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worked very well. Edmunds was one of the Official members but they did not rubber stamp government sponsored
or introduced legislation. His situation was difficult as he held the position inter alia of legal draftsman and was
responsible for the form of legislation but not the intent of it, a position that many found difficulty in understanding.
The largest Bill which he had to oversee was one to re-establish local government in the Northern Territory.
After he left the Territory in 1954 he remained a member of the Council to enable him to introduce the draft Bill.
However, after a delay of six months, his successor as Crown Law Officer ultimately did so.
In 1954 Edmunds was transferred to north Queensland as Deputy Commonwealth Crown Solicitor but did
not completely lose contact with the Northern Territory because of problems of people in Queensland close to the
Territory border.
In 1958 he was transferred to Perth as Deputy Commonwealth Crown Solicitor for Western Australia and in
early 1960 moved to Canberra as Senior Assistant Secretary in the Executive Branch of the Attorney General’s
Department. The position required close contact with officers in the Northern Territory because of responsibility
for the legal administration of the Northern Territory courts and other Attorney General’s Department interests
like marriage and divorce. He represented the Commonwealth, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern
Territory on the committee responsible for drafting the first Uniform Companies Act and after its introduction was
Chairman of the Northern Territory Companies Auditors’ Board. He was a member of the Officers’ Committee of
the Standing Committee of Attorneys General of Australia and had a standing brief to look after Australian Capital
Territory and Northern Territory interests as well as Commonwealth affairs. These activities necessitated frequent
contact with Northern Territory officials.
In 1971 Edmunds left the Attorney General’s Department and was appointed to the Commonwealth Employees’
Compensation Tribunal. Most public servants in the Northern Territory and members of the defence forces in
relation to peacetime activities came within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. He was required to visit the Northern
Territory to hear appeals in relation to compensation for their injuries or illnesses arising out of them or in the
course of employment.
In March 1972 under the provisions of the Inquiries Ordinance, the Administrator of the Northern Territory,
F C Chaney, appointed Edmunds to be Chairman and Dr I R Vanderfeld of Sydney and Dr T P Dearlove of
Adelaide, to be members of a Board of Inquiry to report on the medical and hospital services in the Northern
Territory generally and on all aspects of medical services provided for the Territory’s Aboriginal people.
A series of deaths of Aboriginal children in the Alice Springs area was one of the matters that triggered the
inquiry, which was physically quite exhausting. The Board heard evidence at formal sessions from 136 witnesses
in 10 centres. Ninety-four written submissions were received, 31 hospitals and health clinics were inspected and
45 settlements and missions were examined. A final report was submitted to the Administrator in July 1972.
Following this Inquiry, Edmunds had little contact with the Northern Territory. During 1973, 1974 and 1975
he was a Judge of the Supreme Court of Papua and New Guinea and following that country’s independence
became a Judge of its new independent Superior Court. Soon afterwards he returned to Australia and, due to the
illness of his friend Justice Dick Ward of the Northern Territory Supreme Court, acted as Aboriginal Land Rights
Commissioner until September 1976. He resigned from that position, as he was unhappy with the progress of
the applications to the Commission. Edmunds’ only contact with the Northern Territory for the next few months
was through personal friends. In 1977 he was appointed the first Senior Member of the Administrative Appeals
Tribunal (AAT) and resumed official visits to the Northern Territory to hear appeals of that Tribunal. Its activities
were constantly being widened with more and more legislation providing appeals against administrative decisions
being heard by the AAT. He left the AAT in 1981 and the only official appointments he then held were Chairman
of the Commonwealth Public Service Disciplinary Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Police Disciplinary Appeals
Tribunal. The public service appeals embraced Commonwealth employees in the Northern Territory. He retired
from these appointments in 1985 and 1986 and thus terminated his links with the Northern Territory after nearly
40 years.
Subsequently the Australian Capital Territory appointed him to conduct an Inquiry into Gaming Machines.
In 1982 Edmunds was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for public service.
Personal information.
TIMOTHY G JONES, Vol 2.EDWARDS, HENRY CHARLES (1853–1929), master mariner, pearler and businessman, was born at Barnstaple,
Devonshire, England, in 1853. He went to sea as a young man and came to Australia about 1873. He first came
to the Northern Territory in 1884 as Chief Officer in Palmerston then under the command of Captain Carrington
while it conducted a survey of the northern waters for the South Australian government. When this contract was
terminated owing to Captain Charrington’s illness, Edwards became associated with H W H Stevens who, on
behalf of Goldsbrough Mort, held the coastal mail contract. In 1889 the steamer in service was Adelaide, which
called at all coastal, and river ports between Wyndham and the Gulf country. When Stevens organised the meat
export trade to nearby Asian countries using SS Darwin in 1892, Edwards became her master.
When this trade ceased in 1897, due to the closure of Asian ports to Top End cattle as a result of disease,
Edwards became interested in pearling. By 1901 he owned a ‘large fleet’ of luggers and in 1903 bought a new
lugger in Sydney, a topsail schooner named Gwendoline. She acted as a mother ship so that the luggers could
remain out on the pearling beds, a new innovation for the time. It was, the Northern Territory Times and Gazette
reported, ‘the first attempt to carry out pearling on systematic lines in Port Darwin’. By the time the First World
War broke out Edwards had a fleet of 20 luggers but with the introduction of plastics the value of the industry