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display the marks on her back and the scar on her breast. ‘Those fellas’, she said, ‘flogged me all day along big
Anthony road, all through gate and in yard... ’ Kriewaldt regarded as ‘quite fantastic’ the defence proposition that
this pathetic band of middle aged and very young Aborigines could have attempted to attack the mounted men.
Kriewaldt sentenced the Chambers each to six months’ jail and fines of 400 Pounds after a hearing that extended
over several days. Reports of the Eva Downs case were widely circulated in the press in Australia and elsewhere.
In the United States, a syndicated article by Robert Ruark brought a batch of sympathetic letters to Kriewaldt from
Canada and the United States applauding his decision.
The gulf between Aborigines and whites was exemplified in an echo of Judge Wells’s opinion of Aboriginal
testimony when in March 1958 the Stipendiary Magistrate in Darwin, Mr Dodds, asserted, ‘Some aborigines are
accomplished liars... They don’t show the same reflexes as a white man when they are lying.’ Kriewaldt did not
share his colleague’s sentiment, preferring to explain how in the absence of competent interpreters there was no
way of testing the truth of the evidence given by an Aboriginal witness. But Kriewaldt betrayed his bias when he
doubted the capacity of Pidgin English or ‘any other aboriginal language’ to convey the formal language of Anglo
Australian law across the linguistic and cultural barriers between Aborigines and whites. Like his predilection for
wearing the full forensic regalia of wig and gown under the most trying conditions (unlike his predecessor Wells),
Kriewaldt seems to have relied on the trappings of the law and its archaic language to reinforce the appearance of
one culture in contact with another.
In the divorce jurisdiction, Kriewaldt adjudicated in the matter of Eacott v. Eacott in 1957 on the question of
the liability of a father after divorce to support his 18-year-old daughter at university. He reasoned that a father
with a small income might not have been disposed to support his student child and would have expected the child
to maintain herself if there had been no divorce. Accordingly, the divorced father had no obligation to pay his
daughter’s maintenance as a student. This decision reflects the social conditioning Kriewaldt underwent in the
United States. He had worked to get himself through his own course and doubtless thought the university student
in the Eacott case should do the same. Sometimes a shaft of dry wit would penetrate Kriewaldt’s grave demeanour
when in the divorce proceedings of Barden v. Barden he referred to the notion of ‘fair wear and tear’ in marriage.
In Alice Springs in 1957, Kriewaldt heard the case of the Crown v. Kunoth that involved part Aborigines and
the rape of a young girl near Utopia Station. Because the prosecution had great difficulty in getting the principal
witness to give evidence, Kriewaldt took the unusual step of helping the young girl overcome her shyness and
reluctance, persuading her to speak of the circumstances of her alleged rape.
Again in Alice Springs in late 1958, Kriewaldt’s most celebrated case was heard when he dealt with the artist
Albert Namatjira’s appeal against his conviction for the supply of alcohol to Aborigines whose status as ‘wards’
made it an offence to do this. One of Australia’s best legal advocates, Maurice Ashkranasy, QC of Melbourne,
argued against Namatjira’s conviction. He put all possible questions of constitutional and administrative law to
prove the invalidity of the Welfare Ordinance which declared some 15 000 Aboriginal ‘wards’ prohibited from
access to alcohol as well as the facts of Namatjira’s artless yet covert attempt to supply alcohol to ‘wards’. Kriewaldt
meticulously rebutted Ashkanasy’s arguments and his decision to refuse Namatjira’s appeal was upheld by the
High Court. Although compelled in law to act as he did, Kriewaldt expressed his sympathy with Namatjira’s plight,
seeing him as a man torn between two worlds. Kriewaldt considered a fine inappropriate since the alcohol supplied
by Namatjira had contributed to drunken brawls leading to the murder of an Aboriginal woman. But Kriewaldt
reduced Namatjira’s original sentence of six months to three months in the knowledge that it was unlikely that
Namatjira would have to serve his term in jail. At this trial Kriewaldt expressed his attitude to Aborigines, saying
that, ‘All my life the duty of Christians towards heathens and the duty of the more fortunate towards the less
fortunate has been imposed upon me... legislation for the protection and advancement of aborigines is essential if
they are to escape extinction.’
Kriewaldt’s clear distinction between what he regarded as the heathen Aborigines and Christian whites flowed
into his decision in the Crown versus Wadderecarri (Waderwarri) when he ruled inadmissible as evidence the dying
declaration by an Aborigine since he could hold no belief in life after death as in Christian dogma.
Although Kriewaldt’s cases involving Aborigines provide dramatic interest and are important in understanding
how white society established its authority in the Northern Territory. He contributed in over 300 cases to the
body of settled law involving bankruptcy, maritime disputes, mining disputes, contracts, motoring offences, road
construction, jury lists, company legislation, neglected children, stock routes and even the disposal of night soil
in Darwin.
During his term of office in Darwin Kriewaldt deplored the lack of access to a good law library as well as the
difficulty in getting literature on current anthropology. He was to some extent able to overcome these obstacles by
conducting a wide-ranging correspondence with legal and other authorities.
On 20 May 1960, Kriewaldt became ill with suspected hepatitis during Supreme Court sittings in Alice Springs.
But he recovered enough to dispose of remaining matters on 21 and 23 May. He was flown to Darwin, where he
was taken to hospital and conducted Supreme Court hearings from his bed to complete a divorce case and two
chambers matters on 27 and 28 May. Accompanied by his wife and two children, he was flown to Adelaide for
urgent surgery but he died in the Repatriation General Hospital at Springbank on Saturday night 11 June 1960.
He was buried in Adelaide’s Centennial Park Cemetery on 14 June 1960 after a funeral service at the Flinders
Street Lutheran Church. He was survived by his widow and five children: three, Robert, Michael and Rosemary
from his first marriage, and two, Martin and Helen from his second marriage.
Kriewaldt had a keen sense of social responsibility and had played a part in the setting up of the Poor People’s
Legal Assistance Scheme in Adelaide and had been active in church affairs. From his years in the United States,