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In earlier years, he had been Patron of the Northern Territory Rugby League Association and on the Committee
of the Police Boys’ Club and the Darwin Club. Richardson Ward, a Council electorate within the City of Darwin,
bears his name.
A Heatley, A City Grows, 1986; F Walker, A Short History of the Legislative Council of the Northern Territory, 1986; Northern Territory News,
23 May 1957, 25 June 1957, 2 July 1957, 8 May 1958, 13 May 1958, 20 May 1958, 25 June 1958, 10 February 1964, 24 September 1969, 6
November 1971.
HELEN J WILSON, Vol 2.RICKETTS, WILLIAM (1899– ), musician, philosopher and sculptor, was born in Richmond, Victoria, in 1899.
He had no formal training as a sculptor. His early life was involved with music, rather than art. He took violin
lessons in Melbourne and for 11 years earned his living by playing the violin in city and suburban picture theatre
orchestras. This life ended with the introduction of ‘talking movies’.
In 1935, Ricketts and his mother moved to the Dandenong Ranges outside Melbourne, where they purchased
a small area of forest near Olinda. There Ricketts built a bush hut of timber and a primitive oven to bake his
sculptures. Working with local clay, he produced Aboriginal figures, native animals, birds and reptiles.
In 1950, Ricketts spent several months living with the Pitjantjatjara people of Central Australia. This was his
first direct contact with Aborigines. During the years following, he visited many outlying Aboriginal groups in
the Northern Territory and South Australia, returning on four occasions to Central Australia. His works from this
period can be seen at Pitchi Richi in Alice Springs, although vandals destroyed many of the works over the years.
Vandals also struck at Olinda. Ricketts’s mother died in 1956 and, as Ricketts lived alone after her death,
there was no one to look after the sanctuary in his absence. On returning to Olinda from Central Australia in
1960, Ricketts found that most of his sculptures had been either destroyed or stolen. This destruction focused
public attention on his work. In 1961, in response to public demands that his sculptures should be preserved and
protected, the Government of Victoria accepted Ricketts’s gift of his land and his works and in 1964 Olinda was
opened to the public. Ricketts continued living there in a modern house the government built for him.
The basis of his work was the belief that all life was one. Rather than standing alone, his sculptures blend into
the natural environment, creating a spiritual unity between nature and man. He constantly denied that he was an
artist, writing in 1977 that, ‘The sculptural works within this forest scene are secondary manifestations derived
from the Primary Purpose of this beautiful forest scene. Therefore the idea of artist or sculptor does NOT exist
here.’ This mystical aspect of Ricketts’s work made conventional art critics uncomfortable. John Hetherington
wrote in 1965 that he belonged ‘in no known pigeonhole; he cannot be presented in terms which fit ordinary men,
nor can his work be discussed in the slithery jargon of the art dabblers.’ Ricketts has been described as a ‘crusader
in clay’, but in Hetherington’s view, he was less a crusader than an evangelist, seeking to persuade people to see
the truths in life.
In late 1991, Ricketts was still living and working at Olinda. In 1990, the Pitchi Richi Sanctuary in Alice Springs
was taken over by an Aboriginal group that is preserving Ricketts’ sculptures there and documenting the Aboriginal
legends on which his works are based.
K Scarlett, Australian Sculptors, 1980; Olinda Sanctuary, Department of Conservation and Environment, Victoria; Pitchi Richi Sanctuary,
Alice Springs, Northern Territory.
EVE GIBSON, Vol 2.RIOLA: see RRAIWALARIWALA: see RRAIWALAROBERTS, BARNABAS: see GABARLAROBERTS, DONALD ARTHUR (1889–1958), lawyer, and Judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory
was born at Hindmarsh, South Australia on 26 May 1889. His father, Thomas Goolden Roberts who was a school
headmaster, was married to Annie Beatrice, nee Chesterman. Roberts was educated at Campbelltown, Aldgate
and Minlaton State Schools, Muirden Business College, and Prince Alfred’s College, South Australia, before
completing the final certificate in Law at Adelaide University on 1 April 1912. He had served five years as an
articled clerk to James Leslie Gordon before being admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme
Court of South Australia in July 1912.
On 7 October 1912, he entered into a contract with John James Symes, a Darwin solicitor, to work as his
employed solicitor, his position to be taken up in Darwin as soon as possible. Roberts was required to pay his
own fare to Darwin. He was admitted to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory on 15 November 1912.
Roberts’ career flourished and after Symes’ death in 1915, he took over his practice. He appeared as counsel in
many criminal trials, either as prosecutor or for the defendant, as well as in many civil trials between 1913–1921.
During this period, there was no Crown Prosecutor’s office in Darwin and all prosecution work was briefed out,
mostly to Roberts, but occasionally to his only competitor, Ross Mallam. He served on the Darwin Town Council
between 1915 and 1918 as the Administrator’s nominee before losing his seat in the union takeover lead by
Harold George Nelson in the 1918 elections. Roberts attempted to resist Nelson’s rise to power, but Nelson
saw to it that Roberts lost his seat. Nelson, who was elected to the council in 1917, immediately questioned the
legitimacy of Roberts’ seat, as he had accepted fees in a Court action against the Council. Roberts counter attacked