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Affability and hospitalities – mostly ‘The Imperial authority is always present and its representative the Governor, elevated above local contentions and partisan animosities, stands aloof, a close observer, a disinterested arbitrator and the conservator of the principles of the British empire. His situation partakes somewhat of the sovereign and somewhat of the ambassador. ... He should be affable and hospitable.’1
Left: Samuel Wensley Blackall was cautiously received in August 1868 but quickly became one of the most popular governors Queensland ever had. He was genuinely mourned when he died in Brisbane in 1871. Below left: Maurice O’Connell, an old colonist who was President of the Legislative Council between 1860 and 1879 and Administrator on four occasions between 1868 and 1877. Middle: George Phipps, the Marquis of Normanby, a hard working governor. Right: William Cairns, the only Queensland governor who could be called a failure.
Governor Bowen had set Queensland a cracking pace through the first eight years of its existence as a separate colony. There had to be a change of tempo and there was. Through the nine years from Bowen’s departure in January 1868 there were no less than three governors. They were men of varying quality. None of them had the capacity to rise to the challenge of ‘erecting Queensland’ in the way that Bowen had done. No matter, the ground work had been done. After Bowen, the governors were to be truly constitutional governors, much less directly involved in policy making and government administration. However, the colonial governors through to 1901 were never completely removed from those processes and each governor left at least some trace of his personal style on the way things were done in Queensland. Until about 1880, the place and role of the governors in the processes of government was possibly as significant as that of the premiers2 – and the governors sometimes played a decisive part in determining who would be premier.3 Bowen’s successor, Colonel Samuel Blackall, seemed to have little to commend him for the job when he was appointed but became perhaps the most popular of all Queensland’s governors through the entire colonial period or even until the arrival of Sir Henry Abel Smith in 1958. Blackall died at Government House after a little more than two years in office. He was succeeded by George Phipps, the Marquis of Normanby, who was a very adequate governor for three years.
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Then, for two years, there was a visitation by William Wellington Cairns, the only thoroughly unsatisfactory governor Queensland has ever had. Long time colonist Maurice O’Connell was the enduring figure through these years. He acted as governor for eight eventful months immediately after Bowen’s departure; again for seven months after Blackall’s death until the Marquis of Normanby arrived; then for two shorter periods after the departures of Normanby and Cairns. O’Connell had many gubernatorial associations long before he became Administrator (acting governor) of Queensland on the day that Bowen left Brisbane. Born in Sydney in 1812, he was a grandson of the tempestuous Governor William Bligh and a godson of Governor Lachlan Macquarie. O’Connell had a distinguished military career before he won a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1845. In 1848 he was appointed Commissioner for Crown lands for the Burnett pastoral district. From 1846 there had been a short lived British attempt to establish a new colony, North Australia, based on Port Curtis. A line was drawn across New South Wales from approximately the future Bundaberg location, then at the northern edge of pastoral expansion, and the new colony was nominally created north of that line. It was intended to be a venue for resumption of convict transportation and, in January 1847, eighty eight settlers landed at the place that was to become Gladstone. The settlers were profoundly relieved when, after just four months, the venture was abandoned and they were ordered to return to Sydney. However, the idea of a settlement in Port Curtis did not die. In 1853, Governor Fitzroy directed from Sydney that a town, to be called Gladstone, should be surveyed and established. In early 1854, Maurice O’Connell was appointed Government Resident at that new settlement. The post was abolished within two years and O’Connell reverted to being a Commissioner for Crown Lands while he also pursued mining and pastoral ventures. He quickly became one of the leading citizens of the region that was to become Queensland and in 1860 he was appointed President of the Queensland Legislative Council. He held that office until 1879.4 O’Connell was frequently suggested as a possible governor of Queensland but the time for appointments of local people was still far into the future. Nevertheless, in 1868 it fell to O’Connell to act as governor during two great occasions in Queensland’s history – the first royal tour, by Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in February, and the opening of the new Parliament House six months later. The 24 year old Duke’s visit to Queensland was part of an eight month long tour of the Australian colonies. It was the first trip to Australia by a member of the royal family and it provoked demonstrations of patriotism and loyalty everywhere. ‘We love thee for thy father’s name and for thy mother’s sake’ was loudly sung, with enthusiasm and without any self-consciousness. Public speakers everywhere said that Prince Alfred’s presence gave them the opportunity to express ‘our devotion to Her Majesty’s throne and person.’5 The royal tour came in the midst of exciting speculation that upwards of 50,000 hopeful diggers were about to flock to the Gympie goldfields. That prospect, and the forthcoming royal tour itself, were taken as signs that better times might be in store for Queensland and there could be an end to the economic malaise that had depressed the colony since 1866.6 In a spirit of optimism,
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Queenslanders seized the chance to ‘look upon a son of our beloved Queen, to welcome him to the spot we have chosen for our new homes, and where we hope to increase the wealth and importance of the Empire by changing the wilderness around us into a large, populous and wealthy state, to show him some of the results we have already achieved and the difficulties we have met and conquered.’7
Top left: Brisbane street decorations for the 1868 Royal visit by Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh. Bottom: Eliza O’Connell, in 1868. She was a close friend of Lady Bowen. Right: Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son and Queensland’s first royal visitor.
