A. and F. Gregory Explorers
Children and Australian History
Journals of Australian Exploration
The Gregorys, Augustus C. and Francis T. were English born. On an earlier occasion in these “Memories” it was mentioned that in the old days the bulk of the exploration of Australia was done by English, Irish and Scotch, and that the native born did not display much keenness for the job
The Gregory brothers, however, came to Australia when
small boys, and they must have had the instinct for
exploration in their blood. What their forebears were the
history available does not say, with the exception that their
father was a lieutenant in the old 78th
Highlanders. To be sure he must have had more than a dash of
the spirit of adventure, or he would not have come out to West
Australia with his young family in 1829.
In the matter of development the great State of West
Australia was then scarcely known. It was, at the best, a
potential pastoral region. The early settlers had no
unpromising country – as the knowledge of those days went- and
only those whose ears were “reverberant of things to be” could
have pictured the great wheat producing value of the wide and
empty spaces. Yet those who believe in the transmission of
qualities rather than in the development by environment will
incline to say that the three sons of Lieutenant John Gregory
took their keen desire to look beyond from their father. But
they were readers of African and Polar Exploration, and the
great wildernesses of West Australia would naturally appeal to
them.
It may be mentioned here that there was another
brother, Charles, who, with A.C. and Frank, made an exploring
trip in 1846. I did not know him, nor indeed did many in
Queensland, for he remained faithful to the West when his
brothers came “over to (the Queensland) Mesopotamia to help
us.”
Now to Queenslanders of the younger generation the
Gregory brothers are but little known children. Lately, to try
out an idea, I spoke to various school children about
Australian exploration. From what I gathered our explorers
were as little known in the schools as some of our so called
democrats would have the valiantes of our nation who won
Trafalgar and Waterloo. The children knew a little about
Leichhardt – one said “he was the bloke they named Leichhardt
Street after”- and more about Burke and Wills, but nothing of
Landsborough, except that it was “a town near Gympie,” and a
sweet little Legislative Assembly of about 10 confidently
assured that she knew all I was talking about when I said” Did
you ever hear of the Gregory brothers.” She replied: “They are
the men who made the powders!”
One may ask what has become of our friend Meston’s
Geographical History? Perhaps Queensland youngsters are taught
something of Australian exploration, and I was unfortunate in
those I catechized. My young friends were “wise to” Peary and
Nansen; two of them knew a little of the great sad story of
Scott and his fellow heroes’ one was well acquainted with
Amundsen’s glorious dash for the South Pole, and one at least
had heard of Douglas Mawson. He was described in a counter
query: “Wasn’t he the bloke that the blacks caught?”
remembering the recent loss in Gulf waters of the Douglas
Mawson steamer and the report that some of the survivors were
in the hands of the blacks.
I would that our children were carefully taught to
reverence those heroic souls who laid the wilds of Australia
open to us all.
Weary and
wasted, worn and wan,
Feeble and
faint, and languid and low-
He lay on
the desert a dying man,
Who has
gone, my friends, where we must all go.
Perhaps some of the kiddies have heard of Adam Lindsay
Gordon, from whose tribute to Burke and Wills I quote – for
its sentiment, nit its alliterative tricks. The Gregory
brothers faced the great uncharted spaces – brave, modest,
capable, intellectual, young fellows, clean in wind and limb,
in body and soul. Perhaps some day we shall have “Journals of
Australian exploration” condensed into narrative form, with a
desire to interest our young folk in the history of their
land, rather than in “Comic Cuts” and dubious picture shows –
not that I do not find a lot of our picture shows educative
and edifying.
Augustus and Frank Gregory were the joint authors of
“The Journals.” Copies will be found in the Parliamentary
Library, in the Public Library (I hope), and in a very few
private houses. Of course, we don’t go in systematically for
school libraries. If we did there might be some risk of the
youthful mind being diverted from the mysteries of how “from a
given point to draw a straight line equal to a give straight
line,” or “to describe an equilateral triangle upon a given
finite straight line.”
Practically, “Journals of Australian Exploration” are
the only valuable records of the work of the Gregory brothers.
