Our Military Forces
Australia’s First Service Abroad
The Pioneers of the Service
It was not until 1884 that we got the Defence Act,
which placed Queensland at the head of all military
organisations in Australia.
In the 1880s, and for many years later, we were all
separate “colonies,” with six different and very widely
differing systems of defence.
Australians had, of course, smelt powder very much
earlier than in the Great War of 1914-18; earlier than in
the Boer war; earlier than in the historical campaign, in
which Colonel Richardson led a New South Wales Contingent
to the Soudan, authorised by and provided for by William
Bede Dalley, when Lord Loftus was Governor of the colony.
I have an idea that Lawyer Chubb, of Ipswich – the
father of Mr. Justice Chubb – once made an offer of
volunteers for service abroad, and I am quite sure, from
reading the old “Courier” files, that he was associated
with Light Horse in Queensland some seventy. If he made
such an offer, the question is whether it was before or
after a force of Australians went off from Sydney to fight
in New Zealand against the Maoris.
That was in the early sixties; but I remember well,
not the departure of the troops, but a family incident
connected with the Waikato campaign. And it may be
remarked here that our friend, the poet schoolmaster,
George Vowles, had cleared off from school in Queensland,
and manfully played his part in the war at about the age
of 16 years.
In the early sixties our family lived at my
birthplace, Oaklands, Appin, on the Woollongong Road, 43
miles from Sydney, where, about three-quarters of a mile
of oaks were planted in about 1824 by my great
grandfather, an East India Company’s officer, who had
received a big grant of Illawarra land (vide McCaffrey’s
“Pioneers of Illawarra”). We had an uncle, Jack Browne – a
tall, handsome, and wild devil- in the Maori War, and he
was killed at Waikato. The news of his K.I.A. came pretty
late one night, when my older brother Billy and I were in
bed. Jack Browne was very fond of children and we loved
him. After we had been told the bad news, we were left
alone, and I whimpered a bit, but Billy was quiet. “Billy,
aren’t you going to cry?” I said, and he replied, “Not
now, I’m sleepy. I’ll cry in the morning.” We hear of the
easy tears of childhood, but children do not quite
appreciate the long separations of death. I think we may
say that the contingents to New Zealand in about 1860 saw
the first despatch of troops from Australia to take part
in “active service abroad.”
I did not know them well until 1881, but the
Queensland Volunteers had been a well conducted
organisation many years before, and in my time there were
as unattached Majors Godfrey Geary, Richard B Sheridan
(afterwards Postmaster-General of Queensland), Charles
Lilley (later Sir Charles, and Chief Justice), Ratcliffe
Pring (later Mr. Justice Pring), H. C. Stanley (later
Colonel Stanley of the Artillery, and Chief Engineer of
Railways), Henry Milford, and E. E. Smith. Those were all
brainy men, and would have been splendid war leaders of
citizen soldiers. The organisation of the force was with a
small headquarters in Brisbane, units at Ipswich and
Toowoomba, and “Coast Corporations” at Maryborough,
Bundaberg, Rockhampton and Mackay. The commandant was
Colonel George Blaxland, who had been an officer in the
Imperial Service, and was a schoolteacher at Toowoomba
when he received the appointment of commandant. Blaxland
was a soldierly man and popular, but when it came to
reorganisation he had to make way for a more modern and
more experienced commandant.
He was brusquely treated, but in later years a
Parliamentary Committee reported very favourably upon him,
and he received a compensation of a couple of thousand
pounds or so, and a pretty fair civil appointment. It was
tardy justice.
In 1883 Lieutenant Colonel E. R. Drury,, C.M.G.,
(general manager of the Q.N. Bank) was commandant until
the arrival of Colonel George French (afterwards General
George French) for the organisation of the Queensland
Defence Force.
The brigade major, who was really chief of a sort
of general staff, was a capable officer of the Royal
Artillery, whom we now know as Colonel R. A. Moore, until
recent years Chief Police Magistrate in Brisbane. He had
been an instructor of artillery in Ireland, and was the
brains of the force.
The Infantry Staff Officer was Captain Charles
McCallum, formerly of the 23rd Royal Welsh
Fusiliers, who had a very sad ending, and the paymaster
was Major Mellish, also an Imperial Service man, a
splendid old veteran of the Wolseley school, who had
served in the Ashantee campaign.
Another fine soldier, an artilleryman, was my very
old friend, Sankey, the father of Colonel Sankey, for so
many years associated with the volunteer section of the
Defence Force.
On the staff also were Lieutenant-Colonel John
McDonnell, Under Secretary of the Postal Department, and
father of Dr. Aeneas McDonnell, of Toowoomba, who for a
term had been commandant.
Major W. H. Snelling, an old “Courier” man and
“Reuter’s” representative in Queensland, the father of Mr.
Snelling, General Manager of the Q. N. Pastoral Company,
and one of the principals in Martin Snelling & Co. We
also had Major J. H. Adams, a grim old soldier, who ran
the supply, or commissariat, as we termed it, formerly of
the 72nd Foot, and Captain Geo. T. Weale, a
surveyor, whose widow many years later was on the
“Courier” staff.
