The Connellan Airways Trust was established by a Deed of Trust dated 12 June 1981 and officially launched by the Deputy Prime Minister, Doug Anthony, on Friday, 11 February 1983 at the Aviation Museum in Alice Springs.

The Founder
The Trust was the brainchild of Edward John Connellan OBE, CBE, AO who hoped that it would continue the work for which he had established his air service, to help alleviate the effects of isolation on the people of Outback Australia. This mission was one to which he had devoted the greater part of his life.

E.J. Connellan (EJ) was born on 24 June 1912, at Donald, in western Victoria, the eldest of the seven children of Thomas and Lucy Connellan. At the time, EJ 's parents owned a farming and grazing property named Araluen at East Laen near Donald, although when he was still young the family moved to the Riverina district of New South Wales.

EJ was brought up to station life, but completed his secondary education as a boarder at Xavier College in Melbourne in 1927 and 1928. Soon afterwards he joined the Victorian Education Department and worked as a schoolteacher at the Lake Boga State School in 1930, transferring to the Swan Hill High School in 1931, where he taught until 1933. He soon realised that so long as he remained in the Education Department he would never make the stake necessary to fulfill his ambition of acquiring a pastoral property in the Northern Territory. Thus he resigned in July 1933 and determined to go to the Northern Territory to acquire land and establish a cattle station.

Station life was one of EJ's great loves; the other was flying. He took the opportunity soon after his resignation from the Education Department to learn to fly aircraft and gained his private pilot's licence on 8 July 1936. He then turned his attention more directly to the Northern Territory and the necessity for developing the remote regions of northern Australia. He developed his ideas in a report, 'Notes on proposals for Aerial Freight Transport in Australia', which he prepared in October 1937.
As a step towards his vision, EJ proposed to examine personally the economic possibilities of the Northern Territory. Having secured sufficient support from Riverina pastoralists and others, EJ embarked on two aerial surveys of the Northern Territory in 1938. His intention was to make a pastoral survey of the Territory for the Federal Government, to assess the potential role of aviation in the development of the northern region, and also to select a cattle station from vacant Crown land for himself, his brother Vin, and two friends.

During the course of this 14-week survey EJ met John McEwen, the Federal Minister responsible for the Northern Territory, who was then touring parts of the region. McEwen and EJ discussed the idea of trying to establish a viable air service in the Territory. EJ agreed to trial such a scheme for three years, and eventually negotiated a subsidy from the Federal Government for the mail run between Alice Springs and Wyndham in Western Australia, together with a contract with the Flying Doctor Service for a service based in Alice Springs.

The first of the official mail runs began on 11 July 1939, thereafter the service operated on a fortnightly return basis. The operations manual of the new firm clearly proclaimed its mission 'to render at all times the greatest possible SERVICE TO SETTLERS, in Northern Australia, and to FACILITATE AND EXPEDITE DEVELOPMENT of the pastoral and other industries in Northern Australia'. The onset of World War II gave EJ the opportunity to consolidate his service. Having secured extra routes he considered that air services in the Territory had a viable future. EJ registered the new name, Connellan Airways, on 23 July 1943.

Pioneering the air service also gave EJ the opportunity to expand his ideas about the development of the Territory. To this end, he became one of the founders of the Northern Territory Development League, which was founded in June 1944 to establish an appropriate program of development.

The immediate post-war years were ones of consolidation and continued growth for EJ's many enterprises. A measure of the consolidation and acceptance of the bush air service was its incorporation as a limited company in February 1951 with many of the shares being acquired by station people and staff. The growth of the air service was measured by the number of new routes added to the network and the new equipment that was brought into operation to service these routes; by 1963 Connellan Airways officially had become a regular public transport operator with all the added responsibilities for schedules, safety and maintenance that this required, although it continued to undertake charter work.
EJ was a very private, even shy, man. Yet, paradoxically, his involvement in the pastoral industry and his obsession with the development of the Territory and particularly his identification with the air service and everything that this did for Outback Australia meant that he was continually being thrust into the public eye.

EJ was awarded the Queen's Coronation Medal in 1953 for his services to aviation. Four years later, in the New Years Honours List of 1957 Edward John Connellan was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) 'for services to civil aviation in Northern and Central Australia'. EJ also received a singular honour from the aviation fraternity when he was awarded the 1965 Oswald Watt Trophy for his 'outstanding contribution to general aviation'. In 1978 he was promoted in the Honours List to a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and three years later, in the Queen's Birthday Honours List of 1981, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) 'for services to aviation and the community'.

The demands placed upon a regular public transport operator by civil aviation authorities on the one hand and the public on the other, and the constant need to upgrade equipment meant that Connellan Airways underwent major changes during the 1960s and the 1970s. The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) continued to charter aircraft from Connellan Airways until 1965. The association was of immense benefit to each. The contract provided EJ with a guaranteed income that enabled him to plan the development of the airline, while the RFDS was always guaranteed a range of aircraft available for its use, and several very experienced pilots who knew the Outback intimately. The RFDS purchased two aircraft from Connellan Airways for its own use in 1965, although Connellan pilots continued to fly them until 1973.

By the late 1970s it had become evident that, for all of EJ's determination to maintain the airline, it could survive in its traditional role only with great difficulty in the conditions then prevailing. He negotiated an agreement to sell the operation to East-West Airlines on 15 October 1979: the sale was completed on 14 March 1980.

Throughout his life, EJ maintained a steadfast belief in the development potential of the Northern Territory and of the need to realise it. He believed passionately that other people would develop the Territory if Australians proved unwilling and he did what he could to prevent this external threat from being realised. EJ always believed that the over-riding purpose of his air service remained that of promoting development in Outback Australia and helping to alleviate the problems of isolation: he sought new and lucrative routes only so that he could use these to subsidise the service routes. Until it was sold, he insisted that the policy of the company should be the service of people on the remote stations.

Although the air service was gone, EJ remained busy with many things. He devoted more attention to his pastoral property, Narwietooma, and in 1981 was able to undertake his new responsibilities as the first Territorian to be appointed a director of the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame. But perhaps the cause that attracted most of EJ's remaining energies was the establishment of the Connellan Airways Trust. He hoped that the Trust would ensure the survival of many of his policies, aimed at developing the Outback for which he had striven for so long. The Connellan Airways Trust became EJ's last obsession.

At the time of the sale of the airline, there were about 50 shareholders with the Connellan family holding slightly more than 50% of the capital of the company: most shareholders agreed to contribute 47% of the receipts of the sale to the proposed Trust.

The establishment of the Trust was not a simple affair and required prolonged negotiations with government officials to ensure that contributions made to the proposed Trust would be allowable as taxation deductions. EJ even lobbied Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser and his deputy, Doug Anthony, in April 1981, to facilitate matters. A Deed of Trust was finally signed on 12 June 1981. A press release on 1 June 1982 anticipated the provision in the Federal Budget and declared that from that date any donations of $2 or more to the Trust would be tax deductible. Doug Anthony officially launched the Connellan Airways Trust in the old Connellan hangar at the Aviation Museum in Alice Springs on 11 February 1983.

The successful launching of the Connellan Airways Trust had become a race against time for EJ as he realised that his race had almost been run. He achieved his goal but died later that year on 26 December 1983.