The AIM was a timely development for a young nation seeking to populate its vast inland and far north. As Flynn contended, medical services should be upgraded so that non-Indigenous women and children would be encouraged to live in these remote parts and so break up an overwhelmingly masculine culture. The AIM had parallels with the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine founded in Townsville in 1909 to investigate the health aspects of Europeans living and working in the tropics. Though part of the Presbyterian Church, it was to operate ‘without preference for nationality or creed’ (Bucknall, 1981). Flynn, its founding Superintendent, was involved in all aspects of its work, from fund-raising and planning future operations to editing its magazine The Inlander, later to become Frontier News. Through its pages he brought the Outback to Australia’s city-dwellers, for he was both an accomplished writer and photographer.

Patrol Padres

In 1913 the AIM despatched the first of its patrol padres, as its itinerant clergy were called. Their brief was to exemplify Christianity ‘in its shirt sleeves’: to live and teach in a manner that was unobtrusive, practical, and sincere. Flynn spoke of ‘evangelism of the silent type’ and recognised that Bible bashing would have little appeal in the bush (McPheat, 1963:  210). The padres travelled to places beyond the reach of town churches, visiting homesteads, stock camps, boundary riders’ huts, bush townships, and construction and mining settlements, bringing a ministry of roadside companionship. They also brought library books, lantern slides, and, later, movies; all these being rarities in the bush.

The first padre to be appointed in Queensland was Rev. Frank Heriot in 1915. Heriot was based in Cloncurry in the north-west, then a pastoral and mining centre and the western terminus of the Great Northern Railway. Besides ministering to congregations in Cloncurry and Kuridala, a nearby mining township, Heriot travelled into the Gulf Country in the AIM’s first motor car, a T-Model Ford (McPheat, 1963: 97).

In 1928 the Cloncurry Patrol was extended to cover Western Queensland, reaching from the Gulf Country in the north to Innamincka, SA, in the south, creating a parish of 173,746 square miles. When Rev. James Frederick (‘Fred’) McKay took on the patrol (1935−40), he had a one-ton truck to traverse country ranging from sandhills to tropical jungle. Following Flynn’s death in 1951, McKay became the AIM’s second Superintendent (1951−74) and later Presbyterian Moderator-General (1970–73).

His younger brother, Rev. Andrew Leslie (‘Les’) McKay, followed in his footsteps to become the AIM’s longest-serving padre, taking over the Western Queensland Patrol for twenty years (1951−56, 1962−76), including a year as Queensland Moderator (1969–70). In 1963, following distribution of five thousand of the AIM’s ‘saddle pack’ New English Bibles to celebrate its jubilee year, Les McKay wrote a commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew to assist outback people in reading their Bibles. The McKay brothers’ work is today remembered in the naming of Frontier Services’ McKay Patrol.

In 1937 the AIM established its second patrol in Queensland, the Cape York Patrol, in the far north, with the appointment of Rev. Polmear (‘Pom’) Jacobsen Thomas, who served until his enlistment in 1941 as an army chaplain. His successors included Rev. Colin Ford (1952–59) and Rev. Ian (‘Wally’) Thomson (1960–66). In 1964 a third Queensland patrol, the Leichhardt Patrol covering Central Queensland, was added to the AIM’s network which by then extended across the continent, from Cape York to the Kimberley, WA, with padres beginning to use aircraft, instead of trucks, for transport.

Outback Hospitals

Besides despatching padres, the AIM was quick to establish nursing facilities. Its outback hospitals were the first remotely located cottage hospitals in Australia, though such hospitals had been common in rural England from the mid-nineteenth century. They predated the cottage hospitals set up by Australia’s various Bush Nursing Associations. Besides being nursing outposts, they were social and religious centres and included communal spaces or ‘living’ rooms supplied with gramophones and books and magazines sent by AIM office teams in every state. They were staffed by two trained nurses, mostly committed Christians, whose duties ranged from treating patients and extracting teeth to giving Sunday school lessons. The AIM’s hospitals were run in cooperation with local committees which raised funds towards their construction and thereafter met some of the running costs. Flynn’s policy was that eventually they would be handed over to local or government control as district hospitals. Some, having met a need during an initial period of isolation, were later used for other purposes or closed as local communities declined.

