- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
by the construction parties, represent the telegraph department in negotiations with the Government Resident and
the British Australian Telegraph Company to determine the site of office buildings and to oversee the erection of
those buildings.
Arriving at Port Darwin on 26 September 1871, he encountered difficulties in getting agreement about a suitable
site and building work actually started on two different sites before each was abandoned in favour of a site near the
Government Residency. He also became involved in Patterson’s problems in getting the construction teams and
their supplies to the distant work sites. Little’s advice was largely ignored but he did manage to persuade Patterson
and the Government Resident (Bloomfield Douglas) to send a dispatch to Adelaide by the Dutch corvette Caracua
late in October, advising Charles Todd of the difficulties and seeking that reinforcements be sent to the Roper
River depot.
Late in November 1871, at Patterson’s insistence, Little undertook a journey to Normanton in Queensland to
contact Adelaide by telegraph and confirm the need for assistance. He left Port Darwin in the barque Bengal and in
the middle of the Gulf of Carpentaria was transferred to the small sailing vessel Larrakeyah in which he proceeded
to Normanton. He then found that the Queensland telegraph was incomplete and he had to travel another 250
kilometres on horseback to Gilbert River to reach the terminal of the line. On receiving assurances that help was
already being organised, he returned to Normanton and then proceeded in the Larrakeyah to the Roper River depot
to report to Patterson. During this passage across the Gulf, they were battered by a cyclone for three days with the
vessel sustaining considerable damage and being in danger of foundering.
While waiting for reinforcements, Patterson and Little made some explorations in the Roper River area and
claimed to be the first white men to sail up the Hodgson River. They named prominent features after their wives,
but these do not appear on present-day maps.
When the reinforcement construction parties got under way again in April 1872, Little returned to Port Darwin
and had the distinction of sending the first through signals from the office when the Overland Telegraph was finally
joined near Frews Ironstone Ponds on 22 August 1872. He also retransmitted the first through messages between
London and Sydney when the overseas cable was restored to service in October 1872. The supervision of the
telegraph line and stations north of Attack Creek was added to his duties and he assumed the title of Senior and
Inspecting Officer.
He was also appointed sub-collector of customs, a part-time position he held until Port Darwin was declared
a free port in October 1875. Little also contributed two articles to South Australia, its History, Resources and
Productions, 1876 edited by W Harcus.
One was a straightforward account of the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line and the other dealt with
the climate of the Northern Territory.
After the staff quarters were completed late in 1872, Little was joined by his wife Matilda Cecily, nee Johnston,
whom he had married at Penola, South Australia on, 22 November 1865, and their two young daughters, Edith
and Blanche. Their only son, Egbert Percy Graham, was born on 13 September 1874. In June 1875, Aborigines
in the Roper River area murdered Charles H Johnston, stationmaster at Daly Waters and a brother of Mrs Little.
John Little led a group of telegraph men that joined the police in the search of the culprits.
In February 1876, the Little family had their first southern leave. In September of that year, their third
daughter, Maud, was born at Port Darwin. Tragedy struck the family again when Mrs Little became ill and died at
Mount Gambier, South Australia, on 19 April 1877.
Left with four young children to rear, John Little then faced a dilemma. Any attempt to obtain a transfer from
his Northern Territory position could only result in demotion because his salary and allowances together with the
use of staff quarters at Port Darwin made his annual income second only to that of the superintendent (Sir Charles
Todd) and there was no comparable position available to him in South Australia. Little continued his career in the
Northern Territory and arranged for his children to be cared for and educated in the south.
In August 1880, customs duties were reintroduced at Port Darwin and John Little was again the part-time
sub-collector until Alfred Searcy took over on a full-time basis in June 1882. Other public offices held by
John Little over the years were Justice of the Peace, Chairman of the Palmerston Hospital Board of Management
and Deputy Sheriff.
Contemporary writers described him as a man of energy, grit and determination, possessing administrative
talent of a high order and a proper sense of the responsibility and dignity of his position. A strict disciplinarian,
he commanded the respect of his subordinates but also acquired something of a reputation as a martinet who, at times,
was unreasonable and obstinate. He suffered poor health for some years with bouts of fever but he still managed to
undertake regular inspections, on horseback, of the telegraph line to Attack Creek nearly 1000 kilometres inland.
In middle age, his weight had increased to 109 kilograms (17 stone) and so he needed a hefty horse to carry him.
According to a companion on one of these trips, it took two men to get him on his horse, one to give him a leg up,
with the other hanging on the offside stirrup to prevent the saddle from slipping.
With the retirement of Sir Charles Todd in 1905, Little became the most senior officer in his department of
the Government Service. He died, at the age of 63, on 21 May 1906. Thus, said the Northern Territory Times,
‘The public lost the services of a courteous and obliging official, the Government a good and faithful servant, and
the Territory a firm believer in its ultimate greatness.’ He was buried in the old Parap cemetery in Darwin.
J A G Little papers, SAA; R C Patterson diaries, SAA; Telecom Museum, Adelaide (archives section).
CLAUD LEONARD. Vol 1.
LITTLEJOHN, WILSON COLERIDGE (BILL) (1899–1987), policeman, was born on 23 August 1899 at
Karori, near the toe of the North Island of New Zealand, his father being the chief engineer for Waimea County