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property until his mother died and Harold Snell Senior remarried. Harold Junior than went to an aunt in Hamilton,
Victoria, and trained as a carpenter.
When the Commonwealth took over the Northern Territory in 1911, it was considered the number of public
servants was insufficient for its new status; and for the Commonwealth public servants, new houses were built at
Myilly Point in Darwin. In 1912, O H E G Snell went to Darwin and was employed in building these houses.
In 1913 Scharber and Richardson discovered good tin at Maranboy, east of Katherine. On the completion of
his work on the Myilly Point houses, Snell went to Maranboy to take up mining leases there. He was a partner in
Pearce and Party who held the well-known Star of the East mine, one of the better-known tin producing mines in
the Territory. This began his lifelong interest in Territory mining. After his war service, he returned to tin mining
in Maranboy. Later he was a non-participating partner in a Grove Hill mine. Over the years, he held shares in
Pine Creek Enterprise Gold, Golden Dyke Gold Mine, Eleanor Vendor, Fletcher Gully Gold Mine and Eleanor
Gold Mine. These shares were financially unrewarding. For all that, by later buying up some mining machinery
and buildings, he was able to undertake excavation work in the Territory including the preparation of the oil tanks
in the 1920s and 1930s, preparation of the site for the Armidale Street power house and that, in 1992, was a training
centre for mechanical trades. As well, the excavation work for the gun emplacements at East Point in Darwin was
undertaken. He also at times grub staked prospectors. After his death, his two partners, J Cousin and S Mazlin,
were early discoverers of uranium.
Snell enlisted as a Sapper in the Fourth Field Company Engineers, Australian Imperial Force, in 1915,
embarking for overseas in March 1916. He served in Egypt and France. While in England in 1919 he married
Ivy Mary Allen. As it was not possible to bring all the servicemen back to Australia at once, soldiers were allowed
to gain career experience in Britain. Snell chose to work for a shipbuilding and iron company in Jarrow-on-Tyne.
This was probably the origin of his interest in steel construction in his buildings in Darwin.
When he returned to the Northern Territory, he continued to work on his Maranboy leases. ‘By 1918 Maranboy
[was] the premier tin producer in the Northern Territory’. His partner, Pearce, had also recently married an
English woman. After two premature sons died and his wife was taken very ill, Snell relinquished his share of the
partnership to Pearce in 1922, returned to Darwin, and bought the plant, ‘building gear’ and good will of James
Markey, builder. The house and buildings in Mitchell Street were bought in 1926.
His first known building contract of this period was the ‘Soldiers Club Rooms and Memorial Hall’, which
was built in Smith Street on the present site of Paspalis Centrepoint. This was opened in October 1922. His early
buildings included the stone cottage on the Esplanade, which was erected for the British Australian Telegraph
(BAT) Company. This building still stands and has received official recognition for its heritage significance.
He also constructed extensions to the BAT buildings in Mitchell Street.
Between 1926 and 1929, the extension of the North Australian Railway from Emungalan to Birdum was under
construction. ‘It was undertaken directly by the Commonwealth using day labour and piece work.’ The firm of
Snell and Company was successful in tendering for contracts along the line including work on the Katherine River
Bridge.
When his wife gave birth to a delicate baby girl and she was again ill, Snell travelled overland to Brisbane by
car in 1929 to be with her. While in Queensland he built a bridge across the Dawson River. He returned to Darwin
at the beginning of the 1930s.
Perhaps Snell is best remembered for his gradual development of Smith Street as the main business centre of
Darwin. The two banks, the ES & A and the Commercial, the Victoria Hotel, the two churches, Christ Church and
Saint Mary’s, and A E Jolly’s general store were already there. The official section of the town was established
along the Esplanade and in Mitchell Street. The shopping centre was in Cavenagh Street. Snell bought his first two
properties in Smith Street in 1928. He was to build at least 17 buildings in Smith Street including nine in what is
the present day Mall.
It was during the Depression years that he began his program of buying the half acre blocks, building two
business premises on them, selling or leasing these and continuing the same process. One such example of this
was his purchase of a Smith Street block before he left for the south and on which, after he returned, he built the
Star Theatre and another commercial building on the same block. The original picture show was the galvanised
iron enclosed, open air Don, on the present site of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation building in Cavenagh
Street. Snell then purchased this and a hotel was built on the site.
The firm Snell and Company was a partnership of Harold and Ivy Snell. Agencies had always been a sideline of
the partnership, but, by the late 1930s, after the sale of the Holmes Estate, this side of the business was expanded.
It became Territory Agencies. A third partner, James Cousin, was taken into the business. This business was later
sold to Millars and Sandover of Western Australia.
A small number of troops of the defence build up in the north had arrived in 1932. It was not until the second
half of the 1930s, however, that there was any perceptible effect on the town. From 1936 to 1939 Darwin ‘more
than doubled its population’. With the increasing number of defence contracts obtained, tradesmen were brought
up from the south so small cottages were built by Snells Contracting for its married men. Snell believed both his
business and the Territory benefited from settled families.
The erection of the houses, stores, barracks, wireless transmission buildings, earth works, as well as alterations
and extensions to existing buildings were part of the defence build up of the late 30s and early 40s. The Sergeants’
Mess built at Larrakeyah Barracks still stood in the 1990s. Civilian accommodation and the renewal or expansion of
service buildings were also needed to cater for the expanding community. The new style tropical buildings featured
fibro cement louvres that opened the houses to catch breezes, but closed firmly against tropical downpours. Snells