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When the Northern Land Council was formed in 1977 as a result of the implementation of the Land Rights
legislation, Blitner was considered to be a contender for the position of Chairman. He was, however, reluctant
to stand against front-runner Silas Roberts. A young Galarrwuy Yunupingu was the only other to put his name
forward against Roberts and it was he who won the vote. Blitner became the first Deputy Chairman.
In 1980 Blitner stood against Yunupingu in the vote for Chairman and won all bar Yunupingu’s vote. He held
the position for three years until the next election in 1983 where he lost to Yunupingu by just three votes and
became Deputy Chairman for a further six years.
While progressing the cause of Aboriginal land rights he has been a firm believer that these rights need not hold
up development if approached in a practical manner by both parties.
After 1989 Blitner lived in suburban Darwin with his wife, Wendy. He remained an unofficial adviser
on Aboriginal issues. He also spent his time hunting, painting and sculpting (he undertook the Brodie Mack
Correspondence Art Course in 1935). He had seven children and 12 grandchildren.
Northern Territory Archives Service, Oral History Collection, NTRS 226—TS 160; P Forrest, ‘Territorians’, Darwin Star, interview, 1991;
personal information.
GREG COLEMAN and BARRY GARSIDE, Vol 3.
BLOOMFIELD, LEWIS ALEXANDER (1870–1944), pastoralist, was born at Tylden, Victoria, on 8 June 1870.
On arrival in Victoria from Derry, Ireland, his father Robert Bloomfield, in search of work, left the Bendigo coach
at Kyneton and ‘got a job to dig spuds for Widow Brown’. He subsequently married her. Lewis was their fourth
child and second son in a family of two Brown and six Bloomfield children. At the age of 14 Lewis ran away from
home ‘to avoid the tedious job of clearing scrub’. He secured a job at Warrnambool in Scobie’s stables where he
learned to ride and handle horses. Soon after, he went to South Australia to work for the owners of the Black Bull
Hotel, who had an interest in racing. Within two years of leaving home he was on his way to Oodnadatta with his
half-brother Bill Brown. They secured work on Todmorden (South Australia) and on Henbury (Northern Territory)
stations both of which were owned by the brothers Edmund and William Parke and Charles Walker. Lewis arrived
on Henbury in 1887. For the next 21 years he worked on either Henbury or Todmorden.
While working on Todmorden, Lewis was badly gored by a bullock. He was driven by buggy 100 kilometres to
Oodnadatta where there was neither hospital nor doctor. Mrs J H Kunoth, known affectionately as ‘Granny Kunoth’,
washed his open intestines with Condy’s crystals and sewed up the gaping wound that needed about 200 stitches,
using boiled horsehair. Bloomfield recovered.
Around the turn of the century, Tom Norman, Lewis Bloomfield, Harry Frith and Charlie Walker set out with
a mob of 260 horses for the Adelaide market. On arrival at Anna Creek Station, having learned the horses were
unsaleable in Adelaide, they turned west travelling ‘just north’ of the Nullarbor to the Coolgardie goldfields, on
the route pioneered by Ernest Giles on his 1875 traverse of the Victoria Desert. There were a few station wells
between Anna Creek and Kingoonya but thereafter Bloomfield and his companions were totally dependent on
fortuitous claypans and soaks that only recent good rains could supply. With 260 horses this was an epic droving
feat across hazardous terrain. Arriving at Coolgardie, having sold most of the horses and gear, they rode on to
Fremantle where they sold the rest, caught a boat back to Adelaide and home. They were away twelve months.
In 1908 Bloomfield entered into negotiations with Albert Wallis for the purchase of his Loves Creek Station
(Lease Nos 2179 and 1788). Since Bloomfield had insufficient finance, the purchase was made in partnership with
John Barker, a stock and station agent of Adelaide. When Bloomfield purchased the two leases from Wallis, apart
from a stone hut used as a kitchen, the only improvements consisted of a few cattle, mostly milking cows. A year
later he entered into negotiations with Frank Wallis for his Atnarpa blocks (Nos 1903, 2173 and 2222). These were
also purchased in the name of the partnership and operated as a part of Loves Creek Station. Delayed by the
transfer of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth, the new titles were not registered until 1912. Soon after,
Bloomfield bought out Barker’s interests in the station.
In 1911 Lewis Bloomfield married Lillian Myrtle Kunoth, daughter of Justice Henry and ‘Granny’ Kunoth.
Twenty-five years after setting up his homestead on Ross River, Lewis suffered a serious setback. Because of
legal complications over his leases, a large and valuable portion of the station had to be surrendered.
Horses being Bloomfield’s love, he developed the station for horse breeding alone. The few cattle purchased
with the property were allowed to breed for station meat, any surplus being sent to market with neighbours’ cattle.
The 1928–29 drought in the district had a devastating effect on the horses. This combined with the rapid decline in
the use and market for horses led Bloomfield to purchase his first herd of cattle when the drought broke. Though he
did all his own droving and built up his herd with good stud bulls, cattle were merely his livelihood. Horses were
his friends. The Loves Creek Brand—The Isle of Man three-legged configuration—distinguished many of the
finest horses throughout the Territory.
Bloomfield died in the Alice Springs Hospital on 10 February 1944 aged 74, survived by his widow, son Harry
and daughters Margaret (Peg) (Mrs Nelson) and Jean (Mrs Ted Hayes).
The Alice, 1940; Bloomfield family papers, Alice Springs; AA, Darwin.
GRAEME BUCKNALL, Vol 1.
BOGLE, ARCHIBALD JAMES (1840–1889), Wesleyan minister, was born in 1840 near Glasgow, Scotland.
At 12 years of age, he came with his parents to Victoria. The early death of his father necessitated his providing
support for his widowed mother and this was a period of hardship. In 1862 he attended, for the first time, a Methodist