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Charlie Hilton, and was sure she would go to high school one day. She taught herself to crochet, sew all kinds of
fancy work and work the treadle sewing machine.
In 1927, she took ill with an acute appendix and a very young and inexperienced Dr Clyde Fenton was her doctor.
During the emergency operation, the electric lights failed and he was forced to continue by torchlight. The surgery
was not a success. Betty had a bad time for weeks and eventually went to Perth for another operation.
In 1934, the family moved to Tennant Creek and later that year after some weeks’ schooling in Alice Springs
she and Shirley went with their mother to Melbourne where they were enrolled at Tintern Church of England
Girls School in Melbourne. Betty spent two years at boarding school and gained a good pass in the Intermediate
Certificate (approximately year 10). She then spent some time at home before returning to Melbourne to train at the
Royal Melbourne Hospital. On completion of her nursing training in 1941, she returned to Tennant Creek where
she met and married Arch Richards the same year. There were four children of the marriage, Ann (born 1942),
Bob (born 1948), twins John and Joy (born 1952).
After a few months in Queensland in 1943 waiting with her husband until he was sent overseas Betty returned
to Tennant Creek. She convinced the Army authorities that she should be allowed to have her bicycle transported
to Tennant Creek to allow her to travel from her place of work to her home. She cited Tennant as her place of work
and Hatches Creek, where her father was working, as her home, a distance of several hundred miles.
At war’s end, the family remained in Tennant Creek where Arch, on his return, began to re-establish the mining
warden’s office. In 1948, the family moved to Darwin; 1953 saw them in Alice Springs and they returned to
Darwin in 1956. For some years, Betty worked in Coleman’s store, then for Barden’s Pharmacy until she joined the
Lands Branch. After the family home was destroyed by Cyclone Tracy in December 1974 she and Arch returned to
Tennant Creek where they lived with her brother Jerry Maloney until Arch’s retirement after which they moved
to the Atherton Tableland in Queensland. She returned to Darwin in 1990 after Arch’s death, and now lives close
to her children and grandchildren.
Family information.
ANN RICHARDS, Vol 3.
RICHARDSON, LUCIUS LAWRENCE D’ARCY (BILL) (1903–1971), soldier, builder and politician, was
born in Rockhampton, Queensland, in 1903. He served in the Army for three and a half years during the Second
World and arrived in the Northern Territory in 1953. He was a master builder and soon established a very successful
business. Until 1956, he was engaged on construction work at Batchelor and Rum Jungle. He then settled in
Darwin and began building under government contracts.
Having previously been an alderman for some years with the Redcliffe Council near Brisbane, he offered
himself in the Mayoral elections for the newly reconstituted Darwin Town Council in June 1957. He was one of
four candidates and received 62.4 per cent of the valid votes cast. He was clearly a very shrewd man; where other
candidates had made many promises, he told voters that he had none to make, that if elected he would ‘carry out
the duties of Mayor with the dignity the office demands and at the end of 12 months, give you an account of my
stewardship.’ He then went on to carefully suggest that there were certain matters that did need attention, among
them a new Daly Street bridge. He also suggested that a low Mayoral allowance would keep the position safe for
those who could afford to subsidise the allowance.
Richardson completed his term of office and retired. The Administrator, J C Archer, paid tribute to his ‘very
important personal contribution’ and noted in particular the ‘dignity and ability’ with which he had undertaken
his Mayoral duties. Although Richardson was considered ‘self-opinionated and dictatorial’, Alistair Heatley’s
assessment is that this was not a failing in a brand new Council where leadership was needed. Under Richardson’s
guidance, an award for Council employees had been negotiated but the complaints of other employers led the
Council to resign from the Northern Territory Employers’ Association. Dress reform was also on his agenda.
At the Mayoral Ball in 1958, he and the incoming Mayor, John Lyons, decreed that black bow ties and long
sleeved white shirts were appropriate dress for men, with a ‘tuxedo’ jacket only if owned.
He stood again for Mayor, unsuccessfully, in 1959 and 1963 though he was elected as an alderman in the
latter year as the leading Australian Labor Party (ALP) candidate. In February 1964, only seven months into the
Council year, he resigned when he purchased the Mataranka Tourist Resort that he and his wife intended to further
develop.
In the meantime, Richardson had been elected to the Legislative Council for the new seat of Larrakeyah on
20 February 1960 but he resigned in December of that year. Richardson had, wrote Walker, ‘experienced some
difficulty in adapting from local government to state-type legislating.’ He stood for the Elsey seat at the 1968
Legislative Council elections as an ALP candidate but was unsuccessful.
In May 1969, back in Darwin, he was defeated in the Mayoral elections by Harry Chan, who died in September.
At the subsequent by-election Richardson was the successful candidate when he topped the poll. He told voters
that he looked to the position of Mayor as being similar to a chairman of directors of a business and therefore
proper business methods and accountability were needed. Although he saw himself as the ‘People’s Mayor’ and
was the first ‘full-time’ Mayor, his health was failing.
He resigned on 1 November 1971 on his return from Brisbane where he had been treated for lung cancer.
He died five days later on 5 November at the age of 68. On his death, a previous Mayor, Harold Cooper, described
him as a ‘fine mayor, a man fitted for the job’. He was survived by his three children and his wife, Gladys Margaret,
nee Warnick, whom he had married in Grafton, New South Wales, in 1933. He was buried at McMillans Road
cemetery in Darwin according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church.