Francis James McGarry (11 July 1897 – 21 November 1955) was a Catholic lay missionary and Protector of Aborigines who was instrumental in the establishment and day-to-day management of the Little Flower Mission in Central Australia.
When his father died the family moved to Sydney where they settled in Manly and McGarry attended Marist Brothers' High School in Darlinghurst.
[2][3][4] Following his return in 1922, McGarry joined the St Vincent De Paul Society where he was a weekly visitor at the Leprosarium at Little Bay, New South Wales from 1926; an act that he hid from people due to concerns about his exposure to infectious disease.
[1] McGarry moved to the Northern Territory in 1935 to assist Father P. J. Moloney in establishing the Little Flower Mission, which began in Alice Springs.
McGarry employed Arrernte men to build the mission here[5][6] this included erecting combined church and school and Wurlies, a form of humpies, for accommodating families.
[7] Examples of this include the expulsion of people in polygamous relationships from the mission camp and he believed that male initiation rites were excessively brutal and that the process made conversion to Christianity more difficult.
In these early years McGarry also obtained most of the mission's food by seeking donations and bargaining for goods in Alice Springs as well as from family and the St Vincent de Paul Society.
In 1946, after a number of more short-term roles, McGarry was posted as superintendent of the newly established Yuendumu settlement, delivering rations and welfare services to Warlpiri and Anmatyerre people who had been displaced from their homelands and traditional food sources.