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recommended a new mission near the mouth of the Liverpool River, was sent to the Administrator. Sweeney’s
reports complemented those of the anthropologist Dr Donald Thomson who had covered the country east of the
Blyth River. These showed that the total population of Arnhem Land was greatly depleted from earlier estimations.
His mission reports also provide a most valuable record.
Sweeney repeatedly reported the illegal activities of Japanese pearlers among the coastal Aborigines.
He suspected the presence of naval intelligence officers on the luggers.
At the end of 1939, Sweeney left the missions and from 1 March 1940, he became the first government patrol
officer in the northern half of the Northern Territory. In 1940, the army wanted Aborigines moved from Darwin
and Sweeney helped to establish them at Delissaville (Belyuen). He cared for a large group of mixed-race boys at
Pine Creek until they were sent to Alice Springs. During the war, he was one of the buffers between the army and
the Aborigines and also helped locate patients lost from Channel Island. Post-war, he continued as a patrol officer
and was able to advise and assist the missions in their liaison with the government. He was a sound practical person
who could lend a hand wherever needed. His many reports provide a valuable contribution to history.
During 1945–46 Sweeney undertook several extensive patrols in the Mount Singleton and Vaughan Springs
area northwest of Alice Springs and recommended the establishment of an Aboriginal settlement at Yuendumu.
In May 1951, he was appointed District Superintendent of the Native Affairs Branch, northern division.
In March 1955, he became Public Relations Officer and Census Officer in time for the first comprehensive census
of Northern Territory Aborigines.
Following retirement in 1957 and after the death of his first wife, he worked for a few years as a volunteer on
the Methodist (Uniting Church) missions. In 1960, he married Sister Cathie Langdon, the nurse at Elcho Island.
After thirty-five years in the Northern Territory, he went to Adelaide to be near his family and died at Resthaven,
Paradise on 25 September 1984, aged 87 years.
Gordon Sweeney, personal letters to author; Sweeney’s reports, NTA; Mrs Cathie Sweeney, letters to author.
ELLEN KETTLE, Vol 1.
SYMES, JOHN JOSEPH (c1855–1915), solicitor, was born at Bridgport, Dorset, England. After formal legal
training, he was admitted as a solicitor in the Inner Temple in London. He came to Australia while a comparatively
young man and at the suggestion of the Chief Justice of South Australia, Sir Samuel Way, entered the office of
Mann, Thornton & Hay of Adelaide. After a few years’ practice in Adelaide, where he gained an insight into
Australian practice and procedure, Symes came to Darwin (then Palmerston) in 1887 where he conducted a highly
successful practice from his arrival until the time of his death, some 28 years later.
He brought with him a retainer from the Millar Brothers who were then constructing the Palmerston to
Pine Creek railway. Business at that time was brisk. The Chinese were getting gold. English companies were being
floated and capital for the building of the railway was flowing freely. Briefs were plentiful and it was common
knowledge that to Symes fell most of the best side of legal practice in Darwin. He had retainers from the banks,
the leading business houses, the district council and the pastoralists. He also acted as attorney for a large number
of absentee landowners, among whom was Sir William Vestey for whom he held a Power of Attorney. He was
so well regarded as a negotiator that many disputes never reached the courts. So much work came his way that he
needed to employ other solicitors; D A Roberts and R I D Mallam, who went on to become Northern Territory
judges. Symes prospered and his office had a typewriter by October 1895, probably the first in the Northern
Territory, its presence undoubtedly indicative of the volume of work he undertook.
It was said of him that he was an ‘omniverous reader’ with an excellent memory. He also had an extensive
knowledge of the Territory and possessed an ‘inexhaustible fund of interesting reminiscences’ of early events.
He died on 6 January 1915, aged 59 after some years of indifferent health, an epidemic of dengue fever
having delivered the coup de grace. He never married and left his considerable estate of 8 250 Pounds to his sister
Evangeline Olivia Symes in England. In his will, he directed that his jugular vein and carotid artery were to be
cut ‘due to the expedition with which bodies are buried and the consequent danger of persons being buried alive’.
He wanted to be cremated but that was not possible in the Darwin of the day and he was buried in the Goyder Road
cemetery according to the rites of the Anglican Church. A headstone now marks the grave. As his obituary writer
noted, ‘It is not much to say that no man has exercised a more profound influence in affairs in this Territory than
the late Mr J J Symes and that influence was thrown solely on the side of integrity, justice and the minimising of
difficulties by bringing the disputing parties to a mutual and conciliatory understanding’.
Northern Territory Archives E96/35, NTRS 790/6674; Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 14 January 1915.
HELEN J WILSON, Vol 3.