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Of Methodist religion, Bessie Johnson played an important part in the social development of Darwin; she
was a foundation member of the Darwin Girl Guides Association, a foundation member of the Darwin Golf Club
Associates, and foundation member and past president of the Darwin Red Cross Society and the Darwin Country
Women’s Association. She was also a member of the Darwin Professional and Business Women’s Guild, the
Royal Commonwealth Society, Darwin and Nightcliff Garden Club, Northern Territory Pensioners Society and the
Darwin Old Timers and was an associate member of the Returned Servicemen’s League.
Family information.
JOY DAVIS, Vol 1.JOHNSON, EDMOND (1897–1918), soldier, was born in Hobart. In 1911 his parents, Frederick Johnson,
a train driver, and Emma Juletta, nee Woodward, came to farm on the Daly River, and he lived on the Daly until
he enlisted in the AIF on 11 March 1916, at Darwin.
He served as a private (military number 2189) and embarked for Europe with the 4th Reinforcements,
47th Australian Infantry Battalion at Brisbane on HMAS Boorara on 16 August 1916.
He saw action in France, and was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He was killed in
action in France on 28 March 1918. The Villiers-Bretonneux Memorial in France and the Darwin War Memorial
bear his name.
Johnson Park in Darwin is named after him.
Family information.
MAY BEARD, Vol 1.JOHNSON, FREDERICK (1856–1944), farmer, train driver and racehorse trainer, was born in Hobart on
16 April 1856. His parents were Frederick Johnson, labourer, and Jessie, nee Henderson. He married Emma Juletta
Woodward, and they had twelve children—eight daughters and four sons.
Frederick, accompanied by his wife and four youngest children, came to the Northern Territory in 1911 to take
up a farm on the Daly River. The family lived on the Daly until 1916, when they moved to Darwin, and Frederick
was employed as an engine driver by the railway.
Frederick set up a racing stable in Parap, and trained horses for himself and others. He was a founding member
of the Darwin Turf Club and won the Darwin Cup with his son Leonard as jockey.
In 1922, he returned to Hobart and died of pneumonia in 1944. He is buried in Hobart General Cemetery.
He was 160 centimetres tall, of slight build, with blue eyes and red hair, hence his name ‘Copper’ Johnson,
which also relates to his ‘peppery’ nature.
His second-youngest son Edmond was killed in action in France in 1918. Bessie Janet Phyllis (his
second-youngest daughter) married Alexander Stewart Drysdale. Eileen (his second daughter) married Jack
Brown. Leonard, his youngest son, went to Queensland when his mother and father left Darwin, and remained there
until his death. The sixth-generation descendants of Frederick Johnson still lived in Darwin during the 1990s.
Family information.
MAY BEARD, Vol 1.JOHNSON, JOSEPH COLIN FRANCIS (1848–1904), journalist, mining promoter and politician, was born in
South Australia on 12 February 1848, the son of an early pioneer, Henry Johnson and his wife Wilhelmina Colquhon,
nee Campbell. After education in Victoria, he returned to South Australia, where he became a well-known journalist
and mining promoter, popularly known in the press as ‘alphabetical’ Johnson.
On 8 April 1884 he was elected to the South Australian lower house as member for Onkaparinga and on
11 June 1887 became Minister for Education and Minister controlling the Northern Territory, a portfolio he held
until 27 June 1889. During his tenure of office, he introduced a new mining bill to replace legislation ‘which none
of the other colonies would tolerate at all’ though he was unable to get through the House a land bill that would
have benefited the Territory. He enjoyed a lengthier incumbency than most other 19th Century ministers charged
with looking after the Northern Territory and visited the north in March and April 1888, as he believed he could not
‘rule’ over a country he had not seen. Johnson was the third minister to visit in 18 years of settlement, but unlike
his travelling predecessors, he was not to return.
He was warmly received. At a banquet in his honour he told those present that he believed the Territory was
about to awaken. He was convinced that the climate would allow much to grow and was ‘absolutely breathless at
the mineral wealth which had been revealed’ during his trip; and at that time he was one of the Adelaide directors
of the North Australian Mining Company which had recently been formed in England. More importantly, he also
said that he did not believe that the Territory was the financial drain it was popularly supposed, that there was in
fact a credit balance. During his visit, he doubtless inspected the two town blocks he had bought in Palmerston in
1882, Lot 508 in Smith Street and Lot 658 on the Esplanade, as well as the country acreage he also owned in the
Northern Territory.
On his return to Adelaide, he was ‘reassuring’ on the Territory’s future and his expectation of good financial
results was also repeated. The immediate result of his visit was one of the many parings of the Northern Territory
public service; to the point where Johnson later admitted, ‘the pruning knife has in some cases been so unsparingly
applied as to impair the efficiency of the service.’ For reasons that remain unclear, his report was not published