More about School Teachers-
Distinguished Men and Fine Scholars –
Railways, Trams, and Mining –
Taylor’s Range
Mr. Thomas O’Hagan died when quite a young man – 42
years, I find from the records. I first knew him in 1878 at
Charters Towers, when he was teaching in the State school.
Later he came down to Fig Tree Pocket, out beyond
Indooroopilly, in a beautiful river-bound farming area, and
had under him lads who later ranked with the best of our
Queensland citizens. Mr. O’Hagan was a splendid looking man
when I first knew him- over 6ft in height and over 15st in
weight, and with a wonderful growth of beard. As formerly
stated, the beard was the fashion in those days, and the
“beardless youth” was just tolerated. But we must not talk
about beardless folk with flippancy, for old von Moltke of
1870 was beardless. However, as was the way with all the
prominent men of his day, O’Hagan’s beard swept well down on
his ample chest. He came out as one of Bishop O’Quinn’s school
teachers, but, like some others, found that the conditions of
the Church schools were undeveloped, and there was no
certainty of living pay, if any at all. So he joined up in the
Government service and off to Charters Towers, and evidence of
the respect in which the family was held there is given in the
fact that Marian Street was named after Mrs. O’Hagan.
Thomas O’Hagan was one of the O’Hagans of Tullaghogue,
and his father’s cousin was the first Baron O’Hagan, a
brilliant lawyer, who was twice Lord Chancellor of Ireland,
the first Catholic to be appointed after the Reformation. It
may be remarked that the present head of the house is the
third Baron, a Baron of the United Kingdom, and a son of the
first, having succeeded his brother. I met him on the other
side. He is in name Maurice Herbert Towneley O’Hagan, and he
is a Cambridge M.A., with many other distinctions in
Parliamentary life, and otherwise. He married a daughter of
the first Baron Strachie. His mother was a daughter and
co-heiress of Colonel Towneley, of Towneley, Lancashire. How
do I know all this? Well, we have in the “Courier” office a
little volume weighing about a quarter of a hundred, which is
called “Burke’s” and there one may learn a lot about the great
people. And here one may emphasize the Toryism of the
O’Hagans, with generations, so to speak, “in the purple,”
shining through a veneer of Liberalism, which was developed in
later years.
After a sojourn in those high realms, I must catch
breath and come back to our Thomas O’Hagan, the head master of
one of our State schools. Shortly after I came down to
Brisbane to edit the “Observer,” which was a morning paper, I
was riding one day out beyond Indooroopilly – a chestnut
gelding, New Chum, by Newbold – Maria, and bred by John Finnie
at Drayton, - and in a group of, say, four men, saw the
towering form of O’Hagan. I rode up and said, “Good-day, Mr….”
He didn’t know me at first, and, sad to say, didn’t seem much
interested in me later. We had some conventional talk and
passed on. But one of his sons was to be associated with me in
after years. Trooper Tom O’Hagan, with Trooper Charlie Crump,
looked after me and my horses during the South African War. A
gallant pair of young fellows – Charlie Crump, silent and
reserved, and Tommy O’Hagan, boisterous, fearless, and never
so happy as when there came the chance of a “scrap.” He was an
artist, and somewhat of a poet, and with a great love for a
horse. He stayed over in South Africa for some time after the
war, and the took over some horses to Port Elizabeth. He is
back in Brisbane now, knocking out bread and butter with his
pen. Good, warm-hearted Tom. Of two things he may be sure; He
will die some day, and (please God), go to Heaven; and he will
never be rich.
Another brother is James, of D. L. Brown and Co., and
another is John, or “jack,” the chief Clerk in the Justice
Department, who accompanied Mr. Theodore to England on his
first visit; later went as secretary to the Queensland
Commission at Wembley; and was Deputy Chairman and Government
representative on the Tramway Trust before the City Council
took over the service. And he holds other important positions,
official and otherwise. John is very like his father, with the
same courtesy of manner, and the same square set of the jaw.
Another member of the family is the widow of the late
Chief Justice of Queensland, Mrs. McCawley.
Thomas O’Hagan, head master, is still remembered out at
Fig Tree Pocket, and with affection; but, bless us all, his
old boys are grey of the head and with lines on their faces,
and so the world goes on. One of the old residents, the late
William O’Brien, about 30 years ago, talking over the old
days, spoke of Mr. O’Hagan as a very distinguished scholar and
a most lovable man.