We may find in the tomes of “Hansard” some valuable speeches
from Augustus and Frank, but the history of these truly great
men has yet to be written.
“He was born in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1819; came
out to West Australia in 1829; and died in Brisbane on June
25, 1905.”
To that we may perhaps add, “He lived, worked, suffered, and died,” for that is the history of most of mankind. I don’t include some of our modernists, who toil not, neither do they spin. At the age of 22, he entered the Civil Service of West Australia, and in 1846 began the work of exploration.
If this was intended to be history, I could give some
short account of his work; but that will surely be done by
some one else at some other time. He led two expeditions in
“the West,” and then came to Eastern Australia. Under the
auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, and accompanied by
Baron Von Mueller, he led the well known expedition in 1858 to
do the ordinary work of exploration and to search for traces
of the Leichhardt expedition, which was swallowed up by the
earth or by the waters some seven years earlier. This
expedition did some excellent work, and A.C. and his brother
Frank, were made gold medallists of the Royal Geographical
Society, a very great honour – or very great recognition
indeed.
In 1859 he was appointed Surveyor-General of
Queensland, surveying being his profession, and he held the
position until 1879. He was created C.M.G. in 1874, and
K.C.M.G. in 1903. As a journalist I met him often. He was a
wonderfully fine talker, and especially on science subjects,
though, to catch a phrase which Brunton Stephens used, in
literature he “knew what’s what.” He was a great reader of
science, literature, and the “Scientific American” was a
delight to him. As a surveyor he had to learn a few things
about the sun and the stars, and he talked beautifully of the
stars. They seemed to him to be smiling friendly children, and
I gave him some little pleasure, I think, when I put him on to
“Windclouds and Star Drifts,” not a dry treatise, dear reader,
but the beautiful poem of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the great
explorer stopped on the first reading at the words:
Is this
cloud that, blown athwart my soul,
Wears a
false seeming of the pearly stain
Where worlds
beyond the world their mingling rays
Blend in soft white…
He then talked for ten minutes on “worlds beyond the
world”- but I had to get back to the “Courier” with an article
on a garbage “destructor,” which he had invented for the
Toowong Shire Council, or we might have been talking still.
I often pictured a close similarity between Oliver
Wendell Holmes and A. C. Gregory – the same clear view, the
same purity of soul. This is said from the circumstance that
Gregory “spake evil not even of evil doers,” and put the great
things of life above all personal interest. It was my job to
interview him when he received his K.C.M.G. He was very modest
about it, but was too sincere a man to pretend that he did not
appreciate the honour. It was a great thing for his soul. Men
after a lifetime of good service for others and for their
country sometimes will seem to stand in a mist of
disappointment. They will say: “ But have I really served;
have I been of use?” Then there will come a clear and
inspiring shaft of thought: “Yes, I have done a little.” It
may come from a word in a book, the hand clasp of a friend,
the look of gratitude in a tear dimmed eye; but it comes and
it is above all that money can buy. That is, perhaps, how
Augustus Gregory felt when he received from his Sovereign the
high recognition of great Empire service. “Yes,” he said, and
his voice trembled a little, “It is very nice. I sometimes
thought that, after all, my work was of very little account.
It seems that others regard it well. It is all very nice.”
I wrote a good deal of the dear, good man at the time –
in the “Courier” 1903. He was a good speaker, and made always
carefully thought out speeches. That which he had to say was
worth listening to. He was no windbag. His service to
Australia was really great, and his personal character as well
as his work should be made known to our young folk, for the
average youngster loves to find that a great man was a good
man. I could write pages about Sir Augustus Gregory and then
feel that not enough had been said, nor well enough said, to
even approach the measure of his great qualities.
Frank Gregory, like his older brother, was a small
chap, but sturdily built, and capable of great endurance. He
was born in England in 1821, and died at Toowoomba on October
24, 1888. With his brother he gained much experience in the
earlier expeditions, but in 1858 organised an exploration
party of his own to examine the country between Gascoyne and
Mount Murchison, W.A., and he returned to civilization at
Adelaide in July, 1861.
