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Contracting received its share of this work including the new Kindergarten building, and hospital and post office
extensions.
When the bombing of Darwin took place on 19 February 1942 Snell was in the southern states purchasing
material for his defence contracts. He immediately returned to Darwin to put his affairs in order and, presumably,
to supervise the completion of his defence contracts. He remained there until the early months of 1943. He became,
for the rest of the war, a works supervisor in the Engineering (Civil) Section of the Works and Services Branch of
the Allied Works Council.
After the war, the federal Labor government planned to rebuild Darwin as a tropical ‘Canberra-style’ city and
to replace the former freehold titles with leasehold titles. To do this the Darwin Lands Acquisition Act was passed
in August 1945. When Territorians returned to their war damaged town, they found their former buildings were
not available.
After the resumptions were completed on 11 March 1946 ‘fortnightly tenancies were granted at the will of the
Commonwealth of Australia’. It is obvious from notations on documents from the Administrator’s office and from
that of the Government Secretary that ‘instruments’ in connection with leases were not yet forthcoming from the
Department of the Interior in Canberra. Legislation for five year leases ‘would be promulgated at an early date’.
‘Tenants who desire(d) to carry out such applications [were] referred to the sub-committee of the Town Planning
Advisory Council for advice.’ Finally, the Chief Medical Officer gave his approval. ‘Where persons formerly
owned more than one dwelling they [were to] be given a preference in respect of one residence only. The others
[were to] be let independently by the Administration.’ This frustrated Territorians who wished to rebuild their
town.
Snell attended the war surplus sales in the Top End and invested heavily in vehicles, materials, plant and
equipment. Anxious to be ready for the rebuilding of the town, he was able to obtain a longer, more secure lease
almost 10 kilometres out of the town at an abandoned Army camp in Winnellie. Joined by a fourth partner,
Sid Mazlin, three new companies were organised around the core company, Snell’s Contracting. These were
Darwin Milling and Trading Limited, Building Removals Limited and Pipes and Denaro Blocks Limited.
A small village named Maranga was quickly built. By 1949, there were four larger houses, eight small cottages,
single men’s quarters, six single men’s huts, a camp manager’s residence and canteen, a men’s mess and a recreation
building where a non-denominational Sunday school and a kindergarten were held. There were reticulated water,
electricity, telephones and septic throughout. In the business section of the site were the saw mill, timber shed,
the Darwin Milling and Trading building and a store building, a joiners’ shop, the motor mechanics workshop
and the cement works. Snell was experimenting with pipe construction preparatory to the time Darwin’s ‘flaming
furies’ would give way to sewerage. Stan Kennon shortly afterwards took up a lease adjoining Snells.
The main early post war contracts were principally repairs to such buildings as the Hotel Darwin and the
Magistrate’s Residence. There was work at the Royal Australian Air Force base, for Qantas and the building of
Q-type houses. Snells Contracting was erecting the Bovril meatworks at Katherine. These meatworks, like the plan
for a ‘Canberra style’ Darwin, did not survive the change of government in 1949.
A man of principle, Snell was able to reconcile his belief in Masonic ideology with that of socialism. Both,
in his view, sought to provide support for those who needed it. Although not a practising member of any church,
he supported church activities by discounting his profit on work for any religious or kindred body. The most
impressive buildings of this type were the pre war Catholic Presbytery and the post war Masonic Temple.
Snell died on 16 April 1949. His wife, four sons and a daughter survived him. Some descendants of Snell
lived in the Northern Territory. His family sold its interests in the complex at Maranga to the other partners.
The sawmilling section was sold to Kennon, the cement works to Hume Pipes and the other sections to the Maranga
Hotel and others. The area was subdivided into individual leases in 1964. His name is commemorated in Snell
Street in the industrial area that Maranga/Winnellie became.
P F Donovan, Defending the Northern Gateway, 1989; T G Jones, Pegging the Northern Territory, 1987; V Marshall, We Helped to Blaze the
Track, 1980; A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge, 1988; Northern Standard, 24 October 1922, 18 April 1949; Northern Territory Times and Gazette,
26 April 1917, 19 January 1918; North Queensland Register, 16 February 1935; Australian Archives Northern Territory Office, FI- 1946/602,
46/566, 51/156, 51/138, & CA966, E43; Land Titles Office, Darwin, list of Snell’s titles held; various plans and information from Northern
Territory Administration Lands and Survey; information from Northern Territory Place Names Committee; information from S Kennon; family
records and photographs.
VALERIE FLETCHER, Vol 2.
SOLOMON, VAIBEN LOUIS (1853–1908), businessman and politician, was born on 13 May 1853, in Waymouth
Street, Adelaide. He was the third son of Judah Moss Solomon and his wife Rachel, nee Cohen. The Solomons
were part of a large Anglo Jewish community which had migrated to Australia aboard the ship Enchantress in
1833 after receiving good reports of the colonies from two family members who had sailed some years earlier as
convicts. V L Solomon’s father moved from Sydney to Adelaide in 1847 where he became a prominent public
figure, serving as an alderman and a member of the Legislative Council, and from 1869 to 1870 as mayor of
Adelaide. V L Solomon was educated at J L Young’s Adelaide Educational Institution and later Scotch College,
Melbourne. Although Solomon’s ties with the Jewish community were never very strong during his adult life,
it was under their auspices that he first arrived in the Northern Territory.
With the discovery of payable gold in the Northern Territory in 1870, many wealthy Adelaide businessmen
invested in the short-lived boom. Among them were members of the Jewish community who financed the Adelaide
Prospecting Venture. When they sent an exploration party north in early 1873 Solomon, at odds with his father over