Writing upon the late Mr. Papi, and upon Italians
generally, and attuning my thought to the present migration of
Italians to North Queensland, it occurs to me that people have
forgotten a lot about others of the great Latin race who were
here and worked for big things in our development.
I referred to Stombucco Toni Tomassi Bonacini,
Benvenuti, Prosdocimi, Father Canali, and others in earlier
pages; but I had little to say of the distinguished group who
came out under the auspices of Dr. O’Quinn. I am reminded of
them, in turning over some old papers, by a letter from Mr. J.
A. Hayes, of Sandgate, written probably about 1910. I wanted
some information about a “Dominus Magnus,” by Carmusci, which
appeared on the programme of a Saturday’s organ recital. Mr.
Hayes told me that the composer Domenico Carmusci, was a
resident in Brisbane in the early 1870s, and was contemporary
with Simonetti, the sculptor, Rev. Father B. Scortechnici,
botanist, the Rev. Father Rossolini, of Bundaberg, and other
Italian priests, artist, and teachers. Dr. Carmusci was master of music
and singing at St. James’s School, and also was choirmaster at
St. Stephen’s Cathedral, apart from his clerical duties. He
wrote a great deal of music in Brisbane – masses, litanies,
motets etc., and some of his manuscript music is still here.
The anthem “Salve Regina,” which Mr. Hayes says is rarely
heard in Australian Catholic Church choirs, was one of the
composer’s own special favourites.
“From what I can gather,” says Mr. Hayes, “the doctor
died in Italy some few years back. He was awfully jolly and
good natured, and a grand favourite with the boys at St.
James’s. From him I learnt a good deal concerning the
liturgical church music, and music if the Church as applied to
High Mass festivals and seasons, joyful and solemn. Carmusci’s
works have never been copyrighted properly, hence they have
been published in a most erratic fashion.”
Father
Scortechini I remember in the Logan district, and on an
occasion he was severely stabbed by a distracted man, who was
sent to gaol to think over his crime with a 15 years’
sentence.
A Queenslander of distinction, and who is connected in
the practical working and proprietorship of one of the big
productive industries of the State, says, “Why I am writing is
not only to express my interest in your articles, but also to
bear testimony from my personal knowledge of the character of
two men, referred to in your article No. 71, with whom it was
my privilege as a schoolboy to be associated, To W. Bevington
I attribute largely what success in life I have attained, as I
came in contact with him just at an age when his teaching and
his character exercised great influence.
“And you are quite correct in making the graceful
reference to the Gibsons, of Hemmant and Bingera. The
friendship was a very close one, and was largely due to Mrs.
Bevington, who, by the way, survives. She was a fine
character. Her son, W. Bevington, is one of the inspectors in
the Education Department at present (as stated in your
article). In 1885 I put in one year at the Normal School, and
boarded with Mr. Kerr, and the benefits I received under Mr.
Bevington were capped by the final 12 months with Mr. Kerr.
The last named and I were the greatest of friends, stern
disciplinarian though he was…His widow survives. She was a
Miss McLeod, another worthy member of the Education
Department. Her brother also, I think, is still alive. He was
head master in Gympie. Another reference you made was to Mr.
Burrell. I remember him well with the co-operative mill at
Hemmant. I hope your Memories will go farther back, and bring
in some of the pioneers…One feels a pang of regret that there
are so few of the old stamina and courage apparently left.”
Reference was made to Crompton M.A. in an earlier
portion of these Memories. He was a “character” and the
following notes sent me by R. W. S. give a little idea of his
methods and of the methods of the boys: “Mr. W Crompton,
second master of the Brisbane Grammar School in the late 1870s
and early 1880s, affectionately known by the boys as ‘Crummy,’
(an abbreviation of distortion of Crompton), was a man of very
uncertain temper, very irascible at times, but there was
nothing uncertain about his memory, which was simply
marvelous. Latin and Greek verse, historical facts, Macaulay’s
Lays of Ancient Rome etc etc were all stored up ready to be
brought out at a moment’s notice. Many a time, if the Latin or
Greek translation for the day happened to be particularly
awkward to deal with, one of us would be put up to ask an
innocent question, which would start him off on ‘Horatius’ or
‘The Battle of Lake Regillus,’ and thus get him into a happy
frame of mind, as well as postponing the lesson. In ‘The
Battle of Lake Regillus’ the following lines occur:-
The Kites
know well the long stern swell,
That bids
the Romans close.