In the same year, with his party, he narrowly escaped a
disaster on the Northwest coast, but capable leadership and
great courage turned the expedition to success, and valuable
discoveries were made. In 1862 he came to Queensland. He had
been for a time Surveyor General of West Australia, and in
Queensland he did much of the survey work of the Darling
Downs. He was appointed to the Legislative Council in 1874,
and was quite a good speaker and a very wise counselor. He
succeeded Morehead as Postmaster-General in the McIlwraith
Government. I did not know him as I knew Sir Augustus Gregory,
mainly perhaps because he was a Toowoomba man, and there was
not so much opportunity of talking with him. He was more
identified with what is termed the social life of Queensland
than his brother. Yet when there was occasion to see him on
Press business he was invariably very kind, though there may
be a little reservation as to his regard for the Press. In
those days we were distinctly conservative in journalism, but
Mr. Frank Gregory seemed to think that a good English magazine
was all the reading necessary concerning current events. Like
his brother, he was a daring explorer, and in the years ago,
men were living who spoke both of his dash and bravery . The
Gregory brothers would never bow down before a difficulty.
Long waterless stages and often acute physical suffering were
just incidental to their life’s work. Frank Gregory married –
Sir Augustus was a bachelor – Marion, the daughter of Mr.
Alex. Hume of Toowoomba, in 1883.
CHAPTER XVI
Queensland Bureaucrats – Prominent Public Service Officers – A Clean souled Gentleman – Teaching a Minister a Lesson
The Government officers in the early 1860s were the salt of the earth. The senior men were wrapped in impenetrable mantles of dignity and conscious superiority; their jobs had in them the elements of esoteric mysteries. The young fellows – with the bank clerks- were the dandies of the period. A few young lawyers and other professional men were shaken into the lump not as a leaven, but as something inescapable; but who so representative of the social consequence of the community as the moustached and whiskered exquisite of the Lands or Survey, or Railways or Works, or Education?
I remember that “Bobby” Byrne had in his “Punch” a
sketch of a very beautiful young man unburdening himself to a
pal. The b.y.m. was describing the meeting in Queen Street of
the political head of his Department, who had the “qualified”
impertinence to bow – or something pf the sort. To be sure,
the Public Service man has to go to a decent school, has to
pass weird examinations to show that he is fit to write a
minute or frame a despatch or perform the mysteries of a
surveying or architectural draughtsman. He has refining
associations in his schools and colleges. It is essential that
he shall know tennis, drink afternoon tea without tilting it
into the saucer, and keep his nails out of mourning.
The Minister is different. He is “nascitur,” not always
“fit.” I often wonder what Ministers think, if they ever
think, what their permanent officers think of them. But, after
the Minister learns to abjure old habits, he becomes quire
companionable –that is, if he is caught young, and the Public
Servant may even make an associate of him.
A very distinguished head and a rough type of Minister
some years ago were great friends. The head was asked about,
and he said: “Blank is a bit rough, but he is the most
conscientious Minister I have ever served; he is a clean
souled gentleman.” That was pretty high, when we remember that
the Minister had been a blacksmith, and still wore rough
hands. It will not be thought, of course, that our Public
Servants are bounders or that their Ministers are of the rough
house type. One may be permitted to conventionally patter at
their expense. What are they there for?
In 1881, Arthur Hunter Palmer, later Sir Arthur, was
Colonial Secretary. The title was used for Herbert when he
came out here to establish our administrative system, and to
teach Sir George Bowen “what’s what.” Later it was changed to
Home Secretary. Demos had relentlessly stridden many times
through portals which were so austerely reserved, and when he
is not there – and sometimes when he is – we call the Minister
“Mick.” Had one used such a familiarity in the old days, when
Michael O’Reilly was the angel of the flaming sword at the
Colonial Secretary’s Office, there would have been immediate
danger of an apoplexy. One did not – a newspaper man I mean –
as a rule, see Mr. Palmer on Press business. He did not like
newspapers or newspaper men, especially those who criticised
the Government, or wrote flippantly of Parliament. We were
“administration (with a particularly big, big D) scribblers,”
and the Colonial Secretary thought we were normally either
drunk or desiring to borrow a shilling to get into that
condition. Certainly his little peculiarities of temperament
and speech were often chuckled over in the papers. I am always
tempted to write columns about Palmer, and yet I revere his
memory – a straight, honest, and capable man. But he could not
conceive of a newspaper being decent. His own brother, and
later a member of Parliament, wrote sketches and stories for
the “Courier” and “Queenslander,” and that was rather a grief;
but one day, when “Dick” Newton, a club mate, who was doing
some job (the polite young reporter now calls it “an
assignment”) for the “Courier,” he said: “Hullo, Palmer!”
