The Darwin rebellion of 17 December 1918 was the culmination of unrest in the Australian Workers' Union which had existed between 1911 and early 1919. Led by Harold Nelson, over 1,000 demonstrators marched on Government House at Liberty Square in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia where they burnt an effigy of the Administrator of the Northern Territory, John Gilruth, and demanded his resignation.
Their grievances were against the two main Northern Territory employers, Vestey’s Meatworks and the Commonwealth of Australia, and concerned political representation, unemployment, taxation and ongoing industrial disputes following the implementation of the White Australia policy. Gilruth and his family left Darwin soon afterwards under the protection of HMAS Encounter, while the Vestey company permanently closed its Darwin operations in 1920.
The event was described as the nearest thing to a revolution in Australia since the Eureka Stockade rebellion at Ballarat in 1854.
From 1863 until 1911, Northern Territory residents were entitled to vote in both South Australian and from 1901, Commonwealth elections. This status had also enabled Territorians to qualify as South Australian voters in elections for both Houses of the Commonwealth Parliament after Federation in 1901.
On 1 January 1911, the transfer of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth government deprived Territorians of all political representation and voting rights. The Commonwealth Constitution did not allow for Federal electorates to cross state borders. This enabled national governments to avoid a hypothetical impasse where a thousand Territory voters might some day hold the balance of power in an evenly divided Commonwealth Parliament. Of the 4.5 million European Australians living on the continent, only 1,729 lived in the Northern Territory, along with about 1,300 Chinese and an unknown number of indigenous Australians.
Following the transfer, the Northern Territory was run by an administrator appointed by the Commonwealth executive, a public servant answerable to the Commonwealth. In the years following Commonwealth Administration, Territorians became increasingly unhappy with unrepresentative government from southern Australia. The Northern Territory's few economic pursuits—pearling, pastoralism, and mining—were all run down. Expected Commonwealth-led development dissipated as Federal funding was diverted towards Australia's participation in World War I. Consequently, conflict between labour unions and the Northern Territory administration began to grow.
Dr John A. Gilruth arrived in Darwin in April 1912, after prime minister Andrew Fisher invited him to join a scientific mission to investigate the potential of the Northern Territory. He was later given the position of Administrator of the Northern Territory. Gilruth's appointment sparked his enthusiasm for economic development of the Northern Territory by means of "mining, crop-growing and pastoralism".
In 1913 Gilruth gave Carl Strehlow his support after undertaking a trip to Hermannsburg to investigate negative reports given by Walter Baldwin Spencer of Strehlow's Lutheran mission there. Spencer was critical of Strehlow's work, and wanted to convert the mission into a home for "half-castes" (that is, an Aboriginal reserve).
From the beginning, Gilruth's plans for economic development did not progress as planned. He did his best to promote mining and agriculture, including the development of a meatworks in Darwin by the English firm, Vesteys. However, these attempts proved disappointing, and by 1913, the Gilruth administration was already becoming unpopular. With the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Commonwealth Government lost interest in development of the Northern Territory as federal funds were diverted towards the war.
As a consequence, the weight of public frustration fell upon Gilruth, whose own character and actions helped to bring about that result. He was described as "headstrong and domineering". and his blunt, dynamic style of leadership was seen as being arrogant, insensitive, and "not fitted to rule a democratic people". He went to Darwin predisposed "to treat the Chinese with reserve, the Aboriginals with heavy-handed paternalism and the white trade unionists with suspicion". Gilruth constantly clashed with trade unionists, employers, workers, and even his own officers. With Gilruth hindered by the Commonwealth Government, "which neither gave him the powers he needed to rule effectively nor evolved consistent policies for the region", a confrontation between his administration and the townspeople was inevitable.
The construction of the railway line from Port Darwin to Pine Creek in the late 1880s required the immigration of Chinese labour. In December 1888, the South Australian Chinese Immigration Act came into effect, effectively putting a stop to the immigration increase. Those Chinese workers already in Darwin had proved themselves reliable, hard-working and good citizens. After the decline of the gold rush, the Chinese population competed for jobs with the White population. Not only did Asians compete successfully against Europeans for jobs that were scarce, but they also diversified into other profitable areas such as vegetable growing, cooking, tailoring and cleaning. Consequently, the retail trade was almost entirely in Chinese hands and their success was resented by Europeans.
Given the option, most employers preferred to employ Chinese workers, not necessarily because they were cheaper to employ, but because they were more reliable. The problem faced by unskilled European labourers in the Northern Territory was that no-one cared about their situation. "Local employers did not want them, the South Australian Government was indifferent to them, and since they were not unionized, their comrades in southern Australia ignored them."
On 9 January 1911, the Fisher Labor Government issued a Ministerial instruction to implement the White Australia policy. With the threat of Chinese competition reduced, European workers were able to bargain for higher rates of pay. Needing an organisation to represent workers' interests, the Darwin Australian Workers' Union (AWU) came into existence in 1912. Gilruth was given a free hand to deal with the situation in Darwin and arrived in the midst of a long pay dispute involving wharf lumpers and shipping agents. AWU representatives met with Gilruth several times in 1912 and 1913, but little was resolved.
When the government lowered the wages of survey field hands in April 1913, the AWU conducted a secret ballot amongst its members, which overwhelmingly supported a general strike commencing 28 April. Although the Darwin strike was in itself insignificant, the threat of widespread national disruption if Chinese labour were used to keep the northern port operational, was significant. After weeks of strike action, the union reserves were empty of strike funds, the parent AWU in Townsville hostile to the whole event, the Federal government indifferent and a number of strikers back at work, it was evident that strike action was lost. In late May, AWU representatives met with Gilruth to negotiate their terms of surrender; the unionists were prepared to return to work as long as the strikers were re-instated to their former positions. Not content with his devastating victory, Gilruth refused, "wanting to eliminate all traces of unionism in the Northern Territory". Although the strike was called off in the first week of June, it shaped future industrial relations in the Northern Territory, as the "White Australia" policy and anti-Chinese feeling fuelled support for the Unions.
In the following weeks, Gilruth and his family were effectively prisoners in the residence. On 20 February 1919, Gilruth left Darwin of his own accord and boarded the cruiser HMAS Encounter, armed with eleven 6-inch and nine 12-pounder guns, remaining as administrator but now prepared to operate from Melbourne. His departure effectively ended what later became widely known as the "Darwin Rebellion".