DUIGAN, John Denis (1927-2014), farmer, airman, adventurer, led a life of dramatic enthusiasm on Flinders Island. Born on 19 July, 1927 at Colac, he was the last surviving child of Reginald Charles Duigan and Phyllis May nee Peck and a member of one of Australia’s most distinguished aviation families. The Duigan Brothers, Reginald and John built and flew the first Australian-made aircraft at Mia Mia near Heathcote in 1910. John’s elder brothers, Brian Lawless Duigan, DSO DFC (1915-1972) and Terence Lawless Duigan, both attended Geelong College during the early 1930s.
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John spent his early years at Eliminyt, attending firstly, Eliminyt Primary, then Colac High School before becoming a boarder at College from 1942 to 1945 where he became a School Prefect in 1945. At College, he became a member of the College Cadet Corps and a very active participant in the College Air Training Corps which operated under the supervision of teacher ‘Tam’ Henderson for three years during World War II. Although too young to join his brothers flying during World War II, he learnt to fly with John Meehan in a De Havilland Tiger Moth. He later joined the Merchant Navy and worked for Shell before eventually moving to Flinders Island with his young family to take up farming. He continued using light aircraft on his farm, buying a ‘Skycraft Scout’ in 1976 which he later upgraded to a ‘Thruster Ultralite’ in 1985.
His farming career was punctuated with a number of flying ‘incidents’ and his son, Nick Duigan, affectionately recounted these in his eulogy for his father who he described as a man with an enormous generosity of spirit, that ‘he was one of those very rare, precious people who brightened the day, he always had a joke or a poem, a song or a compliment, he went out of his way to make us feel good… He saw possibilities never problems, everything was a good idea’ . John Denis Duigan died at his home on Flinders Island on 2 January, 2014.
John spent his early years at Eliminyt, attending firstly, Eliminyt Primary, then Colac High School before becoming a boarder at College from 1942 to 1945 where he became a School Prefect in 1945. At College, he became a member of the College Cadet Corps and a very active participant in the College Air Training Corps which operated under the supervision of teacher ‘Tam’ Henderson for three years during World War II. Although too young to join his brothers flying during World War II, he learnt to fly with John Meehan in a De Havilland Tiger Moth. He later joined the Merchant Navy and worked for Shell before eventually moving to Flinders Island with his young family to take up farming. He continued using light aircraft on his farm, buying a ‘Skycraft Scout’ in 1976 which he later upgraded to a ‘Thruster Ultralite’ in 1985.His farming career was punctuated with a number of flying ‘incidents’ and his son, Nick Duigan, affectionately recounted these in his eulogy for his father who he described as a man with an enormous generosity of spirit, that ‘he was one of those very rare, precious people who brightened the day, he always had a joke or a poem, a song or a compliment, he went out of his way to make us feel good… He saw possibilities never problems, everything was a good idea’ . John Denis Duigan died at his home on Flinders Island on 2 January, 2014.