The Artillery was under Colonel E. R. Drury,
C.M.G., as the brigade commander, who was succeeded in
turn by Colonel Henry C. Stanley, father of Mr. Talbot
Stanley, Mrs. Victor Drury, and other well known
Queenslanders, and Colonel J. F. G. Foxton, C.M.G., V.D.
Major Ernest Webb was a battery commander, and in the
Garrison Artillery was Captain F. C. Bernard, late of the
56th Foot, and who was Governor of the Brisbane
Gaol.
Captain M. B. Gannon was in the Ipswich battery.
The engineers were commanded by Major Geo. H. Newman, who
had an important post in the Department of Justice, and
with him was Captain J. B. Stanley, a keen and clever
officer, whose sons have won distinction in civil and
military life, one being Colonel R. A. Stanley, D.S.O. a
distinguished officer of the great war, and another Mr. J.
H. Stanley, Under Secretary of the Treasury.
The First Regiment, the old Moretons, was commanded
by Charles Stuart Mein (later Mr. Justice Mein); the 2nd
regiment (Darling Downs) by Major Richard Godsall, the
father of a family of well-known sons and daughters at
Toowoomba, with whom was captain C. J. A. Woodcock, later
chief clerk in the Home Department in Brisbane.
In the Coast Corps, Lieutenant-Colonel A. Feez
commanded at Rockhampton, the father of Messrs Arthur and
Adolph Feez, the well-known lawyers of Brisbane. Colonel
Feez was a very capable man, a wonderful musician, who
could sit at the piano and play bright accompaniments to
his own brilliant whistling. He sang also, but the
whistling was the joy of the old mess at Lytton. On an
occasion during manoeuvres he vainly shouted a command,
but a high wind was blowing, and his officers could not
hear. He became impatient, but with no better result, and
then the commandant called to him, “Whistle it Feez!” Feez
had the “Officers’ Call” sounded, and told his officers
what he wanted, and he didn’t whistle it.
At Mackay I did not then know the command, but W.
B. Hodges, later a major of Mounted Infantry, seemed to
run the show. At
Bundaberg we had Major William Bligh O’Connell (a relative
of Sir Maurice O’Connell), who was later Minister for
Lands; and as a captain, F. B. T. W. Koch, for many years
a bank manager, and now a retired Colonel, whose four sons
were in the thick of it in the Great War.
The Maryborough command was with “Nick” Tooth,
Major Nicholas Tooth, later a member of Parliament.
The cadets were under the command of Major Reginald
H. Roe, M.A., who was for many years afterwards a
conspicuous worker, and his junior officer was Crompton,
M.A., William Crompton, I believe, also a Grammar School
master, and a fine Latinist. Colonel Roe helped to lay the
foundation of a spirit of devotion in the old Queensland
force, and in the Commonwealth force, and it came out in
the big war in which the Old Boys did the Old School much
honour. And his own family was not without a distinguished
record in the world-shaking events.
The
Surgeon-Major of the force was Kevin Izod O’Doherty, who
had been transported as a treasonable Irishman! Of him, I
have on other occasions written much.
My first
association with the Queensland volunteer forces was as a
journalist in the old mess at Lytton. Each night during
manoeuvres glittering mess uniforms were worn, and there
was a warm spirit of camaraderie. Queensland had some fine
men serving her in those days, and the camps, as the
periods of annual training, were great social affairs. The
Press devoted much attention to the work done, and it was
no unusual thing for me to ride to town by 11pm, with my
copy and back to Lytton for the night, with a 5 o’clock
turn out next morning. Some of us were young, and all were
serious. Where are now all those good souls whose name I
have given? Nearly all have crossed the Great Divide. Of
those men of the old school only three or four survive –
Colonel Moore, still young, smart, and debonair, Colonel
Koch, taking his ease in the afternoon of life at the
beautiful seaside, Redcliffe, and looking quite fit for a
campaign; Eldridge Smith, at Mackay, one of the most
accomplished of Queenslanders in military as in civil
life, and I have no information about Crompton, who left
Queensland years ago for England. The rest have gone; but
they did good service for Queensland. Perhaps “they
builded better than they knew!”
Queensland
came under the Defence Act of 1884 with the idea of
forming a defensive organisation, with a wider scope, and
a more intensive system of training than was possible
under the old volunteer Act. Colonel French, the new
commandant, was Irish, but not related to Field Marshall
Lord French, a tall, strapping man of middle age, and with
a very considerable family. He made his home in the two
storied brick building which now serves as part of the
Queensland headquarters office, and soon became, with Mrs.
French and their young folk, closely identified with the
social life of Brisbane. The eldest daughter married Dr.
“Ned.” O’Doherty, and was left a widow with a family.
