PastMasters

Here’s another recommended read, this time by the distinguished anthropologist Ted Strehlow, author of such classics as Aranda Traditions and Songs of Central Australia. Back in 1922, 14 year old TGH Strehlow left Hermannsburg Mission (Ntaria) with others on a perilous journey along the dry bed of the Finke River to Horseshoe Bend in a desperate attempt to save the life of the mission’s pastor, his father Carl. It’s all recounted in his ‘Journey to Horseshoe Bend’. Strehlow had grown up with the Aboriginal children of the mission and his knowledge of Arrente customs was unparalleled. His descriptions of the landscape and its stories make for fascinating reading.

For more on the Overland Telegraph Line, we recommend the book by our Territorian colleague Derek Pugh ‘Twenty to the Mile’. Here you will learn the story of how in just two years, Charles Heavitree Todd, leading hundreds of men, constructed the line from Port Augusta to Darwin using 36,000 poles at '20 to the mile'. It was a mammoth undertaking through the remotest parts of the country. Joining the vast global telegraph network meant that messages which previously took weeks now took just hours.

A biodiversity hotspot, the Wessels are part of the Marthakal Indigenous Protected Area and the Wessels Marine Park. The islands’ unique heritage and history—including the finding of medieval African coins here in WW2—adds an air of mystery to an altogether magical place.

As a scientific research unit, the PastMasters celebrate the endlessly fascinating story of Australia's Top End in the context of South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean. Shown here is Marthakal Homelands ranger Marcus Lacey of Elcho Island with PastMaster IM at Australians Bay on the Wessels where Matthew Flinders parleyed with the Yolngu in 1803 on his ill-fated journey home (via Mauritius and 61/2 years detention).

Scottish Australian explorer John McDouall Stuart blazed the central route used for the Overland Telegraph Line after crossing the continent in 1862. The construction was championed and overseen by Superintendent of Telegraphs, Charles Todd (formerly an astronomer at the Royal Greenwich Observatory). Todd relied on Stuart’s maps to plan the line which followed old paths that Indigenous Australians had established thousands of years before.

Here is a link to the latest paper by PastMaster numismatist (coin expert) Peter Lane in ‘The Australian Numismatic Society Journal’ (begins on page 30). It discusses the fascinating tale of an 1845 coin forgery in South Australia. A gang of seven men had made spurious British half-crowns and passed them off as legitimate coins. They were caught, tried, and convicted, and sentenced to 10 years transportation to Tasmania. https://the-ans.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ANS_Journal_2026_Vol_1-1.pdf

In 1871, construction workers digging holes for the Overland Telegraph Line pylons discovered gold at Pine Creek, 240km south of Darwin, sparking a gold rush. Much of the gold was embedded in rock which required laborious crushing using heavy stamp batteries, and hundreds of Chinese workers were brought in to work the mines. By 1885, Chinese made up the vast majority of the mining population in the area, with many engaged as businessmen and merchants. By the 1890s, many had returned to China. The first really significant find of gold was at Yam Creek and named “Priscilla”. It was two miles long and witnesses reported the precious metal being visible to the naked eye for two hundred yards. Images show the first telegraph pole being laid, the miner’s hospital at Yam Creek, and a Chinese hut in 1923.

The first undersea telegraph cable connecting Australia and Europe (via Java) was hauled ashore at Port Darwin on November 7, 1871 with the first international messages sent on November 19, 1871. Then, with the completion of the Overland Telegraph Line, the first direct message from London to Adelaide occurred on October 22, 1872. Photos show the landing the Telegraph Line at Cable Beach below Government House, the Port Darwin Telegraph Station, and a memorial on the grounds of the NT Legislative Assembly whose base was built with bricks from the original submarine cable station.

The sword that links feared pirates to Britain's greatest naval hero The history of a wavy-bladed sword, bought at a Brisbane gun show around the end of the 1980s, begins with Moro raiders resisting Spanish colonists in the Philippines, but may also include Admiral Lord Nelson.