Alluding, of
course, to the ‘Advance’ as sounded by the Roman trumpeters.
Mr. Crompton, however, had his own little joke about this, and
after repeating the line, ‘The kites know well the long stern
swell,’ always interpolated ‘that’s Major Snelling.’ This
always ‘brought down the house,’ so to speak, for did not the
long, stern swell, Major Snelling, sometimes put us B.G.S.
cadets through our paces. Our appreciation of the joke always
put ‘Crummy’ in a good humour, but after a while he would
remember that there was a lesson to be heard, and would
probably remark, ‘Well, what about this translation/’ Another
innocent question would then be, ‘Don’t you think, sir, that
this part of Xenophon is rather difficult to translate?’ ‘Um!
Well, yes,’ he would say, ‘perhaps it is,’ and as likely as
not he would go through the whole piece for us.”
It may be added that Major, afterwards Colonel,
Snelling, was at one time a “Courier” man, and later manager
of Reuters in Queensland, and also of a life insurance
company. He was always “the glass of fashion and the mould of
form,” a very handsome and distinguished man, and a very keen
soldier. Of course, we knew his sons in Brisbane, and they are
like him, but, bless us, not nearly so good looking. The
qualification is interpolated lest there should be an
indulgence of a little vanity, which is not good for young
men.
Mrs. Mary Guthrie, of Northgate, wrote: “When reading
your reminiscences of schoolmasters, I missed seeing anything
about ‘Daddy’ Jones, the schoolmaster, of the Leichhardt Boys’, the ‘Quarry’
school, as we called it when I attended the girls’ branch of
it. He was quite a character. He spared not the rod, and one
budding poet, who never passed the budding stage, made up this
doggerel about him:-
Daddy Jones
is a nice old man,
He tries to
teach us all he can,
Reading, and
‘riting and ‘rithmetic,
And doesn’t
forget to give us the stick.
“For all that,
he was a lovable old fellow, with the courtliness of an older
generation towards the softer sex. And how he loved a joke! I
remember when the boys gave a concert, and I was chosen to
play the only female part in it – that of the Swineherd’s wife
in the story of King Alfred and the cakes – the ear-boxing
part was entered into with zest, and Mr. Jones enjoyed the
rehearsals as much as ‘His Majesty’ dreaded them. When the
swineherds’ wife found out her mistake, her language was, to
my thinking, too servile, so, small feminist that I was, I
changed it, and sprang it on them at rehearsal. Mr. Jones
laugher heartily, and allowed it to stand. He was married
three times. I met his third wife during a visit she paid to
the school – a rather severe looking lady until she spoke and
smiled, when she instantly became a most fascinating
personality.”
Yes, I remember Mr. Jones quite well, though I had for
a time forgotten about him – senile decay, young readers will
probably say.
Mr. Jones was not only a fine scholar, but a very fine
teacher, and Leichhardt Street had much the reputation of
Ipswich Road Junction school in Dempsey’s time, AND eagle
Junction of the present day. A boy, looking for a job on
leaving school, could have no finer passport than a
recommendation from Mr. Jones. He was a very sharp
disciplinarian, and accordingly was respected and well
esteemed personally. Again, it was the story of the discreet
martinet having a better feeling from those under him than the
easy going and slack man.
On an occasion I was asked by Mr. Archibald Archer,
then Minister for Public Instruction, to ask the editor of the
“Courier” to discuss the question of education in the remote
places of the State. It was realised that it was a bad thing
for Queenslanders to grow up
as what were technically called “illiterates.” I talked
the matter over with O’Carroll, and wrote something on the
subject. Other papers had rather an awakening, but no action
of any value was taken by the Department of Public
Instruction. Really it was only when Mr. George Story, as
member for Balonne in the Legislative Assembly, absolutely
rattled the House, that the necessary vote was provided and a
system of itinerary schools established. The department was
only too glad to get going, and good work was done. Now we
have something better. The itinerary teacher does a little;
where there are groups of, say,
half a dozen children, they are given transport, if
practicable, to the nearest schools; where there is some one
who can help with studies a very fine teaching by
correspondence system has been introduced. In addition we have
the domestic science wagons with similar methods of teaching
boys various crafts.
