Darwin Festival

The Darwin Festival celebrates the multicultural aspects of the Northern Territory lifestyle. The Festival is held over 18 days in the dry season (May-Oct) and comprises a series of events including outdoor concerts, workshops, theatre, dance music, comedy, cabaret, film and visual arts.

Darwin has a tradition of street parades and festival events dating back to early European settlement, following the issuing of Letters Patent annexing the Northern Territory to South Australia, 1863. The Township of Palmerston (as Darwin was then named) was surveyed by the South Australian Surveyor General GW Goyder in 1869 and by 1888 the non-Indigenous population of the Northern Territory consisted of around 1200 Europeans and 6 000 Chinese. It is not surprising then that the organised by the Chinese storekeepers, market gardeners and coolies who settled in Palmerston after the gold rushes of the 1870s were hugely popular. Palmerston was renamed Darwin following the Commonwealth takeover of the Northern Territory in 1911. By this time, largely through the restrictions of the White Australia Policy, Darwin's Asian population was in decline and amidst growing civil unrest, trade union organised marches gained in popularity. The Eight Hour Day Movement demonstration processions, popular in the early 1900s, were followed by Labor Day and May Day Marches held by the Darwin Workers' Club between 1919 and the late 1930s. Despite the restrictive immigration policy the Chinese community remained active in the social life of the town and formed the Darwin Chinese Recreation Club in December 1923 to take on all comers in the sports of boxing, Australian rules football, tennis, swimming and soccer. A small number of Italian migrants from Patagonia landed at Port Darwin in 1914 and found employment at Vestey's meat works.

The civilian population of Darwin was ordered to be evacuated following the attacks on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and Darwin and the surrounding area was placed under military control following a bombing raid by the Japanese Air Force on 19 February 1942. The township was extensively damaged during a subsequent series of air raids on Australia by the Japanese Air Force between February 1942 and November 1943. During this time, Darwin was a garrison town under the control of the Department of the Army, who spared no effort to improve recreational and entertainment facilities for troops based in Darwin. At the end of the Second World War, Darwin reverted to civil control, with many of the evacuated administrative staff and the civilian population returning early in 1946. The departure of most of the armed services from the Northern Territory had left little in the way of public entertainment facilities and following a public meeting the Darwin Workers' Club was re-established. A combined Stadium, Concert Hall and Meeting Place opened on 31 May 1946 with money subscribed and lent by its members and a series of concerts, fund raisers and boxing tournaments were staged at the Stadium after its completion in December 1946 . The civilian population of the Northern Territory was increasing steadily and the 1947 census return recorded a population of 2 538 people inside the Darwin Town boundary. May Day celebrations resumed in 1947, with a monster sports programme and a street procession led by Qantas staff. A large group of Aboriginal men who joined the march won the prize for the best parade Although much of China Town had been dismantled, a small number of Chinese people returned to Darwin after the war, re-establishing their businesses and building new homes in the outlying suburbs. Chinese New Year celebrations resumed in 1950 and in 1953 the Darwin Chinese Recreation Club reformed and participated in a street procession as part of the Coronation Week Celebration in Darwin.

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Wikipedia