Roger Jose

Roger Jose (c. 1893 – 7 October 1963) was a hermit and labourer who spent much of his life in Borroloola in the Northern Territory of Australia.

[1] In the 1920s he spent a period of time living in Darwin where he married Maggie, a Marranunggu woman from the Adelaide River region.

[1] From the 1930s Jose begun to rarely leave his home at Borroloola, which was constructed out of a corrugated iron tank (which was 5,000 liters (1,300 U.S. gal)) with a roof and holes for windows and a door.

[1] He dressed distinctly and often wore wallaby hide slippers, a tea cosy for a hat and a heavy coat which he claimed helped 'keep out the hot air' in the tropical region.

[5][6][7][8] In 1933 Jose was featured in an article written by Ernestine Hill entitled "The last of the Beachcombers" in which she frequently compares him to Bill Harney and says that:[9] As the last of the beach-combers, men who in a generation of clerks and salesmen can yet wrest their living from sheer wilderness, richly do they deserve to be...