On the road of pain and glory

William Wilkinson travelled 12,000 km on horseback from Queensland, 847 days on the road, arriving in Alice Springs on August 14, 1914 when the Great War broke out.

He was part of patriotic events and photographed local Indigenous men saluting the Union Jack.

Decorated in traditional body paint, and not dressed as Europeans, perhaps the photo was staged to show recognition to a flag under which they were considered British Subjects, but not counted in many, if any, other ways by the European system. Dressed for an ancient cultural ceremony, but forced to dance to the tune of Elgar’s, Land of Hope and Glory.

MARK SMITH tells the story.

Wilkinson was a bushman, a Church of England priest and a blacksmith who shoed his own horses.

He carried a gun. And a bible.

He’d set out from his iron shed dwelling in Laura with 16 horses and two Indigenous guides.

They camped at historic places such as Chambers Pillar, Attack Creek, Central Mount Stuart and Namatjira's home of Hermannsburg during Carl Strehlow's tenure.

Wilkinson was in his late fifties and deaf without the aid of an old brass earn horn.

Fever. Malaria. Innumerable flies. Thirst. Malnutrition. Exhaustion. Crocodiles. Horses lost and killed by snakes and disease. Abandoned by his guides. Clash of cultures. Opium. Murder. Theft. A public execution. Injured by his own horse.
Why did a deaf man of Far North West Queensland endure all of this?

He was a medicine man who treated injured miners, stockmen and telegraph linesmen. Usually with Quinine.

Wilkinson learned from Indigenous people. He relied on their guidance to pilot him and his horses through tough and unknown terrain.

He supplemented his diet of salt-beef, damper and tea with Bush Tucker and traditional food sources. A fruit called the quandong, very good cooked, made a good pie.

He noted a berry, which grows on the roots of small creeping shrubs. Mulga apple. He watched Indigenous people digging for Yams with a stick made from Mulga wood. Also hunting kangaroo, emu, goanna, lizards – and snakes, which were considered a delicacy.

He noticed the different behaviours of people living along the coast to those in the desert, such as rituals when burying the dead, building elevated graves in trees (pictured)

At times the clash with European culture meant consequences for Indigenous people who did not understand the laws they were expected to obey.

Cattle killed on open ground was considered theft by police and pastoralists. Wooden telegraph poles cut down and used for firewood. Disputes over the sale of tobacco and opium with Chinese workers on stations.

Crescent Lagoon is about 300 miles from Darwin where Wilkinson met two Indigenous boys convicted of the murder of a Chinese man and sentenced to death.

Wilkinson was told the government authorities wanted to send a message and shock other Indigenous people living at nearby Roper River Mission. To "strike terror into the tribes" and "teach them a lesson on the punishment for murder."
A gallows was erected. All the local Indigenous people were mustered to see the execution.

"The prisoners were brought forth, mounted the gallows, and the bolt was shot and they were hanging by their necks.

But to the surprise of all who were present, the Indigenouswitnesses of the scene were delighted and thought the affair a performance for their entertainment and called out with glee, "more fellow, more fellow," Wilkinson noted.

Willing to see the same repeated on others – they thought it was a big joke. The ultimate misunderstanding.

In his journal Wilkinson wrote that since this incident, capital punishment has not been enforced in the Northern Territory.

While the ANZACS landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, Wilkinson held Holy Communion to mark the completion of his NT tour. Then on April 27 he passed a rabbit proof fence, marking the NT-Queensland border.

At Hermannsburg, Wilkinson was impressed by the missionary work of Carl and Frieda Strehlow, who found his five day visit a welcome relief in contrast to the anti-German sentiment surrounding them.

With war raging in Europe their minds would have been weighed with concern for their five eldest children who went back to Germany in 1910 for school.

They were fascinated by Wilkinson despite the difficulty of having to converse by shouting into his ear-trumpet.

At this time the mission was supplied twice a year by camel from Oodnadatta, which is as far the railway went until 1929, with a mail service every four weeks.
Hermannsburg marked the start of Wilkinson heading back home to Laura, 67 miles inland from Cooktown. This was 1500 km away.

He noted Central Australia was good horse breeding country and was told some horses bred in this area were sold to the British Indian Army.

During World War I, Australia shipped more than 120,000 horses overseas, with around 80,000 sold to the British Indian Army to be used as cavalry remounts and for artillery. The horses were highly valued for their endurance, hardiness, and capability to work in desert conditions.

Wilkinson (pictured with giant termite mound) turned sixty on February 19, 1914 when camping on very dry country at Inverney Station, five miles from the Western Australian border.

At Barrow Creek, Wilkinson was forced to rest for fifteen days when he was kicked in the arm and head by a spooked horse. His thumb so badly bruised that writing was painful. Telegraph linesmen tended to his wounds and convalesced him.

The harsh terrain was a constant reminder of the fragility of life. Six horses died on the trek, mainly lost to the respiratory curse of "strangles," a snake bite and some taken by crocodiles when quenching their thirst in rivers.

A bushman relies on his animals. They go through everything with him. Hope was revived when a foal was born on the road, and also a donkey foal.

The young horse grew strong and was later sold, while the little donkey perished in the desert, dying of exhaustion trying to keep up with its mother, who was deeply distressed and was eventually driven blind by flies.

On the road from Tanami Wilkinson passed a lonely rusted wheelbarrow, which marked the grave of an aspiring miner who died of thirst while chasing the lure of riches at the gold mine.

Tanami had seen a gold rush some years earlier. By 1914 only a few men searched in an open cut mine, using basic mining techniques.

The first European to find and recognise gold in the Tanami Desert was Allan Arthur Davidson, who arrived in 1898 and continued prospecting until 1901.

He took the name Tanami for the region from local Indigenous people who visited his camp. On inquiry he learned that the traditional name of the rockholes, a vital water source, was Tanami.

Davidson showed the gold specimens to the Indigenous people, who recognised it and described similar stone to the east, together with a large creek containing plenty of water and fish.

Now the Tanami Gold Mine, operated by Newmont, is a major, remote underground gold mine 540 km northwest of Alice Springs, one of the deepest operations in the country, producing gold since 1983.

Along his trek Wilkinson baptised children, took funerals and marriages, including two unions between white men and Indigenous women.

After a few weeks with the growing Alice Springs community, in 1914 Wilkinson wrote to the Bishop, Gilbert White, calling for a permanent priest. This call was not answered until 1933 when Percy Smith arrived.

Wilkinson wrote in his journal: "May the call from Central Australia reach the ear of some priest adapted to the work."

Nineteen years later Percy Smith arrived from Queensland to live permanently among the people of Central Australia.

He raised funds to build the first church in Bath Street and became a trusted friend to the Indigenous mothers at children living at "The Bungalow,” the Old Telegraph Station, where Wilkinson had be given accommodation, and rested his weary horses in 1914.

In 1947 Percy wrote "The Strenuous Saint," reflecting on the achievements of a man who laid the foundation for his own work in Central Australia, and as a way to raise funds for St John's Hostel in Bath Street, and also the St Francis' House venture in Adelaide at Glanville Hall.

Mark Smith is the grandson of Isabel and Percy Smith.