George Aiston

George (Poddy) Aiston (1879–1943), was an Australian ethnographer and outback pioneer, who spent much of his life as policeman in the South Australian town of Mulka on the Birdsville Track.

George Aiston was born on 11 October 1879 at Burnside, South Australia, the only son of blacksmith James Albert Aiston, and Rebecca née Perry. He married Mabel Agnes Maud Mary White on 12 April 1905 at Holy Trinity Church, Adelaide but had no children. He had hoped to retire from his outback lifestyle, but the prolonged drought prevented him from relocating. He died of cancer on 25 September 1943 at Broken Hill. His wife continued to run the Mulka store of several more years after his death.

At the age of about 22, Aiston joined the South Australian Military Forces in 1897, and served as an orderly in the Chief Secretary's Office and at Government House. He enlisted in the South Australian First (Mounted Rifles) Contingent in 1899, and served in the South African War. On returning he joined the South Australian Mounted Police as a constable from April 1901 and worked at Yorketown, South Australia, Kooringa and Port Germein. It was at Port Germain, that he first encountered Aboriginal people on a regular basis.

Aiston was posted to the west coast in 1904 and spent five years at Tarcoola, South Australia and Tumby Bay, where he made contact with, and gained the respect of, Aboriginal people while patrolling the Nullarbor Plain and Gawler Ranges. He developed an interest in the culture of the Aborigines, collecting and documenting stone tools, which he sent to the South Australian Museum.

From 1912 to 1923 he was based at Mungeranie on the Birdsville Track and was also appointed as sub-protector of Aborigines, distributing rations, levying bore fees, inspecting livestock, collecting dingo scalps, registering births, deaths and marriages, processing the mail and issuing licences. He also documented the customs, beliefs and technology of the local people. He became an authority on Central Australian Aborigines, in particularlar, the Wangkangurru people of eastern Lake Eyre, whom he photographed along with the Birdsville Track life and landscapes.

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