The first AIM hospital to be established in Queensland was at Birdsville in the far south-west, 10 km from the South Australian border. Arguably the state’s remotest outpost, about 300 km from the nearest telegraph stations, it had seen better days as a customs post until the time of Federation; however, it retained some importance as a supply centre on the Boulia-Bedourie-Marree stock route providing access to southern markets. The plight of Birdsville, beyond the reach of medical aid, long concerned John Flynn, but he was unable to open a hospital there, the AIM’s seventh, until 1923.

The original premises in the former Royal Hotel were only makeshift, yet pioneer nurses Grace Francis and Catherine Boyd managed to treat some two thousand patients in the first fifteen months. By 1936 the building had become so dilapidated that the AIM decided to erect a purpose-built hospital. Flynn opted for a prefabricated building manufactured in Sydney (where the AIM was based) by Sidney Williams & Co. Pty Ltd.

Disastrously, on 10 November 1951 the Birdsville Hospital was destroyed by fire, possibly originating in a kerosene refrigerator. Local people started a subscription for a replacement hospital, declaring ‘the place cannot live without it’ (J. McKay, 2005: 16). Others matched their generosity and the AIM resolved to rebuild. In February 1952 another prefabricated building was ordered from the Sidney Williams factory, much like its predecessor but with a reliable generator and other improvements.

The rebuilt hospital opened on 5 August 1953, attracting the largest crowd Birdsville had ever seen. The opening and dramatic events preceding it are recorded in the movie Diamantina Drama, one of several films produced by the AIM. The hospital eventually served the local community for 83 years, until replaced by a government clinic in 2006, making it the longest serving of all the AIM’s hospitals. The building is now on the Queensland Heritage Register.

Birdsville’s hospital was followed by three others in Queensland: at Dunbar, a remote cattle station on the Gulf of Carpentaria, 300 km north of Normanton, which operated from 1938 to 1958; at the Mary Kathleen Uranium Mine, near Cloncurry, which operated briefly from 1957 to 1964; and at Coen, a former mining township in central Cape York, 580 km north of Cairns, which opened in 1958 and continues today as the Coen Primary Health Care Centre. The Dunbar Hospital, like the Birdsville hospitals mentioned above, was a prefabricated iron structure with gauzed verandahs adapted for the tropics by the addition of a second storey and large awning windows. The Coen Hospital, by contrast, was distinctive in its design in that it functioned also as a hostel for children from outlying properties to enable them to attend the local primary school.

Erecting these buildings in such isolated places was enormously difficult, with transport costs almost equalling all other costs and limited supply of local labour, often requiring patrol padres to stand in as builders’ labourers. For the earliest hospitals in Central Australia, the building materials were carted from the south by camel pack. For Birdsville’s two purpose-built hospitals, the materials had a more circuitous route spanning almost half the continent. For the earlier hospital, the materials were transported from Sydney to Port Augusta, SA, by ship; north to Marree, SA, by train; and then carted up the Birdsville Track by the local mail contractor. For its successor, the materials were transported entirely by road: from Sydney by semi-trailers via Broken Hill, NSW, and Peterborough, SA, to Marree, and likewise up the Birdsville Track in the mail contractor’s smaller trucks.

Similar journeys were undertaken many times over, with the AIM establishing fourteen bush hospitals across Australia by the time of the Second World War, a remarkable feat for a religious organisation with few office staff and dependent on public subscription.

Flying Doctor Service

John Flynn’s goal to improve the lot of isolated people extended beyond providing religious and nursing support. Inspired by advances in the new technologies of aviation and radio during the First World War, he urged their use in bringing medical aid to isolated families and communities through a flying doctor service linked to a radio communication system. His vision began to materialise in 1926 when his long-time supporter, Hugh Victor McKay, founder of Melbourne’s Sunshine Harvester Company, left a bequest to support the idea. With the help of Hudson Fysh, a wartime pilot and founder of QANTAS, the company agreed to charter an aircraft to the AIM along with a pilot.

After assessing various locations for the first flying doctor base, Flynn chose Cloncurry, Queensland, because it was on an existing QANTAS route with a good airfield. It was also within striking distance of Cape York, the Northern Territory, and south to Innamincka, and perhaps  most importantly had a 40-bed public hospital able to receive patients. The first official flying doctor flight took place on 17 May 1928, with Dr Kenyon St Vincent Welch and pilot Arthur Affleck on board, departing from Cloncurry in response to an emergency call from Julia Creek. The first flying doctor aircraft was a De Havilland single-engine biplane (DH50), named Victory in honour of benefactor Hugh Victor McKay. It was specially fitted to carry a stretcher, and with improved under-carriage to minimise bumps in landing. Cloncurry remained a flying doctor base until 1964 when it was transferred to Mount Isa.