An intensive program was arranged to give the Prince the opportunity to see as much of Queensland and to meet as many colonists as possible in the five days he was in the colony. The royal visitor arrived in Brisbane at noon on Tuesday 25 February and spent the rest of that day watching processions and Caledonian games, then a levee at Government House, fireworks from 8 pm followed by a concert at the School of Arts that began at 10 pm and finally a ball at Government House. Early on Wednesday the Duke was driven to Ipswich and there boarded a train for Jondaryan, where he was to commemorate the extension of the railway to that point. The train ran late and most of
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the guests at a delayed banquet were in a very merry mood by the time the Prince arrived. Protocol was thrown to the winds when the crowd hissed and booed the unpopular premier Robert Mackenzie and members of his ministry who were travelling with the Prince. It is doubtful whether the occasion was retrieved when the people of Jondaryan station presented him with a large damper8 as a memento of his visit to the Darling Downs. The Prince asked that ‘the damper be taken as eaten.’ During the eventual dinner a speaker pressed the Prince to use his influence with the Queen to confirm the appointment of Maurice O’Connell as Queensland’s next governor – ‘at that point a voice desired him to sit down, but this request made him persevere the more as the speaker saw that the majority was definitely with him.’ 9 Next day, Thursday, the party returned by train to Toowoomba and then Ipswich, where there was a visit to the Grammar School, a dinner and a ball. On Friday it was back to Brisbane by road and then off to the races at Eagle Farm, followed by a reception given by the German community (fervent in its loyalty to the Prince because of his German lineage)
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Below: The farmhouse of a German family, Logan district, 1872. Top right: Queen Street, Brisbane, about 1868, looking south from the Edward Street corner. Second from top: Albion Street, Warwick, 1868. Third from top: Tambo in 1888, showing the store of pioneer bush entrepreneurs the Whitman brothers. Bottom: Brisbane Grammar School, in its original location in Roma Street. The school owed much to Governor Bowen.
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and then a Citizen’s Ball. Finally, there were several activities on Saturday morning before the Duke was taken to the Brisbane Grammar School to lay the school’s foundation stone, just before his ship departed at noon. Acting Governor Maurice O’Connell was at the Prince’s side throughout, proving that, although he was much older than the Prince, he was equal to any marathon of colonial festivities and formalities. On that account alone, he thoroughly deserved the knighthood that came his way soon after the royal visit. The Prince did not fare quite so well in the days after he left Queensland. On 12 March 1868 he was at a public picnic in Sydney when he was shot by an Irishman, Henry O’Farrell. The Prince was seriously wounded but recovered; O’Farrell was promptly hanged, amid an upsurge of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment that caused community tensions even in distant Queensland. On 4 August 1868, O’Connell opened Queensland’s magnificent new Parliament House. Since May 1860, the parliament had been meeting in the old convict barracks but a permanent Parliament House had always been a priority objective, second only to the construction of Government House. The site for the new building was chosen in 1863 and a competition for its design was won by Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin with a French Renaissance inspired entry. Building work was commissioned and Governor Bowen laid the foundation stone in 1865 but work stopped in 1866 because of the acute financial crisis. Construction resumed in 1867, to a modified plan, and the building was ready for use by mid-1868. O’Connell might have waited a few weeks to allow Governor Blackall the honour of opening the imposing new building but there was some uncertainty about the likely date of Blackall’s arrival. O’Connell judged it necessary that parliament should meet and get on with its business so he summoned the members and declared the building open, with remarkably little pomp and ceremony. The opening occurred in an atmosphere of political crisis. Since Herbert’s last premiership in 1866 there had been chronic instability in Queensland’s political arrangements. It was an era when alliances in the parliament were based on friendships, regional and economic interests, promises and deals and sheer expediency, rather than on party allegiance. The political alliances were often uneasy, shifting and short-lived. Robert Mackenzie became premier in August 1867, but he was never assured of the majority he needed to consolidate his grasp on the position. On the very day that the parliament met for the first time in the new building, Mackenzie’s government was defeated by two votes during the Address-in-Reply debate.10 Queensland was left without an effective government. O’Connell probably should have acted immediately, either by asking the leader of the Opposition to form a government or by calling an election. Instead, he allowed Mackenzie to remain in office and left the matter for decision by the new governor. Colonel Samuel Wensley Blackall was therefore confronted by a political crisis immediately he arrived in Brisbane on 14 August 1868. Blackall granted Mackenzie a dissolution of parliament and an election followed. Mackenzie formed a government but failed to clearly win the vote on the Address-inReply. To resolve the impasse, Blackall called on the Attorney General, Charles Lilley, to form a government. Blackall had passed his first test in Queensland, although there were many who said that the election had been unnecessary and that Blackall should have called on Lilley much earlier. That judgment