Picture Pooh Bah having to say: “How de do, little girls?” to
young persons. Palmer glared, swallowed twice, and then with a
storm in his soul relied: “Hello, Dick!”
When I had to see him – I was an editor, perhaps a
rather cubbish one – I would never wait after the very tick of
an appointment. Nor would I be deferential. Michael O’Reilly
used to be horrified, but young men on jobs with those who are
scarcely inclined even to be tolerant should never give an
inch. If a Minister or anyone else is rude, go back and write
up his manners – or lack of them. If he doesn’t absolutely
mark you as a forbidden thing, and your paper generally will
see to that, he will be civil.
Pressmen had always s good friend in Robert Gray, who
was a big bug socially, as well as officially. He was a son of
Colonel Gray, was born at Port Macquarie in New South Wales,
bred up in Queensland, mainly at Ipswich, and married a
daughter of Dr. Dorsey, a sister of Lady Bell, of Jimbour, who
was the mother of J. T. Bell, whose early death was so great a
blow to his native State of Queensland. Robert Gray was
sometimes a little brusque, but we knew him, and there was
always this: he did not keep reporters waiting in draughty
passages in the winter, or on blazing verandahs in the summer.
He was one of the kindest men I have ever known, beneath an
occasional hectoring way. The Colonel Secretary’s office was a
little old building between George Street and William Street,
the site now being covered by the Executive Buildings. There
was an entrance from George Street, by a sort of lane between
St. John’s School and the Police Commissioner’s office. The
main entrance was from William Street up a flight of stone
steps. That was not frequently used; indeed Michael O’Reilly
rather discouraged the use, because “Misther Pallmer” was
pleased to come in by that way. Later the building was
occupied by the United Service Club.
Robert Gray, in 1889, passed to a much better paid job.
He became one of the three Railway Commissioners when
McIlwraith decided that the Railway Service should be free of
political and official jobbery. Mathieson and Johnston came
from England, the first a railway traffic man, Johnston an
engineer, and Gray went in as the experienced staff
administrator. It was a strong team, but changes came, and
Gray became sole Commissioner. It may be worth remembering
that it was McIlwraith, one of the strongest men we have had
in Queensland, who decided to clear the railways from the
trail of political appointments or “pull” in working. Our
strong men, or those who masquerade as strong men, of today
might very well follow the McIlwraith example, that is if they
can bear to sacrifice the joy of bestowing patronage and
favours.
Gray hit things off very well with Mathieson, but with
Johnston there were occasional jolts. On a later day, and
after a change of Government, Johnston became rather impatient
of restraint, and there was almost a defiance of a certain
well understood matter of policy. Gray longed for the touch of
a strong man’s hand, and said to his colleague: “If McIlwraith
was here he would straighten you up p.d.q.” – or words to that
effect.
Ultimately Mathieson went to New South Wales, Johnston
returned to England, and Gray was left as sole Commissioner –
but, with the dissolution of the scheme of three, political
pushing crept back into the department, and there it is today.
The Chief Clerk of the Home Department was W. H. Ryder,
a Canadian born and a fine type of the capable civil servant.
Physically he was like one of Du Maurier’s colonels – the
younger folk will not remember the artist’s great work in
“Punch,” not even that he was the author of “Trilby.” Ryder
was a polished, courteous man, with a good deal of strength of
character.