Since 1881, the progress of teaching has been great
with our Technical Colleges, High Schools, and, to cap ‘em
all, the University; but the facilities for reaching the
outback have increased wonderfully, and that is a great
gladness to all who know what the old conditions were.
When McIlwraith was last in office, in 1889 it was, we
often talked over the wretched grounds, and worse
surroundings, of the Normal School. I put up a proposal to buy
Mayne’s paddock, just beyond Bowen Hills, and Cribb’s paddock,
at Milton, and establish big metropolitan schools there, with
splendid playgrounds – the boys at Mayne, and the girls at
Milton. McIlwraith was in love with the idea, and he would
have carried it out, but his colleagues were against the
expenditure, just as they were against the building of the
Central Railway Station. It is a thousand pities that we do
not look well ahead. In such matters posterity has to pay a
considerable share, but it gets the greater share of the
benefit.
Mr. J. J. Dempsey, late of Junction Park State School,
made a remark that, after a long service in the department of
Public Instruction, and 35 years as headmaster at Junction
Park, he was turned out at a moment’s notice. He had reached
“the age limit.” Shame upon the Government that would tolerate
such a thing. But that is not its only shame. Mr. Dempsey
explains that the original site of five acres for the school
was secured by Mr. William Stephens, M.L.C., who lately died,
and that he (Mr. Dempsey) secured the balance and held it over
for years until it was purchased by the Government at the
instance of Mr. D. F. Denham, who was chairman of the school
committee for 27 years. I have, as a journalist, been out to
Mr. Dempsey’s school functions there, saw his devotion to his
work, and the devotion of the scholars to him. In earlier
pages I have referred to the weakening of the personnel in the
schools. The Dempsey type is becoming as scarce as the dodo,
and no wonder. I gave a list of good men, some of Queensland’s
best, who have gone out of school work. Who are their
successors? We know the new type. Some of them without a
gracious thought, and tinctured to the lips with incipient
Bolshevism. However, a few of the Dempsey pupils have paid
tribute to him. His work is remembered in the right quarter,
and to the – well, that would be strong- with the tuppenny’
ha’ penny politicians and their parasites.
And while on the subject of head teachers, my friend
Burrell- he of Burrell and Fenton – said on occasion “You had
nothing about ‘Sandy’ McLeod in your Memories.” As a fact I
had almost forgotten Mr. J. A. McLeod, of the flowing beard
and the cheery laugh, a braw Calendonian whom I met at Gympie
in 1883, when he was “head” out at the One Mile. Mr. McLeod
was a brother of the late “Dan” McLeod, for many years head of
Fenwick and Co., and his sons, the present heads, the young
McLeods, are therefore nephews of J. A. McLeod. A fine
character was “Sandy” McLeod, as he was called, though I
didn’t know him well enough to use the familiarity. He is
still with us, out Auchenflower way, and may he long be spared
in health and strength.
Another not
mentioned was Mr. A H. Outridge, who was at Stanthorpe in my
earlier days, and was transferred later to Nundah. He left his
mark on the minds of many who are well known men and women of
Queensland today. I met him only on a few occasions, and even
those were forgotten until certain reviving incidents were
lately mentioned. I knew his brother, also Mr. P. P. Outridge,
now of Redland Bay, who married a Miss Foote, of Ipswich, the
Cribb and Foote people, and met him at Redland Bay when I was
unveiling a memorial to some of our soldier lads who are
sleeping overseas. His “digger” son motored “me and the
missus” over from Cleveland, and we had a good talk of things
on the other side.
The senior
Outridges were brothers of Mrs. A. H. Barlow, of Toowong. And
it may be remarked that Mr. P. P. Outridge was well-known
years ago in the pearling industry in the Far North, and that
a fine lad, a son of Mr. A. H. Outridge, was lost in a
hurricane, which destroyed the pearling fleet.
Mr. A. H.
Outridge is still well represented, and those of his family
whom I know are Mrs. Ferguson, the wife of Colonel George
Ferguson, D.S.O., of Nundah.