Colonel French went from Queensland to New South Wales as
Commandant there, and later was promoted Major-General and
knighted. He was a keen soldier of equable temperament,
and under the Defence Act, which was the outcome of his
recommendation; Queensland took the lead in Australia in
military training. The greatest tribute to Queensland’s
system was to be seen in the reconstitution of the
Commonwealth General Staff after the Great War. The
following were some of the higher appointments on the
staff and generally: Inspector-General. Lieutenant-General
Sir Harry Chauvel; chief of the general staff,
Major-General Brudenel White; Adjutant-General,
Major-General Victor Sellheim; Quartermaster-General,
Brigadier-General John K. Forsyth; Chief Staff Officer of
Artillery, Brigadier-General Coxen, and Brigadier-General
Phillips with him; Chief Staff Officer of Engineers,
Brigadier-General Cecil Foott; Military Secretary,
Brigadier-General Thomas Dodds; General Officer Commanding
in New South Wales, Major General Brand; and Officer
Commanding Troops in Tasmania, Colonel Dudley White. Every
one named, and the biggest of the staff appointments of
the Commonwealth are covered, was a Queenslander. It is
not to be supposed that Queenslanders had natural aptitude
above the officers of other States, but it is contended
that the remarkable circumstances of the Commonwealth
General Staff were attributable to the Queensland defence
system established by, as he then was, Colonel French.
Colonel
French aimed at compulsory service, not a comprehensive
system, but a method of ballot, as in France at the time,
to ensure the establishment of the force being brought to
and maintained at its full strength. A Bill was drafted on
those lines, and, as on a later and more serious occasion,
there was some talk of the evils of conscription. WE did
not then quite understand what a shelter the cry against
conscription would be in later years to young gentleman
with Arctic feet. It was never assumed that any eligible
man calling himself an Australian would avail himself of
such a shelter. In 1884 the argument was that compulsion
was not necessary, that in time of stress every Australian
would spring to the call for his services.
However,
the Queensland Parliament watered down George French’s
scheme of organisation and took out the real soul of
compulsory service. Only the dry husk remained. That was a
provision that in the event of any unit of the defence
establishment not being brought up to strength by
voluntary enlistment, it should be filled up by a ballot
amongst single men, and widowers without children between
the ages of 18 and 40 years. The regulations under the Act
laid down the conditions for a technical “efficiency,” and
the Commandant and his staff set about the selection of
officers and non-commissioned officers and a system for
their special training. The establishment was soon
organised and then began a steady process of elimination
and substitution. Examinations were fairly stiff, and in
later years became very stiff. So much the better. It was
there that the elimination process began.
One great
factor in the establishment of a fine spirit in the
Queensland Defence Force was the Commandant. He was
recognised as a good soldier, as an earnest man, as one
who did not worry even his own staff, and he was a worker.
Classes, each lasting a month, were held at Victoria
Barracks for officers and non-commissioned officers, with
men of the Permanent Artillery (regular soldiers) as a
cadre. We began work at 6 am and went on until 8 am; then
from 4 pm to 6 pm; and then lectures, topography, and
general theory of evenings. Some men who could spare the
time devoted the whole of every day for a month to the
training. It was a “hard go.” The examinations followed,
both written and practical, and they certainly were
severe. We gloried in that. I worked intensely for my
examination for captaincy, and had the pleasure of getting
well over 80 per cent, (honours) in my written, and “very
good” in my practical; but it represented fully three
months of careful and persistent work. In those days men
gave their time ungrudgingly and devotedly – more time
than they really could afford. I say this with great
pride: that I gave to my country about 22 of my best years
organizing and training officers and men – the best I had
in me. As much time was given to the defence organisation
as to my private work. We were paid a certain amount, and
what I received might have been paid for the keep of one
horse. That is only an illustration of the spirit, and I
am sufficiently immodest to glory in it today. Scores of
men, busy in civil life, and battling along for bread and
butter, did the same. Some one a few days ago said: “What
thanks did we get?” Happily, I was able to say that we
were not looking for thanks. We knew that the day would
come, when, in Australia or elsewhere, we should have to
fight, and it was our job to be ready, and to have others
ready. Many of “The Old Brigade,” have gone on the long
journey – few, indeed, are left. Yet I venture to say
there is not one who regrets, what he has given to
Queensland and to Australia. On the other hand, the
feeling was of pride in a fairly successful service. That
was the spirit put by John French into the force which he
created in Queensland, and it was carried on by, perhaps
sometimes in spite of, his successors.
The scheme
of Colonel French was to wipe out the volunteer system,
and to make the force wholly militia or partially paid.
That was opposed by many of the old volunteer officers,
and notably by Colonel. A. J. Thynne.
The
volunteers carried too many guns for the Commandant, and
the scheme was again modified so that those who desired to
serve without pay, and with an easier qualification for
“efficiency,” might continue as an organisation. It was a
sharp disappointment to French. He thought the volunteer
idea would soon blow out, that men would not serve without
pay while their friends drew so much a day; but he
reckoned without his A. J. Thynne. The militia and the
volunteers kept up a friendly spirit though some of our
“cub” officers would sometimes speak of “those dam’
volunteers,” and an occasional volunteer would rub it in
about “patriots who would not serve their country under
six bob a day.” Personally, I didn’t see much difference.
We were all Mother Carey’s chicken’s, though French had
the impression that one section of the chickens’ “was
ducks.”