Ryder, as
Under Secretary, was of very great service to his successive
Ministers, and Ryder trained up in the way they should go a
fine staff of young officers, including the present Under
Secretary W. J. Gall. Of course, Gall was, in my early days of
Government offices, probably not promoted beyond the pinafore
stage, but I remember him quite a good many years ago as
Ryder’s understudy. He was then “Willie” Gall, a fair haired
good looking young fellow, and what he did not know about the
Home Department was not worth knowing. The other day I saw a
smart looking medico, and a friend said: “A very clever and
careful young doctor.” I asked the name, and the reply was
“Gall.” When I heard the name I said: “But why was it
necessary to ask you that? Of course his name’s Gall.” There
was no mistaking it. He is the son of “Willie” Gall, who used
to be a fair haired lad in the Home Office. How the years fly!
The accountant
of the department was P. A. Kob, tall, rather stoopy in later
years, and an inveterate smoker. He was one of the best, lived
out at Albion on the hill near the Holy Cross Convent, and had
a host of friends. One of the heads in the earlier days was G.
L. D’Arcy, who, on his appearance alone, would be executed by
the Bolsheviks as an aristocrat. D’Arcy was a good officer and
a man of very fine temperament. His sons carry on the name,
and long may it survive.
Of course,
there were others; but the most important man at the office,
when Palmer was away, was Michael O’Reilly, usually so
unflinching, but from whom I could get anything – except
permission to go into the sacred presence of the Minister
without sending in my name. “I know your people,” said Mr.
O’Reilly, the first day we met. “You’re like them, and that’s
no compliment. And I know the Lindseys of Hollymount.” I said
nothing, but we were friends for years. Good, kind, quiet,
communicative Michael O’Reilly. That’s all contradictory, and
so it describes him. May the green turf rest lightly upon him.
In 1881 we
were not doing very much in the way of immigration, but after
the coming of the British-India Mail Steamship Co., a very
good type of men, women, and young folk came to us. The
earlier immigrants, Dr. Lang’s splendid staunch
Nonconformists, Jordan’s less Puritanical but scarcely less
worthy nation builders, Bishop O’Quinn’s devout and
industrious Roman Catholics, Randall’s steady capable farming
people – all these laid the foundations of this State as the
newcomers did of the older settled parts of Australia.
What would
Queensland have been without the immigrants – and they came to
us in the middle 1880s sometimes at the rate of 20,000 a year.
When it was settled that we should have an inflow of people
from overseas, McIlwraith started out with an idea of 10,000 a
year, and very well considered and effective provision was
made for reception, accommodation and distribution. The old
Immigration Office was a red brick building upon which was
imposed later a weird medley of unspeakable stucco and other
bricks, and the place has become the home of the Department of
Agriculture, the present fine buildings on Kangaroo Point
being provided for the new –comers. We had an Immigration
Board, with W. L. G. Drew, C.M.G., etc as Chairman, with Sir
Ralph Gore, J. McDonald, Commander G. P. Heath (late R.N.),
Dr. Hobbs, and Dr. Prentice as members; and Gore as
Immigration Agent. Later the Board was wiped out and
Parry-Okeden and then O’Neill Brenan in succession became the
chiefs with responsibility direct to the Minister.
A conspicuous
member of the staff was C. C. Horrocks, who, I think, had been
in the Army or in the Diplomatic Service. He was a quiet,
capable, man, over whose later years was spread a cloud of
terrible grief. He died, really, of a broken heart, but under
the lashings of fate he never whimpered.
The
Immigration Department practically administered the South Sea
Island labour recruiting. Perhaps some day I may relate some
of the incidents of that murky business. The pages of history
are stained with blood letting cruelty, and at times gleam
with a splendid heroism. What chapter is more wonderful than
that of McMurdo, stranded on a coral reef with a cargo of
recruits – South Sea savages – and by great determination and
masterful domination saving them all? Poor Willie McMurdo –
with is fragile, crippled form. McMurdo had in character, the
braver and better part of it, much that was reminiscent of
Byron’s work at Missolonghi.
The chairman
of the Immigration Board, Mr. Drew, was also Auditor-General,
and later chairman of the Public Service Board. It is not
necessary to add to what I have already said about W. L. G.
