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His role became even more difficult with the election to office of the Whitlam Labor government in 1972.
The new Minister for the Northern Territory, Kep Enderby, made reforms to the Territory’s administration and
proposed the elimination of the Administrator’s office. In March 1973, when his three year term came to an end,
Chaney agreed to remain as Administrator until the end of the year but in August the government decided to remove
him and appoint O’Brien, then Secretary of the Department of the Northern Territory, as Acting Administrator.
When asked his reaction to the move, Chaney said, ‘It has been a Government decision. New governments
make new decisions. The real tests come in time—and only time can tell about things like this.’ He expanded on
this theme in an interview for the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘People’, he said, ‘seem to feel that the Territory has
been downgraded by not having a titular head... But the old order changes—as it must—and an experiment is now
being carried out. I would like to see how it works.’ He went on that it was natural that the Legislative Council
wanted a greater say in running the Territory. ‘I don’t think’, he said, ‘there should be a state-type government,
but I think they should be given some political responsibility. A fully elected council is the next step.’ Chaney also
claimed that not enough was done in the Territory for the ‘little man’ who wanted to develop land. ‘There is not
much chance for him... The Territory now seems only a place of high capital investment’. He stated he had two
wishes, ‘To see the Australian Government take control of Highway One around Australia and seal it and to see a
railway linking Darwin and Adelaide.’
Chaney’s dismissal received a mixed reaction in the Territory. The two elected members of the Administrator’s
Council, an embryo ‘cabinet’, Bernie Kilgariff and Joe Fisher, said they felt he had carried out his duties
conscientiously. Kilgariff added that his removal was a retrograde step. Minister Enderby, however, said the role
of Administrator needed modification in the Territory’s constitutional development. The senior Official member
of the Legislative Council, Martyn Finger, argued that Chaney ‘could not be described as a rubber stamp—he was
a man of conviction, knowledge and authority who had given a great deal to the Territory.’ Dick Ward, a Labor
member of the Council, said that Chaney had shown a particular interest in constitutional reform. ‘I believe’,
he continued, ‘he was more sympathetic to this cause than his position allowed him to say’. Ray McHenry, Director
of Aboriginal Affairs in the Territory, added that many Aborigines felt they were losing a ‘real friend.’
The Chaneys departed for Perth but they left behind physical improvements in Darwin’s Government House.
At the time of Chaney’s appointment, the Administrator’s living quarters were ‘lean tos’ at the back of the residence
and it was decided to build new apartments. The southern end of the building was converted to a four room flat,
but, as fate would have it, the Chaneys never had the opportunity to live there.
Between 1978 and 1983 Chaney served as Lord Mayor of Perth. He was made a Commander of the Order of
the British Empire (CBE) in 1970 and Knight of the same order (KBE) in 1982.
F Walker, A Short History of the Legislative Council of the Northern Territory, 1986; Who’s Who in Australia, various editions; newspaper
articles on Chaney held in biographical index, National Library of Australia.
BARBARA JAMES, Vol 2.CHASELING, WILBUR SELWYN (1910–1989), Methodist Minister and missionary, was born on
13 October 1910 at Windsor, New South Wales, the eldest son of Walter Henry Gordon Chaseling, orchardist and
real estate agent, and Ada Vivian, nee Rose. Chaselings (and Roses) had been farming on the Hawkesbury for
more than 100 years since Thomas Chaseling (Chaseland) was granted land at Portland Reach. The family were
staunch members of the local Methodist community. But Walter Chaseling left two brothers to manage the farm
and worked in real estate development for some years, so that Wilbur grew up in suburban Sydney, completing his
education at Newington College, where he rowed for the school.
Chaseling was accepted as a candidate for the Methodist ministry in 1930 and completed a three-year course
at Leigh College, North Strathfield, before beginning as a probationer in the Kogarah–Carlton Circuit. In February
1934 the Methodist Board of Missions selected him to establish the new mission station that the Board proposed
for eastern Arnhem Land in response to the Caledon Bay and Woodah Island killings of 1932 and 1933. He had
barely begun his probation but he was a particularly strong young man of middle height, broad-shouldered, active
and energetic, with the practical skills that the task demanded.
On 8 April 1934 he married Lilian Ada Kezia Mullins (1905–1980), who had studied architecture and was
working as a journalist in Sydney, and a month later they sailed for Darwin in the Marella. From there they
sailed with T T Webb in the mission vessel Marree to Milingimbi. Before leaving Sydney the Chaselings had
been able to talk to Professor Elkin and attend some of his lectures in anthropology at the University of Sydney.
Webb was a keen student of the local languages and customs and while they were at Milingimbi he was able to tell
them much about the people as well as about the practicalities of mission work. In August and September 1935
Donald Thomson, the young anthropologist appointed by the Commonwealth Government to make a study of
the Aboriginal people of eastern Arnhem Land was also at Milingimbi, recuperating after two months work in the
Blue Mud Bay area and an overland walk to Arnhem Bay.
Chaseling was posted to Goulburn Island mission while the superintendent was on furlough and did not
accompany Webb on the three trips he made in June, August and November 1934 searching the area between
Arnhem Bay and Caledon Bay for a suitable site for the new mission. But Chaseling accompanied Webb and
Harold Shepherdson in early September 1935 when the final choice was made. They called at the English Company
Islands, Port Bradshaw and Caledon Bay, then returned to Yirrkala, to the west of Cape Arnhem, where they had
found a splendid supply of ‘fresh water, an elevated building site and clean beaches’, and, with the approval of
the local inhabitants resolved to establish the mission there, though it had ‘an exposed anchorage and poor soil’.
They returned to Milingimbi to load more building timber and iron, along with a few horse, calves, goats, pigs and