March 1900, 12 March 1901; Warren Herald, 20 April 1901, 8 July 1948; Weekend Australian, 15–16 September
1984; Registers of Northern Territory Leases, 1872–1915, NTA 1973/13.
P H McCARTHY, Vol 1.
REDMOND, (LEONARD) GEORGE (1913– ), civil engineer, was born on 3 October 1913 in Charters Towers,
Queensland, the eldest son of Edward Vernon Redmond, mining and civil engineer, and his wife Christina,
nee Bell, a school teacher. The family moved numerous times over the next two decades as the elder Redmond,
who in 1922 qualified as local government engineer, was engaged on engineering projects in north and northwest
Queensland. The children attended such schools as were available and studied by correspondence. In 1926, when
12 years of age, young George saved a man from drowning in the South Johnstone River, and as a consequence
was awarded the bronze medal of the Royal Humane Society. He attended Townsville Grammar School through
Junior Certificate level and, as he grew older, worked on engineering projects in his father’s consulting engineering
practice. Private study enabled him to gain matriculation to the University of Queensland and he was awarded a
Bachelor of Engineering degree in April 1939. A year later, he passed the examinations for the Certificate of
Competency to practise as a local government engineer.
When the Second World War broke out Redmond was managing his father’s tin mine near Cooktown. He tried
to enlist and receiving no response to his written requests, in December 1940, he went to Brisbane and presented
himself at Victoria Barracks; a month later, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Active Citizen Military
Forces, and was selected to attend the School of Military Engineering. However, before he could report to the
school, he was seconded to the Works and Services Branch of the Department of the Interior to help build flying
training schools at Sandgate, Maryborough and Bundaberg. Although initially the secondment was to be for three
to six months, increasing need for defence construction meant that his repeated requests to rejoin the Army were
consistently refused.
On 22 November 1941, he married Hester Adelaide Smith, daughter of a Babinda cane farmer, and was at
once posted to Thursday Island as Resident Engineer for the Torres Straits Islands, where the Horn Island airport
and many defence installations were under construction. In January 1942, after the Japanese entered the war,
non-essential civilians, including Mrs Redmond, were evacuated, but Redmond stayed on and experienced the
bombing and strafing of Horn Island, which was an important base during the battle of the Coral Sea. In July 1942,
he was transferred to Townsville and was based there until late 1944, during which time he was involved in the
design and construction of urgent defence projects in most of north Queensland. This period also saw the birth of
a son and a daughter.
In November 1944, he was transferred to Brisbane as the first Roads and Aerodromes Engineer for the Queensland
Branch of the Allied Works Council, and in 1946, he became Senior Civil Engineer for the Commonwealth
Department of Works and Housing. In this latter post he had responsibility for designing projects for Papua New
Guinea, and in March 1950 he was promoted there as Principal Engineer, later Acting Assistant Director of Works.
During the next eight years he was involved in the design and construction of major port facilities at most coastal
centres, hydro-electric power stations for Port Moresby, Goroka and Aijura, new diesel power stations for most
other important centres, hundreds of kilometres of gravel roads and over 3 000 linear metres of bridges, as well as
government building, schools and urban subdivisions.
He went to Canberra in April 1958 as Principal Engineer and Acting Assistant Director of Works; he was
given responsibility for the construction of Scrivener Dam, the Kings and Commonwealth Avenue bridges, the
Government Printing Office and general engineering services for the rapidly growing city. The dam and bridges
were not completed when, in March 1962, his career took a new turn, one for which, after 21 years of experience
living in and designing works for tropical conditions, he was uniquely qualified: Director of Works for the Northern
Territory.
Of the Darwin of that time, he notes: ‘Conditions in the Northern Territory for public servants and, indeed, most
citizens, were deplorable. In Darwin, with the exception of the Post Office and the Legislative Council Building,
Government offices were in the main converted, unsuitable wartime buildings, many with galvanised roofs and
walls and partitions... Throughout the Territory offices, schools, hospitals, hostels, housing etc. were entirely
inadequate. Power was rationed and unreliable, reticulated water, where available, was rationed, and Darwin the
only town which had any sewerage. No bitumen country roads and only one bridge had been constructed since the
war.’ Such conditions had much to do with the then current practice of posting public servants to the Territory for
a limited term; indeed, Redmond was the ninth Director of Works since 1946.
It may be fairly said that over the next 15 years George Redmond had the responsibility for planning, designing
and building a substantial share of the Territory’s public works. Included were more than 8 000 government houses,
over 30 schools, several hospital and hostels, as well as providing reticulated water and sewerage for a rapidly
expanding population. New power stations in all centres raised the output from 47.6 million kilowatts (KWh) in
1961/62 to 357 million KWh in 1975/76.