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might have been a little harsh, but there were many Queensland people who were anxious to be critical of anything their new governor did. Ever since Bowen’s departure was foreshadowed in 1867, there had been speculation about his replacement and disappointment that the British authorities had not announced the name of the new governor before Bowen departed on 4 January 1868. The disappointment turned to anger when news came to Queensland via English newspapers rather than from official sources, that Samuel Blackall would be the Queen’s new representative in Queensland. ‘It may be that Major Blackall is a very estimable man, an able Governor, and a man above all others to succeed Sir George Bowen, but somehow we feel rather sceptical’ said the Brisbane Courier when it reported the news on 14 January 1868. ‘All that is known of the gallant major is that he was a “nobody” in the House of Commons ... and since he entered the colonial service he has only been entrusted with the management of the most insignificant of British Crown Colonies. This looks too much like a slight upon Queensland to be agreeable.’11 Blackall’s lack of any apparent distinction and the passing over of the popular local man, Maurice O’Connell, rankled with the newspaper and many Queenslanders. The Brisbane Courier was close to the mark when it referred to Blackall’s lack of qualification for the job. Born in 1809 in Dublin (or perhaps London, records are unclear) to a prosperous land owning Anglo-Irish family, Samuel Blackall had achieved the rank of major in the British army and colonel in the Leitrim militia before he entered the House of Commons in 1847, representing an Irish seat. In 1851 he was appointed governor of the Caribbean island of Dominica, where he had to defend himself against a petition for his recall. In 1862 he went to Sierra Leone as governor there, and in 1865 he was appointed governor-in-chief of the West African Settlements. Again, Blackall had difficulty in dealing with sensitive local issues. He came to Queensland without a consort, two wives and two children having died earlier, although Robert, a son of the first marriage, had survived and came to Queensland shortly before his father’s death. Blackall had suffered the same tropical illnesses that claimed the lives of his second wife and their children and his health while in Queensland was never robust.12 The lack of enthusiasm for Blackall was reflected in the suggestion made in April 1868 that he could be diverted to South Australia, to replace that colony’s Governor Dominic Daly who had recently died in office. If that were done, Queensland would be very content to have its own Maurice O’Connell as its governor, many argued.13 Nevertheless, on 14 August 1868, Queenslanders greeted Blackall with enthusiasm. ‘Lets make the best of it, and at least he will be better than Bowen’ was the prevailing view. O’Connell, who had known Blackall in earlier days when the two men served in the army together at Gibraltar, did his best to see that the welcome was a warm one. A holiday was declared and about 3,000 people turned out to hail the new governor when he arrived at a landing place at the bottom of Edward Street and then proceeded into Queen’s Park. It was an impressive occasion, although it came nowhere near matching the welcome for the Bowens in 1859 – no occasion in Queensland’s history ever could.
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Below: The Legislative Council chamber in the new Parliament House. Right: Queensland’s Parliament House, opened in 1868. The handsome new building was a boldly confident statement about the colony’s future.
Blackall quickly overcame his slow start and before long he had become universally popular. That popularity seems to have been gained because ‘he was a marked contrast to his predecessor. He was not gifted with the aggressive temperament of Governor Bowen, due largely to the fact that he had passed the first vigour of youth ... indeed he was a distinctly mild mannered man.’14 In contrast to Bowen ‘that pink of pomposity ... His Excellency Governor Blackall does not take the role of Pasha of Many Talks ... his affability and hospitalities have already done much to efface unpleasant recollections connected with Government House.’15 Blackall had the ability to relate to everyone and he seems to have been adopted everywhere as though he was a favourite uncle. The point was proved on 16 August 1869, when the citizens of Brisbane organised a ball to celebrate the end of the governor’s first year in office. It was a hugely successful occasion, better attended than any such function for several years.16 It was known that the governor suffered badly from gout but that did not deter him from dancing enthusiastically with partners of all ranks and stations. ‘There may be some mysterious affinity between popularity and the polka’ said the Brisbane Courier. At many of the social activities in and close to Brisbane, Blackall was staunchly supported by Mrs Terry, wife of one of his aides, Frederick Terry. Mrs Terry frequently acted as Blackall’s partner at balls and similar functions and during excursions to places like the Darling Downs. However, it was not then the custom for women to attend official dinners or luncheons.17 In October and November 1869, Blackall undertook an arduous trip to north Queensland ports. In every new town up and down the coast there were receptions, addresses, dinners, balls and deputations. The governor
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Left: Governor Blackall with Morforwyn Verney (on left) and Mrs Terry (at right). The widowed Blackall often relied on Mrs Terry to act as his consort at official occasions. Below, top: Governor Blackall arriving in Brisbane aboard the government steamer Kate. The governor is seated on the rail at top left. Early governors invariably arrived in Moreton Bay by ocean going ships and then they were transferred to the government launch for the last stages of their journey, upriver to Brisbane. Bottom: Governor Blackall (in centre) with his aides George Verney (left) and Frederick Terry.
