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of the Automobile Association of the Northern Territory 1976–1982; Chairman, Australian Fire Protection
Association Inc (Northern Territory); Director, Australian Fire Protection Association Council (Victoria);
Inaugural Vice-Chairman and then Chairman of the Insurance Institute of South Australia (Northern Territory
Division); Council Member, Boy Scouts Association (Northern Territory), 1978 to 1981; and Commandant of the
Darwin Cadet Squadron, St Andrew’s Ambulance Corps, from 1984.
In 1976, he raised the Legion of Frontiersmen in the Northern Territory, and commanded it until 1988, being
succeeded by Frank Simmonds. For his service with the Legion he received the Medal of Merit, as well as the
Legion of Frontiersmen Commemorative Medal 1906–1983, Meritorious Service Medal (Canadian Division) and
Medal of Merit (British Division). In 1988 he was the Sponsor for the raising of the 70th Regional Cadet Unit in
Darwin, based at Larrakeyah Barracks.
He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Civil Division of the 1983 New
Years Honours List, ‘for services to the community’—one of the last Territory recipients of an Imperial honour.
He had risen from the rank of Cadet in the 12th Battalion to become its Commanding Officer, had revitalised a
fledgling officer training establishment in Darwin, and was considered so highly that he (as a CMF officer) was
offered command of an anti-aircraft battery in Darwin at the height of confrontation. For his war service he had
received the Defence Medal, War Medal and Australian Service Medal 1939–45. For long service in the CMF he
was awarded the Efficiency Medal in 1946 and the Efficiency Decoration (ED) and Bar.
Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, S273, 31 December 1982; The Corps List, 1967; Express (Launceston), 19 February 1959, 7 May 1960;
L J Haydon, personal papers and interviews, 1990–1996; Lieutenant Colonel L J Haydon, ‘Formation of Independent Company RAI’, submission
to HQ NT Command, 23 June 1964; Northern Territory News 4 February 1992; Lieutenant Colonel G Pound (retd), pers comm, 19 September
1994; P A Rosenzweig, The Training Group Year Book 1990–1991; Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1992; Colonel L A Thomson (retd),
pers comm 24 & 26 November 1994, Address to the Royal Australian Artillery Association (NT), Darwin, 26 November 1994.
PAUL ROSENZWEIG, Vol 3.
HAYES, ANN JANE nee DOOLAN (1893–1968), pioneer, was born in Blackall, Queensland, in 1893,
the daughter of Pat Doolan and his wife, who later married Sam Nicker. Sam was typical of casual workers in
that era; steeplechase jockey, butcher, shearer and a union representative. He decided to leave Queensland after the
shearers’ strike in 1900. Sam was a great raconteur, and was noted far and wide for his yarns. He also was a mate
of some people in his wanderings who became famous in later years, such as Billy Hughes, who eventually became
Prime Minister of Australia, Harry (‘the Breaker’) Morant and Jackie Howe, the champion shearer. Morant, while
waiting in a South African gaol before facing a firing squad, wrote a poem mentioning Sam as his mate.
The Nicker family, including Jane, left Queensland in 1903 heading for the Northern Territory and the goldfields
of Arltunga. They left Jundah in western Queensland and travelled down the notorious Strzelecki track, with a
buggy and only two buggy horses.
After arriving at Farina, in northern South Australia, Sam heard from gold seekers returning from Arltunga
that the goldfields were not as rich as first believed, so the Nicker family continued south and eventually arrived
at Port
Pirie, where Sam got a job in the smelter that was treating the ore from Broken Hill.
Sam worked there for a year, then decided to head north, shearing when available and, when there was no
shearing, he trapped rabbits, eventually arriving in Alice Springs in 1905 and going on to Arltunga with the same
pair of buggy horses that had brought his family from Queensland.
The Nickers worked around Arltunga and set up a market garden and dairy on the Hale River which became
known as ‘the Garden’, the same locality where the later station of that name. While they were living in that area
they had two sons, (Claude being born previously in Quorn), Eugene and Ben. In 1909, after the main works closed
and most of the miners left, the family shifted into Alice Springs.
In that year Sam, being a shearer, was able to go to Mount Burrell and shear the sheep for the Hayes family.
It was there that Edward Hayes met Jane Doolan. The Hayes family had purchased these sheep several years before
while they were away from Mount Burrell in the bad drought of 1900. Mary Hayes, Jane’s mother-in-law, and
her daughters Mary and Lizzie drove them all the way back to Mount Burrell from Kalamurina on the Diamantina
River where they had shifted most of their stock.
Jane had a younger sister Leah, who stayed in Queensland with an aunt. She was several years younger than
Jane—too young to make the long journey, on account of the isolation that existed at that time. She did not join the
family until many years later and did not stay long. She died in Queensland several years before Jane.
Jane’s family returned to Alice Springs, purchased a covered buggy and pair of horses and set off in their
hawker’s van heading for Newcastle Waters to sell goods to the drovers passing through with their mobs of cattle,
heading across the stock routes for Queensland markets.
Newcastle Waters was the junction of both the Murranji and the northern stock routes. From there the stock
route ran across the Barkly Tableland to Camooweal and beyond. After the droving season of 1909 the Nickers
returned to Alice Springs, as Jane’s mother was expecting her youngest child, Margaret, born shortly afterward.
Jane drove the family buggy and Sam the hawker’s van for the 800-kilometre round trip.
In 1910 Jane Doolan married Edward Hayes in Alice Springs. Police sergeant Graham Dow officiated and
this wedding seems to have been the first performed in the town, since previous marriages had taken place at
Hermannsburg where Lutheran pastors resided.
Thereafter, Jane Hayes lived with her husband on Mount Burrell, Maryvale and Undoolya stations in turn.
The couple had five children.