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Although Dashwood had the social advantage of being a colonial-born son of an early South Australian
settler who had been a nominated member of the Legislative Council, he lacked the necessary capital to take full
advantage of his background. Dashwood’s father had little success with Parkhurst, leaving to Charles Dashwood
the management of the unprofitable estate from 1878, and it fell to Dashwood to support his two unmarried sisters
Margaret and Augusta. His social position was clouded by the fact that a certain Kate Dashwood, nee Allen,
had registered the birth of a boy Robert Dashwood in January 1892. Given his obligation to support his sisters,
Parkhurst and the expense of a political career, it is unlikely that Dashwood’s legal practice was sufficiently
lucrative to allow him to marry.
Dashwood’s decision to accept the post in Palmerston on terms that another more successful Adelaide lawyer,
P McM Glynn, the government’s first choice, considered inadequate (a salary of 1000 Pounds plus 100 Pounds
house allowance for the combined appointments of Government Resident and Judge of the Northern Territory)
may have been a welcome opportunity to meet his outgoings and escape an undesirable affiliation with his son’s
mother! Dashwood was appointed Government Resident and Judge of the Northern Territory on 24 February 1892.
After lunching at Government House on 13 April 1892 as the guest of Lord Kintore with his former parliamentary
colleagues, he left by train with his sisters to SS Catterhun in Sydney bound for Port Darwin where the Dashwoods
arrived on 27 April 1892. At a brief ceremony held in the Palmerston courthouse Dashwood said he would do his
level best to carry out the dual office of Government Resident and Judge.
Issues confronting Dashwood in Palmerston, where he had jurisdiction over all of the Northern Territory north
of 21° south, included the welfare and administration of justice to Aborigines, the control of Chinese goldminers,
the conduct of the pearling industry, and the promotion of the cattle export trade. Dashwood soon discovered
that Aborigines in a practical sense had no equality before the law; no jury would convict a white man proved
to have murdered an Aborigine (or, any other non-European) and that the police customarily conducted punitive
expeditions into the bush to ‘quieten’ Aborigines. There was little Dashwood could do about the first matter, but
he was able to remove the notorious Constable Willshire in 1896 who was well known for his brutal dealings with
Aborigines and had been groomed by the police superintendent Paul Foelsche to lead a native police force.
Early in 1893 Dashwood heard three murder cases in three days, pronouncing the death sentence on
10 Aborigines. Dashwood had the power to recommend to the government whether or not sentences should be
carried out Clearly Dashwood had misgivings about the application of the criminal justice system to Aborigines
and he reprieved all but two of the condemned men. Those whose sentences were upheld had had long contact with
Europeans and, in Dashwood’s view, should have understood the consequences of their actions. Later, in 1894, in
sentencing two more Aborigines to death for the murder of a Chinese, he commented, ‘It is very unsatisfactory,
to say the least of it, that we should be here to try at ease against two creatures who stand there utterly ignorant of
what is going on.’ Dashwood’s attempt to reform relations between Aborigines and whites was frustrated when
a Select Committee rejected an Aboriginal Protection Bill he had drafted in November 1899, whose members
doubted his evidence of the maltreatment of Aborigines in the Northern Territory. F J Gillen was the witness most
influential in disposing of Dashwood’s allegations and the consequent need for reform.
Dashwood regarded the Chinese as a malign influence upon Aboriginal women but indispensable on the
goldfields. In 1895 he commented to the press in Adelaide: ‘I don’t know where we would go without the Chinkies;
indeed, we live on them, and we might just as well throw up the whole place as get rid of them. It is idle to talk
about the white man. Who is providing the gold? Why, the Chinaman.’ Dashwood indicated in his last report on
the Northern Territory for 1904 that because the Chinese were leaving the country following the enactment of
Commonwealth immigration restrictions based on the ‘White Australia’ policy, gold production was half that of
1894.
In 1893 Dashwood observed that, compared with the strict regulations enforced by the Netherlands East Indies
government in the Moluccas, pearl fishing and trepanging off the coast of the Northern Territory were conducted
in a very liberal fashion despite the many nationalities engaged in the industry who paid only a nominal licensing
fee. Dashwood reported in 1894 that a small fleet of luggers belonging to the English owned Pearling and Trading
Company had come to the Northern Territory grounds from the Kei Islands to escape restrictions the Dutch applied
there.
Prime Minister Edmund Barton requested in 1902 that Dashwood should conduct an inquiry on behalf of the
Commonwealth Government into the pearling industry at Port Darwin and Thursday Island. Dashwood applied
himself energetically to the task, taking only a month to hear evidence from a considerable number of witnesses
in Port Darwin and Thursday Island. Dashwood concluded that, if the non-European divers were removed in
accordance with the ‘White Australia’ policy, the 100 000 Pounds annual trade, largely in the hands of European
owners, would be at risk. On his return to Palmerston from Torres Strait, Dashwood stopped at Merauke, in Dutch
New Guinea, ostensibly to find out if this place could become an alternative centre for pearling operations if the
non-European pearlers were ousted from Thursday Island. Acting Prime Minister Alfred Deakin, as a confidential
matter, wanted Dashwood to find out if the Dutch intended to establish a convict settlement at Merauke as a pretext
for strengthening the military presence close to the New Guinea border. Dashwood concluded Merauke would
not be a suitable base for pearling and the Dutch indicated that they needed to protect their colony against border
crossings.
Dashwood supported the cattle export industry as part of his overall promotion of export from the Northern
Territory. There was an annual loss of 70 000 Pounds incurred in maintaining the Northern Territory, thus there
was an urgent need for additional revenue by the South Australian government. One solution was to hand over
the Territory to the British government; a measure to be avoided if the national pride of the soon-to-be established
Australian Federation was not to be diminished. Accordingly, Dashwood’s administration would have to pay its