listened patiently while, in every place, citizens extolled the achievements and potential of their district and clamoured for better telegraphic communications, steam ship services to and from the south and roads to the interior. ‘I can try to do something for you, but I cannot promise anything’ was always the tactful response. The tour was a triumph for Blackall. ‘His success with the people of the north, who are not easily satisfied, is due to a geniality of disposition, added to tact and knowledge of the world and the courtesy of a gentleman of the old school who can be free and familiar without losing the respect of those brought into intercourse with him. But the narrative of the northern tour suggests the inquiry whether that sort of thing can be kept up. ... The governor was allowed scarcely a minute to himself. ... A person of average health can stand a public dinner three or four times in the year. The judicious inhibition of Seidlitz powders next morning generally removes all evil effects, but an iron constitution would not be proof against a succession of public dinners at which the chief guest is compelled, out of a sense of public duty, to eat tough old fowls and drink frightful liquid compounds that are fondly believed by the stewards of Queensland banquets to be wines.’ 18 There were doubts about whether Blackall could keep it up, but he did, at least for two years. On 11 June 1870 the Brisbane Courier marvelled ‘His Excellency Colonel Blackall is without question a model governor and grows more popular the longer he remains with us. [Everywhere] he is first rate and manages to say the agreeable thing and he gets through an enormous amount of work without seeming to be in the least distressed thereby.’ Blackall’s astonishing popularity can be explained by the fact that he seemed to bring better times, a better mood, to Queensland. Bowen had been blamed for the bleak years that followed 1866; now Blackall was to get the credit when prosperity returned and the colony was seen to be on the move again. By December 1869, at the end of Queensland’s first decade of independent existence, the population had grown to 110,000; there were over 200 schools with more than 13,000 pupils; there were 13,000 acres planted with cotton and 5,000 with sugar; sheep numbers had increased from three and a half million to nine million while cattle numbers had doubled to one million. There had been an even more spectacular increase in mineral production, with new discoveries in many places between Cloncurry and Stanthorpe; there were 200 miles of railway with more under construction, and 2,000 miles of telegraph line. Manufacturing was developing, especially of mining and sugar processing machinery; shipbuilding and manufacture of railway equipment were emerging. New towns were springing up and many of them were proving that they were on the map to stay by adopting local government. Government revenue had increased from 178,000 pounds to over 750,000 pounds. The colony’s public debt of almost four million pounds was perhaps alarming, but Queensland’s credit rating had recovered from the 1866 crisis. There were great hopes for the future.19 Blackall did not live to see Queensland burst into flower over the next few years. Perhaps he knew that his end was coming soon because in September 1870 he selected a site for his grave at the new Toowong cemetery. He died peacefully, at Government House, on 2 January 1871. His funeral the following day was hugely attended and genuine grief hung in the air throughout
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Queensland. The Brisbane Courier, which had been so sceptical about the prospect of his arrival, said ‘there has been no Governor of this colony before or after Separation, who has been so much loved and so much respected as the one who used to sign himself plain “Sam. Blackall”.’ 20 O’Connell, now Sir Maurice, and his wife, Lady O’Connell, moved back into Government House, this time for seven months while Blackall’s successor was awaited. The O’Connells would not have had this opportunity but for the outcome of an early clash between Queensland and the Colonial Office over vice-regal arrangements. It was the first of several contests of will between George Street and Downing Street during the colonial period. During Bowen’s tenure, the arrangement had been that the President of the Legislative Council (O’Connell, from 1860 to 1879) would act as governor in the event of the absence, death or incapacity of the substantive governor. Queenslanders noted with dismay that these arrangements were changed by the terms of Blackall’s commission, which provided that the colony’s senior military officer (who might be of very junior rank because Queensland’s army was so small) would act as governor if necessary. When this became generally known, the Legislative Council resolved to ask Blackall to seek a return to the previous position. Blackall did this and, on 18 June 1869, the Secretary for Colonies formally instructed Blackall to adhere to the arrangements that had obtained from 1861.21 Thus, if Queensland could not have O’Connell as governor, it could at least have him as acting governor from time to time. Queensland had been victorious in the first assertion of its claim to have some say in vice-regal arrangements. Queenslanders had initially complained that Blackall was ‘a nobody’ and that his appointment was an insult. They could not make the same complaint when George Augustus Constantine Phipps, Marquis of Normanby, was appointed to replace Blackall. The new governor was one of the highest peers of the realm, ranking only below the monarch and the dukes in the aristocratic pecking order. Queenslanders were flattered that such a lofty personage would be prepared to accept appointment as its third governor. The appointment was taken as an indication of the new status of all the Australian colonies. The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper thought that Normanby’s appointment marked the advance of Australian colonisation and the growing interest of the highest ranks in Britain in the colonies –
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‘now we have a Marquis. ... The stronger [Queensland] is, the better it will be for our metropolis [Sydney]. The paramount desire of this entire community is that the youngest colony [Queensland] may exhibit an example of wise Government and a prosperous people. It will be the task of Lord Normanby to assist in the realisation of this hope.’ In an early reference to the need for some sort of federation of the Australian colonies, the newspaper said that Normanby’s eminence might enable him to achieve colonial unity on important matters that affected them all.22
Left: The way things were – Far left: A wedding at Stanthorpe’s Presbyterian Church, 1872. Centre: The Brighton family boarding house at Cleveland, 1871. Right: Thomas Hanlon’s Ferry Hotel at Yatala, 1872. Below: Laura, the Marchioness of Normanby. Right: The Marquis of Normanby travelled widely in the colony. Queenslanders were flattered to have a high peer of the realm as their governor.
