- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
concurred, but inter-service rivalry caused the chiefs of staff to reinterpret this instruction in such a way that Herring
became ‘co-ordinator’, not supreme commander, except in the case of imminent or actual land attack. Nevertheless
he had greater powers over a wider area than had his predecessor and he used his authority swiftly and ruthlessly,
replacing every suspect officer, giving brigade commands to AIF veterans, dissolving the 7th Military District
Headquarters as ‘a nuisance more than anything else’, redeploying his forces in depth and instituting a rigorous
training program. One of his officers, Major W E H Stanner, noted Herring’s ‘great personal force, which everyone
who served with him will recall’. There would be no withdrawals, Herring told his troops, adding, according to an
American source, ‘There have been too bloody many withdrawals in the British Empire.’ By the time war-tested
AIF units moved into the Darwin area in May 1942, Herring was satisfied that his men would fight.
Herring’s personal leadership qualities had played a major part in revitalising northern defence; and, with the
decline in the Japanese threat to north Australia after mid-1942, the high command decided to move Herring to the
vital New Guinea theatre. He left the Northern Territory in August 1942 with promotion to the (temporary) rank
of Lieutenant-General and went on to his greatest days as a military commander as General Officer Commanding
(GOC) 2 Australian Corps (August–September 1942), General Officer Commanding (GOC), New Guinea Force
and 1 Australian Corps (October 1942–August 1943) and GOC 1 Australian Corps (August 1943–February 1944).
In the latter month his rank as Lieutenant-General was confirmed and he moved to the Reserve to become Chief
Justice of Victoria.
On 29 May 1943 Herring had been made a Knight of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for outstanding
qualities of leadership in the southwest Pacific area (including NT and New Guinea). In 1950 he was appointed
Director-General of Recruiting and Honorary Colonel of the Melbourne University Regimen; but his days of
active soldiering were over.
Herring’s civil career does not appear to have been hampered by his military role throughout the earlier half of
this century. In 1936, he was made a King’s Counsel. For 20 years, from 1945, he was Chief Justice of Victoria,
during which time he established the Law Revision Committee. In 1941 he was made Chancellor of the Diocese of
Melbourne, and retained that post for 31 years. For twenty-seven years, from 1945, he was Lieutenant-Governor
of Victoria. He was chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Australian War Memorial from 1959 to 1974 and in
1959 was elected president of the Scout Association of Australia. His military awards include a Military Cross
in each of the two world wars, and a Distinguished Service Order. He also received the American Distinguished
Services Cross in 1943.
Herring died on 5 January 1982, aged 82, thirteen months after his wife, Dame Mary Herring. Their three
daughters survived him.
D Horner, Crisis of Command, 1978; D Horner, High Command, 1982; D Horner, The Commanders, 1984; G Long, To Benghazi, 1952;
D McCarthy, South West Pacific Area, First Year, 1959; A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge, 1988; S Sayers, Ned Herring: A Life of Sir Edmund
Herring, 1980; S Sayers, Lieutenant General Sir Edmund Herring: Joint and Allied Commander, 1984.
J HAYDON, Vol 1.
HILL, CHARLOTTE MARY (1881–1931), pioneer Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionary, was born
in Western Australia and accepted by the Victorian Church Missionary Association (CMA and later CMS)
in December 1909, as a missionary for the Roper River Mission. The CMA had started this mission in August
- The CMA was undecided about sending women missionaries to north Australia and it was not until over
a year later that they agreed that they could be cared for adequately at the mission. Miss Hill and Miss J Tinney
were the first lady missionaries there. Miss Tinney had had ten years’ teaching experience as a missionary with
the Methodist Overseas Mission (MOM) in New Guinea. Misses Hill and Tinney, accompanied by Mr and
Mrs O C Thomas, arrived at the Roper River Mission on 16 May 1911.
Misses Hill and Tinney were in charge of the medical and educational work at the mission for the next six
years. Miss Tinney resigned in May 1917 and sent several months helping at the MOM Goulburn Island Mission
on her way south. Miss Hill resigned at the end of 1918, leaving the mission on 4 March 1919 and arriving back in
Western Australia later in the year. The CMS expressed their deep appreciation for her ‘long and devoted service
in the cause of the Aborigines’. She later moved to Victoria and died at Daylesford on 17 December 1931.
K Cole, Roper River Mission 1908–1968, 1969; CMS records, Victoria.
KEITH COLE, Vol 2.
HILL, ERNESTINE nee HEMMINGS (1899–1972), journalist and author, was born Ernestine Hemmings in
Rockhampton, Queensland, in 1899. She was educated at a convent in Rockhampton and later attended All Hallows
Convent in Brisbane. Her first book Peter Pan and Other Poems was published when she was 17. These details
apart, little is known of the early life of the woman who, under the name of Mrs Ernestine Hill, was to become one
of Australia’s best known and most prolific travel writers. When interviewed, Hill was reluctant to speak about her
private life, a typical response to personal questions being, ‘Tell only of the travel!’ It was only in the weeks prior
to her death in 1972 that Hill, perhaps given the more permissive mood of the time, revealed personal details to
a Queensland academic which help to explain why such a talented writer chose to spend a nomadic existence far
from the literary circles of the major Australian cities.
Ernestine Hemmings began her career in journalism in 1919 as Secretary to the Editor of the newly established
Smith’s Weekly. She later worked as Sub Editor on the paper. In the mid 1920s she joined Associated Newspapers,
owners of the Sun group. A traumatic affair with one of the senior executives of the group led to the birth of a