John Flynn

Reverend John Flynn was a minister of the church who worked as a missionary in outback Australia and was in charge of the Australian Inland Mission. The Mission's aim was to bring church services and medical care to the people of outback Australia who lived far from towns.
John Flynn was born in Moliagul, Victoria on 25th November 1880. He was a teacher in the State Education Department for four years before joining the home mission staff of the Presbyterian Church.

Reproduced with permission of The Royal Flying Doctor Service and courtesy National Library of Australia)

He served in South Australia for two years and was ordained as a minister in 1911. In the following year he was sent to visit the sparsely settled Northern Territory and central Australia. He was made field superintendent of the Australian inland mission and held that position for 39 years.

John Flynn started the Aerial medical service in 1928. It became called The Flying Doctor Service in 1954. His dream of providing fast emergency and medical services to the Outback people had came about when Clifford Peel wrote to him suggesting aviation and when H.V. McKay inventor of the Sunshine Harvester, left a large sum of money in his will. This service helped save many lives. The invention of the Traeger pedal radio in 1929 helped make the service very successful.

John Flynn became known as " Flynn of the Inland" and there is a church in Alice Springs named after him.
Flynn was appointed OBE in 1933 and an honorary Doctor of Divinity of McGill University, Canada in 1940. He was Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Australia from 1939 to 1942. He died in 1951 survived by his wife. The Reverend John Flynn's ashes are buried in a special grave near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.