Drew – an old Blue-Coat (please pronounce it “Blukit”) school
boy, a naval officer of recognised merit, and a firm,
courageous administrator. With him in the Audit office he had
G. C. Horstmann, who later established himself as an
accountant, and was succeeded by his son “Willie” Horstmann,
and his grandson, now head of the business, while one
grandson, one of “Willie” Horstmann’s boys, made the great
sacrifice in the Big War.
Another of the
staff was Robert H. Mills, who was well known as a Musical
Union baritone, a prominent Freemason, and after leaving the
service, an alderman of the city.
Then there was
Harry Imrie, a cultured earnest man, William Thomas and J. H.
Dodds, I did not known so well’ but Reginald Miller, one of
the Audit Staff, was a “pal o’ mine” and a fellow member in
those days of the Johnsonian Club.
Then there was
J. A. Peterson, an Englishman, also; and startling stories
were told of his ability with figures. I have been told that
he could run up three columns of figures at once. Willie
Hobbs, a son of Dr. Hobbs, was also on the Audit Staff. Willie
was a tall and hefty youth who would scale a good 15 stone
when out of training. One day I was out riding, and my girl
companion was on a raking chestnut, Larrikin, a son of
Yattendon. Willie was riding a smart little brown
contribution, well known at Redcliffe and Scarborough 44 years
ago. My companion was light and fragile, and Willie said to
her: “Why, you look like a tom-tit on a round of beef!” And
the retort was flashed: “And you look like a round of beef on
a tom-tit.”
Poor Willie
went to the long sleep, long long ago – but the little lady,
still young and merry, will not have forgotten the story.
And there was
J. C. Ham, one of a well known Queensland and Victorian
family, who was also a baritone in the Musical Union, and a
big attraction at fashionable concerts. His brother, formerly
of the Customs Department, is an active worker for all good
things out at Northgate, and we often meet; but J. C. Ham,
like nearly all his contemporaries – all but one, I think –
has “gone West.”
The one about
whose arrival I am sure is Mure H. Robertson. Of course he was
but a bright young officer in the days of which I speak, and
he keeps his youth, and also the traditions under which he was
trained. Drew had no use for an audit officer who was not
capable, fearless in duty, and absolutely appreciative of his
duty to the public. How Mure Robertson filled the bill during
his long public service, those who best know his work can say.
His early official associates were men of honour and ability.
I hope my bouquet thrown to him in all sincerity will not be
deemed too flagrant when I say that he is worthy of the old
school and the old office.
Henry Jordan,
the Registrar-General of the early 1880s – 1883, at any rate,
for I lately saw his signature below that date – passed his
time between Parliament and the Civil Service. He was a
peculiarly capable man, with a vast capacity for work, and
without being particularly narrow he was of the Puritan type.
Yet he was never ashamed of the immigrant navies whom he
brought out for our railways, not even when beer and
boisterousness marked certain phases of their resistance to
official control. Jordan was above middle height, and in my
days, slight, grey, and heavily bearded. Like nearly all of
the Puritanical type, he was fearless, both physically and in
spirit. I remember well three of the type – Henry Jordan,
Peter McLean, and Robert Bulcock. They never feared the
blusterer. Though they were political enemies of McIlwraith,
he had a very soft spot in his heart for them all.
William
Theophilus Blakeney, of a very well known legal and judiciary
family in New South Wales, was deputy Registrar-General, and
ultimately succeeded Jordan as Registrar. He was a big, strong
man, with a family of beautiful girls, and had been well known
in cricket and rowing; but in later days it was a case of
“drat them rheumatics,” and he went to and from his office to
his home on the hill at South Brisbane in a hansom cab, or his
own well horsed waggonette.
Thornhill
Weedon also was on the staff, and took his own turn as
registrar-General- one of the good old school of scholarly and
well trained men. Of course there were many others, but I did
not know them well, except R. B. Howard, or “Brab” Howard, who
later on was Chief Protector of Aborigines, and now in Fiji.
