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from Alice Springs, whilst Weddell as Government Resident controlled the North Australia Commission in the
north. Lieutenant Colonel Weddell arrived at Darwin in SS Marella on 1 March 1927. Later his wife, her sister and
daughter Rosemary Weddell, aged four, arrived in Koolinda and took up residence at Government House.
Weddell had difficulty with the federal government over his rights under the Public Service Act, which took many
years to resolve; but he held his position for 10 years, one of the longest terms served by a Government Resident
or Administrator. He first presided over the Territory at a time when the federal government was experimenting
with a decentralisation process that did not succeed; in 1931, the Act was repealed and he became Administrator
of the whole of the Territory.
Social unrest continued in Darwin well beyond the Gilruth period, but declined in the mid-1920s until stirred
up again by unemployment in the 1930s depression period. Weddell, the middleman, could do little for the
unemployed. In 1931, a group of them waited on Weddell demanding work; and when he could give them none,
they declined to leave, sang revolutionary songs and flew the Red Flag. The police were called in with a baton
charge to disperse the insurgents.
The Communist Party flourished and was routinely—and wrongly—blamed for all unrest; but party members
were prominent in stirring up local unemployed people and at one stage an attempt was made to frighten Weddell
with a revolver at a local gathering. He reacted coolly to threats, but sought federal approval for a revolver to
protect his person after being assaulted in 1932. Federal fears of ‘the wild men of Darwin’ helped to sink the 1931
attempt of the Northern Territory Member in the House of Representatives, Harold Nelson, to create a Legislative
Council for the Northern Territory.
Considering the dismal economic position during most of Weddell’s years in the north and the limited powers
of the Administrator, it was remarkable that when he finally left the Territory he was offered a number of farewells,
including a heartfelt one from the Chinese community. Mrs Weddell was active in alleviating the hardships of
Territory women wherever possible and had an interest in the disadvantaged lepers at Channel Island.
For a time in 1934, J A Carrodus, Secretary of the Department of Home and Territories, relieved Weddell to
allow him leave. Because of an angina problem, Weddell retired in 1937 and moved to East Malvern in Victoria.
In 1939, with war approaching, he was recalled by the army and served with the Australian Intelligence Corps
in Melbourne, until about 1943, when he retired as a Colonel. He died at Malvern on 23 November 1951, aged
69 years. Mrs Flora Weddell lived at Malvern until she and her sister moved to Derrinallum, where she died in
October 1976.
Sydney Mail, 18 February 1931; Geelong Historical Records Centre (Ballarat and District Citizens and Sports) SLT920, 1945; 7th Battalion
AIF Association Notes, 1952; AA CRS Al 37/190 R H Weddell; Personal letter Mrs Rosemary French, Derrinallun, Victoria, 1984.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 1.
WEEDON, FLORENCE ALICE: see BUDGEN, FLORENCE ALICE
WEINGARI: see BEETALOO BILL, JANGARI
WELLS, EDGAR ALMOND (1908–1995), Methodist Minister and missionary, was born on 4 September 1908
at Lincoln, England, the second son of James Robinson Wells, insurance salesman, and his wife, Elizabeth Agnes,
nee Sayers. He went to school in England but at 17 migrated to Australia and at first worked as a farm hand near
Redcliffe, Queensland.
He soon joined the Methodist church and became an active home mission worker. Appointed as a probationary
minister in the Yeppoon circuit in 1930, he studied for three years at King’s College Theological Hall, Brisbane.
He was working in the Enoggera Circuit when he was ordained in 1936. Posted later to Camooweal, he met
Annie Elizabeth Bishop (1906–1979), who was stationed as a nursing sister at Mount Isa. She too was an English
immigrant, who had come out aged four with her father, Herbert George Bishop, a master cutler and farmer, and
her mother, Isabella nee Wright. Born at West Ham, Essex, on the eastern outskirts of London, she was educated
at state schools and trained as a nurse, doing her midwifery training in Hobart. By the time she went to Mount Isa,
she had four certificates, including psychiatric nursing. Edgar and Ann were married at the Chermside Methodist
Church, Brisbane, on 14 February 1939.
Wells next served at the Hermit Park circuit, Townsville, and then was posted as Young Men’s Christian
Association (YMCA) chaplain with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in Darwin for two years (1942–1944).
After the war, he was circuit minister at North Rockhampton and later Crows Nest, Queensland. Wells offered
to work as a missionary in north Australia in 1949 and the couple undertook the course at the George Brown
Missionary Training College at Haberfield, New South Wales. Leaving Sydney early in November, with their
seven-year-old son, they picked up a new truck in Brisbane and drove it to Darwin, laden with fuel and all their
gear. From there, they sailed on the mission lugger Larrpan to Milingimbi where Wells succeeded the Reverend
Arthur Ellemor as Superintendent.
The Commonwealth Government was then beginning to provide much more generous support for the work
of the missions in education, health, and economic development. Wells took up the new opportunities for the
improvement of community life at Milingimbi with energy, intelligence and tact. For years, there had been no
trained teacher at Milingimbi but within a few months a gifted and enthusiastic teacher, Beulah Lowe, and soon
a carpenter and builder, Keith Cheater, was at work constructing a school. Alert to signs that people were
unenthusiastic about this, Wells found that it was generally believed that the building was to be a dormitory;
he was able to reassure them that there was no such intention and no wish to separate children from their parents.
Wells organised the production of adobe bricks for house construction and later for a new church to replace the one