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Normanby was born in 1819. He served in the Scots Fusilier Guards between 1838 and 1846, then was a member of the House of Commons on several occasions between 1847 and 1857, while also holding numerous offices in the Queen’s household. Between 1858 and 1863 he served as lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia. He returned to his family seat in Yorkshire in 1863 but he found it difficult to live on the income from his estates. In 1871 he sought a colonial appointment, just as the Colonial Office needed a governor for Queensland. The Queensland appointment was the beginning of a vice regal career for the marquis, who became governor of New Zealand from 1874 to 1878, then Victoria from 1879 to 1884.23 Normanby was described as ‘a homely man, a typical English gentleman, perhaps not a brilliant character, but a solid and conscientious man who wherever his duty called him performed it with credit to himself and the honour of his Sovereign.’24 He was, according to another observer, ‘one of the noblest specimens of manhood the colonies have yet seen. He was a man of the world – fond of manly sports ... a shrewd politician who knew how to maintain the dignity of his office and administer the affairs of state with a quiet resoluteness ... ’25 In 1844, Normanby had married Laura Russell. The couple were to have four sons and three daughters. Two of the sons came to Queensland with their parents – Lord Henry Phipps and Lord Harvey Phipps, while a niece of the marchioness, Eliza Russell, came to act as her Lady-in-Waiting. Unfortunately, the marchioness could not participate in the welcoming ceremonies when the vice-regal party landed in Brisbane on 12 August 1871. Several days before, the ship bringing the party from Sydney to Brisbane had encountered a severe
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storm and Queensland’s new first lady was thrown from her berth, sustaining injuries to her head and face. Her general health appears not to have been good and she played little part in vice-regal life in Queensland. The welcoming festivities were subdued because of a dispute between the government and the Brisbane Municipal Council about who should manage the affair. Many businesses stayed open and the holiday atmosphere that had marked the welcomes to Bowen and Blackall was lacking on this occasion. Nevertheless, there was a colourful procession from the landing place to Government House, where Chief Justice Cockle and Justice Lutwyche administered the oaths of office. Normanby was a notable ‘whip’ who habitually drove his coach at full gallop through the back gate of Government House, with only centimetres clearance.26 He set the same breakneck pace in carrying out his official duties. He immediately began to travel widely and to send detailed observations in despatches to the Earl of Kimberley, Secretary of State for Colonies. Kimberley then distilled the reports for release to the British press. Normanby’s commentaries were important and influential. There was keen interest in Britain about Queensland affairs and the reports from such an eminent and impartial source were eagerly and respectfully read. Top left: Maryborough in 1874. The town had boomed as the port for the Gympie goldfield. Top right: The new settlement at Cardwell, 1870s. It was intended to be a port for hinterland development. Middle: Gladstone in 1874. Settled in 1847 as the intended capital of a new colony of North Australia, the place was abandoned but then re-settled to become a regional centre and port. Below: Haystacks at Canning Downs, near Warwick, 1894. Below right: Warwick in 1874. Queensland’s pastoral settlement began nearby in 1840 and the town was for many years pre-eminent on the Darling Downs.
There was much for Normanby to report. Queensland was flourishing. Pastoral expansion, halted for a time by drought and depression, had resumed apace, driven by better seasons, record wool prices and the direct investment of British capital. The mining industries were also booming – rushes to places like Ravenswood (1868), the Gilbert River (1869), Charters Towers and the Etheridge (from 1872), Hodgkinson and Palmer River fields (from 1873) were giving credibility to claims that Queensland’s goldfields might be even more productive than those in Victoria or even California. Chinese miners were flocking to the Palmer in particular – there were probably 20,000 of them in the Cooktown hinterland by 1877. Gold and other mineral discoveries were impelling the growth of coastal ports like Townsville, Cooktown, Cairns, Port Douglas, Normanton and, later, Rockhampton. Existing ports like Maryborough and even Brisbane benefited from the increased trade.
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Sugar and cotton crops were showing that plantation agriculture could be successful. In 1868, extensive pearl shell beds had been discovered in Torres Strait and what was to become a significant industry was beginning. Manufacturing was burgeoning, with companies like Smellies of Brisbane and Walkers of Maryborough producing steam engines, steamboats and machinery of all kinds. A new generation of public and commercial buildings was being erected in Brisbane and in the newer centres and a new bridge over the Brisbane River, made of iron this time, was opened in 1874. There was social progress too, notably, free primary education at government schools from 1870 and universal male suffrage from 1873 (but not for Aboriginal, Chinese or Polynesian men). It was Normanby’s good fortune that his term in Queensland coincided with renewed prosperity. That made his task much easier than had been Bowen’s in his last two years. Normanby also enjoyed a period of relative political stability, with the governments of premiers Arthur Palmer (1870-74) and Arthur Macalister (1874-76) both securely in office while Normanby was at Government House. Significant changes beyond Queensland’s borders were adding to the excitement of the times. In 1872, Australia’s telegraph systems were connected at Darwin with a cable under the sea to Java and thence to England. Communications that had previously taken months to pass between Australia and Britain could now be transmitted in two or three days (communications were not instantaneous because the Morse code signals needed to be re-transmitted at intervals along the route). The opening of the system via South Australia and Darwin had dashed Queensland’s hopes for its own telegraph link from Brisbane to Cardwell, thence to Normanton, to the East Indies then to Britain. However, Queensland benefited enormously from the South Australian venture, as did the whole of Australia. The new communications made possible the development of mercantile economies in the colonies. British investors could now confidently place their money in Australia because they could monitor and control their investments. It was history’s biggest single blow against the tyranny of distance from which Australia had suffered since 1788. Queensland had already come much closer to the rest of the world in 1869 when the opening of the Suez Canal significantly shortened the sea voyage between Britain and Australia. At the same time, steam was replacing sail. For Queensland, this presented a special opportunity. Ships had always come to Queensland from Britain via southern Australia because it was difficult to sail from west to east via the Torres Strait, against the trade winds. Steam made it possible for ships to use the shorter route to Queensland. The colony began to offer inducements for shipping lines to bring their vessels to Queensland via Torres Strait and then via the northern ports. This would reduce shipping costs and would mean that Queensland ports would present the first opportunity for immigrants to land, after their long, uncomfortable and often dangerous voyages. Queensland realised that it had a special interest in the Torres Strait region, by 1871 a venue for pearling and missionary activity as well as a potentially valuable shipping route. However, at first the colony had no jurisdiction over the region because in 1859 the boundaries of Queensland had been drawn
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Left: Gympie in 1870. Gold discoveries in the district came at a critical time for Queensland. Middle: Miners with a portable steam engine on the Stanthorpe tin field, 1872. Right: Mary Street, Gympie, 1868, a few months after the first gold discoveries in the area.
