Our Founder

Victor Bruce Perkins (4th March, 1913 - 2nd November, 1992)

On Tuesday, 17 November 1992, The Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory of Australia gave a Tribute to the life of Victor Bruce Perkins the founder of our Company. The information provided has been taken from that tribute.

"The founder of the Territory's international shipping line, Bruce Perkins was a man of vision who has earned a permanent place in our history...

"Born in Cornwall in 1913, he learned shipbuilding and engineering with the British Admiralty and was sent to Singapore as a naval engineer in 1937. In 1941, he became a Captain in the Malay regiment but was captured by the Japanese and spent four years as a prisoner of war working on the infamous Burma-Siam railway. Immediately after the war he assisted repatriation by supervising arrangements for the movement of 35,000 prisoners of war and displaced persons from Burma and Siam to Singapore. He then returned to England where he learned he had been listed as 'killed in action'.

"In 1955, Alcan brought him to Australia as field manager to start its exploration program which extended throughout Cape York and the Gulf country and into Arnhem Land. With a wealth of experience behind him, Bruce moved to Darwin in 1958 as an agent for Timor Oil, having persuaded the company to use Darwin as the operational base for landing craft servicing its exploration work in East Timor. When the company had difficulty using the vessel in Timor, he offered to buy and operate it for them. And thus began the Perkins Shipping Line which has made an enormous contribution to the development of the Territory and to opening up two-way trade with countries in the region...

"A Commander of the Order of St John, he was also awarded the Order of Australia medal in 1989 for services to transport. Although approaching 80 years of age, he was forever active and still going to his office even the week before his sudden death...

"Bruce Perkins fought many battles, from the appalling deprivations of slave labour on the Burma-Siam railway to problems on the waterfront and the jungle of Commonwealth red tape that frustrated his early Territory operations. But he was not a battler in the traditional sense. He was an overcomer and an achiever of high order, and a gentleman until the day he died..." Mr Perron (Chief Minister)

The story of Bruce's life leading up to his settling in Darwin and founding Perkins Shipping is a remarkable tale which was published as "Tropic Tide: An Adventurer's Life" (ISBN 0733802044) written by his daughter Mandaley Perkins.