Another
difficulty cropped up later, when we were all expected to
go into khaki. Thynne’s men, the ordinary volunteers, put
it that they were intended to be a distinctive element,
and the Scotsmen- for we had a very fine Queensland
Scottish- absolutely refused to be solaced at the prospect
of losing their kilts. But then came the effort –
successful, too, in the end- to destroy the so-called
“National” regiments – the Queensland Scottish and the
Queensland Irish. What a wonderful turnout those two
regiments made, the Scots in all the glory of their kilts
and tartans and pipes, and the Irishmen, whose uniforms
were green facings held some of the most magnificent
specimens of manhood in the world.
Yet
Thynne’s men – generally a lot of young clerks, shop
assistants, and the like, but athletes – could march rings
round them all.
When
Colonel George Arthur French arrived and got to work, his
chief helper of the new regime was Major Charles Hamilton
Des Voeux, of the Bengal Staff Corps, later Major General
Sir Charles Hamilton Des Voeux, of the Indian Army.
That was
before the coming of Major Lyster as brigade major and
practically chief of the little staff. Des Voeux was a
brilliant soldier, an untiring worker, warm hearted and
generous, but when he came here first he had the
impression that, as in the English and Indian volunteer
forces, all officers should be men of means, and of some
social distinction. When the former lieutenant of a
Highland regiment, John Sanderson Lyster, came into the
force as brigade major and chief of staff, Des Voeux
became infantry staff officer.
Lyster had
left the Army and came to Australia with General Fielding
for the inspection and rough survey of the route of
McIlwraith’s Transcontinental Railway from Roma, I think,
to the impossible Point Parker on the Gulf of Carpentaria.
After the completion of that work, Lyster became official
secretary – and also private secretary – to McIlwraith. He
was a keen worker, methodical and capable. He and Mrs.
Lyster became shining lights socially, and his position in
the new force was soon settled. Lyster could never be
deemed inspiring to Australian soldiers, but he got on,
and, ultimately became commandant here, and later, chief
of the staff in New South Wales, until such time as the
almanac came against him, when he was retired, and in the
early days of the Great War got away to England.
When
Colonel French went to the command in New South Wales, and
to major general’s rank and a knighthood, there came to
Queensland as Commandant Major-General John Fletcher Owen,
of the Royal Artillery, a very brilliant little chap, who
was later Governor and Commander-in-Chief at Malta. He was
a keen, unassuming soldier, who kept the traditions going.
Of course, French had established the very best staff men
– Major E. Druitt, R.E., as Engineer, S.O., and Grieve, a
brilliant “gunner,” as Artillery S.O. Both were in the
front rank with scientific soldiering.
Grieve was
succeeded by Major Landon Dealtry Jackson, R. A., a very
fine soldier, and a fine scholar, who kept up his work at
Greek. He married Miss Georgie Drew, a daughter of W. L.
G. Drew, C.M.G., chairman of the Public Service Board, and
a sister of Mrs. J. O’Neill Brenan. Jackson was in command
of troops in the Clermont district at the time of the big
strike in 1891. An incident may be mentioned to illustrate
his character. Bill Hamilton, later President of the
Legislative Council, after a term as a Minister of the
Crown, was a strike leader, but one of the best influences
in the country for order. He was devoted to his cause and
to his comrades, and when some of them were in Clermont
lock up, he brought in their meals. Everyone respected
him; but there came the day of his arrest. Mr. R. A.
Ranking was the special magistrate in the district; and,
when bail was refused for Hamilton, Major Jackson went in
and offered a cash bond of £2000 – his own bond. It was
refused, and Jackson, though he felt deeply that a bad
thing had been done, could not make a song of it. He
always respected “Bill” Hamilton.
Later we
had a Major McClintock and Major Chads – as infantry staff
officers – but that is getting down to later days.
Colonel
Howell Gunter succeeded Owen as Commandant, but did not
quite catch the Australian spirit. He had also to contend
with the rather apocryphal story that he had been accepted
here on a misunderstanding. The story was that the
Queensland Government thought it was getting the writer on
Tactics of the same surname, and didn’t discover the
mistake until it was too late to remedy it. I don’t put my
endorsement on the story as being the whole truth and
nothing but the truth.
CHAPTER XIV
The Queensland Parliament- Officers and Staff, Great and Lowly – A bit of Mount Coot-tha History –The Hansard Staff
Presidents of the Legislative Council in my earlier days on the Brisbane papers were Sir Joshua Peter Bell, Mr. J. F. McDougall, of Rosalie Plains – a cousin of my father- and Sir Arthur Palmer.
The Pressmen, though sometimes meeting the
President of the period, were more closely in touch with
the officers of the House. Daniel Foley Roberts, referred
to in an earlier article, was Chairman of Committees, and
a very tactful and capable Chairman he was. On occasions
Mr. John C. Heussler was Acting Chairman. Mr. Heussler was
one of the kindliest of Queensland representative men, a
good businessman, but loathe to hurt the feelings of
others.
A sharp debate had taken place in Committee, and
when a vote was taken the “Not Contents” carried their
point. “Those of that opinion,” said the Acting Chairman,
on the proposal that words proposed be omitted stand part
of the clause, ‘Say Content” – and there was a shout of
“Content”; “otherwise Not Content,” when there was a roar
of “Not Content.” Ineffably placid, but sympathetic, Mr.
