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Peewee Camp at East Point and responsible for guarding the Naval fuel tanks—called themselves ‘the Australian
Black Watch’.
The DMF was reorganised in September 1940 and renamed the Darwin Infantry Battalion, although on 1
November 1941 this was absorbed into the 19th Battalion that was given Australian Imperial Force status. Its
members thus became eligible for the Returned From Active Service badge even though many, such as Dick
Butler, only served in the Territory. After the war, he applied and was accepted for service in the Permanent
Military Forces, and continued to serve with the Seventh Military District in Darwin with the rank of Gunner until- For his service during the war, Butler received the Defence, War and Australian Service Medals while in
1961 he attained the distinction of being the first soldier to earn the Australian Regular Army Long Service and
Good Conduct Medal for service completely in the Seventh Military District.
During the war, Louisa and the children were evacuated to Brisbane and returned to Darwin in 1946,
living in a Sydney Williams house at Salonika, where Dick Butler ran a boxing camp, training such names as
Reggie McClennen, Jimmy Fejo, Fred Bush, Poncie Cubillo and William Clarke, heavyweight champion of the
Northern Territory. On taking his discharge from the Army in 1961, Dick Butler was employed by Parks and
Gardens, and succeeded Charlie Talbot as Head Gardener at Government House, Darwin. One of his tasks during
his early years at Government House, which had been carried out by gardeners for decades, was the ritual watering
of the driveways and carriage-loop to keep the dust down. While most of Darwin’s dusty streets had been sealed
between 1938 and 1941, the Government House carriage-loop and driveway were not sealed with bitumen until
the term of Administrator Dean. After nearly 18 years as Head Gardener at Government House, Dick Butler
finally retired in 1978. In recognition of his long service the Administrator John England and his wife hosted a
party to mark his retirement, and he received gifts from both the Administrator and his colleagues from Parks and
Gardens. He was later invited back as a guest at the official reception held annually to commemorate the Queen’s
Birthday.
Dick Butler died in Darwin on 24 August 1987. He had come to be so well respected while he was Head
Gardener that, on the morning of 28 August, his funeral cortege detoured en route to Darwin General Cemetery and
the hearse was driven to the gates of Government House. The gardeners, Steve Lambert, Leon Doyle and Anthony
Tunks, and those staff who had known Dick, including Adel Friman, Helen Wiffen and Brian Payne, were lined
up outside the front gate, and the House Manager, Jim Farrell, placed a wreath on the coffin on behalf of all the
staff of Government House. Friends and family were especially pleased at this tribute to a man who had spent so
many years, through the terms of five Administrators, maintaining the lush tropical garden in perfect order, which
established Government House as a Territory landmark and led to the award of a Civic Commendation on 30 June
A Territorian in every sense of the word, Butler had grown up in difficult times made harder by his
part-Aboriginality. He struggled through life at Kahlin, the Depression and the cyclone: his early life certainly
toughened him and made him a notable boxer and football player (with Vesteys, later the Buffaloes) while the
Government Secretary, a retired Army Colonel, had undoubtedly directed Dick towards a military career. He was
on duty at the Naval Oil Fuel Installation and narrowly missed death at the time of the first Japanese raid and
was witness to all subsequent raids, and suffered personal tragedy at the time of Cyclone Tracy when his wife
Louisa was killed. He was a life member of the Northern Territory Football League and Darwin Football Club,
and a member of both the Returned Services League and the Royal Australian Artillery Association. He had lived
for many years at the old East Point camp and, together with Vic Williams, was one of the earliest founders of
the East Point military museum. His 10 children, 24 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren survived him.
His family in December 1993 donated a display of his service medals and photographs to Government House,
Darwin.
‘G Butler’, Land Rights News, January 1994; Butler family photograph album and papers, and family information kindly provided by
Miss D Butler (Darwin); Northern Territory Parliamentary Record, 26 May 1988; P A Rosenzweig, ‘The Darwin Mobile Force’, Sabretache,
XXXII, April–June 1991.
PAUL ROSENZWEIG, Vol 3.
BYRNE, WILLIAM JOSEPH (c1860–1941), grazier, and BYRNE, ELIZABETH, nee SPRY (1865–1949),
pioneer. Elizabeth was born on 15 October 1865 at Mt Pleasant, South Australia to Asket Spry and Elizabeth,
nee Caldwell. Nothing is known of her early life though her father appears to have died when she was a small
child. On 22 February 1890 William Joseph and Elizabeth were married in Palmerston (Darwin), he then being
a 30-year-old hotelkeeper and she aged 24. The witnesses were William’s brother James P Byrne and a sister,
Margaret. Three other Byrne sisters also attended. Elizabeth had arrived from Sydney for her marriage that day
and the Byrne relatives had come from Wyndham, Western Australia. William’s father, John, had migrated from
Ireland in 1849 along with two brothers to join their father, Joseph, who was deported from Ireland for high
treason in 1833 and had been given a ticket of leave. The Byrne men first arrived in north west of Australia with
the Durack family.
There were apparently seven sons born of the marriage but only the names of four are known: Harold James
born at Fountainhead in 1892, Montague Charles born in Palmerston in 1895, Roland Oliver born in 1898 and died
at Brocks Creek, of fever, in July 1902 and the fourth son, William Stanley, was born in 1900.
During the early part of the 1890s William Byrne was the proprietor of the Northern Territory Times and
Gazette, which he sold to his brother in law, George Washington Mayhew. William then took up the lease of
Byrneside (also called Burnside) station, near Brocks Creek. By 1903 he was active with the Brocks Creek