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was distinguished by the fact that he was one of the Territory’s first elected representatives to federal politics.
He served admirably for 12 years until his retirement in 1987. In the course of his parliamentary career he served
on many committees and led some overseas delegations to Thailand and Indo-China... I worked very closely with
him as a Whip and he did that job very well. In some ways he was a traditional, conservative Labor Party man.
I use the word “conservative” in the best possible sense of the word. He was conservative in his values which were
very decent ones. He described himself as a Depression child. He used to say that his family ate regularly during
the Depression but nonetheless it was in those years that the foundations of his beliefs and commitment to social
justice came about. Ted used to say that he was born an Anglican and a Labor person. He will be remembered
as a modest man of dignity and integrity with a deep sense of duty and honour both to his constituency and the
institution to which he belonged’.
His Territory colleague, Senator Bob Collins, said in the federal parliamentary condolence: ‘I respected him for
his integrity, his dignity and the enormous contribution he made behind the scenes. Ted had a very strong public
and private stand on East Timor and a close involvement with the Timorese community in Darwin’. The Leader
of the Opposition in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, Terry Smith, described Ted as ‘the father of the
modern Labor party in the Northern Territory in a very real sense. We [all] owe Ted a debt for the trail blazing
which he undertook on behalf of us all to ensure that the Territory voice was properly heard in Canberra... he was
always interested in helping the underdog.’
His wife, Audrey, and their two sons, Gavin and Neil, and daughter, Lucy Ann, survived Ted.
Australian Labor Party archives; B James, research notes; Northern Territory Parliamentary Record, various issues.
BARBARA JAMES, Vol 3.ROBERTSON, (Sir) HORACE CLEMENT HUGH (1894–1960), army officer, was born at Warrnambool,
Victoria, on 29 October 1894, the son of John Robertson, a Scottish schoolteacher, and his wife Annie, nee Gray.
He was educated at Geelong College and in 1911 entered the Royal Military College at Duntroon as a staff
cadet. Three years later, he graduated as a Lieutenant and immediately joined the 10th Light Horse Regiment.
From May 1915, he served at Gallipoli. Though wounded in the eye, he continued to serve, being promoted to
Captain in August 1915. He withdrew from Gallipoli with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in December.
Promoted to the AIF rank of Major in May 1916, Robertson served in staff posts with the (British) Yeomanry
Mounted Division, from June 1917 to March 1918, then with the AIF in Egypt until he returned to Australia in
July 1919. In October 1917, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and was twice mentioned in
dispatches in the same year.
From 1919, Robertson held a variety of regimental, staff and instructional posts and spent two years (1923–25)
on training courses in England. Promoted Lieutenant Colonel, Staff Corps, in January 1937, he was appointed
to the Darwin command in March 1939. His predecessor, Lieutenant Colonel W W Whittle had been under the
control of the First Military District, Queensland; Robertson was the first officer to hold Seventh Military District
as an independent command. The change of status reflected rising government concern at the deteriorating security
position in the Pacific as Japan moved closer to the European Axis powers. In the same month that Robertson
arrived in Darwin, the small garrison (four officers and 84 other ranks in September 1936) received a major
reinforcement with the coming of the Darwin Mobile Force, 11 officers and 220 other ranks under command of
Major A B MacDonald. Robertson’s command was not to receive any further Regular Force reinforcement; but
Robertson, in the words of war historian Gavin Long, proved to be ‘a confident commander’ and his energetic
advocacy, together with the coming of war in Europe, enabled the recruitment of militia volunteers for the Medical
Corps, coast defence artillery and what the Minister for Defence called ‘a limited number of selected types of
half-caste Aborigines’ for local duty. In June 1939, Robertson personally inspected the, mainly unmade, track from
Alice Springs to Darwin and reported to the Military Board on necessary upgrading measures. By then, he was on
his way out of the Northern Territory to take up another post.
Promoted to Colonel, Staff Corps, in November 1939, Robertson transferred to the AIF as a Brigadier in
April 1940, commanded the 79th Infantry Brigade at Brandia, Tobruk and Benghazi until March 1941 and thereafter
held a Middle East base posting until, with other senior Australian commanders, he was returned to Australia at the
outbreak of the Pacific war in December 1941. Until mid-1944 he held divisional commands in Australia, then went
as General Officer Commanding to Western Command. In April 1945, he was appointed Commanding Officer,
5 Division, and in July moved to command of 6 Division. In that capacity he received, in August, the surrender
of General Adachi, Commander of the (Japanese) 18th Army and Admiral Sato, Commander, Naval Forces, New
Guinea.
Robertson, promoted Major General in 1942, emerged from the Second World War with the award of Commander
of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and two further mentions in dispatches. Promoted to the temporary
rank of Lieutenant General in December 1945 (made permanent in 1948), he held major Australian commands
thereafter until appointed Commander-in-Chief, British Commonwealth Occupation Force, Japan, in June 1946.
He held that post until 1950, when he added to it a Korean War administrative post that won him a Korean Order
of Military Merit Taiguk in February 1952 for ‘gallant and distinguished services during the operations by the UN
in Korea’. He was also, in June 1950, made a Knight of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) thus becoming the
first Duntroon graduate to be knighted.
Robertson returned to Australia in December 1951 and retired three years later as one of Australia’s most
distinguished soldiers.