Mr. Clem
Outridge, later of Toombul, but who had bee a station owner in
the Burnett district, and my comrade, Gordon Outridge, a
well-known “digger.” All these are Queenslanders of the
highest type, the sort of men and women who make this old
world of ours purer and sweeter.
Robert McComb
was a school teacher at Cooktown. He only lately laid down the
burden.
Stephen Foote
was the head at Cooktown in my day, and I think Mr. McComb
must have gone there after I left. But I remember him well at
Eagle Farm, where he served loyally and well for 33 years. And
who would ever expect him to serve otherwise than loyally and
well? He came from the North of Ireland, where he had been
trained for the teaching profession, and was a fellow student,
I believe, of the Rev. J. S. Pollock. They came out to
Australia together. Here is a little story of the McComb
family. After the Big War, when I was back home at the old
place at Eagle Junction, I saw a lady one Sunday morning going
off to church with three soldier sons. It was Mrs. McComb.
Later, I said: “How proud you must have been going to worship
with your three soldier boys!” “I was,” Mrs. McComb said, “and
I’ll be prouder still when I have the other two back!” Yes,
there were five of them in the war, good , loyal citizens of
the Empire like father and mother, and, thanks be, they all
came back. They are all doing well in their professions or
jobs, just the sort of “Diggers” to whom Australia owes so
much.
It may be
that, in writing of school masters, I have omitted one or two
whom I knew in the old days, but do not now call to
remembrance. It is impossible, however, to leave the subject
without a tribute to R. H. Roe, who was head master of the
Brisbane Grammar School for so many years. A fine scholar, a
fine oarsman, a thorough believer in the healthy mind in a
healthy body, and so the helper of all lads in athletic
training, Roe had the respect of the lads. They knew that “the
head” had done all the things which he encouraged them to do,
and that he had done them with distinction. But there was with
him a wonderful charm, in addition to great strength of mind
and courage. In soldiering, as in journalism, I have had many
of his “old boys” with me, and, in my experience, very few
indeed were below the mark. I knew him in connection with the
Grammar School Cadets, and it was always a pleasure to have so
fine an influence in camp. One day I put it to him in a quiet
way whether he preserved discipline by holding up the terrors
of the cane, and the reply was in his whimsical way: “I
thought you would know that flogging in the army has been
abolished.” His successor at the school, Mr. Bousfield, I have
known for a good many years, but our ways have lain apart, and
I cannot from personal knowledge give the school estimate and
the general estimate of his fine qualities. Cowan and Jones,
of the school, I knew pretty well, as stated in earlier pages.
In closing on the Grammar School, I may add a strong belief-
that the influence of Roe will remain with it for many years,
just as it will remain with Queensland while the old boys of
his day, and even their boys’ boys survive.
On the Press
in Brisbane for some years as a free lance, and in the
Legislative Assembly as a Griffith Liberal. S. W. Brooks was a
well-known figure, an educationalist as well as a writer and
politician. He had, I think, been a Methodist missionary-
anyhow, a missionary- in Fiji, but for reasons of conscience
had broken away from his Church, and away from a lot of the
old beliefs as well. Just lately in “Back to Methuselah” I
read one of the Shavian quips, that some one came “to call the
righteous, not sinners, to repentance.” It reminded me of S.
W. Brooks. He had many cute, keen sayings. He was a fine
speaker, with great breadth of mind, and he should have had a
place in the Government of the day; but, bless us, S. W. B.
would have turned things upside down in a month. He had “no
time” for humbug; he believed in honesty in political; as well
as in ordinary life; and he even went so far on occasion to
rise up and praise the arch-enemy of his party, McIlwraith.
That in those days, as now, was the unforgivable sin, as much
as though he had, after having grace, blasphemed the Third
Element of the Trinity. Brooks began his literary work on the
“Observer,” when it was a morning paper, and during my
editorship. He was a great reader and always eagerly sought
new books. At the Brisbane School of Arts was a round table,
on which were placed the new works, and these, though
available to those who could sit down there and read, were not
allowed to be removed from the table until a month had passed.
Like Tantalus thirsting in the lake, he thirsted for these
good books, and he wrote a weekly article on “The Tantalus
Round Table,” being mainly literary notes on the new volumes.
