Jeremy Long died peacefully in Sydney on 9 September, aged 89, with his children taking turns by his side in his final days. He was the brother of Jenifer (deceased), father of Daniel, Adam, Benjamin and Emily, grandfather of 12 and great-grandfather of five. Jeremy was the partner of Elsa and former husband of Frances. Malcom Dan (OC 1952) remembers him as being prominent at School and in later life and the son of eminent historian Gavin Long.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jeremy only a couple of years back when he visited College and gave us his old blazer. His sons Benjamin and Adam both attended Paul’s in the 1980s. If I recall correctly. Jeremy had an interesting time after being at College doing pioneering work for Indigenous communities in Central Australia.

Richard Morgan, Director of Community Development, St Paul’s College, University of Sydney

The Glebe Society website, 2009:

Jeremy Long received his OAM award “For service to the indigenous community, to the public sector, and to humanitarian groups”.  Jeremy is a graduate from the University of Sydney, has been involved in the development of land rights legislation and establishment of Aboriginal organisations as an officer of the Office of Aboriginal Affairs, and later as Deputy-Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs from 1969 to 1982. In 1982 he was appointed Commissioner for Community Relations concerned with racial discrimination issues.  Mr Long works on Indigenous issues with the Australia Council for the Arts.

Notice on St Paul’s College, University of Sydney website:

Jeremy Phillip Merrick Long OAM, in College 1950-53, b. 11 April 1932, d. 9 September 2021 in Sydney, formerly of Glebe NSW. BA 1954. Anthropologist with the Northern Territory Welfare Branch: Patrol Officer 1955-57, Settlement Superintendent at Haasts Bluff 1958-59, and Research Officer 1960-68. In the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs: Deputy Secretary 1975-82, Commissioner for Community Relations 1982-86. Visiting research fellow Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies from April 1987.

In the 1950s there were still Pintupi families living their traditional nomadic desert lifestyle who had no idea the First Fleet had arrived and changed their continent forever. In 1957, Jeremy Long was chosen to be a member of a special expedition to find out how many Aboriginal people were still living out in the desert – and whether any government help was needed. Jeremy was “a silent witness as the curtains came down on a culture that had endured for 40,000 years”.

Of the 48 individuals Long met on that first trip, all but three had never seen a white man before. “It must have been a bit of a shock to them,” said Long. “To think white people had been in the country for 200 years but there were still people out here who didn’t know it. They were still functioning in this unfriendly country, leading relatively happy lives in this hostile environment.” Between 1957 and 1964, Long took part in nine patrols to the Western Desert. It was a period of fundamental change.

(Extracts from an article about Colliding Worlds a touring exhibition by the National Museum of Australia in 2006 which explored more than 50 years of first contact between whites and the native peoples of the Western Desert, from 1932 to 1984)

Jeremy said at the opening of the exhibition: “it was pretty amazing seeing these people who are living quite independently in the desert with the tools they could make themselves, eating every day the food they could gather.”

One of Jeremy’s articles on the dispersal of Aboriginal peoples from the Western Desert can be found here: http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p72111/pdf/article027.pdf.

Jeremy made a generous donation to the College in support of the Medical Alumni Scholarships in 2018 and more recently he gave to the College Archives some of his photos from the 1950s as well as his College blazer from the time he was resident.

Source:

St Paul’s College, the University of Sydney Requiescat in pace | St Paul’s College, the University of Sydney (stpauls.edu.au)

PICTURE: Gumatj leader, Galarrwuy Yunupingu (left) and Silas Roberts, NLC Chairman at Parliament House in 1977 with Jeremy Long and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, The Hon Ian Viner (right), looking at the two bark petitions presented to the House of Representatives in 1963. Source National Archives of Australia. see: Our history | Northern Land Council (nlc.org.au)