COMPLETING DARWIN’S AVENUE OF HONOUR
The Darwin Returned Services League (RSL) has languished in recent years. No place to call home after the devastating fire that razed its headquarters to the ground and no steady income stream to support its advocacy work.
A revitalised committee and new strategic direction have re-energised the organisation. The pinnacle of its most recent achievements being the opening of a revamped RSL Club in the Old Admiralty House building on The Esplanade. The club has been rebadged as the Darwin Services Club to avoid confusion and has opened up its membership to other frontline services including Australian Federal Police, Fire, Ambulance and Nurses.
RSL committee member and former Navy chef, Adam Becker said the new club was way overdue.
“It had been too long where Darwin hadn’t had a presence with the RSL; hadn’t had a focal point for servicemen and women.”
He said the location of the new club on the Esplanade was significant.
“Having the location on the Esplanade which is Darwin’s Avenue of Honour spreading from the new, being Larrakia Miliary base down to the old, being the Wharf and the memorial to the WWII bombings and all the installations along the Esplanade. That’s the CBD centre of history and the centre of veterans.”
When it came to upgrading Admiralty House, Adam’s skills and experience dovetailed nicely with those of former artilleryman and current RSL Treasurer and Darwin Services Club Chair Paul Winter.
Adam has a Diploma in Hospitality Management and he’s a property investor with a wife who is a commercial banker. Paul is part owner of the award-winning NT construction company Habitat.
Both men are RSL Committee volunteers and give their time and share their expertise at no charge.
While Old Admiralty House has retained its original structure, the work to update it had its challenges.
After Ministerial approval was gained, there was a delay in starting work while Heritage NT’s concerns were addressed.
“It was a six-month delay and that really did hurt,” Paul said.
“There was a bit of ‘change that, change this’.
“To make sure we didn’t damage the heritage quality of the building, we had to engage with heritage architect, David Bridgman.
“He would come along and check our work at certain critical points.
“We also had an arborist come in and make sure we weren’t cutting branches thicker than the fat part of your forearm.”
Adam said other challenges included navigating the local government, the Federal Government and critics of the building.
“Paul’s building and development background; myself, having a bit of an ear with the financial side of it, and having the hospitality side gave us the tenacity to see it through because we understood it’s a process,” Adam said.
“It’s been a labour of love.”
DCL Hospitality will manage the new Club. DCL is owned by local hospitality veterans Guy Dunne, Darren Lynch and Andrew Case who operate several other venues in the NT.
Paul said the Darwin Services Club will operate on a financial model that aims to put 80% of profits back into the work the RSL does for serving and returned servicemen and women. This includes providing advice on wellbeing services, working with the department of Veterans’ Affairs, lobbying governments at all levels and representing the interests of personnel.
The Darwin Services Club officially opened in November 2025, fittingly it was on Remembrance Day. TQ
SOLDIERING ON
The RSL’s resurrection is not just reserved for the new Darwin Services Club on the Esplanade.
Since Paul Winter’s appointment as Treasurer in early 2024, the Darwin RSL has bought a building in Edmunds Street for their new headquarters.
The RSL is based downstairs. Multiple other commercial tenancies are either tenanted or in the process of being tenanted to provide an income stream for the RSL’s proactive, advocacy work.
The RSL Committee is in negotiations with the Northern Territory Government to acquire a property within the Darwin CBD to establish an RSL museum.
The RSL has been part of the Darwin community for more than 100 years. The organisation was founded in 1917 by World War I soldiers and sailors returning to Darwin.
The RSL Club’s first home was a timber and galvanised iron building built in 1922 in Knuckey Street. It was known as the Soldier’s Memorial Hall and survived the Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1942 and what was then labelled ‘one of the worst cyclones on record’ in 1937.
In 1970, the Club was relocated to a temporary shed in Cavenagh Street until a new building was built and opened in 1972. It was damaged during Cyclone Tracey in 1974 but was open again by New Year’s Day 1975.
The Club remained in Cavenagh Street until a fire swept through the premises in June 2018. The building was destroyed. The block has remained vacant ever since.
The RSL Committee is in the process of selling that block.
