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H Gill, Royal Australian Navy 1939–1942, 1957; H Gill, Royal Australian Navy 1943–1945, 1958; O Griffiths, Darwin Drama, 1943; T Hall,
Darwin 1942, 1980; D Lockwood, Australia’s Pearl Harbour, 1966; A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge, 1988; RN and RAN Lists of Officers;
AWM index of 1939–45 war personnel.
J HAYDON, Vol 1.THOMSON, DONALD FINLAY FERGUSSON (1901–1970), anthropologist, naturalist and photographer,
was born on 26 June 1901 at Brighton, Victoria, the second of five children, to Mabelle Alice, nee Davies, and
Harry Alexander Thomson. His mother, of Welsh extraction, and his father, from Dalkeith, Scotland, were both
musicians who had come out to Australia from London. Thomson attended Scotch College before going on to the
University of Melbourne where he took parts one, two and three of both zoology and botany, building on his strong
childhood interest in natural history, with the aim of becoming a field naturalist working on collection building.
In 1925, Thomson graduated and in December of that year, he married Gladys Coleman, a fellow student from
the year behind his. Although he was offered a fulltime post on the staff of the Department of Botany, he chose
instead to take a better-paying cadetship at the Melbourne Herald while his wife finished her degree. Probably
inspired by the way in which both Sir Baldwin Spencer, the recently retired Professor of Biology, and Professor
Wood Jones, the university’s Professor of Anatomy, had combined natural science with anthropology, he applied
to the newly created Australian National Research Council’s committee on anthropological research for field-work
funds, but was told that he would first have to obtain some anthropological training. As a result, he moved to
Sydney to become the first candidate for a Diploma in Anthropology, working under Professor Radcliffe-Brown.
Immediately upon graduation in March 1928, Thomson applied for and received funds from the Research
Council to work among the peoples of Cape York and set out soon after. This was the first of three Cape York
expeditions in which he was to make extensive ethnographic and natural history studies and collections resulting
in numerous articles in both fields and his first book, The Birds of Cape York Peninsula. On return from his second
expedition in 1929 he joined the staff of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Research in Pathology and Medicine
in Melbourne for two years to work on an antidote for tiger snake bites, and then in 1932 joined the University
of Melbourne as a Research Fellow attached to the Department of Anatomy. With the move to the university and
the completion of his Doctorate of Science in 1934, Thomson established his switch from the natural to the social
sciences, although he never lost his interest in zoology.
It was while Thomson was at Aurukun on this third expedition in 1932–33 that he first heard of the conflict
between Aborigines and outsiders in eastern Arnhem Land. Appalled by the talk of punitive expeditions as a
reprisal for the death of three whites and five Japanese in the Caledon Bay area, he offered his services to the
Commonwealth government, through the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, to go to Arnhem Land
and use his anthropological expertise to establish the causes of conflict and work for its elimination. Although
the offer was made in 1933 it was not until March 1935 that Thomson actually set out. A complex of factors
delayed the government in taking up his offer, including the presence of the Church Missionary Society’s ‘Peace
Expedition’ in the area and a feeling that Thomson was too anthropological in his approach for what was seen as
a law and order issue. However, his former employer, the Herald, and senior university people gave him strong
support. This, combined with the outcry in southern Australia over the bias of Judge Wells in dealing with one
of the five Aboriginal men involved in the killings, resulted in the government eventually taking up his offer.
However, there were difficulties about his status: it was originally proposed that he should be a patrol officer under
the Administrator of the Northern Territory, rather than be directly responsible to the Minister of the Interior in
Canberra, but Thomson was not prepared to accept this, just as the government was not prepared to make him a
Special Commissioner. Nor was he prepared to be made a Protector of Aborigines since this would place him under
the Chief Protector whom he might wish to criticise in his reports. The final outcome was that he went under the
aegis of the Minister.
Thomson remained in eastern Arnhem Land until October 1935, travelling by foot and boat around the coast
making contact with many people, carrying out medical and anthropological work and emphasising the need for
peace. In his interim report, he recommended, amongst other things, the absolute segregation of the reserve until
a sound policy for Aborigines was established and that a uniform nationwide policy be adopted. On his return trip
between June 1936 and September 1937, he carried out his major anthropological fieldwork, concentrating in the
area to the immediate south of Milingimbi, but travelling widely. He was much concerned by the extent of the
Japanese presence off the coast at this time and their violation of the reserve, but Canberra took little notice of his
repeated communications on the topic. On his return, however, they asked him to address cabinet on Aboriginal
affairs and, although he felt the government largely ignored his recommendations, they clearly had a substantial
influence on the Honourable J McEwen’s policy statement on Aborigines in the Territory, issued in February
1939.
By that time, Thomson was in England at Christ College, Cambridge. Early in 1938, he had set sail for England
with his wife and twin sons, Peter and John, to take up a Rockefeller Fellowship. While in England he represented
Australia at the International Congress of Anthropology and Ethnology in Copenhagen and received the Welcome
Gold Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute for his ‘application of modern scientific methods to problems
of native administration’. In July 1939, he set out for the United States to make a survey of the administration of
the North American Indians but the visit was cut short by the outbreak of war.
Thomson was recalled for military service and commissioned as a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Australian
Air Force. After 14 months in the Solomons, he returned to Australia and was appointed as Squadron Leader to
plan and organise a Special Reconnaissance Unit of Arnhem Land Aborigines to help defend the eastern flank of
Darwin in the event of Japanese landings. Early in 1942 he travelled around the coast in a small boat with four