Heussler looked at the “Contents,” and announced the vote
thus: “I’m afraid the Not Contents have it!”
The ingenuous expression of his own view quite
restored good humour.
We had some difficulty in the Legislative Council
in hearing, though some of the members then were more
easily comprehended than 40 years later, and I vainly
battled in “Political Froth” in the “Queenslander” for a
sounding board over our gallery.
Sir Joshua Peter Bell was sympathetic; McDougall
was inclined to be helpful, but Sir Arthur Palmer would
have none of it. He thought the Pressmen would be better
out of the way altogether, at Kamscharka, or some other
cool place. At any rate there was a limit on the number
allowed into the Gallery, and I’m not quite sure that even
at that time there was not an inclination to have us
fumigated. We were just tolerated in that rarefied
atmosphere of much dignity, not a little wealth, and, to
do the hon. gentlemen justice, a fair amount of brains. We
had, however, always a most wise counselor and friend in
the much esteemed “Clerk of the Legislative Council and
Clerk of Parliaments,” to give him the official title,
Henry Wyat Radford.
Mr. Radford was New South Wales born, and, I think,
first saw the light of George’s River, near Sydney. We
often spoke of the old place, for my own born home was on
the upper waters of George’s River, on what was known as
Tug-a-roy Creek (frequently pronounced Tugger-rye), which
in turn led to the King’s Falls, where the Woollongong
road crosses, and then up to the Cataract River, from one
of the great gorges of which comes Sydney’s chief water
supply. Radford’s people were soldiers. They moved up to
the New England district, and we had an old story that in
the bushranging days there Henry Wyat Radford, as a
kiddie, had a smell of powder. The story runs that the
house of his family was attacked by bushrangers, probably
the Jew Boy’s gang, and there was some warm firing; and
that a hole was cut in the floor and the little chap
lowered into the cellar per rope and basket. I did not
hear the story from Radford. He was rather austere in his
official capacity and with strangers, but very kind and
helpful to others.
Mount Coot-tha or One Tree Hill was his hobby, and
to the reserve he gave most devoted service. He was a
trustee and hon. secretary of the trust, and was the prime
mover in the tree planting on the way up and at the top of
the hill on the cleared space. A drought came, and the
young trees were apparently doomed, but Radford carried
buckets of water up the rough, steep ground from the
creek, and kept things going. The trust was too short of
cash to get an engineer’s survey of the road up from the
gates to the old One Tree, and Radford laid off the track,
and no engineer could have done it better.
At one time there was talk of selling part of the
reserve, but Radford fought the idea tooth and nail.
Surely his name should be commemorated in that great open
space, of which we are all so proud. “Radford Road” is
suggested as the name of the road up from the gates. It is
alliterative, but that does not matter. I feel sure that
the Greater Brisbane aldermen will do some courtesy to the
memory of one who did so much to preserve to us and to
improve the Mount Coot-tha Park.
Radford lived at Holly Mount, adjoining Cromer, the
home of the W. L. G. Drews and Cromer is now the home of
the William Grave family, who are so well known to me and
to all “Diggers,” from the great work done for returned
soldiers and their families. Henry Wyat Radford has gone
where all good men go. As an old Pressman, I’m glad to
make a little tribute to his memory, for he was always a
good friend to us of the pen.
The Clerk Assistant was the Hon. Charles Holmes a’
Court, a son of Lord Heytesbury. This peerage was created
in 1828, and the first peer was “a distinguished
ambassador, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland etc.” The family
was originally a’Court, but the second baron took the
Holmes surname with his wife. “Charley,” Holmes a’Court
was one of the least assertive of men. On coming to
Queensland he saw something of bush life, but drifted into
the Public Service or Parliamentary Service, and stayed
there, despite his having been admitted to the Bar. Later
he succeeded A. L. Bernays as Clerk of the Legislative
Assembly, a much more profitable job, and when it came to
his retirement at the age limit he went over to live in
the British Isles. He was very keen on mining, but had not
sufficient knowledge of the fauna of the country to
distinguish a “wild cat” when he saw one, and accordingly
vainly put much good money into “holes in the ground owned
by liars.”
We were together in later years in the Phoenician
tin mine at Mount Amos, near Cooktown, a venture which had
been warmly recommended to me by the late Dr. Robert Logan
Jack as worth trying. We got splendid trial results but
the mine was patchy, work was unsatisfactory, and we threw
in the sponge, but with a mutual determination to get
going again some day.
The Usher of the Black Rod was a singularly
imposing office, and borne by a distinguished gentleman,
who wore a dress coat rosetted at the back, black silk
“knickers,” black silk stockings, ornately buckled shoes,
and an unconquerable air of dignified superiority. He
carried a wand, and, so far as I could ever gather, his
duties were to usher in the President with, “Gentlemen –
the President!” to follow out that dignitary lest someone
should kidnap him, and to sit in a form of modified
grandeur just within the Chamber, lest some unshaven and
unshriven Pressman should obtrude, himself between the
wind and the nobility of members of the Council. Now, the
Usher of the Black Rod was F. R. Chester-Master, who
absolutely filled the bill. He had been in the Army and in
the bush, and he certainly would have been an asset in the
“swank” section of any Parliament.
