Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography

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the South Pacific Commission in 1948. In November 1949 he retired to Melbourne, returning briefly to New
Guinea in 1950; and continued lecturing on native cultures, administration and the rights and needs of the people
of New Guinea and the Northern Territory.
Chinnery died at Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, December 1972, and was cremated. His wife Sarah Johnston,
nee Neill, whom he had married in England in 1919, and survived by four daughters, predeceased him.


K Cole, The Aborigines of Arnhem Land, 1979; M McKenzie, Mission to Arnhem Land, 1976; E W P Chinnery, ‘Preliminary Notes on Trip to
NT’, 1939; AA, Canberra; Chinnery papers (Mrs S Waters, Black Pool, Victoria).
SHEILA WATERS, Vol 1.


CHISHOLM, DAVID ANTHONY (TONY) (1923–1987), pastoralist and politician, was born in Sydney on
3 October 1923, registered as the son of Roy Mackellar Chisholm and his wife Mollee, nee Little. There was,
however, a widespread though unverified belief that he was the illegitimate son of his godfather and a friend of
his mother and aunt, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII and the Duke of Windsor. In later life he looked
very much like the former monarch and his first name, David, was that by which Edward VIII was known among
family and friends. Chisholm was also, affectionately, known to many in the Northern Territory as ‘that right royal
bastard’. He was educated at Scots College in Sydney.
In 1940 Roy Chisholm, then Managing Director of Royallison Pastures, took over management of Bond Springs
Station near Alice Springs. The lease was transferred to him in 1945 but he died a year later. I D Sargood, who
later married Roy Chisholm’s widow, then managed Bond Springs. Tony Chisholm and his brother Bruce became
partners in the lease along with Sargood and their mother. In November 1957 all interests were transferred to Bruce
Chisholm. During the early 1950s Tony managed nearby Napperby Station on behalf of his family. He was married
on 2 November 1951 to Judith (Judy), daughter of G Marsland. They had one son, Roy.
In 1957 Chisholm acquired Anningie Station to the north of Alice Springs and not far from Barrow Creek.
He later purchased Napperby, which he retained until his death. At Anningie, which included the historic site
Central Mount Stuart, he and his wife created what Douglas Lockwood described in 1964 as ‘comfort and elegance
in a land where such things are little known.’ When the Chisholms arrived the station homestead was a converted
Army hut but within a few years they transformed it to an impressive white building with 10 large rooms that were
beautifully furnished and surrounded by an expansive garden of kikuyu lawns, shrubs, trees and succulents. The
homestead was also equipped with a modern kitchen and its living area was fully air-conditioned. Later on the
Chisholms established a similar environment at Napperby. In the hotter months they would usually get away to a
small cattle-fattening property Chisholm owned near Tumut in New South Wales.
Chisholm also became well known for his forceful public advocacy on behalf of Central Australia’s cattle
industry. He was President of the Centralian Pastoralists’ Association between 1962 and 1971 and represented it on
the Australian Wool Growers’ and Graziers’ Council and the Northern Territory Cattle Producers’ Council. In 1966
he was foundation President of the Northern Territory Country Party. On 14 December 1967 he was appointed
a Non Official Member of the Territory’s Legislative Council. His term, however, turned out to be brief and he
contributed little to the Council’s debates. He was soundly defeated as a Country Party candidate for the Barkly
electorate at the poll held on 26 October 1968.
A keen sportsman, Chisholm listed his principal recreational interests as fly fishing, shooting and surfing.
He was a member of the Union Club in Sydney, the Royal Sydney Golf Club and the Memorial Club in Alice
Springs.
He died in New South Wales on 23 June 1987. Roger Vale, the Speaker of the Northern Territory Legislative
Assembly, stated that ‘he left behind many friends in the Territory who came to know Tony as a tough,
no-holds-barred supporter of Centralian development.’ Other Territorians remembered him and his wife for what
Lockwood described in 1964 as a ‘soft beauty’ they had brought to the ‘red and brown harshness that is often
mistaken for desert.’ Chisholm himself in a 1979 conference paper perhaps provided the best summary of his
work. There were in Central Australia, he wrote, ‘managers, in many cases descended from the early pioneers,
who are prepared to stay on the land, have been there through everything that a hostile environment and fluctuating
markets can produce, but who have contributed a great deal to the rural industry of Australia.’


G Crook (ed), Man in the Centre, 1983; J Fairfax, My Regards to Broadway, 1990; D Jaensch, The Legislative Council of the Northern
Territory, 1990; D Lockwood, Up the Track, 1964; J Orton (ed), Debrett’s Handbook of Australia, rev ed, 1987; F Walker, A Short History of
the Legislative Council of the Northern Territory, 1986; Who’s Who in Australia, various editions; Centralian Advocate, 3 July 1987; H Pearce,
‘Homesteads in Central Australia’, Report to the National Trust of Australia (Northern Territory), 1985; V Dixon, oral communication, 1990.
DAVID CARMENT, Vol 2.


CLELAND, CAROLINE nee BROWN (1858–1927), pioneer, was born in Victoria on 29 December 1859,
one of seven children of Samuel Brown and Emma, nee Blake. Family information refers to her birthplace as
New Zealand, indicating she probably spent part of her infant and childhood years there. Caroline came to the
Territory with the rest of the family in 1874, when her father opened a store and a hotel at Southport, then the
supply centre for the goldfields. He soon became a prominent member of the community.
On 30 May 1877, at the age of 17, she married John Cleland, a 28-year-old mariner who, two years earlier,
had survived the sinking of Gothenburg, which had been wrecked off the Queensland coast in February 1875.
There were five children of the marriage, Ernest Alfred (1879), Gertrude Caroline (Morris) (1882), Claude (1883),
Alice (Kilgour) (1885) and Doris (1894). Caroline and John went to South Australia soon after they were married,

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