Howard was a good bushman, and knew the West from Cooper’s
Creek up to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Thomas Mylne,
a great man in Freemasonry, was Deputy Registrar at the Real
Property Office, and became one of the Public Service Board.
He was also a South Brisbane
resident, with a beautiful home, “Dunira,” later the
home of my old Cooktown friend, W. H. Campbell, M.L.C., and
still occupied, I think, by Mrs. Campbell. With him was J. O.
Bourne, whom people still called “Joe” Bourne, who married one
of the daughters of Dr. Hobbs. I often met my old friend
Bourne, who, in his younger days, was a good athlete. He is
still “one of the boys” and his name is well represented on
the Empire’s battlefields where he fought, and fought
successfully, with our backs to the wall.
And there was
T. H. Dougherty, who played a first violin in the Brisbane
Musical Union, and on my recommendation did some remarkably
fine contributions to the “Courier” on music, as well as the
criticisms of concerts – scholarly, brightly written articles
they were.
Then there
were Harry Haseler and Frank Pratten, but they were mere lads.
It is pleasant, however, to meet them occasionally, good
officers, and good chaps, but through “the bludgeonings of
chance” they do not look so young as they did 40 odd years
ago.
In the early
1880s the Treasury offices occupied part of the site of the
present Treasury buildings. The old buildings had done service
in pre-separation days – that is, the big two storied
building, with its semi-detached annex – as barracks and
quarters for the red-coats. The open part of the area was
grassed, and a bit of practice cricket was played there at
times. Often it has been my job to call on the Treasurer, and
to stand out on the northern verandah gossiping to one or
another of the officials, or to a Press colleague – Haggard of
the “Telegraph”, or perhaps Fielberg of the “Courier,” – up
thereto discuss some knotty points with McIlwraith or Dickson.
Of the Treasury Staff E. G. Schlencker is the only one left of
the officers I knew in 1881, and he until lately served as
Receiver.
To E. B.
Cullen I referred on an earlier occasion. F. O. Darvall was a
tall, florid, raw boned Australian, who was a good cricketer
and a capital shot in the field, with a special weakness for
the rise of a snipe on the flats at Mayne in Oct or Nov. He
left a considerable family of sons, one of whom, Major
Darvall, of the Militia Artillery, married a Miss Morehead,
but died young, as his father did. Another son was Colonel
“Joe” Darvall; another is a lawyer at Boonah; and another
served in the Big War, and has a rattling good position with
one of the great engineering firms of the United Kingdom. I
saw him last in St. Paul’s London, in 1917, with Cassiday of
Dalgetys’ and they were having a little respite from the mud
of Flanders and the attentions of the hun.
Miles also I
referred to a little time ago. T. S. Hickey was an excitable
Irishman of great literary “attainments” – I believe that was
the word – at any rate, he was a Latinist, and I have heard
him and George Thorn pelting each other with Virgilian
phrases. He was quite a friend of mine, but said one day of my
“Courier” work, “It’s very nice, very nice, and I wonder you
are able to do it so well, seeing that you, like all newspaper
writers, have nothing at all decent in the way of education.”
Then he went on to tell me that all newspaper men should be
obliged to “qualify, like barristers and doctors.” And I
replied: “Then you would cut out John Flood?” Hickey buckled
up at once saying: “No! No! Of course I wouldn’t – cut out
John Flood –“ Now he absolutely reverenced Flood.
“Jack”
Matthews was a brother of Canon Matthews, married a Miss
Fowles, a sister of William Lambert Fowles, M.L.A., solicitor,
who was the father of the generation of the Fowles family so
well known in Brisbane, with William Lambert Fowles, late
Under Secretary of the Treasury and then Savings Bank
Commissioner, at its head. “Jack” was a born nigger minstrel.
He clerked diligently, but regarded all time spent otherwise
than blackened up and singing plantation songs as time wasted.
One day he “put on the burnt cork,” in the office, and was
doing a “turn,” when in walked the dignified and severe
“permanent head,” W. L. G. Drew. Later in the day, during the
very formal interview, Drew said, “Perhaps you are wasting
your talents, Mr. Matthews (“No, no!”), and it might be better
if you resigned from so unworthy a position here (“No, no!”)
and won fame as a nigger minstrel.” (Sobs) I do not guarantee
the sobs, but it was a very wilted “Jack” Matthews who came
out fully expecting to receive a request for his papers.
