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of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, which led in 1975 to his having the rare status of an Aborigine on
superannuation.
He is mentioned in Mary Ward’s Banka Banka journals: in 1950 as passing by with his first wife Jersey,
and in 1961 in an entry which typifies his relations with local Europeans: ‘Saturday 16/12/61 Beetaloo Bill came
early for Petrol & watermelons.’
Beetaloo Bill bought a new Holden utility from his savings, and traded his vehicles in regularly, long before
other Aborigines owned vehicles. He said he would ‘run out’ of petrol when near a road camp or station where
he knew he would get a welcome; his brilliant humour and comic repertoire would more than compensate for
whatever favour he requested. His easy familiarity with Europeans and outback customs was matched by a broad
and deep knowledge of Aboriginal law in his region, but in an extraordinary mixture: he was unconstrained by
convention, black or white.
He used to say that he disagreed with the accusations against European explorers. For instance, he said,
John McDouall Stuart was only trying to find a way through the country, and his ancestors should have helped
him; but his ancestors were ignorant, he said, as evidenced by their thinking that proffered flour was white powder
for body decoration. And he told the author Frank Hardy that he would be happy for his daughters to marry whom
they liked, including a white man, and felt that arranged marriages were past; however, his children have by and
large married along traditional lines.
Beetaloo Bill was keen for his children to have a good life in what he saw as the coming European order.
His family was among the first Aboriginal residents of the new town, which Elliott Army camp became after the
Second World War. Around 1952 he was a leader in the petition for improved conditions in the Aged and Infirm
camp: he and his wife were among the dozen Aboriginal adults considered to be permanent residents of Elliott that
year. He established a home in the southern corner of the newly declared Aboriginal reserve on the north west of
Elliott, the corner closest to the European town (and to Waramungu country). In the early 1950s, from his savings,
he paid 500 Pounds to a carpenter to make a substantial galvanised iron shed there, in which his family lived until
his death in 1983. He persistently saw that his children received schooling (he had none), in particular in the school
integration crisis of 1962. He objected, for instance, to his children being bussed 25 kilometres to Newcastle
Waters for school while European children were attending a school in Elliott. Under the headline ‘Elliott Colour
Bar’ the Northern Territory News reported that Beetaloo Bill wanted his girl to read and write and ‘would not take
her away from the school no matter what happened.’
By the 1970s Beetaloo Bill was generally regarded by Europeans in the area as an exception to their
generalisations about Aborigines. After drinking became legal for Aborigines he would drink, but not get drunk.
He would demonstrate that he had his own ideas about handling his money, for instance clearing his ‘book down’
at the store and taking his custom elsewhere.
Beetaloo Bill’s exceptional knowledge of Aboriginal traditions assisted numerous groups in the hearing of
a traditional land claim in 1980, although it did not concern his father’s or mother’s country. He lobbied for the
recognition of the entitlement of his wife’s family to its country, which culminated in the establishment of an
outstation on an excision near Powell Creek. Despite his exceptional knowledge and genial nature, even after his
retirement Beetaloo Bill worked hardly at all with researchers in Aboriginal studies, and did not hold positions in
Aboriginal organisations.
Beetaloo Bill was on medication in his last years for heart disease. He died at Elliot and was buried in the Elliott
Cemetery on 29 September 1983. His second wife Biddy Judambi Nimarra, two sons and eight daughters survived
him. His family use ‘Bill’ as a surname.
Aboriginal Land Commission, Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 re the Warlmanpa, Warlpiri, Mudbura and Warrumungu
Land Claim, 1980–1981, transcript 27 October 1980 and following days; Aboriginal Land Commission, Warlmanpa, Warlpiri, Mudbura and
Warumungu Land Claim, 1982; F Hardy, The Unlucky Australians, 1968; D Lockwood, Up the Track, 1964; F Stevens, Aborigines in the
Northern Territory Cattle Industry, 1974; ‘Northern Territory Welfare Ordinance. Register of Wards’, in Northern Territory Government
Gazette, no 19B, 13 May 1957; Northern Territory News, 13 February 1962; Australian Archives, F1 52/837, Native Affairs Branch: General
Correspondence, quoted from J Wolfe, Crossed Tracks, 1990; Banka Banka Journals, Hilda Tuxworth Collection, Fryer Library, University
of Queensland; N Chadwick, Survey Materials, ‘Linguistic Survey of Some Townships & Stations on or Near the Barkly Tablelands’, 1973,
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Library; W E H Stanner, ‘Report on Fieldwork in North Central and
Northern Australia 1934–5’, Microfiche no 1, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
DAVID NASH, Vol 2.
BENNISON, AMY ISABEL: see CONWAY, AMY ISABEL
BENNISON (also BENISON), LESLIE SAMUEL (LARRY) (1848–1915), policeman, teamster, lighthouse
keeper, miner and seaman, was born in London, England, on 18 May 1848, the son of Major Samuel Bennison and
his wife Mary, nee Mills. In 1854 as a child he accompanied his parents to Gibraltar, then probably accompanied
them to Crimea in Russia, Montreal in Canada and Bermuda. It is thought that he may have attended his Uncle
Horace’s old school, Bancrofts in Mile End Road, London. He was in London in December 1864 when his father
died.
Nothing is known of him from then until 1876 when he was mentioned in the Northern Territory Times and
Gazette. In January 1877 he joined the Northern Territory Police Force and in May of the same year married
Rose Isabel Lane, daughter of Trooper Richard Lane and his wife Maria, nee Thomas. Bennison and his wife had
three daughters, Amy, Mary and Blanche, and one son, Horace. He was stationed at Palmerston in 1877 and 1878,