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Restoring affections ‘The colonists are much less docile than they once were, and, as a consequence, the Home Government have to be more careful whom they solicit for deputy sovereigns.’1 On 2 June 1883, the S.S. Orient carrying Sir Arthur Kennedy and his daughter Georgina home to England was sailing up the Red Sea toward the Suez Canal.

It was very hot and Georgina Kennedy thought the oppressive weather accounted for her father’s unusual listlessness that evening. She brought him a supper of jelly and champagne which Sir Arthur enjoyed on deck. A little later, Georgina helped her father into his berth. He was unusually tired and feeble. She summoned the ship’s doctor who advised more champagne and ice as an antidote to the intense heat.

A few hours later, as Georgina related in a letter to a Queensland friend, ‘my father gently breathed his last’.2 It was a vintage end for a man who had worked in the service of the Crown for 55 years, the last six of them as Governor of Queensland. He died as he had lived, without making a lot of fuss.

In Queensland, as the Brisbane Courier said when his term ended just a month before his death, Kennedy had been ‘a governor without the slightest vestige of humbug, and we have recognised him as a kindly gentleman of large experience, who has always shown us that he has had quite as much confidence in us as we have had in him.’3

Left: Sir Arthur Kennedy won the esteem of Queenslanders, but they never quite forgave him for bringing his Chinese servants from Hong Kong.

Middle: Miners working on the open cut section of the fabulously rich Mount Morgan gold mine.

Right: Miners bring ore trolleys from underground at Mount Morgan.

There were critics who said that Kennedy was the model of a successful and popular governor who did very little but achieved local popularity while making himself pleasant to Downing Street officials.4 Perhaps, and it is probably true that Kennedy was ‘not a brilliant man so much as a ready one.’5 However, Kennedy could fairly claim one great achievement. He restored the loyalty of Queenslanders and brought the office of Governor back into their affections; he erased the ill will that had been aroused by his predecessor.

Supported by the amiable and charming Georgina, ‘he succeeded, by the strict performance of his duty, and by the influence of a frank, manly, straightforward

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Left: Georgina Kennedy helped her widowed father meet social obligations.

Above: All three sons of Sir Anthony and Lady Musgrave served in the British armed forces. Herbert (at left, born 1876) was one of the founders of the Royal Flying Corps. He was killed in action in June 1918. Dudley (centre, born 1873) joined the navy and died in Bombay in 1895. Arthur (at right, born 1874) became a brigadier-general and survived the Great War.

character, in winning from a population which received him with distrust, an esteem which at last ripened into a strong sentiment of personal liking.’6 Born in 1810, Kennedy was, like so many of the men who shaped Queensland’s history, a product of an ancient Scottish family that had settled in Ireland. In 1827 he began 19 years of army service which took him to Corfu and Canada.

In 1839, he married Georgina Macarthey, with whom he had three children – Elizabeth (born 1842), Georgina (1844) and Arthur (1845).

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After his service in Canada, Kennedy came back to Ireland in 1846 and was appointed a Poor Law Commissioner to administer relief during the Irish famine. His work in that capacity was distinguished by human sympathy, an obvious sense of justice and a desire for administrative efficiency. It seems that his subsequent appointment as governor of Gambia in 1851 was a reward for good work. He then served as governor of Sierra Leone from 1852, before being appointed to Western Australia in 1855.

Western Australia did not yet have responsible self government and Kennedy was in the onerous position of governor of a Crown Colony. However, his tenure in the west coincided with a period of steady development and an absence of crises that might have involved him as governor. In 1863, Kennedy was appointed to govern the island of Vancouver. He was knighted in 1867, then appointed governor-in-chief of the West African Settlements. In 1872, he began a five year term as governor of Hong Kong.7 His wife did not go out to Hong Kong and she died in England in 1874. From thenceforth, daughter Georgina stepped into her mother’s vice-regal shoes. In Queensland, Georgina proved herself to be more than a dutiful daughter; she performed the role of governor’s consort at least as well as most governors’ wives have done. A large part of the credit for the restoration of the good standing of the position of governor during her father’s tenure must go to her.