It was S. W. Brooks who succeeded Beattie for the Valley in
the Legislative Assembly, and it was John McMaster, I think,
who succeeded Brooks; but the last named is not to be confused
with William Brookes, of Brookes and Foster, who was member
for North Brisbane, and later was in the Legislative Council.
Only twice
have I been a visitor to Nudgee Orphanage School. Once was in
1881, and once in about 1911. The first occasion it was when
editing the “Observer,” and there was a very big party, with a
great array of Roman Catholic prelates. It must have been
shortly after the death of Bishop O’Quinn, for his brother,
Bishop Quinn, of Bathurst, was there, and others who had come
to attend the funeral. It seems queer that one brother should
have been O’Quinn, and the other Quinn, but in an earlier
chapter I explained that the Brisbane Bishop had restored the
O to his name. I well remember the tributes paid to the
“prince of the Roman Catholic Church,” and especially that
from his brother, who said that Bishop O’Quinn knew how to
disagree with those who did not hold his opinions- he knew
they were bound to love one another. There was only one God,
who was the God of all, and there was but one Savior, who died
for us all. Other prelates spoke, and the dominant note of
their speeches was the call for good citizenship. What
appealed to me most was the appreciation of Bishop O’Quinn’s
work in the establishment of schools which had religious
atmosphere, for then as now, I often wrangled with my friends
over my objection to education of a purely secular character.
A splendid luncheon was given, and the outstanding speeches at
it were from John Murtagh Macrossan, the Minister for Works
and Railways, and “the Hon. Charles Lilley,” the Chief Justice
who had not yet become Sir Charles. Both the Roman Catholic
politician and the Church of England Chief Justice spoke for
brotherhood and fellow citizenship. We were much more free
then than in these days in the public discussion of religious
matters. We had our extremists on both sides – really bitter
men, as we perhaps have today, but the real leaders of public
affairs were in the most friendly way outspoken one with the
other. I can truthfully say that in those years I never heard
a breath of disloyalty from any Irish Roman Catholic or any
other Roman Catholic, though Irish affairs were extremely
turbulent, and we had in high position under the Crown two men
who had been transported to Australia for Irish political
offences. They were
of the best, the most honoured, and most loyal of our
citizens. Other times, other manners.
Mr. Charles P.
Perry, of “Wyndale,” Bootharb, Isis, writes in appreciative
terms of my “Memories” of school teachers, and he sends some
remembrances of his first days at school – at the Enoggera
Primary, when Edward James Curd was headmaster. The school was
built in the early 1870s, and “Good Old Jim Corbett gave a
large corner free of charge out of his beautiful property,
‘Killarney.” Mr. Curd was intellectual looking, young, fresh
complexioned, and rather short and slight, with very bright
eyes and an abundance of light brown wavy hair. Boys and girls
sat together, says Mr. Perry, and helped each other. Some of
the girl pupils were quite big ( a little chap’s idea no
doubt), including Annie Rayment, Dotie Mott, Dora McDowall,
Harriet Furnival, Norah Maunsell, Sarah Pickering, Harriet
Davies, Nellie Bagnall, little Winnie Manwaring, Katie
Nicholson, and many others. Many of Queensland’s good citizens
were educated at Enoggera under Mr. Curd – Sam, Kelsey, and
Walter Voller, the Manwarings, Pickerings, Poulteneys, Davies,
Llewellyn, Sneyds, Maunsell, Bagnall, Webb, Marshall, Rayment,
Nicholson, Edward and Willie Corbett, Perrys (2), and so on.
Mr. Perry goes on to say that Mr. Curd was a good musician and
soon introduced a little “harmony” to Enoggera, starting
“Penny Readings,” the local talent meeting each month on the
Saturday evening nearest the full moon. Mr. Curd was ably
seconded by his wife, an accomplished musician and delightful
amateur actress. It is added: “I think Mrs. Curd lives near
the tram terminus, Mount Pleasant, Logan Road.”
When writing on the famous Robb Arbitration Case, I
stated that, in connection with the Cairns railway, which was
the cause of the action, John Robb had lost heavily. Shortly
after the article appeared my very good friend, John Mann,
formerly M.L.A., now sugar growing at Edmonton in the Cairns
district, who worked on the line, expressed doubt as to Mr.
