David Unaipon has been pictured on the front of Australias $50 note since 1995. A hugely intelligent man who nonetheless left school at 13, he lodged 19 patents during his life, revolutionised sheep shearing, devoted much of his time to attempting to achieve perpetual motion, wrote prolifically, and conceptualised the helicopter two decades before it became a reality. This is his story.

A warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers: this feature includes numerous images of a deceased person.

Almost half a century after his death in 1967, Unaipon has achieved some level of posthumous recognition through his appearance on our national currency, and in the annual David Unaipon award for Indigenous literature. Google even featured one of his mechanical designs on a front page doodle on his 140th birthday.

Unaipon was said to be the best-known Aborigine in Australia during his lifetime. But having researched his life and his scientific investigations, its impossible to avoid the conclusion that he would have been much better-known and more influential if he had been white.

Born David Ngunaitponi at South Australias Point McLeay Mission in 1872, his name was reputed to mean I go forward. He undoubtedly went further forward than most of his contemporaries he remains the only Indigenous Australian on a current Australian banknote. Yet what he tried to achieve remains largely forgotten.

Few Australians can identify him on the $50 note; even fewer would know anything of his life. His descendants arent entirely happy about his appearance on our currency either, yet that remains his most visible recognition. What did he do and why dont we know more about it?

Unaipons extraordinary ability was evident from when he first began school at the age of seven. One missionary wrote of him: I only wish the majority of white boys were as bright, intelligent, well-instructed and well-mannered, as the little fellow I am now taking charge of. In 1885, at the age of 13, he moved to Adelaide to work as a servant. His employer, CB Young, actively encouraged Unaipon to continue his reading and learning.

After working variously as a bootmaker, bookkeeper and storeman, Unaipon was eventually employed by the Aborigines Friends Association, which ran the Point McLeay mission, to travel and seek support for its work. A devout Christian (his father was the very first convert at the mission), he saw that belief system as quite compatible with Aboriginal spirituality. But that did not distract him from his continued investigations in science and engineering.

Unaipons ongoing renown rests heavily on his modified design for a sheep-shearing comb. He had come up with the basic idea by 1909, and he placed a provisional patent on his hinge modification, but despite being widely adopted, he never made any money from it, and the patent eventually lapsed a fate that befell all his subsequent patents as well.

Unaipons invention was neatly described in the Adelaide Advertiser in 1910 under the heading An Ingenious Aboriginal:

Read more:
How David Unaipon (Almost) Changed Our Nation