Stories
John Cawood’s story
John Cawood, the first Government Resident of Central Australia had begun his working life as a public servant but after qualifying as a district forester he set up his own business as a sawmiller. He became a council member and president of the Bellingen Shire Council in New South Wales and was also a coroner and magistrate. He had been associated with politics and was known to Earle Page, founder and leader of the Country Party (now National Party). Page recommended his appointment as Government Resident in 1926. Cawood left Melbourne in February 1927, together with his wife and his clerk-deputy, Vic Carrington. On arrival in Alice Springs there was no accommodation available for them they had to make temporary arrangements until the the new administration houses were finished sometime after November 1928.
Despite the comparative austerity of the conditions, life at the Residency was busy for its occupants. A former housemaid recalled it as sometimes hectic trying to keep up with all the work, particularly when there were official guests. Her working day would begin before dawn when she lit the stove and prepared breakfast for the household. Breakfast was followed by all the polishing, washing, ironing and cleaning necessary to maintain the house. A vegetable garden, out the back, supplied some fresh food and Jim Shannon arranged for the prisoners from the Alice Springs Gaol to deliver a cartload of wood whenever it was necessary.
Cawood's career as Government Resident of Central Australia was relatively short-lived. In his time as Administrator, Cawood was put in charge of the three-member Commission of Inquiry in 1928 into the actions of Constable Murray who had undertaken violent punitive expeditions against the Aborigines at Conniston station for the killing of a European settler. Murray was exonerated but the issue polarised opinion on Aboriginal-European relations in Central Australia. The public response to the inquiry and the events surrounding it became a focal point resulting in a more active Federal Government role in Aboriginal affairs.
In November 1929, Cawood handed over to his deputy, Carrington. Mrs Cawood had been suffering from poor health owing to a heart condition which may have been influential in Cawood’s decision to retire. Carrington continued in the position until the North and Central Australia Commissions were abolished and the Territory became one administrative unit again, under Administrator Robert Weddell, in Darwin. The experiment was considered unsuccessful and expensive and communications between Alice Springs and Canberra were inefficient and slow. Carrington stayed on as Assistant Administrator, but Cawood retired to Cronulla, New South Wales, in 1930.
The Cawood family remained closely linked to Alice Springs. In 1929, Cawood’s son, Stan, located the wreck of the Kookaburra in the Tanami and in the post-War period ran a tourism business. Grandson Ian Cawood was employed by the Northern Territory Government and retired as head of the Alice Springs Desert Park, thus representing some 70 years of Cawood family involvement in the region.
