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farm until 1993 when he moved to his home on the stud cattle property owned by one of his two daughters, and
her husband, near Proserpine in Queensland.
C Schultz & D Lewis, Beyond The Big Run, 1995; D Rose, Hidden Histories, 1991; personal communications with C Schultz.
DARRELL LEWIS, Vol 3.
SCOTT, GEORGE BYNG (1824–1886), police inspector, magistrate and Government Resident was born in
Gillingham, Kent, in 1824. His first marriage was to Elizabeth, nee Taylor, in London on 7 October 1843, there
being two children of the marriage.
Scott arrived in South Australia in 1846. In conjunction with his elder brother, Edward B Scott
(later superintendent of Yatala Prison), he entered into pastoral pursuits in the Murray River district near Morgan
(the north-west bend of the Murray River). Mrs Scott died at Moorundee, south of Blanchtown (the settlement
no longer exists) in November 1849. Scott remained in the area until 1850 when he followed others to California
for adventure at the goldfields, but the stay was short-lived; he returned to the Victorian diggings at Bendigo in
- He had returned to South Australia by 1854 and became Inspector of Police and Stipendiary Magistrate
for the South-eastern District, stationed at Penola. He retained his appointment until April 1859 when he became
the Stipendiary Magistrate at Naracoorte, having dispensed with his role as Inspector of Police. Shortly after this
appointment, the terrible wreck of the ship Admella occurred at the southeast coast. Scott was one of the leaders
in trying to save the passengers. He married Caroline Ritchie in July 1865 and resided at Penola. His son, James
Scott, was born in September 1869. The Scotts had six other children, all daughters.
In August 1873 Scott was appointed by the South Australian government to the position of Government
Resident at Palmerston after the resignation of Captain Bloomfield Douglas. He sailed on SS Gothenburg in
October 1873 arriving to take up appointment in November, at a time when mining fever was at its peak on the
quartz reefs at Pine Creek. Scott found that Douglas had dispensed justice on the verandah of the Residency and
it was not surprising that he regarded reform of judicial procedure as one of his priorities. Edward Price was
later appointed Magistrate and Commissioner of the Circuit Court. In his reminiscences, Scott noted that he was
intrigued by the costumes of the local people in the north—the swarthy barrister, Villeneuve Smith, in particular, in
a pair of pyjamas in a most gaudy pattern and a white jacket over them and topped by a helmet. He felt that Smith
might have been the son of the Sultan of Borneo.
The new Government Resident came armed with instructions delegating to him the entire control of all official
establishments. In the Territory Mining Act, he had jurisdiction to settle disputed claims; it is clear that he had
some problems with the local barrister in sorting them out. He visited Melville Island, but saw little of the interior
of the island. He journeyed later to Port Essington and met ‘Jack Davis’, a leader of the local tribe and ‘a dark
lady called Flash Poll’.
The Circuit court met in early 1875 under Justice Wearing and when it was completed, Wearing and many
prominent citizens left on the eastbound Gothenburg on her last fateful journey down the Queensland coast.
Wearing and his associate Pelham were among the dead when she went down.
During Scott’s term, a temporary courthouse had been arranged, a new hospital was opened in 1874 above
Doctor’s Gully, the jetty was improved at Southport and improvements were made to mining legislation.
Scott returned to Adelaide in 1876 and resumed his life there as Stipendiary Magistrate, then at Port Adelaide and
in 1880 at Mount Gambier. He died at Mount Gambier on 17 February 1886, survived by his second wife and nine
children.
Biographical Index of South Australians, 1986; Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 14 November 1873 & 1 July 1876; ‘Death of G B Scott—
Obituary’, Border Watch (Mount Gambier), 20 February 1881; Personal communication S86/1046, H S Bennett, grandson of Scott, Cheam,
Surrey, UK; G B Scott, ‘Reminiscences of Life in NT’, 1876 A1100 B10 SAA.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 1.
SEALE, JACQUELINE MOYA (JACI): see O’BRIEN, JACQUELINE MOYA (JACI)
SEARCY, ALFRED (1854–1925), customs officer, parliamentary official and author, was born on 4 January 1854
at Mount Barker in South Australia. He was the eldest of the four sons of William Searcy, the town’s policeman,
who later became the colony’s Chief Inspector of Police. All four sons had careers in public employment.
After beginning at a local school, Searcy attended Pulteney Street School in Adelaide until 1869, when he was
indentured as a journalist. Four years later, failing to complete his indenture, he joined the Customs Department
where he won steady promotion. He was awarded the Royal Humane Society’s certificate, for saving a woman
from drowning, and became a Captain in the Port Adelaide Rifle Company.
In 1882, Searcy volunteered to go to the Northern Territory as Sub-Collector and take charge of new customs
arrangements. A large, active man, well able to look after himself outdoors, he was a vigorous and determined
officer. He appears in photographs equipped for the bush with whip and pistol or relaxing in sarong and slippers.
The regular work at Port Darwin involved extensive dealings with Chinese and he was responsible for establishing
a system of collecting duties and licence fees from Macassan trepangers on the Arnhem Land coast. On several
adventurous voyages in company with Paul Foelsche and E O Robinson, he had extensive contact with the
Macassans, to say nothing of Queensland smugglers and a wide assortment of the other villains! In recognition of
his varied duties and the excellence of his work, he was promoted in 1888 and became a Justice of the Peace. Within
the tiny white community, he was one of a handful of public servants striving to establish orderly administration