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Moy died suddenly in Canberra on 5 July 1982, aged 69, survived by his wife and son. He had married
Nancy Gregory Ryan in 1941 and they had a son and daughter born in Darwin, where the daughter had died.
After the death of his wife in Canberra, he married again, his second wife being Mamie Merlin, who in July 1955
had been appointed the first woman Welfare Officer in the Welfare Branch. A half brother and a half sister also
survived Moy.
P Hasluck, Shades of Darkness, 1988; D McCarthy, South West Pacific Area First Year, 1959; P Read, Charles Perkins, 1990; T Wise,
The Self-Made Anthropologist, 1985; Canberra Times, 1 March 1974, 7 July 1982, 12 July 1982; Australian Archives, Canberra, A 518/852/1/512
Francis H Moy; Australian War Memorial 54 80/1/2 ANGAU Correspondence with Captain Costelloe & Captain Moy Bougainville 1943/44,
88 AMF 0/A35, AWM Official War History Index Cards 1939/1945.
JEREMY LONG and JULIE T WELLS, Vol 2.
MUIR, WILLIAM DANIEL (BILL) (c1918–1974), soldier and jack-of-all-trades, was born at Willeroo Station
in about 1918, the son of Robert Andrew Muir and Nellie Namarwood. Robert’s brother was Ernest Clare Muir,
alias Jim Campbell, who was a colourful Territory figure, a well known poddy dodger in the Borroloola area where
nearby Campbell Springs is named after him. He was eventually speared by Aborigines at Guion Point and is
buried at King River.
When Bill was at the age of six or seven Nellie Namarwood became ill and rather than have her son taken
from her, as was often the case at the time, she gave him to Sarah and Jim Scully who were working at Willeroo.
The Scullys already had eight children of their own but they took Bill and raised him with the rest of their
family.
The family lived there until Jim finished fencing and when Bill was about 10, Jim went to work for Vesteys
fencing. The police got word that the Scully children were not going to school so they spoke to Mr and Mrs Scully
and they were brought back to Darwin so the children could get some education. Bill lived with the Scullys until
he was an adult.
Bill got a job as a deck hand on a pearling lugger and during this time met Hilda Rogers, who had been born at
Borroloola, but taken from her mother at the age of eight and raised in the old Kahlin Compound in Darwin. At 14,
she was chosen to join two other girls for training at the old Darwin Hospital where she ‘lived in’ and was paid
13 Shillings a week, which went into a trust fund. Although there were restrictions about ‘compound girls’ mixing
with anyone outside their ‘restricted’ area, Bill and Hilda managed to meet and see each other. One morning
Bill was caught in the girls’ dormitory and sent to jail. Before his release, the authorities sent Hilda to Katherine to
work to separate her from Bill. Hilda was heartbroken and after a few months returned to Darwin where she gave
birth to Bill’s child. Despite the initial disapproval of Bill’s foster parents, who did not want their son to marry a
‘compound girl’, the young couple were married in 1940. Eventually Hilda became a favourite daughter in law of
Mrs Scully, who loved to have Hilda and her family visit her in her Brisbane home.
Bill and Hilda lived with the Scullys for a while after their marriage until they managed to get a house for
themselves in Schultze Street while Bill was working for what was then called Native Affairs. After Pearl Harbour
was bombed in December 1941, Australian authorities began evacuating most women and children from Darwin.
Vin White, the warden for whom Bill worked, decided Hilda and the children should be evacuated too. Bill’s foster
mother had already gone to Brisbane with a foster brother who needed specialist eye treatment, so in January 1942
Hilda and the family flew out of Darwin in an aircraft to join them.
Bill, who along with many of the other boys of Aboriginal descent had joined the Darwin Mobile Force when
they arrived in 1938 and 1939, stayed behind. When the Japanese launched their first devastating raid on Darwin
on 19 February 1942, Bill was called into the Army as a soldier. In March 1942, he asked to be transferred to
Brisbane because Hilda and their then three children, Cecilia, Harold and Billy, were there. The Army let him
transfer to Brisbane where he joined the Second Ninth Battalion, which was leaving almost immediately for Milne
Bay in New Guinea, making Bill’s stay in Brisbane with his family very short.
Bill spent the next 20 months in New Guinea seeing action in the Milne Bay campaign, and serving on the
Kokoda Trail, the Owen Stanley area and the Buna Trail. During any recreation time, he was an active sportsman
in the Army. He was recommended for a bravery award following his saving of a man under heavy fire on the front
line. Bill was a platoon commander and was offered the rank of Sergeant but declined it, as he did not want to be
seen to be ‘above’ his colleagues. Eventually he was sent back to Australia to train young recruits at Kapooka in
New South Wales and ended the war as a Corporal.
During the war, Bill was able to get to Brisbane twice, once from New Guinea on leave and once when he
returned to train the recruits. By war’s end, Hilda had two more children and when Bill got his discharge in about
August 1946, he decided to return to Darwin ahead of his family to make sure they had living accommodation.
He got back his job with Native Affairs and for a while he and Vin White were sent to Alice Springs to meet
all the children who had been sent south during the war, and escorted them back to Darwin. Later Bill was sent
to Delissaville (Belyuen), where the family was allowed to join him. However, Hilda did not like the isolation,
having lived in Brisbane for several years, and so the family moved across the harbour to Darwin. Bill was sent
to Berrimah first, where accommodation was available but not very pleasant and, again, very isolated for a young
mother with a growing family. Bill was sent away a great deal, particularly to Gove, where the Native Affairs
Branch was taking over as much war surplus as it could find. Eventually Bill left the Branch and got a job as an
electrical linesman with the Works Branch and the family moved into a Sidney Williams hut in Stuart Park.
Bill was also active after the war in trying to get a better deal for Aboriginal people, joining others like
Jack McGinness in fighting for their rights. They formed a Half Caste Association and sent delegates to Canberra
to voice their opinions and improve their lot in life.