The new organisation was to be ‘untrammelled by state boundaries, creed, colour or social position’

The Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service, as it was known, proved its worth and managed to survive the stringencies of the Great Depression. But soon it became apparent that the AIM could not maintain what would become a national undertaking. With the help of his medical advisors, Flynn drafted a constitution for a new, independent organisation, the Australian Aerial Medical Service, eventually to become the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (RFDS). The new organisation was to be ‘untrammelled by state boundaries, creed, colour or social position’ (McPheat, 1963: 186). Though operating on a national basis, it was to have a series of largely independent state sections, each with their own funding arrangements. In 1934 the Victorian Section was established, soon followed by WA and NSW. With their support, new flying doctor bases were established at Port Hedland, Wyndham, and Kalgoorlie in WA, and at Broken Hill in NSW. The South Australia and Queensland Sections took longer to establish, finally achieved in 1939 when the AIM was able to transfer to them the remainder of its flying doctor operations.

The best-known of Queensland’s pioneer flying doctors was Dr Allan Vickers who served most of his career with the RFDS. While based at Cloncurry in 1931−34, he averaged 40,233 km a year in hazardous flights to outback locations lacking proper landing facilities.

Outback Radio Network

When the flying doctor service began, it lacked a communication system needed to operate effectively. Though radio technology was advancing, there was as yet no transmitter-receiver suitable for use in the Inland, beyond the reach of town electricity. To solve the problem, in 1926 John Flynn approached Alfred Traeger, an electrical engineer from Adelaide. After much experimenting, he found that bicycle pedals could generate the power needed for transmission. In November 1928 Traeger announced his invention of the pedal radio.

Soon after, Traeger travelled to Cloncurry to bring the flying doctor radio network into operation. After setting up the ‘mother’ station (VJI) in the original flying doctor base, the vestry of St Cuthbert’s Presbyterian Church, he travelled to outposts to install the smaller radios.

The Augustus Downs pedal radio was one of six sets supplied by the AIM in 1929 to isolated outposts, including the Birdsville Hospital and the Presbyterian Mission Station on Mornington Island, to connect them to the flying doctor network. In later years, as flying doctor operations expanded, the AIM distributed many more radios across the Outback. These were provided free of charge and generally transported, installed, and serviced adeptly by its patrol padres. Traeger, as the AIM’s official radio supplier, constantly improved his radios and devised portable models for the use of AIM padres, outback mailmen, and others. In 1931 he invented the Morse automatic keyboard to enable messages to be transmitted by people with no knowledge of Morse code. This was later supplied with pedal radios until replaced by telephony from 1936.

The radio communication network established by the AIM gave outback people access not only to the flying doctor but also their first reliable and timely means of contact with the outside world. During the Second World War the network was used for military communications; soon afterwards it was used for distance education with the introduction of the world’s first Schools of the Air.

Other Services to Remote Australia

The AIM provided other services for remote dwellers. During the 1930s it established a series of so-called welfare centres, or clubs; at Carnarvon and Broome in WA, Tennant Creek and Darwin in the Northern Territory, and at Mount Isa in Queensland. These welfare centres provided canteens (non-alcoholic, of course), libraries, pianos and sports facilities. During the Second World War the centres became popular with servicemen based in northern Australia. Later the AIM undertook its first initiatives in aged care with the establishment of Old Timers’ Homes at Alice Springs from 1954, and the building of two cottages for aged bushmen at Birdsville in 1962.

At times, the AIM has been criticised for its attitude to Aboriginal people and communities. Although its hospitals were established primarily to serve non-Indigenous settlers, they did, in fact, treat many First Nations people, who by the 1970s comprised most of their patients (F. McKay, 1972: 5). As early as the 1930s the hospitals at Innamincka, Birdsville, and Dunbar had special ‘Aboriginal annexes’ added to provide medical care and encourage use by Indigenous patients. Similarly, during its early years the flying doctor service treated more Indigenous patients than it did non-Indigenous (F. McKay, 1972: 5).

