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In 1873, Ned changed his employment from the Resident Party to the Survey Parties and was constantly
working away from Palmerston. When he was sacked in 1878 [even though he was reinstated shortly after by
Government Resident Scott] he decided to return to Adelaide. His brother Jeremiah had died in 1874 and there
seemed no reason for him to remain. He returned to Adelaide still working for the government.
In 1885, the Conservator of Water, J W Jones, acting under the authority of the South Australian Government’s
policy of development of the interior, raised a well-sinking party with Ryan as foreman. Referred to in official
reports as ‘Ryan’s Camel Party’, it was responsible for building wells on permanent water, beginning at Cecilia
Well just south of Oodnadatta, along the Overland Telegraph Line official stock routes, and goldfields to the north
of Alice Springs. Ryan’s Well Reserve, 120 kilometres north of Alice Springs, is named in recognition of the
efforts of Ned, his nephew Jeremiah Ryan and the rest of the party. The team was disbanded in Alice Springs in
1890.
After completing the overland well job, Ryan was sent out to the Musgrave Ranges to report on the country,
but took ill on the road back and died in the Coward Springs Hotel on 8 November 1893, of appendicitis. He was
buried in the Coward Springs cemetery. The township is now abandoned and no trace of his grave remains.
A Ashwin, From South Australia to Port Darwin with Sheep and Horses, 1870–71, 1936; F Clune, Overland Telegraph, 1955; M J Kerr,
The Surveyors: The Story of the Founding of Darwin, 1971; D Lockwood, The Front Door, 1968; Out Letter Book, Government Resident,
Palmerston, 1870–1910, SAA; Out Letter Book, Conservator of Water, 1883–1890, SAA.
J A RYAN, Vol 1.RYAN, ELLEN (c1851–1920), Northern Territory publican and pioneer, was born in London about 1851 and
in 1853 travelled to Western Australia with her parents John and Bridget Freeman. In 1856, the family sailed for
Adelaide where, in 1867, Ellen married a 33-old Irish immigrant labourer, William Ryan. Seduced by news of gold
discoveries, they ventured to the Northern Territory in June 1873 along with 120 other hopeful people on board
Birchgrove.
They headed for one of the most promising areas at the Shackle, near Yam Creek, and in September leased the
Miner’s Arms Hotel there. As it was the only hotel on the field for a year, it did a good business with the miners,
who numbered about 1500. A year later another woman, Amelia Traversi, who had previously run a temperance
bar in Palmerston, built the British and Foreign Hotel. Ellen later leased this hotel, beginning what would become
a lifetime of enterprising wheeling and dealing in the Territory hotel trade.
In 1876, Ellen went to Adelaide, returning a few months later with her sister Mary, and for a short while leased
Mr Kelsey’s Hotel in Mitchell Street, Darwin. Next, she went to Southport, taking a lease of the Royal Hotel.
She also held leases for the Palmerston Club Hotel in Darwin and the British and Foreign Hotel, which she later
purchased. Meanwhile the government had purchased her Miner’s Arms and renovated it into a much-needed
hospital to cater for the miners.
By 1877, Ellen’s marriage was ailing and she left William to pursue her own life. Finally, in 1881 she took
out a protection order against him for her earnings, accusing him of ‘threats, cruelty and drunkenness’. The court
granted her application and she authorised payment to him of 50 Pounds to ‘clear him away’. He left Darwin a
few days later.
By 1889, Ellen had built a new hotel at Union Reefs, on the Palmerston to Pine Creek rail line, a hotel the paper
of the day described as ‘the best and most commodious north of Townsville’. But following the marriage of her
sister, Mary, to Dudley Kelsey (who had been on a vessel which had brought Ellen to the Territory in 1873) the ever
enterprising Ellen moved to Palmerston where she began building the ‘great lady’ of Territory pubs.
In September 1890, after a court battle over architect’s fees, Ellen’s 4 000 Pounds hotel opened its doors for
business as Darwin’s first two-storey stone hotel, the North Australian—renamed the ‘Victoria’ in 1896. Many
questioned her wisdom in entering into such an expensive undertaking, but the distinctive hotel is still a feature of
Darwin’s central business district and is one of the few city buildings to have survived three cyclones, a war and
several financial depressions.
Over the years, Ellen secured for herself a reputation as one of the Territory’s best hostesses, organising a
variety of entertainments for her hotel patrons and local residents—including harbour excursions, picnics, shooting
parties and fancy dress balls.
In the early part of this century, she broadened her business ventures to include a dressmaking emporium in
Darwin’s Smith Street, promising ‘civility attention and reasonable charges’.
Ellen also maintained a keen interest in local cricket and horseracing. She owned many racehorses herself,
maintained horse stables, and for several succeeding years won the tender for the Northern Territory Racing Club
Tattersalls and course privileges.
Ellen’s active and enterprising Territory life drew to a close during the ill-fated Gilruth administration when,
in 1915, the government took control of the Top End hotels, including the Hotel Victoria. The acquisition, coupled
with ailing health, forced her to leave the Territory late that year and she spent her few remaining years in Adelaide,
most of it in her own home which she named ‘The Shackle’—a nostalgic reminder of her early years in the
Territory. Sadly, at least part of the last few years of her life had to be spent in a worrisome and frustrating dispute
with the government over compensation payments for the hotel to which she had devoted nearly 25 years of her
life.
When Ellen Ryan died in Adelaide in May 1920, she received tributes from her many Territory friends,
including her mother-in-law Dudley Kelsey, who wrote: ‘Mrs Ryan was one of the very early pioneers of the
North and was widely known for her kind and charitable nature and was the most popular and well known person
in the Territory.’