In the Legislative Council, messengers, especially
those knowing chaps of the good old retainer order, were
much more esteemed by some of the “heads” of the
Legislative Council than were the Librarian or the
“Hansard” staff, and, to be sure, the Pressmen were “no
class:” at all. One may, however, well remember the
messengers Kelly, Lane, and Timms. Kelly was a smoothly
cultivated, independent Irishman. That is contradictory.
Of course it is – didn’t I say he was Irish? Lane was a
dear old chap, and in after years in his retirement many a
pleasant yarn we had over the old days in his charming
garden on Lutwyche Road. Timms also was a good man, and
his son soldiered with me in after years, and was on the
Instructional Staff. They were all inclined to be very
civil to the newspaper men – provided that we knew our
places. With all humility, we often didn’t.
The Parliamentary Librarian, Denis O’Donovan,
C.M.G., was a grand man of the grand manner. He had been
educated abroad, and spoke Italian and French fluently,
and German pretty well – so a German friend told me. I
heard him on a great occasion address an Italian festive
gathering in the Botanic Gardens, and in the flowing terms
of Dante, who, after all, first lifted his language from
the current of “vulgar tongues.” O’Donovan was a trained
librarian, and very much under the rose, he at time
contributed scholarly, polished and extremely dull
articles to the “Courier.” A monument to his industry and
skill was the catalogue of the Parliamentary Library. It
was one of the “show” things of Brisbane when
distinguished strangers came here, and Parliament showed
an appreciation of it, if I remember rightly, in a
tangible way.
As a journalist, I have always admired the
Queensland “Hansard”, because of its wonderful fidelity,
and as a shorthand writer of sorts I have always taken off
my hat to those wonderfully skilled chaps whose flying
pens are like the old instrument which “can’t lie.”
Whether “Hansard” has improved I cannot say, since
I very rarely hear the debates which it reports; but if it
has then it must be driven by a wonderful team. Who
amongst the old time journalists is there who does not
remember the great team which was led by our old friend,
D. F. T. Jones, in 1881?
The names are those fine scholars, some of whom
succeeded, some of whom succeeded in politics, journalism,
or at the Bar; and it must be borne in mind that “Hansard”
was established by a brilliant English journalist and
author, William Senior, “Red Spinner” of the “Field.”
Senior set a high standard, and he gathered around him men
not only of great skill in taking a verbatim note or
condensing a speech in Committee, but of high mentality
and personal worth> It was once said that there was a
finer aggregation of brains in the “Hansard” gallery than
on the front Treasury Benches. Probably it was true; but
in the Press Gallery the intellectual luminosity was even
greater!
D. F. T. Jones, as stated, had been editor of the
“Courier.” In the editor’s room today there is a gallery
of presentments of some of the ablest men in Queensland
history, men who, apart from the strife of party politics,
have helped mould the better and truer side of our State.
At the head of them is the picture of D. F. T. Jones, with
his deep set eyes, his rather straggling black beard, and
his strong earnest face. When Senior returned to the Old
Land, Jones took over, and he had with him later John
Gilligan, H. Willoughby, J. G. Drake, Robert Nall, G. E.
Langridge, D. G. Ferguson, Jack Scantlebury, and a class
of cadets, some of whom bear names well known in
Queensland.
Jones may or may not, as principal shorthand
writer, have had control of Lawrence (“Larry”) Byrne or L.
J. Byrne, who was shorthand in charge of Select
Committees. I am not sure. Jones was a scholarly
distinguished man, but his health was not good, and
ultimately he retired to his home out at red Hill, and his
place was taken by John Gilligan. It is not at all strange
that Gilligan also was a “Courier” man, and he did work
for the “Courier” just before his death a few years ago.
L. J. Byrne also was a “Courier” man, a very fine,
kindly soul, who saw much sorrow in this world of ours,
though he was always a good worker and a splendid citizen.
Willoughby was a round , pleasant looking chap with an eye
glass, and his shorthand was the most wonderful I have
ever seen – small and as though copper plated. J. G. Drake
was a leader writer when I was editor of the “Observer””
as a morning paper. He later went to the Bar, to the
Senate, and to Federal Cabinet, and then to a post as
Queensland Crown Prosecutor and Acting Judge, and his son
has followed on at the Bar. He is still hale and well, and
the only one of the old team now living, with the
exception of Ferguson, who is a Justice of the Supreme
Court in New South Wales. Nall also was leader writing for
the “Observer” in addition to his “Hansard” work, and he
later moved off to the Sydney “Daily Telegraph” as sub
editor. Langridge was an Englishman who left “Hansard” to
take over the “Courier” Gallery work, then to the
Rockhampton “Bulletin,” and afterwards – well, I don’t
quite know. D. G. Ferguson was also a writer for the
“Courier.”
In the Legislative Council were several sections –
the pure merino or squatting representatives, the
Liberals, and a few men of a particularly fine type, who
were not at all keen on party politics. A few of the Pure
Merinos I knew well. Sir Joshua Peter Bell – but he wasn’t
Sir Joshua Peter then – was a splendid type of man, and
his death in 1881 was tragically sudden. He was what is
known as a man of “full habit,” and had a good deal of
financial worry through heavy expenditure at Jimbour, a
few bad seasons, and low price of wool. He was driving in
Queen Street in a cab with Mr. Dixon – father of Dr.
