'Board of Enquiry' staff conducting a roadside hearing, north of Henbury Station.

The Board often took evidence at campsites or roadsides; this would have been seen as unusual and far-removed from the formality of court procedure, however, evidence needed to be gathered wherever witnesses could be found. If the Board needed to question drovers or Aboriginal people who lived and worked in remote places, they went to them, and in some cases, happened upon them.

Charles Alfred (Alf) Butler, who ran Middleton Ponds Station in partnership with Bob Buck, gave evidence on the roadside between Henbury and Erldunda Station (see Board of Enquiry, evidence, page 69, PRG 1218/5/2). For Mountford, recording evidence during these roadside hearings meant that he often had to sit on the ground, and take notes in pencil with his notebook balanced on his knee. The Department of the Interior later paid Mountford an honorarium of 15 pounds in acknowledgement that 'duties as Secretary of the Board often entailed work under trying circumstances and also a considerable amount of overtime'. See Letter to Charles Mountford from the Department of the Interior.

Mountford, Charles P, (Charles Pearcy), 1890-1976

Commonwealth Board of Enquiry into the alleged ill-treatment of Aborigines near Ayers Rock, 1935

'Board of Inquiry into shooting of Aborigines at Ayers Rock by Constable W. McKinnon, Evidence, 1935', Mountford-Sheard Collection, PRG 1218/5/2

Lamshed, Max, 'Monty' : the biography of C.P. Mountford, [Adelaide] : Rigby, 1972

Warden, James. 'T.G.H. Strehlow and the 1935 Board of Inquiry into the alleged ill-treatment of Aborigines' in Traditions in the midst of change : communities, cultures and the Strehlow legacy in Central Australia : proceedings of the Strehlow Conference, Alice Springs 18-20 September 2002, Alice Springs, N.T. : Strehlow Research Centre, 2004, pp. 89-100