just three miles offshore. Normanby was instrumental in persuading the British colonial authorities that the colony’s boundaries should be extended to 60 miles from the mainland. The extension became effective in 1872. In 1879 there was a further extension to include all the Torres Strait islands, even if they lay more than 60 miles offshore. Immediately he arrived, Normanby began a program of regular travel to even the most far flung parts of the colony. His first extensive trip beyond Ipswich was to the Darling Downs. On 26 December 1871 he wrote to Kimberley that the Downs ‘well deserves the reputation it has obtained.’ There had been scepticism in Britain about Queensland’s narrow gauge railway system, but Normanby assured Kimberley that ‘It is in excellent order and although at times we were travelling at the rate of 30 miles per hour, there was not the slightest oscillation.’ However, there were unfortunate oscillations for the governor when he visited the Gympie goldfields in April 1873. There was no practical road connection between Brisbane and Gympie so Normanby sailed to Maryborough
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and proceeded overland from there to the goldfield. He was feted in Gympie, where Chinese miners were among his most enthusiastic welcomers. Already the Chinese in Queensland were sensing that the governor stood between them and the general sentiment that Chinese immigration should be severely restricted and the Chinese who were already in the colony should be sent home. Normanby was shown working mines and machinery and given an underground banquet down the One Mile mine. When he was returning by buggy to town after the underground repast, the road was so rough that the vehicle began to fall apart. The horse bolted, the buggy overturned and His Excellency suffered extensive bruising and a possible fracture of an ankle.27 He was confined to a hotel room in Gympie for a week but even after that rest he felt too tender to travel over the rough track back to Maryborough. Instead, he was taken by road to Tewantin, in a specially prepared buggy. There, the governor was slung on board the government steamer Kate for his return to Brisbane.28 On several occasions, Normanby took the Kate on voyages of up to two months duration, to the colony’s northern ports. Wherever he landed, the governor heard people laud the boundless possibilities of the soils and minerals of their region. According to the locals, all that was needed was the usual shopping list of better ports, roads, telegraph connections and railways. The gold rushes had brought a feeling of confidence to the north and its people pointed out that the annual value of mineral production now sometimes eclipsed the value of the colony’s wool clip. Northern people argued that Brisbane was taking too much of the revenue and giving too little back; that the distant government in Brisbane did not understand the needs of the north. The cry of ‘Separation’ was heard in Rockhampton and everywhere further north. This was to be a difficult issue for Normanby and his immediate successors.
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Below: Sugar industry workers, River Estate near Mackay, about 1880. In its early years, the industry depended on ‘coloured’ labourers. Top right: Mackay, 1883, looking north-east from the Australian Joint Stock Bank. Middle right: Ormiston sugar mill, Cleveland district, about 1871. Below right: Cooktown, from 1873 the booming port for the Palmer River goldfields.