Kennedy was popular in Hong Kong, especially among the colony’s Chinese people, for whom he was a champion against the impacts of official discrimination and entrenched prejudice on the part of the ruling white elite.

He caused some consternation within that elite when he became the first governor to invite Chinese people to official functions. As Kennedy was leaving Hong Kong, the Chinese community presented him with a sandalwood box that contained an illuminated scroll. The China Overland Trade Report of 1 March 1877 condescendingly said that the text of the scroll was worth quoting from because it was a curiosity in style and sentiment – ‘As nature cherishes and maintains all things, without distinction or partiality, so it should be the object of the governing class to consider and cherish the governed, and to take advantage of local conditions or circumstances to benefit them, as nature takes advantage of the recurring seasons. This we have found exemplified in the very highest degree during Your Excellency’s tenure of office, for your kindness and protection have been extended to every class alike, realising the Divine ideal of care for all. Nor do we know where to find your equal in this parental goodness.’

Kennedy genuinely liked and respected the Chinese as a race and he was always ready to speak up for them. That was to cause him some difficulty in Queensland, where the overwhelming view was that the influx of ‘celestials’ to the colony was a threat to the racial integrity, morals, health, wages and living standards of the essentially white and British society.

Reports of Kennedy’s fondness for the Chinese had come to Queensland with the first news of his appointment. Those reports caused some alarm among Queenslanders, who wondered whether their new governor might do as Cairns had done and act to frustrate the colonial government’s desire to restrict Chinese immigration. John Douglas had become Premier on eighth March 1877, a month before Kennedy arrived in Queensland. It was probably both as a warning to the new governor as well as an appeal to popular opinion that Douglas published the contents of a circular that had been sent to the heads of other Australian governments.

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In the circular, Douglas called on the support of other governments for the introduction of legislation to restrict Chinese immigration. In an early reference to the fact that there was a community of interest between the colonial governments on many matters, Douglas sought support for a united stand

by Australia against any new British attempt to frustrate legislation designed to restrict Chinese immigration. The circular pointed out that Governor Cairns had referred a Queensland bill to London for royal assent and that the Colonial Office disallowed the bill. Cairns had taken this action despite clear advice that, he as governor, had the power to sign the bill into law without reference to London. The bill had provided for a substantial increase in the license fees payable on the entry of Chinese or African aliens. Douglas called it a revenue measure but there could be no doubt it was designed to restrict, if not eliminate, Chinese immigration.

Douglas made no attempt to rebut the British viewpoint, firmly held since 1862, that it was objectionable ‘to exclude from any part of Her Majesty’s dominions the subjects of a state at peace with Her Majesty ... and the recent

transactions with the Chinese government render it very inopportune to adopt such a measure towards Chinese subjects.’8 That was all very well for Britain and the Empire, but Douglas pointed out that for all the Australia colonies ‘there is now not only the serious difficulty of a Chinese occupation throughout a large portion of this territory, but the still more serious question which arises is as to the exercise of their rights as a self-governing community.’ He added ‘smallpox has on several occasions made its appearance on ships arriving from Eastern ports ... Chinese immigration, objectionable in itself, may become still more objectionable on account of the diseases which may thus be introduced among us.’

In these circumstances, Queenslanders were inclined to say ‘we told you so’ to Kennedy when there was indeed a smallpox scare on the very vessel that brought him from Hong Kong. Sir Arthur, Georgina and a party that included Chinese household staff, had sailed from Hong Kong aboard the ship Hankow.

When the Hankow arrived in Townsville on 22 March 1877, it was found that a Chinese passenger was suffering from smallpox. Kennedy and his

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Left: Ravenswood in 1873. The first discoveries at Ravenswood from 1868 had lured gold seekers to the north. They soon found other fields in the north.

Middle: Sir Arthur Kennedy’s arrival in Brisbane, April 1877.

Right: The first landing of settlers at Cairns, 1876.

