- Before Tracy
- Previous Cyclones
- Previous Responses
- Darwin 1974
- Christmas Eve
A brief background to the history of the Northern Territory and Darwin
The creation and devolopment of Darwin from 1869 was the tangible expression of South Australian hopes for development of a northern province, centred on a port and capital which would be a focus for hinterland settlement and a base for trade with Asia. In 1862 the explorer John McDouall Stuart had finally forced a passage through the unknown centre of the continent, from the settled south to the north coast. In 1863 the British colonial authorities created "The Northern Territory of South Australia", carving the new area out of the parent colony New South Wales, and vesting it in South Australia, which had itself only been established in 1836.
The South Australians had quickly found that nature had imposed tight limits on development in their own hinterland. Exploration of the north coast of the continent, and short lived military outposts there, had given them hope that settlement in the far north might offer opportunities denied to them at home. Stuart had shown that the north could be reached overland, and he had given substance to South Australian dreams for a telegraph and a railway across the continent, and for settlement of an area which presumably was tropically moist and fertile.
After one false start, Darwin had its modern beginnings on 5 February 1869 when South Australian Surveyor General George Goyder and about 120 men arrived to lay out a northern town and port, and to survey agricultural land in the hinterland.
Goyder's survey camp at Fort Hill, 1870
In 1869 there were probably about 700 Larrakia Aboriginal people inhabiting the Darwin harbour foreshores and hinterland. This was the country given to them by their Dreamtime spirit ancestors. The first white settlers described the Larrakia as "peaceful and useful people ... lithe, well made, with cheerful faces". In Darwin's early years there was close contact between the Larrakia and the white settlers. Today, there are probably about 1500 people of Larrakia descent in Darwin.
Larrakia people at Port Darwin in 1897
The ambitious South Australians hoped for rapid settlement, but few of the investors or speculators who bought land from Goyder's maps actually came to the Northern Territory. Instead, Darwin remained a small and isolated outpost. Only occasionally before 1946 was its population swollen to more than about 1500 people : during the gold rush prosperity of the 1870s and 1880s; when Vesteys built a large meatworks during 1914 - 1920; and again when defence preparations caused the town to boom in the late 1930s. Almost all Darwin civilians were evacuated in 1941 / 1942. Those who returned from 1945 found that they were refugees in a war torn town. Only from the 1950s did Darwin enjoy sustained development, and in 1959 it was formally declared a city.
A Darwin home in the late 1800s
Cavenagh St in the 1930s
Damage resulting from Japanese air raids
Home on the Esplanade in the 1950s
Darwin 1959, near the corner of Mitchell and Knuckey
Streets.
It then appeared that Darwin might at last achieve its destiny as Australia's northern capital, as the nation's gateway to Asia, and as proof of the success of white settlement in the tropics. Just as this destiny was about to be fulfilled, the northern city was devastated by Cyclone Tracy - a disaster of horrendous proportions.