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The northern people believed that the governor had the power to act on this issue and should do so. Normanby said that he would see what he could do, while pointing out that the matter was one for the Queensland parliament and that Downing Street would certainly not intervene unless it was asked to do so by the colonial government. The South Sea Islander (also variously called Polynesian, Pacific Islander, Melanesian or Kanaka) labour traffic question was far more difficult for Normanby to deal with. The issue placed him in the impossible position of heeding firm instructions from London that the traffic was to be much better regulated if it was not to be abolished, and the general (but not unanimous) opinion in Queensland that the evils of the traffic were much exaggerated and that the colony needed Pacific Islanders to make plantation agriculture and pastoral expansion viable. The first islanders, from the New Hebrides and Loyalty islands, had arrived in Brisbane in August 1863 and were taken to work at Robert Towns’ cotton plantation on the Logan River. Between 1863 and 1904, over 62,000 indentured labourers from the Melanesian islands came to Queensland. At first, they were predominantly employed in cotton growing, in the pastoral industries and in pearl shelling and other fishing industries. However, from 1880, their labour was concentrated in the sugar cane fields. The Pacific Islanders were usually engaged for three year terms and paid at the rate of ten shillings per month. It is clear that most of the islanders came willingly to Queensland; many stayed beyond their three year term or signed up for second and third terms; many of them wanted to stay in Queensland permanently. However, it is also clear that outrageous abuses did sometimes occur in the recruiting and employment of the islanders. Normanby inevitably became involved in the public debate that was provoked by the abuses. In Britain, the Colonial Office was under pressure from groups who argued that the traffic was thinly disguised slavery, a disgrace to the Empire that had been at the forefront of abolition of the slave trade. Normanby argued in reply that Queensland as a colony was not complicit in the bad treatment of the Polynesians; that while there had been some outrageous abuses they were exceptions to the rule; he also said that his own observation was that the islanders were generally well treated and were happy.29 Normanby and others pointed out that reports of abuses reaching the British press were often greatly exaggerated by special interest groups and missionaries who saw each boat load of recruits going to Queensland as a loss of potential converts. Within Queensland, Normanby had to contend with widely diverging opinions. There were humanitarians like William Brookes who argued effectively and publicly that the traffic was an outrage that should be suppressed immediately, not regulated. Brookes found allies among working people who saw the Polynesians as a threat to their wage and living standards. However, there were also planters, pastoralists and many others who argued that the islanders’ labour was essential and could never be replaced by white labour because white men could not or would not do the same work in the tropics. On 17 April 1871, during a visit to England, Normanby received a deputation from the Aborigines Protection Society and the Anti-Slavery Society. Normanby quite candidly said that ‘as at present advised, he did not think it possible to
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effect a total prohibition of Polynesian labour; but he thought that under sufficient and proper safeguards the emigration could be of material benefit to the Polynesians themselves and to the colony of Queensland. ... in no way whatever would he sanction or support anything which approached the slave trade or trickery in the importation of native labourers ...’30 The deputation was probably not impressed, but most Queenslanders probably were. Under pressure from the British government, the Queensland parliament had passed laws in 1868 and again in 1872 to license the importers of islanders, to regulate conditions on the labour ships, to guarantee the return of the islanders to their homes, and to provide that a labour inspector should sail with each recruiting vessel. The British government also acted to base Royal Navy ships in Australian waters, with orders to scrutinise the labour traffic. In 1872, Normanby was drawn into the most serious controversy of his term when he pardoned John Coath, the convicted captain of the recruiting ship Jason. In a sensational case, Coath had been convicted of kidnapping and assault following a recruiting voyage. During the voyage, John Meiklejohn, the government recruiting agent, had protested to Coath about several abductions. Coath’s response was to threaten Meiklejohn with a pistol and chain him to a ringbolt in the hold. By the time he was released five weeks later, when the Jason approached Maryborough, Meiklejohn was mentally deranged. Coath was tried, convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The conviction and the sentence were upheld on appeal.31 However, within a year, Normanby was persuaded to pardon Coath, on the basis that it had emerged that some of the evidence given during the trial was suspect. Some people were outraged; many were uneasy. The Colonial Office grudgingly supported Normanby by saying that he had acted on appropriate advice. The Pacific Island labour question was to bedevil future governors until the traffic was finally outlawed, not because of any Queensland action but as a consequence of the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901. On 12 November 1874, Normanby left Queensland to take up office in New Zealand. He later governed Victoria, where in 1880 he entered history by signing Ned Kelly’s death warrant. From Victoria, he returned to Queensland for a brief visit in 1882. The Brisbane Courier reflected, on 24 March 1882, that ‘As a Governor, Lord Normanby exercised a considerable amount of influence. ... Lord Normanby in reality governed a good deal. He concerned himself actively in allaying the feeling of discontent in the Northern districts which had taken the form of a movement in favour of separation. Without intruding advice, he undoubtedly gave advice and counselled political action which had the effect of setting that question at rest. In connection with the South Sea Island labour traffic he fought many battles with Downing Street, though it may be doubted, perhaps, whether we were always in the right.’ The Normanbys retired to England in 1884. The marchioness died in 1885, the marquis in 1890. On balance, a fair assessment is that Normanby did his best for Queensland. It is difficult to say the same about his successor, William Cairns, who arrived in Queensland on 23 January 1875, after yet another period through which O’Connell acted as governor. Charles Bernays, who tried hard to be sympathetic to all the subjects he reviewed in his historical study of Queensland’s governors from Bowen
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Above left: Pacific Islander quarters at the Cedars plantation, Mackay, 1883. Right: The Pioneer plantation house, near Mackay, 1880.
