- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
At the time of his death in Melbourne, on 16 July 1962, Drysdale could speak fluent Chinese, spoke and
understood the Larakia Aboriginal language and had some knowledge of Malay and Filipino languages.
Family information.
MAY BEARD, Vol 1.
DRYSDALE, ALEXANDER STEWART II (1920–1979), soldier, businessman and public servant, was born on
29 June 1920 in Darwin, son of Alexander Stewart Drysdale and Bessie Janet Phillis Johnson. He was educated
at Parap and Darwin schools.
After leaving school he worked in his father’s business until enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force
(army no. DX881). He was assigned to 6th Divisional Headquarters, and later to 2/17th Battalion, 9th Division.
He also served briefly with the Commandos. He saw service with the 2/17th in New Guinea and Borneo, being
awarded the 1939–45 Star, Defence Medal, New Guinea Service Medal, and a Mention in Dispatches.
After the war he returned to Darwin and opened a garage/petrol station in Parap (Stuart Highway/Goyder Road
junction). After some years he joined the Customs Department, served in Darwin and Sydney, and eventually
retired on medical grounds because of poor health caused by his war service.
He was 179 centimetres tall, broad shouldered with blue eyes and brown straight hair. He married Molly Gaynor,
and they had one daughter and three sons. He was a Methodist by religion. He was a member of the Darwin Club,
the Darwin Golf Club, the Returned Servicemen’s League and the Darwin Masonic Lodge.
He died of pneumonia, after a long illness, in Concord Military Hospital on 10 May 1979 and was cremated
in Sydney.
Family information.
MAY BEARD, Vol 1.
DRYSDALE, BESSIE JANET PHILLIS: see JOHNSON, BESSIE JANET PHILLIS
DRYSDALE, DAVID GEORGE WILLIAM (1904–1984) and DRYSDALE, INGRID AMELIA nee
FOLLAND (1904–1982), missionaries and welfare officers.
David George William Drysdale was born in Zeehan, Tasmania on 15 October 1904 to David Drysdale and
Mary Ann Drysdale, nee Griffiths. David had one brother and four sisters. He grew up to be a man of average build
and height with fair hair and a ginger beard. He completed his school education and studied at the Melbourne Bible
Institute until 1925 when he was called to serve in mission work on Sunday Island with the United Aborigines
Mission.
Ingrid Amelia Folland was born on 23 July 1904 in Cookernup, Western Australia. Ingrid had three sisters and
four brothers. She grew up in Katanning, Western Australia where her father Walter was a schoolteacher and a
farmer. He and his wife, Emma Hannah Folland, nee Berg, attempted farming in South Australia, but after severe
drought they moved to a farm in Katanning. Ingrid’s parents were Methodist and raised her with a Christian
outlook on life. She went to school until age 14 and then worked in an office in Katanning. She also helped her
parents around the house and farm until she went into mission service as a 20 year old.
Ingrid served with the South Australian Outback Mission until 1927. She worked in homes for part-Aboriginal
children in Oodnadatta, Swan Reach and Quorn in South Australia. In 1925 she had applied for a mission
appointment on Sunday Island, but learnt that a young man named David Drysdale had preceded her. He was
introduced to Ingrid through the mail and they began corresponding until they met in 1927. On 27 September 1927
they were married at Katanning Baptist Church.
In 1928 Ingrid and David moved to Sunday Island to work with the United Aborigines Mission and the Bardi
Aborigines, a tribal group of the Dampier Land Peninsula. They cared for the general welfare of the people whose
lifestyle and health had been dramatically changed by the invasion of European settlement in Australia. In Ingrid’s
book The End of Dreaming she recalls that ‘the romance, adventure, and challenge of this remote place had
appealed to me several years earlier when I had applied for a position on the mission staff’.
In April 1929 David and Ingrid had a son whom they named Owen. Two years later a baby girl was born,
named after Ingrid. In 1932, after four years of service on Sunday Island, differences with the head office caused
them to resign. In December the same year they had their third child, Frank. Despite their resignation, their love
for the Bardi people gave them a desire to remain with them. In 1933 they moved with their three children, three
other married couples, two children and two single men to a pearling lugger named Petra beachcombing around
the Buccaneer Archipelago. They formed a base at Cockatoo Island and then later Coppermine Creek on the
mainland.
Later Ingrid and David left this lifestyle and moved to Perth. In October 1939 they had their fourth child, a boy
named Leith. They were in Perth when the war broke out and David went to war in September 1940. After several
months he was captured on the island of Crete. David spent four and a half years at various prisoner of war camps
in Germany. During this time Ingrid and the children lived with Ingrid’s parents in Katanning. In late 1945 David
returned to Australia; he later received a Greek war medal given to all the soldiers who were captured on Crete.
In 1947 they moved to the Kimberley Research Station on the Ord River situated at Ivanhoe Station 60 kilometres
from Wyndham. The Public Works Department was also in the area and the employees lived on the station.
The Drysdales were flexible, attending to whatever needed doing. When the cook from the Public Works left,
Ingrid took up that responsibility while her daughter Ingrid took over the job at the research station. Their presence