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the flashing beacon at Darwin airport before clouds hid it again. They landed at 11.15 p.m. having flown nine and
a half hours with 10 hours supply of fuel.
As the work increased a second pilot was employed but the Public Service Board in Canberra would not
approve the appointment of a second nurse. Apart from annual holidays Sister Nichol was on duty, or on call,
24 hours per day seven days a week. When not flying there were records to be maintained; individual medical
records were established for every Aborigine and others in the outback, many people being not literate. Patients
brought in by air were taken home again by air, there being no other transport. Sister Nichol kept in close contact
with the hospital so no medical aircraft travelled empty.
In February 1950, during a measles epidemic at Umbakumba, Sister Nichol was flown there in a Catalina flying
boat and she brought five sick babies back to Darwin. Umbakumba did not have an airstrip. Over the years, there
were many hazardous flights and landings on wet, or otherwise unserviceable airstrips; the pilot decided on the
weather and the condition of the airstrip while Sister Nichol assessed the urgency of the patient’s condition; they
worked as a team.
After over 11 years of flying Meryl Nichol felt she could take no more. She retired from nursing and bought
a dress shop in Parap; life was much quieter. On 7 March 1962, she and Jack Slade were married, followed by a
reception at the Don Hotel. She continued the dress shop for some years and as a hobby took up growing orchids,
being active in the Orchid Society.
After her husband’s sudden death on 4 December 1990 Meryl Slade stayed on in Darwin for a while but
she was immensely lonely; she retired to Wodonga in Victoria to be near her kinfolk. Towards the end of 1995,
however, it was her intention to return to Darwin when her farm was sold.
E Kettle, Health Services in the Northern Territory, 1991; personal communication.
ELLEN KETTLE, Vol 3.SLIT SCHIN FONG: see FONG, THOMASSMITH/GADEN FAMILY: SMITH, ALFRED EDWARDSMITH, ALFRED EDWARD (1857–1921) was born in Lochinvar, New South
Wales, in 1857. He came from a large family, and by the age of fifteen had ‘flown the nest’. By the 1880s, Smith
had made his first mark on the Territory as a teamster, working between Burketown and Roper River, servicing
such places as Borroloola and Normanton.
In Normanton in the 1890s, he met and married Mary Anne Danvers. The couple had two children, Ada and
Frederick. Twins boys were also born, but they died as infants. By this time, Smith had earned the reputation in both
Queensland and the Territory as a ‘first-class bushman’. While based in Normanton with his family, he continued
to make trips to the Territory. He also became interested in buffalo hunting, and was among the first group of
people in the Territory to commence buffalo shooting as a commercial interest. The main focus of this industry
was in the Kapalga area, and Smith held several grazing licences on the Mannassie Aboriginal Reserve, and the
Cobourg Peninsula. Buffalo hunting was not, however, Smith’s only commercial interest. He trapped Timor ponies
that ran on his Cobourg Peninsula lease and transported them by lugger to Darwin where they were sold.
After the death of Mary Anne, in Kuridal, Queensland, in 1920, Smith based himself in the Northern Territory,
maintaining his grazing interests. After becoming ill in early 1921, he left Darwin, and went to Sydney for treatment
He returned in May, though still quite sick, and died in Darwin Hospital that year.
Smith’s daughter Ada, who had married Hazel Gaden the year before, inherited her father’s grazing licences
with her brother Frederick. A year after his death, the Gadens and Frederick Smith left Orient Station in Queensland,
which had been managed by Gaden, and went to Darwin. Gaden and Frederick Smith maintained the leases and
continued in the trade of Alfred Smith as buffalo shooters. Six of the seven Gaden children were born in Darwin.
In the 1930s, the family settled in Darwin, after having extended Smith’s original leases, by taking up bases in
the Alligator River region and as far south as Pine Creek.
The family were evacuated from Darwin in 1942, and returned to the Territory two years later. After spending
a further two years in Pine Creek, the family returned to Darwin.
The Smith/Gaden family were involved in the shaping of the Territory’s history for nearly 100 years. Members
of the family were still living in Darwin in the 1990s, indicating they established themselves as true Territorians.
Family information.
EILEEN M COSSONS, Vol 1.SMITH, DAVID DOUGLAS (1897–1984), Commonwealth Resident Engineer in Central Australia 1928–
57, was born in Perth, Western Australia, on 19 November 1897. His father, George Wishart Smith, was a
strong-willed Presbyterian from Ecclefechen in Scotland who immigrated to New South Wales in 1888 and
worked as a ganger for the Department of Railways. He married Jean Lindsay of Wollongong, New South Wales,
in 1894, and immediately moved to Western Australia where he had been offered a supervising job at the Railway
Workshops at Midland Junction. There were seven children—George Clifton, David Douglas, Alexander, Hector
Archibald, Madeline Jean, Katherine Sarah Lindsay and Ian Wishart. David, the second son, attended the Midland
Junction Public School for his primary education. The family transferred to Argly Street, Hobart, in 1911, where
the father had won the appointment as Tasmanian Commissioner of Railways. David was then enrolled as a
boarder in Scotch College, Melbourne, for the next three years, but his final matriculation years were spent at
Scotch College, Hobart, and the Friends School, Hobart, before proceeding to the Engineering Faculty of the