to Goold-Adams, wrote ‘there is not a great deal to be said about our fourth governor.’ Historian Frederick Morrison said ‘when the time of his departure came ... he went away regretted by very few.’32 Perhaps by only one, his friend and sometime secretary, Albert Drury. William Cairns (he was not knighted until 1887) was born in Ireland in 1828 or thereabouts. Apparently Cairns never enjoyed good health and in 1852 he joined the Ceylon civil service in the hope that a tropical environment might help him recover. In 1867 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Malacca, then of St Kitts in 1868 and then Honduras in 1870. In 1874 he was appointed governor of Trinidad, but he resigned after only a few weeks. Then, although still a bachelor, he was appointed governor of Queensland. It seems highly likely that Cairns owed this series of appointments to the influence of his halfbrother who was a leading figure in several British Conservative ministries. Brisbane did its best to welcome Cairns but it immediately became apparent that the new governor was a reclusive man. Two days after his arrival, the Brisbane Courier delivered a short homily about the proper role of a governor. ‘The personal qualities of a Governor are of some interest to us, his influence on society cannot with prudence be dispensed with. The hospitalities of Government House ... are viewed with critical discrimination; but it can never be unimportant that a Governor should be affable and accessible... His station is endowed with all the fitting accessories of dignity and comfort. These he is permitted to enjoy in undisturbed retirement if he so chooses, but there can be no doubt that in providing a sufficiently handsome allowance for the office it is expected that a Governor should in some way or other make himself useful...’33 Cairns failed to take the hint. He had brought Alfred Maudslay with him to Brisbane as his private secretary. Maudslay became an anthropologist of great distinction, but of greater interest in this context is Maudslay’s book of reminiscences, Life in the Pacific Fifty Years Ago. In it, Maudslay makes clear that Cairns was a very odd man indeed.34 ‘Many years of a lonely life in Ceylon had not made him sociable. ... his moods were fitful and his digestion was not good.’ Cairns had engaged two youths, stewards on P & O ships, to join his Government House staff and other staff had been engaged in England, ‘all boys or very youthful and not up to their work. No woman was allowed in the house!’35 Maudslay records that on his very first day Cairns got rid of all visitors from Government House as
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soon as the swearing in was complete. ‘There was absolutely nothing to drink in the house and we had to send an orderly to the nearest bar for refreshments’ Maudslay recalled. Cairns suspended all normal entertaining at Government House, although he was fond of hosting dances and fancy dress balls. If local people showed little enthusiasm for attending, Cairns made up the numbers by insisting that his subordinate staff be present. Household arrangements were chaotic, Maudslay said, ‘the cook ruins everything ... the beefsteak she cooked for breakfast today was very cold when it came to the table and on inquiry we were told that it had been found necessary to wash it before bringing it in.’ 36
Left: Governor William Cairns showed little interest in the colony and did not travel beyond Dalby. Queenslanders were pleased to see him go. Below: Chinese children, Cooktown. In the 1870s, there might have been as many as 30,000 Chinese miners in the region. Right: Cradling for gold near Charters Towers, 1887.
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Matters came to a head when Cairns went to Ipswich for the local show. ‘Ipswich people were put out at H.E. only coming up for the day and not attending the dinner or the ball, and they did not forget to let him know what they thought of it. Next morning, Mr Walsh,37 the Speaker of the House, called and had a long talk with the Governor, and I fancy must have pitched into him pretty strongly.’ Cairns’ behaviour then seems to have become a little more sociable, although he made no effort to travel within the colony. On 8 November 1876, the Brisbane Courier returned to the point it had made in early 1875. ‘The colonial Governor should avail himself of his opportunities for observations of the resources of the country where he presides, and of the circumstances, prospects, wants and disposition of the inhabitants ... His Excellency the present Governor has now been with us for two years and as yet his personal acquaintance with the colony has been confined to the capital and what may be gathered by less than half a dozen flying visits by rail to towns on the Darling Downs ... It should not be too much to hope that the expectations of the country districts shall not much longer be disappointed.’ The disappointment did continue and Cairns stayed at home. He did make some mark, not always to the liking of Queenslanders. He rebuked the government for condoning cruelty by the Native Police and he criticised the treatment of Pacific Islanders. He opposed a bill to restrict Chinese immigration and temporarily blocked it by reserving the bill for royal assent. In these respects, he was protecting Imperial interests and reflecting British government policy.38 He also successfully obstructed the ambition of the young Samuel Griffith to become Premier in 1876, probably because he thought Griffith too young and too radical; he influenced his successor Sir Arthur Kennedy to take the same position.39 Governors could still often exercise that sort of discretion because the political party alliances in parliament were fluid and ill defined, with the result that leadership and command of a majority was not always obvious. Cairns was involved with two major events in Queensland’s history, although he could not claim to have been instrumental in bringing about either of them. On 22 August 1876 he opened the National Association’s first Intercolonial Exhibition, at Bowen Park in Brisbane. It was a huge success, trains and ships to Brisbane were jammed, accommodation was crowded and it was a stern test of ‘the energy, promptitude and arrangements of the railways.’40 It quickly became ‘the Ekka’ and an iconic Queensland institution. Three months later, the design for Queensland’s flag was finalised. It did not please everyone, ‘it looks suspiciously like a double necked eagle that had swallowed a coal scuttle, or, it might be a turkey which this eagle is struggling to digest.’41 More than 130 years later, it is still Queensland’s flag. There were no flags waving for William Cairns when he left Queensland on 14 March 1877, bound for South Australia to become governor of that colony. He had sought and been given an appointment to a post in a more temperate climate, but he resigned after only eight weeks in Adelaide. He returned to England, where he was knighted in 1887 and died the following year. Cairns was the only bad governor Queensland has had. His memory irritated Queenslanders for years and, in 1889, it was to be a significant factor in a major confrontation between the colony and Britain concerning the appointment of governors.
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