Stan Cawood

Stan Cawood, camping outside The Residency (Alice Springs) during the summer heat), c. 1927

Stanley Walter Cawood (8 March 1907 – 17 October 2003) was a pastoral worker, driver and tourism pioneer in Central Australia. He was the son of John Charles Cawood and he spent some of his early life, between 1926 and 1929, living at The Residency in Alice Springs (Mparntwe) during his father's period as government resident of Central Australia.

Early life

Cawood was born in Bellingen, New South Wales and, after primary schooling there, he attended De La Selle Collage in Armidale and then St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill. After completing his schooling he began working as a jackaroo in New South Wales before traveling to Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, in India to deliver 500 horses that had been sold to the Indian Army. They reached the Kookaburra on 13 June 1929.

In 1932 Cawood married Ethel Underdown, the sister of Ly Underdown, and, soon after their marriage, they moved to New South Wales where Cawood took work as a forester with the New South Wales Forestry Department. They later moved to Queensland where he was the manager of a mill and, during World War II, begun cutting timber for the Army. In 1941, after contracting Dengue fever, he was sent to Sydney where he worked in procurement for the Army. and later from Hart Range. He also used his truck to transport beer from Alice Springs to Darwin. Eventually Cawood also took over the management of The Chalet, nearby to Uluṟu and he would run this for 20 years. This was the first industry organisation in the region and it was later sold in the late 1970s.

Collections A collection of images taken by Cawood are available on Wikimedia Commons as a part of the Central Australian Historical images collection: Stan Cawood Collection.

Legacy

The Stan Cawood Truck Parking Bay, a rest area nearby to Ali Curung (Alekarenge), is named for Cawood. Cawood Street in Kilgariff, a suburb of Alice Springs, is also named for him.