Lord Casey
Lord Casey, 1954. Photograph: National Library of Australia.
Richard Gavin Gardiner Casey, Baron Casey of Berwick was Governor-General of Australia from 1965 to 1969. He was born in Brisbane on 29 August 1890, son of Queensland politician and pastoralist Richard Gardiner Casey and his wife Evelyn. Educated in Melbourne and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he served with distinction in World War I and later went into politics, with terms as Treasurer, Minister for Supply and Development, and Minister for External Affairs. He married Ethel Marion Sumner Ryan in London in 1926, they had two children.
In 1967 he and Lady Casey visited Lightning Ridge as part of a tour of north-western New South Wales. During the visit they ventured on to the opal fields and visited Fred Bodel’s hut on the Three Mile - at the time Fred was still regarded as the “Mayor of the Three Mile”.
His Excellency Lord Casey, Governor-General of Australia, Fred Giles, Fred Bodel and Her Excellency Lady Casey, March 5 1967. Photograph: Stuart Lloyd Collection, Lightning Ridge Historical Society.
Lord Casey’s term as Governor-General ended in 1969. He and Lady Casey spent their later years at Edrington, near Berwick, Victoria. He died on 17 June 1976 at Fitzroy, aged 85, and was buried at Macedon, Victoria.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: ‘Kept his hand in on leave’, Australian Army, 24 January 1963, p. 4; Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, 1993; Lightning Ridge: Turning Back Time - A Heritage Trail, Barbara Moritz, 1998, p. 25.