Australian Dictionary of Biography

Frank Arkell, n.d.

Wollongong City Libraries, MSS1633

Francis Neville Arkell (1929–1998), politician, alleged pederast, and murder victim, was born on 15 September 1929 at Port Kembla, New South Wales, youngest of four sons of English-born Sidney Arkell, contractor, and his New South Wales-born wife Marcella Veronica, née O’Donnell. In later life Frank would claim to have been born in 1935. He grew up at Port Kembla and neighbouring Cringila during the Depression, and in his childhood the family faced material hardship. Sidney drove a small truck owned by Marcella in and around the Port Kembla steelworks. Marcella was an energetic organiser and fund-raiser for the local Catholic church and the Christian Brothers’ College at Wollongong. In 1933 the family moved to Cringila, then known as Steeltown. On 23 March 1941 Frank’s older brother Richard found their father’s body with a wound to the head from a rifle: he had taken his own life.

Attending Christian Brothers’ College, Arkell acted in school plays and excelled in Christian doctrine. Benefiting from his mother’s business acumen, following high school he was employed at the family’s garage at Figtree before moving to Sydney working as a stockbroker and in a bank. On his return to Wollongong he became a joint owner with his mother of Arrow Real Estate Pty Ltd. His wealth allowed him to pursue a greater interest: politics. He once said that he went into politics ‘just to get things done’ (Arkell 1980).

Elected to the Greater Wollongong City Council on 4 December 1965, Arkell was enabled by his financial position to become a full-time alderman at a time when the position was largely part time with few financial rewards. He was elected deputy lord mayor in 1969. In 1971 he stood as an Independent for the seat of Illawarra in the New South Wales parliament, when the seat was held by George Petersen for the Australian Labor Party. It was a poor result for him. In a safe Labor seat held by a popular member, he received fewer votes than the Liberal candidate. Putting his energies back into local government, in 1974 he was elected lord mayor. The position gave him a high public profile. He became a patron, member, or associate of more than fifty clubs, societies, and organisations. His diary revealed a busy schedule—almost every fifteen or thirty minutes he was meeting someone or talking with a group of people. He became known as ‘Mr Wollongong,’ often saying that he never married because he was married to the city. Describing himself as ‘obsessed’ (Arkell 1980) with Wollongong, he said he would do anything to make it a great place.

When the television program Wollongong the Brave made fun of the city in 1975, Arkell sought an apology from the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He bristled at one part of the show, which depicted the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd steelworks—the largest employer in Wollongong—as ‘breathing brimstone and vomit into the ocean’ (Wright 1989, 1), considering that this description of the steelworks’ pollution went too far. A fierce defender of the plant, he became its champion when, at the end of the 1970s, a downturn in the world steel market saw it almost close. Thousands lost their jobs, businesses shut, and the city faced significant welfare and financial stress. With other council members, he campaigned to restructure the local economy in the wake of the downturn.

Arkell again turned to State politics when he stood for the seat of Wollongong in 1981 against a long-standing member in what many believed was a safe Labor seat. He came within fifty-two votes of being elected. This loss, like his 1971 defeat, did not deter him. Driven by what he saw as the neglect of Wollongong by both State and Federal governments, he stood again at the March 1984 election. This time, with the retirement of Eric Ramsay, the member since 1971, he won. His maiden speech was replete with references to Wollongong’s advantages. At the 1988 election he retained the seat. He took pride in being called ‘the Gong’s salesman to the world’ (Sydney Morning Herald 1984, 12). For him, it was the place he called ‘wonderful, wonderful Wollongong’ (McClymont 1998, 15). The University of Wollongong admitted him as a fellow in 1985, and he was appointed AM in 1992.

At the 1991 election, Arkell lost his seat. In the local government election later that same year he was defeated as lord mayor. Moreover, other events began to overtake him. In the 1990s Wollongong was alleged to have been ‘a cesspool of corruption and abuse’ (McLaren 2018); Tony Bevan, the mayor from 1965 to 1968, would later be alleged to have organised a paedophile ring. Rumours about Arkell’s private life had become public when a pink closet—the Frank Arkell Memorial Closet—appeared at the gates of Parliament House in 1984 after he opposed the State government decriminalising homosexuality.

After the New South Wales government expanded the terms of reference for the royal commission into the New South Wales Police Service to look at paedophile networks, questions began to be asked about Arkell. In December 1994 the State Legislative Assembly member Deidre Grusovin named him in parliament as a pederast, and in October 1996 her Legislative Council colleague Franca Arena revealed that he was code-named ‘W1’ in the commission. He was arrested in May 1997 and charged with child sex offences. In February 1998 he appeared in court. Many of the twenty-nine charges against him were dropped, leaving five charges relating to four alleged victims. While awaiting trial, he was murdered on 26 or 27 June 1998 at his home; he was buried in Wollongong cemetery. In August 2000 Mark Valera would be convicted of killing both Arkell and David O’Hearn, who had been murdered two weeks previously. Many had been shocked at the manner of Arkell’s death and credited him with achieving much for Wollongong. In the Illawarra Mercury, however, Geoff Failes predicted that he would be remembered not so much for his deeds as lord mayor and parliamentarian, but for ‘the violent manner of his death, and the charges that he did not have a chance to defend’ (1998, 6).