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returned to South Australia in 1911 without the mining success he had hoped to achieve. The north attracted him
again and he went with a team up his old line to Powell Creek in 1914.
Knuckey died, aged 71 years, at Miss Hill’s Private Hospital in Adelaide on 14 June 1914. Knuckeys Lagoon
near Darwin, streets in Darwin and Alice Springs, Knuckey Bluff at Urapunga and Mount Knuckey at Tobermorey
all bear his name. Rosie Creek bears the name of his sister, Rosina Richards. Knuckey had a photographic memory
and having crossed a stretch of country would never forget it. The Cornish emigrant learnt through the Australian
desert and bush locations to appreciate their mysteries and contribute in a major way as a surveyor to their
development.
D E Kelsey, The Shackle: A Story of the Far North Australian Bush, 1975; M J Kerr, The Surveyors: The Story of the Founding of Darwin,
1971; A Powell, Far Country, 1982; P Taylor, End of Silence, 1980; South Australian Chronicle, 20 June 1914; Genealogical Society of the
Northern Territory Records; South Australian Archives, 140/46, GRG Report of Section A.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 2.
KOOLAMURINEE: see SECRETARY, BOBBY
KRAMER, ERNST EUGEN (1889–1984), evangelist, colporteur of the British and Foreign Bible Society and
unordained freelance preacher, was born in Basel, Switzerland, on 10 May 1889. His family were members of the
Swiss Reformed Church. In his youth, however, religion did not run deep with him. He immigrated to Australia a
few years before the outbreak of the First World War. As he had nowhere to go on his arrival in Adelaide, a Christian
family took him into their home. Here his faith was rekindled, so that he committed his life to Christ. He felt he had
a calling to the people of the outback, especially to the Aborigines who were so pitifully neglected.
Some time in 1912 Kramer married Euphemia Buchanan in Victoria in a small Gippsland town. There were
four children of the marriage: Colin, Mary, Faith and Grace.
In 1913, he left Adelaide on a ministerial tour along the lower Murray, then onto Port Augusta, west to
Tarcoola, and along the country east of the Flinders Ranges to Oodnadatta. In 1916, his pastoral duties took him
to Port Wakefield, Point Pearce, Quorn, Leigh Creek and Farina. He set out again in May 1919 with his wife and
two children in a closed van drawn by eight donkeys, bound for Alice Springs. Several goats tethered behind the
van provided the family with milk. An influenza epidemic was raging in the outback at the time. They reached the
Alice safely, however, on 16 December 1919. Mrs Kramer is said to have become the seventh white woman to
settle in Alice Springs.
In the Alice, the Kramers invested in four blocks of land and built their own family home. One of Kramer’s
first local excursions into the ‘bush’ was to the Arltunga goldfields. In mid-June 1920, the Kramer family visited
the Strehlows at Hermannsburg for 11 days to receive some tuition in the Aranda language. In 1924, Kramer built
a small ‘tabernacle’ on one of his town blocks that he named ‘Ebenezer’. It was built of cement blocks (the first
made in central Australia), had a straw roof and accommodated a bell on a twin pole. Here he gathered a group
of Aborigines for worship and instruction. His Aboriginal helper was Mickey Dow-Dow. During the Christmas
period of 1925, the family was again at Hermannsburg.
From mid-June to mid-August 1928, Kramer made an extensive camel journey into the western desert, almost
as far as the Western Australia border, ministering to Aboriginal people and any white station owners. His only
companion was James Huston Edgar, an outstanding pioneer missionary to China and Tibet, a man with a powerful
physique, a great traveller, a born explorer, a gifted linguist, and a member of the Royal Geographical Society
and the Royal Anthropological Institute. They travelled by camel from Alice Springs to Erldunda, Opperinna,
Lake Wilson, Mt Hinckley, Butler’s Dome, Ayers Rock, Lake Amadeus, Middleton Ponds and back to the Alice.
The Kramer home became the first supply depot for British and Foreign Bible Society (B&FBS) literature in
the Northern Territory. Although the Kramers at first worked independently under the name of ‘The Australian
Caravan Mission’ they were later supported by the Aborigines Friends Association in Adelaide.
When they left the Northern Territory in October 1934, after 15 years of evangelistic service, they flew on a
family visit overseas. Upon their return, they took up residence in Melbourne where Kramer became a deputationist
for the B&FBS. Their last place of residence was Adelaide. Kramer wrote a booklet about his experiences entitled
Australian Caravan Mission to Bush People and Aboriginals: Journeyings in the Far North and Centre of Australia.
He died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital on 15 February 1984.
E E Kramer, Australian Caravan Mission to Bush people and Aboriginals, nd; M L Loane, The Story of the China Inland Mission, 1965;
personal interviews; P A Scherer, Select Letters from the Outback, 1994; M Terry, Untold Miles, 1928.
P A SCHERER, Vol 3.
KRIEWALDT, (RUDOLF) MARTIN CHEMNITZ (1900–1960), lawyer, scholar and judge, was born on
26 October 1900 at Lobethal, South Australia, the son of Emil Paul Gerhard Kriewaldt, who was born in Wisconsin,
the United States, in 1870 and came to South Australia as a Pastor of the Lutheran Church. Kiewaldt’s Lutheran
background was reflected in his personality and he regarded himself as ‘a son of the manse’. His brother became a
Lutheran minister and later Chairman of the Koonibba Aboriginal Mission Board in South Australia.
His early years were spent in South Australia until his father’s death in 1916 when his American mother decided
to return to the United States with her two sons. Kriewaldt lived in San Francisco and studied at the University of
California from 1918 to 1920. During vacations, he worked at the Western Meat Company. He was very happy
in San Francisco but transferred in 1920 to the University of Wisconsin, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts.