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Apart from his busy political life, Chan was deeply involved in community work. He was President of the Road
Safety Council of the Northern Territory, an original member of the Arts Council in the Territory, Vice Patron of
the North Australian Eisteddfod Council, President of the Festival Council, a member of the Chung Wah Society
and the Darwin High School Committee and active in many other community organisations. It is said that Chan
knew almost everyone in Darwin by his or her first name and he was widely respected and liked. He was the first
Territorian to become a Fellow of the Australian Society of Accountants. In June 1969 his contribution to the
Darwin community was recognised when he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
Shortly after being re-elected as Mayor of Darwin in 1969, Chan lost a long battle with cancer. He died in
Darwin Hospital on 5 August 1969, survived by his wife and children. His funeral was the biggest ever seen in the
Northern Territory. After a private service in the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, the funeral cortege proceeded
to the Darwin Town Hall, where the Anglican and Catholic Bishops together with a minister of the United Church
joined together in conducting a public service. When the cortege left for the McMillans Road Cemetery it stretched
for almost two kilometres. The streets it followed were lined with mourners and over 1000 people gathered at the
cemetery to pay their final respects. As they left, they were handed sweets and coins, a Chinese tradition to wish
good luck to all.
The depth of community feeling at Chan’s untimely death was reflected in entries in the Harry Chan memorial
book initiated by the Legislative Council and signed by Darwin residents. Chan’s name lived on in Darwin.
When wards were again introduced in Darwin in 1971, an area covering most of Fannie Bay was named after
him. Harry Chan Avenue was the name given to a street that ran alongside the Civic Centre, where, in 1968,
Chan unveiled a memorial in the face of the partly erected building. The Chan Private Nursing Home is also named
in his memory.
Harry Chan File, State Library of the Northern Territory; family information from Mrs L Chan, Canberra, and Mrs N Fong, Darwin.
EVE GIBSON, Vol 2.
CHAN, NELLIE: see FONG, NELLIE
CHANEY, (Sir) FREDERICK CHARLES (FRED) (1914– ), teacher, airman, politician and Administrator,
was born in Perth, Western Australia, on 12 August 1914, the son of Mr and Mrs F C Chaney. He was educated
at Aquinas College and Claremont Teachers’ College, both in Perth, subsequently being employed as a teacher.
On 1 January 1938 he married Mavis Mary Bond with whom he had four sons and three daughters.
During the Second World War he served as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force and was decorated with the
Air Force Cross (AFC) He was the first Second World War veteran to become President of the Returned Services
League in Western Australia, a position he held from 1952 until 1955.
Between 1955 until his defeat in 1969 he represented the electorate of Perth in the Commonwealth House of
Representatives as a Liberal. He was Government Whip from 1961 until 1963 and Minister for the Navy from
1963 until 1966. From 1967 until 1969 he was Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public
Works, which took him to the Northern Territory several times.
In March 1970 he succeeded Roger Dean as Administrator of the Northern Territory. Many regarded his
appointment, with its jump in salary for him, as ‘a job for the boys’. His term both began and ended in substantial
controversy, due partly to circumstances but also to the manner in which he approached issues.
Nineteen seventy was a time of substantial growth in the Territory’s population and economy, a factor
Chaney acknowledged when first interviewed about his appointment. ‘I have an awful lot to learn’, he said.
The Administrator’s job, he went on, was ‘no sinecure’. The Territory had ‘a growth rate equal to any in Australia.
As with all new developments there are tremendous problems in its wake as we have seen here’.
Although he took the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the Territory and speak to many people, his
blunt, straightforward style was for some unnecessarily confrontationist and he often found himself the target of
media criticism.
In 1971 the Melbourne Herald journalist Alan Dearn wrote, ‘After a year in office Mr Chaney’s hair is noticeably
more grey, face deeper lined and his irritability at public occasions more evident. It is no isolated opinion up
north that Mr Chaney is understandably feeling the strain of one of the nation’s most demanding jobs—northern
development.’ Dearn went on to reflect on the controversial manner in which Chaney had dealt with some issues.
The most notable was in July 1970 when he brought Territory industry ‘to a standstill’. He refused, according to
Dearn, to hear arguments from the North Australian Workers’ Union against his directive to employ Fannie Bay
Gaol prisoners, at the rate of nine Cents a day, in competition with normal labour for work at a nursery. The union
did not object to prisoners being meaningfully employed as long as they were paid award wages similar to other
workers at the nursery. The eight convicts had worked three days when widespread strike action throughout the
Territory brought intervention from the Commonwealth Minister, Peter Nixon. Striking workers marched on the
Administrator’s office with placards proclaiming ‘no slave labour here’ and ‘pull the chain on Chaney’. ‘Mr Nixon
arrived’, wrote Dearn, ‘and sent the convicts back to jail, issuing a public statement calling the whole thing a
misunderstanding’.
As the Territory began to move towards self-government, the Commonwealth appointed Allan O’Brien, a
public servant, to the newly created post of Deputy Administrator in 1971. He carried out a great deal of work
that had previously been Chaney’s responsibility. Many Territorians responded to his appointment with cynicism,
arguing that there was no need for the new position. With O’Brien’s arrival, Chaney’s functions were increasingly
ceremonial.