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JAPANMA (JIBANYMA), JAMES (c1902–1962), was an outstanding leader and teacher at the Church
Missionary Society (CMS) Roper River Mission. He served at the mission for many years as a teacher and lay
reader. He married Minnie McLoud (see Harold Hamilton), a part-Aboriginal girl from Borroloola, who changed
her name at her baptism to Leah.
In June 1941 the school work that had been carried on in a dynamic way by James Japanma was taken over by
a European missionary. He was now free to engage more frequently in itinerant evangelism among the surrounding
European cattle stations. He continued to teach religious instruction at the school, where it was stated in 1949:
His love for his own people and especially the children was most noticeable.
After many years of faithful work as a teacher, evangelist and lay reader he died at Roper River in March 1962.
His work was then taken over by Barnabas Roberts.
K Cole, Roper River Mission 1908–1968, 1969; CMS Records, Sydney and Melbourne.
KEITH COLE, Vol 2.JENSEN, HARALD INGEMANN (1879–1966), geologist, was born in 1879 at Aarhus, Denmark, son of Niels
Georg Oscar Jensen, farmer and clerk and his wife Clara, nee Neilsen. The family migrated to Queensland in- Jensen attended public schools at Irvinebank and Caboolture, then won a scholarship to Brisbane Boys’
Grammar School. In 1904 he graduated Bachelor of Science at the University of Sydney with honours in Geology
and Chemistry, under Sir Edgeworth David, and was appointed first McLeay fellow of the Linnean Society of
New South Wales in 1905. Before resigning in 1908 he travelled in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and New Zealand and
published many professional papers. In 1908 he was awarded a Doctor of Science degree and the university medal,
then worked as a soil scientist with the New South Wales Department of Agriculture.
From childhood Jensen was a convinced socialist. He was an active member of the Labor Party and wrote
regularly for Labor and union journals on politics, economics and mining. In August 1912 he was appointed
Director of Mines in the Northern Territory in order, he believed, ‘to carry out the platform and objectives of the
Labor movement as far as mining is concerned’. He took with him his wife Jane Elizabeth Ellen, nee England,
whom he had married in Sydney on 26 September 1906, and their three children.
Shortly after arrival in Darwin, Jensen departed on horseback to examine the known mining fields. On returning
to Darwin he left at once for Borroloola to select sites for oil drilling as a follow-up to an earlier suggestion by
geologist Dr Woolnough.
During 1913 Jensen prepared a new Mining Ordinance, which set out conditions under which government
assistance would be given, and made it more difficult for companies and individuals to tic up ground for speculative
purposes. Additional professional staff were appointed and over the next few years this small group did an amazing
amount of geological investigation and mapping. Diamond drilling was stepped up and mines of promise given
government assistance. Under Jensen’s direction the government itself carried out a program of shaft sinking at
Zapopan, Union Reefs and Pine Creek.
Of the fieldwork, Jensen said, ‘The long journeys have been made on horseback with a string of pack-horses
and the assistance of a blackfellow. When detailed observations were necessary a halt was made for a few days
and the country was scoured on foot. I have followed the travelling methods usually indulged in by geologists and
bushmen and frequently my path has lain through untrodden country, sometimes floods or other causes necessitating
long detours for hundreds of miles, far off any road, track or path.’
During the early years of Commonwealth administration the Department of Mines worked under considerable
pressure; for example, during September 1913 instructions came from Melbourne that a geologist must go to
Tanami to investigate a subsidy application and the re-timbering of a well. A report was also needed on the Alligator
River district and the Administrator demanded an urgent report on the sinking of bores between Alice Springs and
Newcastle Waters. Jensen said, ‘I took Tanami, the most difficult and hazardous.’
Of this trip, Jensen said that, using Pine Creek as a base, he loaded up the Department of Mines’ horses
with three months’ provisions and departed on 18 October 1913. The trip to Wave Hill was difficult, comprising
alternate long dry stages and black-soil plains made boggy by early storms. On the way he secured a team of mules
at Victoria River Downs Station and sent the tired departmental horses back. He was met by Warden Johns at Wave
Hill and escorted to Tanami, which was reached on 28 November. He returned to Wave Hill on 27 December,
rested there until 7 January and then had to make a detour via Katherine as the Katherine and Ferguson rivers were
in flood. In all he covered 2 000 kilometres on horseback.
During his first two years in the Territory, Jensen’s relations with the Administrator, Dr Gilruth, were cordial
and they often had a friendly chat or a game of chess. Then friction developed, initially over a recommendation
by Jensen that a government battery be erected at Maranboy. Gilruth wanted a private battery. The dispute Went
to the minister who ruled in favour of Jensen. From then on relations between the two, both able and learned men,
deteriorated. Jensen refused to sign a lease of the Daly River Copper Mine to a syndicate headed by a man named
Palmer, but of which Gilruth and Judge J D Bevan were also members. Gilruth retaliated by appointing a new
Director of Mines and Jensen became Chief Geologist.
Jensen proceeded to lay 43 charges of maladministration against Gilruth and others. A royal commission was
set up but found no justification for the allegations. Then assertions were made that Jensen had made disloyal