Robb having come out on the wrong side. Mr. Mann has the
impression that, in a case in Melbourne later on, a profit of
£500,000 on the job was admitted. Mr. Munro, one of the
Government engineers on the line, was, a couple of years ago,
fruit growing at Birkdale, on the Cleveland line – perhaps
still is. Mr. Mann gave me some interesting matter in
connection with the work on the cairns line, which, of course,
is quite unofficial. He says “The highest cost of excavating
on the job was set down at 2/11d per yard on a centre cutting
composed of jointy rock and tricky to bore. Most of the
cuttings had an open face to the gorge, and thousands of yards
of stuff were blown by ‘fracture,’ clear of the formation, at
trifling cost. If a cavity was found a few packages of
dynamite were flung into it, and the country for yards around
was disturbed. I have this story from Malachi Finn, now living
in retirement in Herberton, that he saw half a ton of dynamite
and nine casks of powder put into a cavity, and the resultant
explosion blew out sufficient rock to keep three sets of
hammer and drill men boring for eight weeks ere the last
remnant found a resting place in the Barron Gorge. And there
was no ‘go slow’ in those days I can assure you. Robb, we
understood, was getting 4/6d per yard for excavation, and, if
he was, I do not wonder at the huge profit, as I have seen men
on the face of the hill each letting down hundreds of yards
daily by simply undermining and stepping aside to let an
avalanche slide down clear to the river bed. In some cases the
unfortunate man himself went over; but, in those days, human
life was cheap. I saw a workman dismissed for refusing to work
where he was endangering other men’s lives. Oh, yes; he
punched the ganger, put his coat on, and walked away; and did
not try to get up a sympathetic strike. They were men in those
days. The ganger footed the bill later when his brief day of
authority was ended.”
As I had been
in the North, and had seen some little of the goldfields,
including the wonderful Palmer, and, as I had dropped a little
money in a Hodgkinson venture after coming here, there was an
impression that I was more or less of a mining authority.
Mainly it was “less.” However, I had a run around Thane’s
Creek find, on Rosenthal, where some very rich stuff was
found, and wrote some articles, which were very cautiously
worded, too cautiously for some of the folk who wished to
create a boom. The stuff in the Mountain Maid was rich, though
patchy. Mr. Hutchinson had estimated that some of the stone
would go 100oz to the ton, and he was said to have carried
away a specimen worth £5. In 1865 there had been a sensation.
so the historians said, over a “jewelers shop” at Talgai, and
this was described as not a circumstances to the Thane’s Creek
show. So far as I can remember, the gold at the Mountain Maid
was carried in a 9in leader; but it seemed to cut out after a
time, though a lot of gold was taken out. A “jeweller’s shop”
is a term often
used in connection with the breaking down of rich stone. We
saw lots of “shops” in the palmy Gympie days in the Ellen
Harkins, Wilmot Extended, Hall’s Lease, and lots of others. Mr
William Spreadborough, who used to write occasionally to the
“Courier,” with the nom de plume “W. S. over Norbiton,” was, I
think, the discoverer of the Thane’s Creek show. In after
years the place had a rather extended trial, and I have an
impression that it was there that my old friend, Mr. T. F.
Groom, did a lot of prospecting and exploration work some 14
years ago. Probably a systematic working there even now would
give good results, though wages and mining stores are so high.
Shortly after I came here there was also some excitement over
a discovery on Mr. A. Norton’s run, about 50 miles southwest
of Gladstone. The best of the shows, I think, was the
“Who’d-a-thought-it,” in which Friend Bros., of Gladstone,
were the principals, with, I think, a Mr. McCollim. When Mr.
Norton was writing for the “Courier” and “Observer,” after his
term of Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, we often talked
over the mining prospects there , and he was very sanguine
that the place would be found payable if exploration was
continued. Perhaps the area should not be described as in
South Queensland’ but he had plenty of little flutters in the
South, and not far from Brisbane either.
Probably Mr.
