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Edwards and his brother, Edwin, along with five others helped to develop the Masonic Lodge retirement
village in Darwin in 1980. It was dedicated to Henry Edwards and in 1987 Edwards and his wife helped finance
the expansion of the Masonic Retirement Village. They had also assisted the Salvation Army in setting up its
Old Timers’ Village in 1980. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1988 in recognition for his
services to primary industry and the community.
He died of heart disease in Darwin on 15 June 1992. His funeral took place there at Christ Church Anglican
Cathedral.
S Downer, Patrol Indefinite, 1963; J Makin, The Big Run, 1972; A Powell, Far Country, 1982; Northern Standard, 9 January 1940; Northern
Territory News, 17 June 1992; interview with R Edwards, 1990.
JANET DICKINSON, Vol 2.EEDLE, JAMES HENRY (JIM) (1928– ), public servant and educationalist, was born in Liverpool, England, on
15 December 1928, the son of Arthur and Ena Eedle. He went to school at the Liverpool Institute and, after national
service in the Royal Air Force between 1947 and 1949, studied at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated
Master of Arts, and the University of London, from which he received the degrees of Master of Philosophy and
Doctor of Philosophy. He was later elected to Fellowships of the Royal Society of Arts, the Australian College of
Education and the Australian Institute of Management. On 27 December 1952 he married Margaret, the daughter
of George and Sarah Ann Hooson. They had three sons and a daughter. Between 1953 and 1964 Eedle was with
the British Colonial Service in Northern Nigeria. He worked for the British Council in Accra, Ghana, and from
1964 to 1967, the Joint Matriculation Board in Manchester and the Commonwealth Secretariat in London between
1969 and 1975.
In 1975 he moved to Darwin to take up the position of First Assistant Secretary in the Commonwealth
Department of Education, responsible for all school education in the Territory during a period of rapid change and
growth. Energetic and highly articulate, he laid the foundation for the school system that was taken over by the
Northern Territory Government after self-government in 1978. Eedle then became Secretary of the newly formed
Department of Education. Until then he and his departmental officers had considerable freedom to experiment, the
opportunity for quick action and the benefits of generous funding.
In 1980, however, Eedle became involved in a dispute with the Territory’s Minister for Education, Jim Robertson,
over the establishment of a Northern Territory Teaching Service (NTTS). Eedle and some of his senior officials were
keen that the independence of such a service ought to be limited. Eedle himself believed that teachers should be
part of the Northern Territory Public Service. In the end Robertson and his cabinet colleagues decided to go ahead
with an independent NTTS that resulted in the total estrangement of Eedle from his minister and his subsequent
replacement. Ironically, the existence of the NTTS in the form in which it was created proved short-lived. From
late 1984 its functions were progressively transferred to the Northern Territory Department of Education.
Eedle moved to the new Northern Territory University Planning Authority as its Planning Vice-Chancellor,
a position he occupied until 1984. He headed a small, initially well funded, organisation that attempted to put in
place a framework for a university in Darwin. Its activities were varied. Eminent academics were invited to the
Territory to give lectures and provide advice. Eedle travelled extensively, both in Australia and overseas, obtaining
information and ideas. The Planning Authority developed a modest academic publishing program and assumed
responsibility for the History Unit, which had previously been located in the Department of the Chief Minister.
Initially Eedle argued that the university could develop from the Darwin Community College but later decided that
an entirely separate institution was necessary. He handled the Planning Vice-Chancellor’s job with his customary
energy. In the process, though, he alienated some members of the Territory’s small academic community, who were
inclined to regard him as arrogant and authoritarian.
In early 1985 Hugh Hudson, the Chairman of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, made it
plain that no Commonwealth funding for a Territory university was likely until the 1990s. On 10 August that
year the Territory government announced that it would fund a university college in Darwin that would commence
teaching in 1987. It later emerged that the college would be linked with the University of Queensland. Eedle was
not, it seems, consulted and was transferred to the position of head of a ‘University Development Unit’, where
he had a very limited role. He soon fell out with the Warden of the University College of the Northern Territory,
Professor Jim Thomson, and his position was abolished in 1987.
Disillusioned by what he regarded as his unfair treatment and lack of recognition for the work he had done,
Eedle and his wife were active in the new Territory Nationals political party from 1987 onwards. They became
strong critics of the Territory government and the Country Liberal Party. Eedle established an educational
and management consultancy business and in the early 1990s increasingly worked from Ballarat in Victoria.
He ultimately moved there permanently.
Perhaps Eedle’s most significant and beneficial work in Darwin was with a variety of community and
professional organisations, some of which he was instrumental in establishing. A superb organiser of such
groups, he was especially skilful in chairing committees. Foundation Patron of the Northern Territory Institute
for Educational Research and Patron of the Northern Territory Schoolboys’ and Junior Rugby Union, he was also
Foundation President of the Friends of the Darwin Symphony Orchestra, the Northern Territory Branch of the
Australia–Britain Society and the Professional Centre of the Northern Territory. He was a founder of the Northern
Territory Branch of the Royal Australian Institute of Public Administration and the Northern Territory Branch of the
Australian Institute of International Affairs. He chaired the Regional Symposium for Educational Administration,
the Northern Territory Anti-Cancer Foundation and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award in the Northern Territory.