Dixon, of Brisbane – manager of the Bank of Australasia,
when he suddenly fell forward unconscious. He was taken
into the chemist shop of Mr. Moses Ward, and an attempt at
restoration was made, but Sir Joshua did not regain
consciousness, and in a very little while passed away. He
was, perhaps, too liberal to be quite a Pure Merino, but
he filled the bill socially. A great man was Sir Joshua
Peter Bell.
Another of the Pure Merinos was William Graham, who
later joined the firm of Morehead and Co., now Moreheads
Ltd. He was also a splendid type – tall, handsome, and
cheery. His sons are well known at the Bar in Brisbane,
and a grandson also adorns the profession, a good
cricketer, like his father and his uncle. One of the sons
is W. E. Graham, a very fine writer as well as lawyer, and
whose abandonment of poetical writing is a matter much to
be regretted.
I did not know George King, another of the
squattocracy, but I knew intimately William Frederick
Lambert, of Berkelman and Lambert, the owners of Listowel,
a very fine sheep property on the upper reaches of the
Blackwater which flows down – when it does flow – to
Adavale, and so on by Emudilla to the Bulloo. Lambert was
an Irishman, and Listowel is an Irish name. In the bad
seasons he lost everything, and I believe died a very poor
man. Such was the fate of many of our pioneers.
John Frederick M’Dougall was also a fine man, who
left good men to follow him, and he was uncle of the later
Charley M’Dougall, of Lyndhurst, Warwick.
B. D. Morehead was a merchant as well as a Merino,
and I have already had my say concerning him.
Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior was of the purest
Merinos, and again a handsome and cultured man, with a
beautiful home at Maroon, out from Boonah. Murray-Prior on
an occasion showed his resource by driving his own bullock
team to Brisbane, and more than holding his own with a
“bullocky” who derided his polite words of encouragement
to Strawberry and Bluey and others at a nasty crossing on
the way to Ipswich. He was the father of Mrs. Campbell
Praed, the novelist, of Hervey Murray-Prior, a barrister
and of other good Queenslanders. When he came to
Parliament he always wore a frock coat, light trousers,
and a top hat.
Gordon Sandeman was a good racing man, like many
another squatter, and he left many very warm admirers in
Queensland when he went off to live in England.
Then there was Joseph Capel Smyth (“long Smyth”),
McIlwraith’s squatting partner, a quiet man, but a very
capable station manager.
Of course there was James Taylor, “the king of
Toowoomba,” to whom Queensland had been good, and William
Henry Walsh, who stood to politics much as did Randolph
Churchill, a democrat as to his head, and an
uncompromising conservative in his heart. Walsh was a very
fine speaker, but not suited to political life. He loathed
a humbug. He owned several stations in Queensland, was one
of the Burnett pioneers, and his family, which includes
Mr. A. D. Walsh (manager of Dalgety & Co., Brisbane)
is honoured individually and collectively in Queensland.
Conspicuous amongst the Liberals and others of my
time in the Upper House were some able men, but they have
gone where we must all go – all but one. The survivor is
James Colishaw, who, in 1881, was a tall, straight man in
his prime, well informed and sincere, but an infrequent
speaker. He had great influence in those days in the Press
and outside.
E. B. Forrest was perhaps a Tory. He was in later
years a member for Brisbane in the Legislative Assembly,
and went out on defeat by Mr. M. Kirwan, the present
Minister for Works. A fine type was E. B. better known in
the Assembly as “Pom Pom.” I first knew him when he was
chairman of the election committee of John Sinclair, who
was Mayor of Brisbane, and ran against, and was defeated
by, William Brookes in a by-election for the city. A
warmer hearted, kindlier man than E. B. Forrest I have
ever met, and he was a very able businessman.
Then there was James Gibbon, of Tenerife, better
known as “Corner Allotment Jimmy,” because of his
inclination to speculate in corner allotments of the city
and suburbs. Gibbon was an imposing figure and a man of
very strong commonsense; but he was never near enough to
the people to be at all popular.
George Edmonstone was one of the most interesting
figures in the House, a man of considerable attainments,
and who had filled many public offices in Brisbane. He was
one of the older generation, that is reckoning as at 45
years ago.
Two others
conspicuous in the history of Queensland may be mentioned
– the Gregory brothers, A. C. (afterwards Sir Augustus)
and T. F. They were the well-known explorers, and their
names are linked with the history, not only of Queensland,
but of Australia.
