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part of the CMA strategy since the commencement of the mission in 1908. The CMA agreed to the proposals and
provided him with a small launch called Evangel, in which the preliminary journeys of exploration were to be
made.
While on leave in the south, Warren married Ellie May Potter, a schoolteacher, on 6 April 1915. This quiet
gentle woman was to spend long periods on the mission separated from her husband while he was engaged in the
dangerous journeys of exploration, or making frequent trips in the mission vessel Holly to Thursday Island for
supplies. She bore five children in all, two sons and three daughters, one of the sons, David, being the first white
child to be born on Groote Eylandt. One daughter, Josephine, died at the mission, aged two years, in 1921.
During 1916 and 1917, Warren and his colleagues made three journeys of exploration to Groote Eylandt in the
Gulf of Carpentaria with a view to establishing mission stations at Rose River and on the island. Warren’s exploration
work and the missions that were established had national implications far beyond the immediate evangelistic
aims of the CMS and its missionaries. The second exploratory journey from 20 November to 19 December 1916
resulted in Warren being recognised as one of the pioneer explorers of Australia by the Royal Geographical
Society. On this trip Warren and Dyer decided that the new Groote Eylandt Mission should be situated on the
Emerald River on the west side of the island.
The building of the Emerald River Mission on Groote Eylandt was started on 1 August 1921. In September
1924, Warren transferred 35 half-caste boys and girls there from the Roper River Mission. The girls were under
the care of Miss Cross and Miss Dove. This first mission was concerned with the care of the half-caste people
until the early 1930s.
Toward the end of the 1920s, the Victorian CMS adopted a new policy of caring for the Groote Eylandt
Aborigines instead of the half-castes. Warren was recalled and the work placed in charge of others. However,
because of staffing problems he returned to the Roper River Mission for the twelve months from April 1930 to
March 1931.
Warren was the leader of the CMS ‘Peace Expedition’ in 1933–34. His companions were the Reverend A J Dyer
and D H Fowler. The expedition resulted from continued unrest among the Aborigines of eastern Arnhem Land.
In 1932, the Caledon Bay Aborigines were provoked into killing five Japanese trepangers. In 1933, Tuckiar
killed Constable A S McColl, one of the police sent to apprehend the killers, and two beachcombers, Trayor and
Fagan, on Woodah Island. White people in the Territory feared a general Aboriginal uprising and demanded police
retribution in the form of a punitive expedition. In this tense situation, the Commonwealth government accepted
the CMS offer of an unarmed peace party to visit and persuade the killers to give themselves up.
The expedition made three visits to the east Arnhem Land coast between December 1933 and March 1934,
made friendly contact with the Aboriginal killers and persuaded them to be taken to Darwin in order to save
their people from massacre. The ensuing trials, and obvious inadequacy of existing Australian law to meet the
different cultural background of Aboriginal society, the severity f the sentences, and the disappearance of Tuckiar,
the self-confessed killer of Constable McColl, led to a number of law reforms for Aboriginal people.
Warren returned to his parish in Cullenswood, Tasmania. Soon afterward, he was lost on the aircraft
‘Miss Hobart’ which left Launceston for Melbourne on 19 October 1934 and disappeared over Bass Strait.
K Cole, Groote Eylandt Pioneer, 1971; K Cole, Groote Eylandt Mission, 1971; G H Wilkins, Undiscovered Australia, 1928; ‘Itinerating Trip to
the Islands of the Group Groote by Messrs H E Warren and Dyer’, in Victorian Geographical Journal, vol 34 1918.
KEITH COLE, Vol 1.WASHINGTON, ELIZABETH AGNES (BETTY) nee CARNOCHAN (1921– ), dancing teacher and
community worker, was born on 11 January 1921 in Christchurch, New Zealand, daughter of Joseph Carnochan
and Agnes, nee Harmon. She was educated at local schools but from the age of six learned a variety of dancing
styles that ranged from classical ballet to highland dancing. From about 1938, she regularly visited the Royal
Academy of Dancing in London for further training and taught for many years in New Zealand. She was an
examiner and member of the technical executive of the New Zealand National Academy and was a life member.
She was also a life member of the Royal Academy of Dancing, London.
On 5 January 1955, she married James Desmond Washington (known, of course, as George) and their only
child, Elizabeth, was born on 30 August 1956. After living in New Zealand, Fiji and Western Samoa, where George
was an airline pilot, Betty and her family came to the Northern Territory in March 1967 when George joined
Connair. The family settled in Darwin.
Betty quickly became an active member of the community. She was involved for many years with the Good
Neighbour Council and joined the Red Cross Society in May 1967. She was elected President of the Darwin
branch in August that year and remained in the position until Cyclone Tracy in December 1974. The years were
very active ones for the branch; street stalls (usually in front of Woolworths) and other fundraising activities were
regularly held and Betty recalls that on one occasion she handed over a cheque for 2 000 Dollars as a result of her
committee’s efforts. A new headquarters building was constructed and the opportunity was taken during a visit to
Darwin by the Duke and Duchess of Kent for it to be opened. The project was far from complete and an amused
Duke commented on ‘how open it was’. In her position as President Betty attended most of the town’s ‘functions’.
When the ballerina Margot Fonteyn visited Darwin, the Administrator’s wife was somewhat nonplussed to discover
that the dancer and Betty were well known to each other.
Cyclone Tracy damaged the family home, though it was habitable. Christmas dinner was a turkey which had
been part-cooked the previous day, but which on Christmas Day was dismembered and heated with a blowtorch in
a frying pan. As soon as she could, having become organized, she went to the Red Cross Society’s headquarters.