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Despite his multifarious activities Lindsay longed for the security of a government position and frequently
sought positions in the South Australian civil service and that of other colonies, and in 1911 he applied for the
position of Administrator in the Northern Territory. He was unsuccessful, and in 1911 was once more in Western
Australia in search of profitable gold mines and leases.
However, other government appointments were offered to Lindsay in the years from 1913 to 1919 that
entailed work in the Northern Territory. The first of these was made in March 1913, when he was appointed a
commissioner to inquire into the utility of a railway in the Territory. His abiding interest and concern for the
economic development of the Northern Territory, together with his first-hand knowledge of the region, seemed to
fit him for the position. However, his convictions about the manner in which the Territory should be developed
possibly made this an unwise choice. Lindsay and another of the commissioners, F Clarke, recommended that a
railway should be constructed to link Katherine to Oodnadatta in South Australia by means of a direct route through
Alice Springs—this was the very thing for which Lindsay had long lobbied. A Combes, the third commissioner,
so opposed the recommendations of his colleagues, that he submitted a completely separate report.
In February 1914, after the completion of the work of the commission, Lindsay took the opportunity to visit
England to attract investment to the Territory. The war intervened and frustrated his efforts. In 1916, and again
in 1919, Lindsay was engaged in survey work in the Territory, on behalf of the Federal government. By 1920,
however, he was again dependent upon his own devices. At the time of his death in Darwin on 17 December 1922,
he was in the Northern Territory representing a large syndicate that he had formed for the purpose of selecting land
for cotton growing.
Lindsay had married on 10 March 1881. His wife was Annie Theresa Lindsay, the daughter of Arthur Lindsay,
who was at the time the superintendent of the Destitute Asylum in Adelaide. Annie accompanied Lindsay to the
Northern Territory in 1881, but it is evident that she remained in Adelaide while Lindsay was engaged in his
explorations during the eighties. By this time, they had begun to have children. In his explorations of 1883,
Lindsay named two features, Glen Annie and Gwendoline Falls, after his wife and daughter. Ultimately Lindsay
had a family of one daughter and four sons.
In the latter years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, Lindsay became one of the
most ardent champions of the Northern Territory. He was a member of several associations that had as their object
the lobbying of members of Parliament for increased attention to the economic development of the Territory.
He gave numerous lectures extolling the virtues of the area as a field for economic enterprise, including a paper
before the International Geographical Congress in London in August 1895. He wrote innumerable articles and
pamphlets for the same purpose, which included An Expedition across Australia (1889), Territoria (1909), ‘Central
Australia As It Is—A vast region which awaits development’ in The Australasian Traveller (December 1909) and
‘The Northern Territory of Australia. A much-misunderstood country. Is it fit for white settlement?’ in Sea, Land
and Air (June 1922).
David Lindsay was a man who constantly struggled to achieve public recognition, financial success and
security, but failed to do so. A generation earlier, his indefatigable energy might have brought him fame, but in the
latter years of the nineteenth century, he could do little other than fill in the gaps in Australia’s exploration which
had been left by others and work to sustain himself during the period of recession at the end of the century.
David Lindsay Papers, Uncatalogued Manuscripts, no 200, Mitchell Library; David Lindsay Papers, Item 1240, SAA; P F Donovan ‘David
Lindsay (1856–1922) Explorer, Surveyor and Northern Territory Apologist’, in South Australiana, vol 18, no 2, September 1979; Advertiser,
19 December 1922; SAPP 239–1883/84, SAPP 45–1893; Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, vol 11, 1889; CPP 31–1914.
P F DONOVAN, Vol 1.
LINGIARI, VINCENT (1908–1988), bush worker and Aboriginal land rights leader, was born in 1908.
He belonged to the Gurindji people of the Victoria River District. A leader and Kadijeri man amongst his own
people, he worked, as did many Aborigines, on cattle stations owned by Europeans. Lingiari was renowned for
his personal qualities as well as his superb horsemanship and abilities as a stockman. Native Affairs patrol officer
Jack Doolan regarded him as ‘the most remarkable man I have ever met—black or white.’
These personal qualities led Lingiari to first question and then take action on the treatment of Aboriginal people
on stations. He worked at Wave Hill, owned by the British ‘beef baron’ Lord Vestey. It was clear to Lingiari that
there was a vast difference between the treatment of white and black workers at Wave Hill. The white workers had
beds to sleep on and steak to eat while the black workers lived in shanties, often too low to stand in, had no bedding
and were fed salt beef and bread. While the white workers were paid on a regular basis, the Aborigines often had
to wait for months for the paltry wages they had been promised and in many cases, wages were never paid at all.
The white stockmen returned to the station every week or so, unlike the Aboriginal stockmen who sometimes spent
months at a time with the stock. The practice was of particular concern to Lingiari as he felt it was a deliberate ploy
to enable the white workers to use the Aboriginal women in the absence of their menfolk. The Aboriginal people
on Wave Hill were ‘treated like dogs’, with no respect shown for their abilities or tribal standing. White station
bosses and hands called Lingiari, proud of his Aboriginal name, Tommy Vincent.
In 1966 Lingiari spoke with Dexter Daniels, Aboriginal organiser for the North Australian Workers’ Union
(NAWU), about the treatment of Aborigines on the Vestey stations, and of his feeling that a walk off of Aboriginal
workers might be the only option if conditions did not improve. Such action did not have the approval of the
NAWU as the union had already applied to the federal arbitration court for Aboriginal workers to receive the same
pay as white workers. In March 1966, the court approved the NAWU submission, but deferred its application until
1 December 1968. This decision angered Aboriginal workers, and led to a series of strikes on Territory stations. In
August 1966, Lingiari approached the Wave Hill Station Manager and asked that Aboriginal stockmen be paid a