T. W. Connah
became Under Secretary to the Treasury and later Auditor-
General. He was a genial, kindly soul with a keen sense of
humour. When the Morgan- Kidston political combination was
formed and Queensland given a very strong and capable
Government, Kidston went to the Treasury. He was a very able
man, but had “come up,” as they say in the Army, and was not
particularly concerned in the observance of official dignity.
He would take his coat off to work, and order such immensely
important people as Under Secretaries about as if they were
ordinary humanity. One day Connah was in his room; it was
blazing hot, and a bit stuffy. Kidston said, “Put up that
window, Connah.” Connah didn’t even turn a hair, but touched
the bell for the messenger. That very important person
arrived, and stood waiting orders. Connah said: “The minister
wishes you to put up that window.” Kidston saw the situation,
and at once said to the messenger: “Don’t mind; I’ll do it
myself.” And he did. Kidston told me the story one day when he
was describing his breaking in to official routine; bit it was
Connah who told me a sequel. When the messenger had gone out
the Minister said: “Should I call you Connah or Mr. Connah?”
The Under Secretary said, “Oh, don’t worry about the Mister –
that is if you feel friendly’ but you had better call the
messenger Mister.” Then Connah explained that dropping the
Mister was usually an appreciated informality, adding: “If you
don’t want to put a man on an equal footing you call him
Mister.” And Kidston said, “Yet you call me Mr. Kidston, but
Maxwell (of the Burke) and others call me ‘Wullie.” It took
some time to explain that in private intercourse it would be
Kidston, or even “Wullie,” but that officially it had to be
Mr. Kidston. The little talk ended by the Minister saying,
“All right, Connah, but next time I want the window up don’t
call the messenger, I’ll fix it myself.” Despite all that,
there was never a keen friendliness between the Minister and
the Under Secretary, and when Kidston found one whom he
considered would make an Under Secretary quite to his liking
Connah got the move to the job of Auditor General, which was a
better job. Kidston saw to that.
Attached to
the Treasury was the Government Savings Bank, at the head of
which I first remember Thomas W. Wells., a model civil servant
– courteous, punctilious in duty, and in every sense reliable.
He lived out at Toowong, and was passing rich on £400 a year,
with the official title of accountant. It will be remembered
that in 1881 £400 a year was quite a big pay. Wells had, I
believe, some banking experience; at any rate he was
considered a safe man.
Looking down a
list of officers of 1876 and 1881 there are many familiar
names, but few of the bearers survive.
J. J. Trundle,
still going strong, is a son of our old friend Trundle, who
was manager of the Commercial Union Insurance Co. With Tom
Welsby’s help he founded the Brisbane Gymnasium, was a well
known athlete, and interstate chess player, and no mean
fiddler – or violinist, if the word is better liked. Trundle
has five sons and a daughter, and three of the sons helped –
as the “digger” says- in the smiting of Fritz and Jacko.
And there was
Fred. Hely, a nephew of the judge, now Colonel Hely, who was
one of the smartest of our artillery officers. He beat his
sword into a pen, and until lately had a post in the Savings
Bank. Though – because of “youth and inexperience”- not
getting off to the big war, he was worthily represented.
Then there was
Alfred Nightingale, who joined the Savings Bank service in
1860, and was one of the good salaried men in the early
eighties. He was a very fine authority on the early days, and
was a Humpybong pioneer. It is good to know that some of the
old boys of the Treasury and the Savings Bank are with us
still, and it may be observed that “Charley” Miles came along
in the Savings Bank after Wells had gone from the service.
There was another Savings Bank man who ran back to 1874, and
who later became an engineering draftsman in the Railways
Department, Ernest G Barton, always rather slight physically,
but keen and energetic. Yet the old faces are going – soon all
will be gone. I don’t think any public department in Australia
has been more ably and more loyally served than the Queensland
Treasury.