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settlement on the Cox Peninsula of which he also became Manager. This was later named Delissaville. The Pioneer
Company’s Chairman of Directors, G T Bean, insisted on Delissa taking a subordinate position in the company.
This resulted in Delissa leaving the Northern Territory in 1882. The company secured a 4 000-hectare grant but had
successive managers after Delissa’s departure. It eventually folded.
Delissa’s later career was varied. He grew sugar and was involved in the timber industry in British North Borneo
and was involved in pyrotechnics in Adelaide. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He ultimately
moved to Sydney, where some of his family lived, and he died there at Annandale on 12 December 1898. He was
buried in the Hebrew Cemetery in Rookwood, Sydney.
E Hill, The Territory, 1951; State Records of South Australia, GRS 1 280/1876.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 2.DENMAN, IRENE LOUISA: see BEATON, IRENE LOUISADOCHERTY, RICHARD (1899–1979) Catholic missionary, was born on 15 May 1899 at Urwin, Geraldton,
Western Australia, son of Edward Docherty and Abelina, nee Jones, then of Jarloop, Western Australia. He was
baptised a Catholic. He started school when six years of age, firstly at a state school at Worsely, and later at New
Norcia, (both in Western Australia), until he was 14 years of age. His parents being very poor, he was taken
from school and put to work for four years, mainly at sawmills. At the age of 18 he went to the Missionaries of
the Sacred Heart Apostolic School at Douglas Park, New South Wales. Later he went to Kensington Monastery,
New South Wales for a further six years. He was ordained a Priest in St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney on 30 November- After a holiday home, he got his first appointment in 1928. He was to go to Darwin as Curate to Bishop
Francis Xavier Gsell and Father W Henschke.
His main apostolic work was to Aborigines and non-Aborigines on cattle stations and outlying towns of the
Top End of the Northern Territory. He was then also an improviser and fix-it man extraordinary. He could fix
anything that needed repairing on his own Model T Ford or any other vehicles and he could also repair sewing
machines, violins, typewriters and water pumps. Tuning pianos was his special line. It meant a lot to outback
people then. It was also petrol money for him.
In 1935 the government was very concerned about the killings in the Port Keats area, and the disintegration of
the Aboriginal people there and on the Moyle Plain. So they asked Bishop Gsell, to start a mission there. As the
Aborigines in the area were still tribalised, the Bishop was pleased at the opportunity a new mission would present.
He sent Father Docherty to explore for a suitable place to start a mission.
The Mission at Port Keats became Father Docherty’s main life’s work and he remained there for 23 years.
The first site chosen was at Port Keats Bay, close to the beach where in 1933 Nemarluk and other Aborigines
had killed some Japanese. Four years later the Mission was moved 16 kilometres inland. The area was remote
before the war but more so during the war years as he had no outside supplies. When he went there diseases such
as leprosy, yaws, hookworm, scabies and malaria were rife. In addition there was a great deal of tribal unrest; the
kidney fat of an enemy being prized. There was a great and urgent need for medical aid. Dr Clyde Fenton, the
Top End’s flying doctor, sometimes had to be called in but mostly Father Docherty managed on his own. The main
Presbytery room was lined with medical containers of many colours. Some of his cures came after a process of
elimination. One of his better-known success stories was saving the life of Maunday a local Murinbata Aborigine,
who had the head of a spear made of glass from a bottle in the nape of his neck. In the bush at midnight by the light
of a lantern held by the author Father Docherty got the spearhead out after freezing the neck. Next day he put the
pieces together to be certain all the glass was out. Maunday lived for 30 more years.
Father Docherty established a sawmill and taught the Murinbata men how to mill. With their help and with a
few whites he had an aerodrome built at the inland mission station site, called then as now Wadeye Creek. A banana
plantation was established and cattle were brought from the Daly River area. He started a primary school, and the
first pupils were adults, some married. Sisters from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Order arrived in 1941 and the
education of the children began. When the Sacred Heart sisters withdrew because of the war he and the author took
over the school and continued the teaching.
Father Docherty was physically well suited for the task; though only five feet seven and a half inches in height
(1.7 metres), he was strongly built and in very good health, an optimist, a fearless, determined man. He was fond of
music and could play most musical instruments and his mechanical skills no doubt helped him survive 23 years in a
lonely, outback place. He was a man ahead of his times in the ecumenical sense. At Christmas 1942 he invited the
Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) personnel from the nearby radar station, regardless of denomination, to attend
the midnight Mass and to sing their own hymns. Father Docherty stayed at Port Keats during the war. He was an
official coast watcher for the Royal Australian Navy and used a transmitter and receiver supplied by them. He was
of great help to the nearby RAAF installation. For example he helped them get radar equipment across a deep gully
using mainly pulleys.
Father Docherty left Port Keats in 1958 in deteriorating health. A small island near the site of the first mission
was named Docherty Island in his honour. After a holiday he was appointed to Alice Springs, was then sent to
Thursday Island and then Hammond Island in Torres Strait where he remained from 1959 to 1965. By 1965 he
had been nearly 40 years in the ministry and his age was catching up with him. He was recalled to Darwin but was
only there a short time when there was a need for his service at Daly River. He was to spend the rest of his working
life there. At Daly River he instructed and worked with the Brinken and Mullak Mullak tribes and met again his
much-loved Port Keats people.