Mr. Denis
O’Donovan, the librarian, was particularly careful, and he
trained up the present librarian, Mr. John Murray, in the
way he should go. Very few, except those associated with
Parliament, know the present occupant of the important and
responsible post. The job calls for extreme diligence and
wide technical knowledge. It’s just the sort of job,
thanks be, into which a member of Parliament cannot
pitchfork an ignorant supporter. John Murray is a big,
quiet, studious man. He does not pretend to be obliging,
but he is one of the most obliging and helpful of
Parliamentary officers. Ask a fair thing of him, and no
trouble is too much for him in giving it. I have many,
many kindnesses to acknowledge – but her is rather averse
from praise, and we’ll let it go at that. When I knew him
first, back in the 1880s, he was a tall, slight boy, with
dark hair and red cheeks, and it says much for his
personal qualities that he was acceptable to O’Donovan,
who was a keen judge of humanity. John Murray came to
Brisbane with his people when he was in rompers, but Mark
Twain on an occasion said that one of America’s greatest
men at a period of his life was absorbed by the problem of
the easiest way to get his toe into his mouth. When Murray
left school he went to the Library. He has seen all the
modern tomes come to the shelves, and there is not a
volume he does not know. “Mr. Murray,” a member will say,
“there was a record of seismic waves in Western Siberia
some years ago, I would like to look up something on the
subject.” Before the member could say, “Have one
yourself!” there is presented to him a full record of the
creeps and the oscillations, and a clear account of
earthquake waves generally. Murray soon became the right
hand man of O’Donovan. Quite fittingly he succeeded the
great man under whom he was trained. I looked up the
librarian’s salary the other day, and blushed. Queensland
should be ashamed to pay so absolutely inadequate a sum to
so adequate a man. I beg to draw the attention of hon.
members to the position – a man of great mentality, and
highly trained for a position of great responsibility,
receiving the salary of a clerk! It is not a political
matter – another Ministry gave the Government Botanist, a
man of world wide reputation, Frederick Manson Bailey,
£200 a year! (Mr. Murray’s salary was substantially raised
in the session of Parliament following the appearance of
this article).
Mr. Murray
had once a very interesting assistant, Cornelius Moynihan,
a poet and controversialist, and somewhat of an orator. He
has gone to his rest. He came from, or, at any rate, lived
in Kenmare, in Ireland. Killarney he knew through and
through, every shadow on the lake, every bush and stone,
including the Blarney Stone. He wrote and published a lot
of verse, and one long poem was “The Feast of the Bunya,”
which dealt with aboriginal themes.
The most
conspicuous figure in our Legislative Assembly in the
early 1880s, and for many years earlier, and many years
later, was Lewis Adolphus Bernays. Very often Pressmen
were upside with him, but I never had the least trouble.
If any papers were wanted, I did not go to the messenger,
but sent a polite note to the Clerk of the House. In
return came every help and every courtesy. Personally I
liked him very much. He was a scientist, a King’s College
London man, had studied as a chemist in the laboratory of
a distinguished brother, Professor A. J. Bernays, of St.
Thomas’s, who was then an analytical chemist in the
Midlands.
The father
of L. A. was the well-known Dr. Bernays, a professor of
modern languages and literature at King’s College. L. A.
was created a C.M.G., but he thought more of his F.L.S.
and his connection with some of the best plant life
societies in the world. He was a charming man, but not the
sort one would dare to call “old chap.” He had read very
widely, and had a live interest in the industrial affairs
of the world. He always tried to persuade himself that he
was democratic. In his head he may have been mildly
Liberal in politics, but in his heart he was True Blue
Tory.
Yet no
member of Parliament could ever suggest partisanship or
prejudice in favour of his friends. L. A. Bernays was
never reserved in advice to Speaker, Chairman of
Committees, Ministers, or ordinary members.
There was
May, and there were Standing Orders, and there was the
swift and unerring view as to the proper constitutional
course. He had his friends, warm friends, both in the
House and out of it. He was strong willed,, and I liked
him for it; and he was inclined to be dictatorial as a man
must be who knows things and has to give guidance to
others.
He was the
guiding intelligence of the old Water Board, and some of
the institutions, or operators of “utilities” in Brisbane,
owe much of their present success to the firm foundations
which he helped to lay.
He came to
Australia in 1852, and to Brisbane in 1860, when he took
office as Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and organised
the work of Parliament, basing it on his 1852-59
experience in the New South Wales Parliament.
Mr.
Bernays left members of his family well known in and out
of Queensland – a well-known lawyer of Toowoomba, a
well-known railway engineer, and the very well known
present Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, who well fills
the paternal shoes.
Daughters
also – Mrs. Ernest Webb, Mrs. Gore of Yandina, and Miss
Jessie Bernays, who lives in Sydney.
Who
remembers Frank Ivory, once a Burnett squatter, a member
of the Legislative Assembly, then after the “bad timers”
clerk assistant to Mr. Bernays? He had been a fine
horseman, and when I knew him in 1881, he lived out in
Leichhardt Street, about 50 yards north of Brunswick
Street, in a stone cottage. Many a good talk we had about
horses.
John
Sanderson Lyster was a clerk, before he became Secretary
to the Premier (McIlwraith) on his way to a job on the
military staff; and the Sergeant-at-Arms was Mr. Robert
Douglas, a very imposing old gentleman, whose job was to
announce: “Gentlemen – Mr. Speaker!” to close the Bar of
the House – not the refreshment bar – during the checking
of a division, and to remove unruly members if ordered by
the Speaker to do so. Mr. Douglas was a very kind soul,
but, like all other officers of Parliament, very cordially
disapproved of the general run of newspaper men, and
especially of the frivolous “Political Froth” in the
“Queenslander.”