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next three years studying for ordination at Ridley College, Melbourne, being ordained deacon on 20 December
1931 and priest on 21 December 1932.
Evans married Gwendoline A S Frewin on 19 January 1933. They were accepted as CMS missionaries and
arrived at Groote on 14 September 1933.
On 15 November 1933 Evans was accidentally killed by the shotgun he was carrying while climbing Central
Hill, Groote Eylandt, tragically ending the life of a very promising young missionary. A conspicuous cairn marks
his grave at the Old Mission cemetery, Emerald River, Groote Eylandt.
Family Information
KEITH COLE, Vol 1.EVERINGHAM, PAUL ANTHONY EDWARD (1943– ), lawyer, politician, first Chief Minister of the Northern
Territory and businessman, was born in Brisbane, Queensland on 4 February 1943, the son of Otho Lucien Paul
Everingham and his wife Mary Winifred, nee Young. He was educated in Innisfail and in Brisbane within the
Roman Catholic school system. After a short period working in insurance, Everingham became an articled law
clerk; he was admitted as a solicitor in August 1966. At that time, he married Denise Rothnie and, between 1967
and 1973, they had four children. The Everinghams divorced soon after Paul’s departure from parliamentary
politics; he later remarried.
In late 1966, Everingham moved to Alice Springs to work in a legal office. Following his admission to the
Territory bar in 1967, he developed successful practices in the Alice and later in Darwin where, in 1973, he set up
residence. When his political activities increased dramatically after 1977 he withdrew from legal work. He had
also proved himself to be an astute businessman, prospering in real estate dealing and through his participation in
the establishment in 1970–1971 of 8HA, the first commercial radio station in Alice Springs. Active in community
affairs, Everingham was elected to the inaugural town council on which he served for two years (1971–1973).
Although initially interested in resuscitating a Liberal Party in Darwin, Everingham recognised the need to
set up a strong conservative political voice and took part, albeit not as a major player, in the creation of the
Country-Liberal Party (CLP) in 1974. He won the seat of Jingili for the CLP by a small majority in the first election
for the Legislative Assembly in October 1974. Everingham was appointed Deputy Majority Leader and Executive
Member for Finance and Law but he resigned in August 1975. While the task of rebuilding his legal business in
the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy was certainly the prime reason for his resignation, it was also partly caused by
his dissatisfaction with the leadership of Goff Letts. For the remainder of the Assembly sittings, he was not a
particularly active member.
In the August 1977 election, Everingham, confronting a general swing away from the CLP on the issue of
self-government, retained Jingili after preference distribution. With the defeat of Letts and most of the Executive
Members, he took over the position of Majority Leader. The former leader and the surviving senior CLP
parliamentarians all considered that Everingham, despite his record in the first Assembly, was the best-qualified
and most resourceful person to undertake the role.
As Chief Secretary (and Executive Member for Law) Everingham quickly stamped his authority on the CLP
and the Assembly. His energy, his capacity for hard work, his grasp of issues and strategy and his forthright style
won him the strong allegiance of the CLP and growing acceptance among Territorians. His major achievements
in the early months of his tenure were the changes he negotiated in the form and pace of the self-government
arrangements and the financial deal brokered with the Commonwealth. To a large extent, the later success of
self-government was based upon Everingham’s personal contribution or upon his direction. On 1 July 1978,
self-government was proclaimed with Everingham becoming the new polity’s first Chief Minister.
Everingham served as Chief Minister (as well as Attorney-General to the end of 1982, Minister for Lands,
Industrial Development and Tourism for the following year and as Minister for Industrial Development and
Tourism until his resignation) until 16 October 1984. During that period he led the CLP to two victories in general
elections—in June 1980 and in December 1983. Despite losing one seat in 1980 the CLP vote rose significantly.
In 1983, in a landslide result, the CLP won 19 seats in an expanded Assembly (25 seats). Everingham’s share
of the vote in Jingili increased in both elections, rising to about 72 percent in 1983. There was no doubt that,
particularly in the later period of his incumbency, he enjoyed a very high level of popularity, at least within the
urban community. At the political level Everingham dominated the Assembly, the government and his party.
The early period of self-government over which Everingham presided was an exciting and expansive time.
Buttressed by the liberal funding arrangements struck with the Commonwealth, the new Territory government
was able to embark upon an ambitious and wide-ranging developmentalist program. Its directions inevitably
bore the imprint of the Chief Minister; one commentator remarked that Everingham often resembled a ‘latter-day
Pooh Bah’—the Minister for Everything! Even if he were the prime mover within his Cabinet, he did succeed in
welding it into a strongly cohesive and effective force. While there were many criticisms of his approach to the role
and activities of public servants, he aggressively asserted the primacy of the political arm over the bureaucratic in
Territory policy-making and administration. Not every Everingham action proved successful—there were many
examples of policy failure and administrative breakdown—but he held tenaciously to the style of ‘break through
or bust’; given the generally propitious circumstances prevailing during his period of office, he was more often
rewarded than wounded.
In many ways, the Everingham era set an enduring pattern for the self-governing Territory. He laid the
foundation for the Territory government’s continuing claim for functional equivalence with the states through
the removal of constitutional disabilities. His policy initiatives in economic development, such as the orientation