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Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his services to the building industry. He died in Darwin on
17 October 1972.
Northern Territory News, 18 October 1972, 20 October 1972; Sydney Morning Herald, 18 October 1972; Australian, 18 October 1972.
ROBYN MAYNARD, Vol 1.
PATERSON, MARTHA SARAH ELIZABETH: see SHAW, MARTHA SARAH ELIZABETH
PATTERSON, REX ALLAN (1927– ), Air Force serviceman, public servant and politician, was born in
Bundaberg, Queensland, on 8 January 1927, the son of R Patterson. He was educated at Bundaberg High School,
the University of Queensland, from which he graduated Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Science, and the
University of Illinois in the United States, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Agricultural
Economics. He also attended the Australian National University and the University of Chicago and served in the
Royal Australian Air Force during 1945. He married Eileen Nelson in 1950 and had a daughter.
From 1949, Patterson served on the staff of the Commonwealth Bureau of Agricultural Economics, working
in north Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. He became well known for his expertise
concerning and strong support of north Australia’s economic development and in 1964 and 1965 was Director of
Northern Development in the Department of National Development. He resigned from the Commonwealth Public
Service in protest at what he claimed was the Menzies government’s lack of commitment to effective policies for
the advancement of Australia’s north.
Immediately following his resignation, he was selected as the Australian Labor Party candidate for the federal
electorate of Dawson, based on Mackay in north Queensland, which he won on 26 February 1966 following a
by—election campaign in which ‘northern development’ was the principal issue. The electorate had previously
been held by the Country Party and Patterson achieved a large swing to Labor. He was almost immediately elected
to the Labor Party’s Parliamentary Executive, on which he served until 1972. As part of his parliamentary activities,
he strongly criticised the federal government’s treatment of Northern Territory demands for constitutional reforms,
arguing that Labor would bring in ‘a step by step progressive and accelerated policy.’
He held several ministerial positions in the Whitlam Labor government: Minister for Northern Development,
5 December 1972 to 6 June 1975; Minister for the Northern Territory, 19 October 1973 to 6 June 1975; Minister
for Northern Australia, 6 June 1975 to 21 October 1975; Minister for Agriculture, 21 October 1975 to 11 November
- He lost his parliamentary seat in the election of 13 December 1975 and subsequently retired from public
life.
While initially popular with Northern Territory residents, Patterson came under mounting criticism from 1973
onwards. His efforts to assume some responsibility for mineral development in the Territory in opposition to
the Minister for Minerals and Energy, Rex Connor, were ineffective. He did attempt to advance the Territory’s
constitutional status, on 22 May 1974 announcing that it would have a fully elected 19 seat Legislative Assembly.
The decision, though, was widely regarded as precipitate because there was no clear definition of the Assembly’s
powers and role. ‘A peppery, forthright individual’, the historian Alistair Heatley later wrote, ‘he also strained
personal relationships with Territory politicians on several occasions.’ Further concern, Heatley continued, ‘was
expressed at Patterson’s infrequent visits to the Territory during 1973–74 and the almost clandestine manner in
which he organised and conducted them.’ He also came under concentrated attack for his handling of the ‘post
Tracy’ situation. He was, nevertheless, far more effective and influential in representing Territory interests in
the federal cabinet than his predecessor as Minister for the Northern Territory, Kep Enderby. His decision to
introduce the fully elected Assembly, in spite of its deficiencies, marked a significant stage in the development to
self-government in 1978.
P F Donovan, At the Other End of Australia, 1984; A Heatley, Almost Australians, 1990; C A Hughes, A Handbook of Australian Government
and Politics 1965–1974, 1977; J Rydon, A Biographical Register of the Commonwealth Parliament 1901–1972, 1975.
DAVID CARMENT, Vol 2.
PEARCE, JOAN EDITH: see TURNOUR, JOAN EDITH
PEARCE, OLIVE MAY: see EUCHARIA, SISTER
PEARCE, THOMAS HENRY (1862–1952), a man of many occupations, including overlander, teamster,
well-sinker, publican and storekeeper, pastoralist and horse-breeder, was born in December 1862 at Blackwood
in the district of Strathalbyn, South Australia. Pearce’s father, Francis Pearce was a gardener at this time and
probably worked at Blackwood Farm. In the early 1880s, he was manager of Mount Eba Station. His mother,
Margaret Warne had arrived in South Australia with her husband and their first child, William, from Redruth in
Cornwall, England, in May 1854. Pearce received no formal schooling but in his early twenties taught himself the
fundamentals of reading and writing.
Pearce arrived in the Northern Territory in the early 1890s during a time when interstate investors were taking
up great portions of land and pioneers such as Alfred Giles and Nat Buchanan were being installed as managers
of fledgling stations. He had already gained much experience in the pastoral industry, firstly as a station hand
at Mount Eba sheep station in South Australia, and later as a drover in Central Australia. Before deciding to
look at country further north, he had been with a South Australian government working party building a road to