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commitment to detail that typified his research work. He died suddenly on 30 January 1991, survived by his wife
Pam and three children, Bill, Linda and Dianne.
Don Tulloch will be long remembered as ‘The Buffalo Man’.
W R Cockrill, ‘Of Buffaloes and Magpie Geese’, World Buffalo Congress, Varna, Bulgaria, May 1991; A Linkletter, Linkletter Down Under,
1971; M Ridpath & D Braithwaite, ‘Vale Don Tulloch (1924–1991)’; Who’s Who in Australasia and the Far East, 1991/92.
M A CLINCH, Vol 3.
TURNOUR, JOAN EDITH nee PEARCE (1931– ), secretary, clerk, primary producer and teacher, was born
on 26 March 1931 in Sliema, Malta to Royal Naval parents who returned to England at the commencement of the
Second World War in 1939. She was educated at East Street Farnham State Primary School and graduated from
Guildford Commercial College in 1946. In 1952 under the sponsorship scheme, she migrated to Melbourne. She
held secretarial positions in Melbourne and Brisbane and at Easter 1955 joined the staff of Heron Island, off the
Queensland coast, for that dry season.
At the end of 1955, she moved to the Northern Territory and became Head Typist for the Government
Administration. She also acted as relief Hansard writer; assisted Justice Allen who conducted a Royal Commission
investigating a prison breakout at Fannie Bay; and taught shorthand and typing to school leavers bonded to the
Administration. Later she became Secretary to the Director of Agriculture, W M Curteis. During this time, she
was a member of the Northern Territory Women’s Hockey Team.
In December 1956, she married John W Turnour, who was in charge of the government rice program at
Humpty Doo. In 1957, she worked as a clerk/typist at the Beatrice Hill Experimental Farm and lived there in a
demountable hut. The following year, during the establishment of the Upper Adelaide River Experiment Station
at Tortilla Flats, she lived in a tin shed with no facilities except kerosene lamps at night. Because conditions were
so oppressive in the tin shed during the day she then worked as secretary to the Mine Manager (Tom Barlow) at
Rum Jungle and acted as caretaker of houses for personnel on leave. When a house was built at the 60-mile farm
and a generator installed she and her husband moved in.
In 1959 under the supervision of her husband, and with the help of Aboriginal labour, Joan commenced
horticulture operations on leases bought at Coomalie Creek. She established five acres of bananas and annually
produced tomatoes, watermelons and rock melons. In 1963, she manually produced 10 000 cement house bricks to
build a house on the property after her husband resigned from the Administration to obtain a Primary Producers’
Loan.
Joan was a founding member of the Adelaide River–Noonamah Primary Producers’ Association which
successfully lobbied for bushfire legislation and for a school bus from Adelaide River to Batchelor for high school
students. She prepared submissions seeking electricity reticulation in the Adelaide River–Batchelor area.
In 1970, Joan and her husband sold the property at Coomalie Creek after years of conflict with the Territory Lands
Branch over leases. With their four children, Matthew, Jennifer (married Marohasy), James (Jim) and Caroline, all
born in Darwin Hospital, the family moved to Brisbane. Since then she has accompanied her husband on various
South East Asian postings, teaching not only her own children by correspondence but she also taught English as a
second language. She obtained an Associate Diploma of Arts (Asian Studies) by external study from the University
of Southern Queensland (formerly the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education) and between 1986 and
1990 worked as department secretary for the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Queensland.
Joan and her family returned to Australia permanently in 1995 and she was later secretary to the family company,
Rainmanac Pty Ltd, agricultural and livestock consultants. She was an Elder of the Toowong Uniting Church,
on the management committee of Toowong Childcare centre and was a member of the Queensland branch of the
Society of Women Writers.
Family records.
J W TURNOUR, Vol 3.
TURNOUR, JOHN WINTERTON (JACK) (1931– ), agricultural and livestock consultant, was born
on 17 December 1931 at Mooroopna, Victoria, son of Keppel Arthur Turnour and Gay Heron, nee Florance.
He completed the Leaving Certificate at high school and commenced work as trainee surveyor with the object of
being articled, but switched to agriculture enrolling at Dookie Agricultural College. In 1953, he graduated Dux
and Gold Medallist. He joined the Land Research and Regional Survey Section of the Commonwealth Scientific
Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) at the Kimberley Research Station working on tropical pasture
introductions and variety introduction work with rice, sugar and oil seed crops. In 1955, he was awarded an
Industrial Student Exchange to the United States of America and worked with the California Rice Co-operative
Growers at Biggs and at the University of California at Davis.
That same year, F J S Wise, Administrator of the Northern Territory, visited Biggs because a large American
financed rice scheme was envisaged for Humpty Doo. Jack Turnour was offered a position with the Northern
Territory Administration responsible for trials and seed production for this rice scheme. Arriving just prior to the
1955–1956 wet season, crops were sown at old Humpty Doo, about 500 metres below the old homestead, under
Turnour’s direction and at the ‘Chinese Rice Gardens’ by Rupert Kentish. There was no infrastructure and the area
was not able to be drained. In February 1956 floods that extended over the coastal plains from Fred’s Pass to the
sea, covered the rice fields with three metres of water; with one-metre waves when the wind was up. However, the
varieties being grown for seed from the Mekong Delta survived inundation of two weeks, regrowing after the flood