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Murder mystery. He became Chief Inspector in 1905 and was later offered the post of Resident at Thursday Island,
but opted to remain in the police force. He became the fourth Commissioner of Police in 1917, retiring in 1921.
In January 1921, the federal government appointed him as Administrator of the Northern Territory. He arrived
in Darwin indicating, in his forthright manner, that he meant business in promoting development of this outpost
after the apathy evident in the First World War period. Urquhart strongly supported the plea for railway extension;
the government moved in 1927 to extend the north Australia rail line from Katherine to Birdum and the Depression
of the 1930s put paid—permanently—to further progress. Urquhart was not impressed with the government’s
experimental farms in unsuitable country such as the area north of Coomalie Creek. He was impatient at the apathy
and negative attitudes of both the federal government and the local labour force; but in the face of such attitudes,
he could achieve little.
In 1927, Urquhart retired. In the same year, the federal government divided the Northern Territory under the
North Australia Act, creating a Commission in Central Australia and another in North Australia. This experiment
brought no more development than had Urquhart’s appointment and was ended in 1931. Frederick Urquhart died
in Brisbane in early December 1935.
C L A Abbott, Australia’s Frontier Province, 1946; R Cilento, Triumph in the Tropics, 1959; H Fysh, Taming the North, 1940; J T Gibbney,
Gatton Mystery, 1977; H A Kellow, Queensland Poets, 1970; F C Urquhart, Camp Canzonettes, 1891; N S Pixley, ‘History of the Queensland
Police Force’, Historical Society of ’ Queensland Journal, 1956; Northern Standard, 6 December 1935; Sydney Sun, 9 July 1981.
V T O’BRIEN, Vol 1.