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in Undoolya Road, east side. Nichols did so. He also continued with his duties as a Special Magistrate, despite the
fact that a piece of shrapnel which had lodged in his leg during his war service made it difficult for him to move
around in later years. His increasing weight also impaired his health—he was said to have weighed 139 kilograms
at one stage. He overcame this problem by frequently holding court hearings on the verandah of his home, saying
that, ‘If Mahommed can’t go to the mountain, then the mountain will have to come to Mahommed’.
Despite his heavy load of official duties, Nichols was always active in community affairs. In recognition of
his service as secretary of the Darwin Sub-Branch of the Returned Services League (RSL) he was made a life
member, and was later Patron of the Alice Springs Sub-Branch. He was also a member of the Federal Executive
of the League. He was actively involved with the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL) for many years and
was made a life member in 1934. The Nichols Medal for the Best and Fairest Player was awarded by the NTFL
each year. Nichols also served as Chairman of the Central Australian Racing Club, as Secretary of the Chamber
of Commerce in Alice Springs, was Vice-President of the Alice Springs branch of the Australian Red Cross,
a trustee of the John Ross Memorial and an active member of Legacy. In Freemasonry, he was the first member
of the League of Remembrance that was founded in Darwin, a Past Grand Deacon, and Past Grand Director
of Ceremonies. Nichols’ community involvement was such that a letter addressed simply to Mr J W Nichols,
‘Everything’, Alice Springs, in the 1950s reached him promptly. On 13 June 1964, Nichols was made a Member
of Order of the British Empire (MBE) in recognition of his services to the Northern Territory.
J W Nichols, MBE, known to many as simply ‘The Judge’, succumbed to deteriorating health in 1968 and,
after two weeks in the Alice Springs Hospital, died on 31 May. An RSL funeral was held in the Flynn Memorial
Uniting Church, and the pallbearers represented the many organisations, the RSL, Red Cross, Legacy, Masonic
and Buffalo Lodges Nichols had served during his lifetime. The Magistrates Court in Darwin, completed in the
1980s and named Nichols Place, is a monument in stone to the dedication shown by Nichols during his long years
of service to the legal administration of the Northern Territory.
Centralian Advocate, 6 June 1968; Northern Standard, 28 April 1950; Northern Territory Place Names Committee; Office of the Solicitor
General, Darwin; T S Nicholas, family information.
EVE GIBSON, Vol 3.
NICHOLS, NORMA CATHERINE: see PITCHENEDER, NORMA CATHERINE (BILLIE)
NICKER, SAMUEL FOREMAN (SAM) (1863–1930), butcher, drover, shearer, bush worker, miner, farmer,
hawker, ‘bum boat’ (grog cart) runner and pastoralist, and NICKER, ELIZABETH, nee ELIOT also DOOLAN
(1871–1951), cook, bush nurse and midwife, farmer and pastoralist. Sam Nicker was born at Eaglehawk, in
Bendigo, Victoria, in 1863, the son of Samuel Foreman Nicker and his wife Margaret Houston, nee Thompson,
who were married in 1860. He was the second of six children. The family name was originally the Swiss French
Necker, but in the nineteenth century was transformed to Nicker.
Young Sam received a good, basic education and was to remain an advocate of the value of education for the
rest of his life. Apprenticeship as a butcher resulted in him becoming ‘an artist with a knife’, as one friend put it.
As early as 1873, when only 10 years old, he had taken jobs to do with sheep. Eventually he became a drover
and shearer, and at times owner, of sheep in New South Wales and far west Queensland. The towns of Windora,
Camooweal and Boulia were to know him, and for a time in outback New South Wales the legendary H H ‘Breaker’
Morant was a good mate.
An early marriage resulted in two children, one of whom died when the entire family ‘did a perish’. During
a summer journey the two wagon horses died: Nicker struggled on and obtained help, but it was too late for the
youngest child and the trauma of it all destroyed the marriage. Nicker’s first wife took their surviving daughter
Marie and went out of his life.
Some time later, he met Elizabeth Doolan, nee Eliot. Her husband, it transpired, had been a bigamist, and when
‘the law’ caught up with him she was left to fend for herself and daughter Anne Jane (1893–1968). A younger
daughter, Leah Clara, was cared for by an aunt, who accepted an adoptive role.
She was working in the Neve River district, Queensland, as a shearer’s cook, and had learnt, by practice and
necessity, bush nursing and midwifery, when Nicker came to know her.
One of Australia’s worst droughts meant that Nicker, like many a bushman, was left with no sheep and few job
opportunities. He decided that Elizabeth, eight-year-old Jane and he must make a fresh start. In what was to be an
epic journey, they left Jundah in southwest Queensland in a buggy pulled by two ponies and followed the Strzelecki
Track into South Australia. For a brief time in 1901 and 1902, he worked at Port Pirie but then, hearing that the
Arltunga goldfield east of Alice Springs was booming, he decided that the family should try for its fortune.
At this stage, in 1903, Elizabeth was pregnant so it was decided that she should stay with friends at Quorn while
Nicker pushed on to the Centre. He was able to obtain work, shearing the Overland Telegraph Line stations’ sheep,
and other stations’ sheep, as he travelled north.
Nicker was in on the rush early enough to be, as he put it, ‘fairly successful at gold-mining at Arltunga.’
When news arrived that a son, Samuel Claude (1904–1949), had been born, Nicker returned to Quorn and, once
the son was a strong little baby, the family travelled north. The same little buggy, with the same two ponies pulling
it, was used as it had been on the Strzelecki Track. It was loaded with family goods, their ‘nap’ (bedding), some
‘chooks’ (live poultry), packets of seeds for a garden and Nicker’s shearing equipment. The Webb family travelled,
in its own buggy, with them and the two families reached Arltunga on 6 December 1904.