Moreover John Flynn, unlike many of his contemporaries, was remarkably sympathetic towards Aboriginal Australians. In 1915 he devoted an issue of The Inlander to their circumstances, describing their suffering as ‘a blot on Australia’. He chided Australians for being more concerned for the people of war-torn Belgium ‘pushed out of their inheritance by foreigners’ than for ‘those whom we clean-handed people have dispossessed’ (The Inlander, 1915, vol. 2).  Within the Presbyterian Church, it was in fact another department, the Board of Missions, that had responsibility for pastoral work for Indigenous people, including managing its mission stations.

Thereafter, during the 1950s and 60s, under the leadership of Fred McKay the AIM introduced services supporting First Nations people and their needs, including an itinerant nursing service in the West Kimberley to reduce infant mortality (McKenzie, 1990: 146, 156), and a hostel at Halls Creek in Western Australia to enable isolated children to attend school; in 1968 this became an Aboriginal preschool. In 1970 the AIM provided substantial support for the establishment of the Institute for Aboriginal Development in Alice Springs which continues today.

Postscript: 1977 and after

By 1977, when the AIM became part of the Uniting Church in Australia, it had helped to transform the Outback and make it a safer place to live. In its multi-faceted operations, it was unlike other religious organisations serving Australia’s remote dwellers, such as the Anglican Bush Brotherhoods, established first at Longreach, Queensland, in 1897, the Methodist Inland Mission, established in 1926, or the Congregational Union patrols, established in the 1890s, which offered mostly religious support. The Anglican Bush Church Aid Society, established in 1919, offered more diverse services, but these were restricted to settled rural areas and townships, especially in Queensland. The nearest counterpart to the services provided by the AIM is to be found overseas, in the work of Sir Wilfred Grenfell (1865–1940), a medical missionary to Newfoundland in north-east Canada. Both translated their Christian faith into practical service for the isolated (McPheat, 1963: 217). 

With the union of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational Churches in 1977 to form the Uniting Church, the AIM was merged with the inland operations of the other churches. This was logical given that the AIM, from Flynn’s time, had often cooperated with other churches. In 1986 its name was changed to Frontier Services. While maintaining the spirit of its predecessors, Frontier Services seeks to address the needs of today’s remote dwellers through a Bush Chaplaincy service offering pastoral and spiritual care and an Outback Links program mobilising volunteers for practical support. Though the AIM’s hospitals have been superseded by government facilities or closed, and its pedal radios have been replaced by satellite communication and the internet, its flying doctor service has become an Australian icon.

Note on visual sources

Some of the photographs here are from the Australian Inland Mission Collection (MS 5574) held by the National Library of Australia, possibly taken by John Flynn himself. Les McKay, like Flynn, recorded his travels with his camera; a collection of over 700 of his photographs is also held by the Library. The 1953 Fox Movietone film Diamantina Drama, telling the story of the Birdsville Hospital, is held by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

Sources and further reading

Australian Inland Mission. The Inlander, 1915−29.

Australian Inland Mission/Frontier Services. Frontier News, 1930−.

Bilton, J. 1961. The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, its Origin, Growth and Development. Melbourne: Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, Federal Council.

Bucknall, G. 1981. ‘Flynn, John (1880−1951)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed online August 5, 2025.

McKay, F. 1972. ‘About our Aborigines and what Flynn of the Inland REALLY said’. Frontier News 75: 4−5.

McKay, F. 1995. Traeger, the Pedal Radio Man. Brisbane: Boolarong Publications.

McKay, J. 2005. ‘“The Miracle at Birdsville”: Judith McKay salutes the end of an era for one of Australia’s remotest communities.’ National Library of Australia News 15, 11: 14–17.

McKay, J. 2013. ‘The Australian Inland Mission: celebrating 100 years.’ Queensland History Journal 22, 1: 1−11.

McKenzie, M. 1990. Fred McKay: Successor to Flynn of the Inland. Brisbane: Boolarong Publications.

McPheat, W.S. 1963. John Flynn, Apostle to the Inland. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Uniting Church in Australia Frontier Services. Records of the former Australian Inland Mission, 1897−2011, National Library of Australia, Collection Number MS 5574.

Walton, S. 2012. At the Very Heart: 100 Years in Remote Australia. Kent Town, South Australia: Wakefield Press.