Queensland Police Museum

A Queensland Police belt and buttons have been bought from a Paddington Antiques Emporium. Viv Sinnamon was in Brisbane completing work with Alex Shaw at Wooloongabba Art Gallery on Algngga orrngan the book on the Olkola Messmate Humpy. There has been a search to find objects from the time when Police Trackers replaced Mounted Native Police. Native Police uniform and a trackers khaki uniform are being reproduced for the Kowanyama Collection . Khaki uniforms were adopted in 1896 to replace the old blue uniform. Officers of the Native Mounted Police in North Queensland wore the later uniform which was similar to the uniform worn by Australians in the Boer War in Africa supporting the British. Geoffrey Phillip was a tracker working with Constable McNaught who was stationed at Coen and spent a lot of time over around Edward River and the Coleman River on patrol.

Viv visited the Police Museum in Brisbane to check the date of the belt. There is a large display of early Aboriginal Police uniforms and equipment and it has been visited twice now. Lisa Jones the Curator of the Police Museum was able to compare the belt’s buckle with another in their collection.