Charles Hardie Buzacott was the originator of the Brisbane
Tramway Company, and closely associated in the movement was
Robert Porter, a well-known contractor, alderman of the city
and prominent in all public movements. I was at one of the
earlier meetings, and remember there J. Malbon Thompson,
M.L.A., who had been in Cabinet, William Pocock, J. W. Forth,
John Cameron, and R. D. Neilson. Mr. Pocock had a general
agency business, was connected a good deal with mining, and
did practically all the outside business, trusteeships etc.
for the Bank of New South Wales. His son, the late Captain
George Pocock, of the Field Artillery, who married a Miss
Burkitt, was in the Bank of New South Wales. Mr. William
Pocock took up a big tin dredging area on the Annan River near
Cooktown, but passed out before he could put his ideas into
effect.
J. W. Forth
had a big produce business in
Elizabeth Street, near the Theatre Royal, a very reserved man,
but greatly esteemed by all who knew him.
John Cameron
was a well-known real estate auctioneer, and for a long time,
specialist in sub-divisions. He was a very bright, descriptive
writer, and, as dear old T. A. Ryan said on an occasion, his
advertisements would charm a bird off a bough to bid. John
Cameron left his business in very capable hands – his sons,
John (deceased), and Waverley, and Stuart, whom every one
knows, and I have known since they were little chaps in
knickers.
The moot point
with the Tramway promoters was whether the lines should be
built and operated by the Municipal Council or by a company
working under an Act of Parliament. John Cameron favoured
municipal building and ownership
Then John
Cameron and R. D. Graham, a surveyor, urged that the
Government should be asked to introduce legislation forming
what we now know
as a Joint Board; but the difficulty of raising the necessary
capital by debentures was pointed out by McIlwraith, and the
private company was formed.
A good thing for the local authorisation that they were
not saddled with the tramway in the earlier years, for
practically all the capital was lost; but the franchise was
there, and when population warranted it, Sir Malcolm McEachern
and others came along with the electrification scheme, and
then began the J. S. Badger regime. This last mentioned taught
us how to do thing. Mr. R. D. Neilson was one of the
originators. He was a wine and spirit and general merchant in
those days, a good looking, rather dandified chap, but
cultured, and one of the old day amateur actors, with a
special reverence for Shakespeare. Mr. Neilson’s family are
out on the world in good positions, and he had his beautiful
home on the river bank at Chelmer- a worthy pioneer, and one
whose great services in religious and philanthropic movements
should be gratefully remembered. With Sir J. R. Dickson –
father of Mr. Acting-Justice Dickson- he was a church-warden
of All Saints on Wickham Terrace, in the days when High Church
methods were rather a shock to the “Protestant” congregations.
But Neilson, like myself, always held that the Church of
England is not, and never was, Protestant, but Catholic, and I
have heard him refer some contentious spirits to the Apostles’
Creed. But that is a digression from the tram track.
A very
interesting visitor to Brisbane, and concerning whom I wrote
in 1881, was Mr. J. Taylor, of Taylor, Bethell, and Roberts,
his shipping people. It is “for him” that Taylor’s Range is
named. He had been out here in the sixties (1860s), and
brought up quite a lot of land on the range, and held the view
that residential Brisbane of the future would be on the
slopes. Captain Simpson’s old place was there, and a
wonderfully beautiful place it was at the time of Mr. Taylor’s
second visit. Dr. Lockhart Gibson lives on one of the spurs of
the range, a plateau with fine altitude, and it is his white
roof that we see gleaming in the midst of the hill foliage
like a splash of snow on a green background.
Many of us
still think that Taylor’s Range will be the favourite
residential area, and even in a few years’ time. The motor
‘bus and the motor car are smashing up our little distances,
and it seems almost inevitable that before long the trams will
run round the level country at the foot of the hills and work
round to Mount Coot-tha. A tramway circle from Paddington to
Mount Coot-tha and back by Toowong would be a wonderful
scheme. It would give us a present unknown delight, and I
fancy, would be a paying proposition.
Mr. Taylor
thought the hill scenery like that of Switzerland. He was a
very enterprising man, and knew Queensland geographically
better than 90 per cent of the people of the country, for he
travelled a great deal in the coastal areas and inland. I
remember his saying to a couple of Press writers, of whom I
was one, that he looked for great things from our mining and
from our wool growing, but most of all from our sugar
industry, which was then assuming stability. And he thought we
would have no difficulty in getting English families with
capital to come out if they thought a sufficient supply of
coloured labour would be available. Ahem! Mr. Taylor certainly
did not contemplate that Australian sentiment of 1927. Some of
us do not even desire Italians, much less coloured labour.