Last changed 19 October 2008

Whitlock tracks 1941-42

Wilfred Hercy Dominick 'Gerry' Whitlock was the son of William Wilfred Lawson Whitlock and Florence Bessie Curtis Walker, and was born on 1st May 1898, at Georgetown (or possibly Chatswood) WA (or St Leonards, Sydney). He was in Canada from c1911. Whitlock apparently had some experience as an army engineer before he arrived in the NT after the First World War. During WWII he played a role in the routing of the Barkly and Stuart Highways in the central NT, and is said to have chosen the site for the intersection (Three Ways). Whitlock married Mary Ena Lucas or Culquhoun (Colquhoun) in Sydney on 23 May 1941. He was well known after WWII as the founding proprieter of Frewena roadhouse on the Barkly Highway, named after the Frew River and his wife Ena. It was established from the WWII staging camp at 6A Bore, with equipment acquired by Whitlock at the sale at the end of WWII. "At the end of 1948 Mt Whitlock disposed of all his interests at Frewena to Mrs Whitlock then left the district." (Liddle 1990:228) In 1963 he bought an Agricultural lease in the farming area south of Heavitree Gap, Alice Springs. He died at Alice Springs on 25 May 1978 aged 80 years and is buried in the Alice Springs General Cemetery.

Whitlock's 1941-42(?) traverses to the west of what became the Stuart Highway are part shown by manuscript additions to Army 8 mile to an inch maps CP4619 and CP4620 (only two sections extant, of which I have a copy thanks to Vern O'Brien). The tracks were shown on the 30/6/1945 NT Pastoral Map and on 1:1 000 000 aeronautical charts published in 1950, but presumably became overgrown and were not shown on later editions.

The eastern end of the track west from Three Ways past Wilson Creek (to Gordon Downs) was a landmark for the forced landing of a B25 D-10 'Mitchell' bomber on 25/1/1945, and allowed the retrieval of the crew and cargo. (That plane was not recovered until June 1974 and is now displayed at the Darwin Aviation Museum). Eric Olsen took a colour transparency in 1959 showing a sign which marked the eastern end of the track near Alluvial Bore (north of Warrego); the sign was then lying on the ground and read something like "Gordon Downs 300 miles. No water". According to the Rev. Arch Grant [letter of 7/3/92] there once was a similar sign he says near Attack Creek. (This may have been near Morphett Creek where the Army camp was, and from where station tracks would link to the Whitlock track to Wave Hill.)

In 1964 the surveyors Vaughan and de Lemos recorded signs of what they had been told was Whitlock's track on gravelly rises between Alluvial and Wilson Creek: at bench mark DE19 (86.5 miles west of the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station), at 90.2 miles west, faint traces at bench mark DE20 (91.9 miles west), at bench mark DE21 (96.4 miles west), and at bench mark DE40 (194.1 miles west) [BMR Gravity Traverse Description, Traverse DE, Jun-Aug 1964, pp.36,38].

The northern trip, linking Muckaty and Wave Hill, is mentioned in two letters in files in Australian Archives (NT Branch):
letter from Administrator to AS Bingle, 21/12/1942
letter from AS Bingle to Administrator, 2/1/1943
(Alison Seymour Bingle was Manager of Vesteys; the general background of Vesteys work with the Army, but not these tracks, is mentioned in his 1986 memoirs.)

A cattle pad said to be on the eastern end of the track west from Muckaty was pointed out to us on 14 October 1980 when travelling about a mile west of Muckaty homestead.

One man who worked for Whitlock on one of the tracks was the late Frank Glastonbury, who I talked to in Alice Springs around 1980. From him I gathered that the tracks were completed under arduous conditions, and despite many breakdowns in the equipment.

"Grader Jack made a track from Tennants Creek to Gordon Downs. That was during the war" (Stan Jones, interviewed at Katherine by Darrell Lewis, 23-24th August 2000.)

I would like to hear from anyone who has more information about these two wartime tracks.

References

Bingle, A.S. 1986. This is our country. Turramurra, NSW: J. Bingle. 169pp. ISBN 1862527407. Limited edition of 200 copies.

Liddle, Robyn. 1990. Historical Survey of European Settlement on the Western Barkly Tableland for the National Trust of Australia (Northern Territory). Funded by the National Estate Grant Program. June 1990. xiii+245+[2]pp.

National Archives of Australia
CRS F1 Item 1942/112 Stockroutes & Bores, 321 folios
CRS F1 Item 1943/10A Stockroutes and Bores General File, 164 folios
CRS F1 Item 51/489

Highway Surveyor dies at age 80. Centralian Advocate 1 June, 1978.

Thanks to Trevor Whitlock <oztumtum@optusnet.com.au> for family information, and to Vern O'Brien.

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URL http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/kt/Whitlock.html