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party transferred to the ship Brisbane for the rest of their voyage, but when that ship arrived in Moreton Bay she was placed in quarantine and it was ordered that all passengers would be held in isolation for a two week period. While most of the passengers had to spend the isolation period on Peel Island, special arrangements were made for Kennedy and his party to spend the time aboard the government steam launch Kate, which was moored in the Bay for the purpose.

Finally, but only after some last minute delays, the Kate was released from quarantine. Kennedy and his party landed at Petrie Bight, to be met by the largest gathering of people seen in Brisbane since the arrival of the Duke of Edinburgh almost ten years before. It was proof that, despite the unfortunate Cairns, Queensland people still honoured the office of governor and what it stood for. Sir Arthur and Georgina were welcomed first by Sir Maurice O’Connell, who had again acted as governor since the departure of Cairns. The usual procession, reception and swearing in followed.

Next day, the Brisbane Courier said that ‘Sir Arthur Kennedy appeared to be a tall, fine-looking man of commanding presence and affable demeanour. First impressions go a long way and Sir Arthur has certainly impressed the people of Brisbane most favourably as far as external appearances go.’10 Then the grumbling started. It was customary for new governors to bring their own aides, secretaries and household staff with them to new postings and Queensland had no complaint about that until it emerged that Kennedy had brought with him from Hong Kong a household staff of about fifteen Chinese servants. It is not clear whether the Chinese displaced any permanent staff from Government House – there had been little permanency in Cairns’ time.

However, the point was quickly seized upon by critics within Queensland’s emerging labour movement, who argued that the Chinese were employed in jobs that could and should be given to white Queenslanders. In 1879, Archibald Meston moved in the Legislative Assembly to cut the governor’s salary by a thousand pounds a year, as a protest against his employing Chinese servants.11 The motion lapsed but the sentiment underlying it did not.

During his time in Queensland, Kennedy repeatedly made the point that his Chinese staff were loyal and efficient – he never had to dismiss any of them, while Cairns had discharged about 150 white servants in two years, or so Kennedy said. Eventually, Kennedy and critical Queenslanders agreed to disagree on the subject.

Kennedy never hid his distaste for extreme expressions of anti-Chinese sentiment, nor his objections to the anti-Chinese measures regularly proposed by his governments. As early as May 1877, he sent a confidential despatch to London urging the encouragement of Chinese immigration into Queensland.

‘Our incipient and valuable trade to the East is being destroyed to satisfy a foolish clamour got up by a few hard-drinking (but not hard-working) rowdies.’12 However, he was always a strictly correct constitutional governor. He proved that in July 1877 when, despite his own convictions, he accepted the advice of Attorney General Samuel Griffith and assented to a modified version of the bill that Cairns had previously reserved for royal assent.13 Queenslanders relaxed when it became known that, regardless of his personal opinions, Kennedy would act on the advice of his ministers. That, and the

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genial urbanity which enabled him to relate to everyone he met, won respect and affection for Kennedy.

From the beginning of his term, Kennedy began a program of travel throughout Queensland. After Cairns’ refusal to travel much beyond Sandgate or Toowoomba, this was welcomed, especially in places like Rockhampton which had not seen a governor for four years. Kennedy’s visit there in April 1878 was a triumph. Some, but not very many, thought it was an outrage that the governor took more notice of tradesmens’ wives and daughters than the ‘Upper Five – or perhaps Three.’ Kennedy clearly intended to democratise the activities of the governor. ‘From now on’, said the Capricornian newspaper, ‘a large number of the people in this part of the colony will no longer regard their governor as a dignified abstraction, but as one of “Nature’s noblemen” who has a lively personal interest in their welfare ... Nor do we believe that interest is artificial or merely conventional ... the Queen’s representative in a young and vigorous colony like ours has a real influence on moulding its destinies.’14 There was a similar triumph for Kennedy on his way home, when he called at Maryborough and turned the first sod of the railway line to be constructed between that town and Gympie. Queensland’s governor was once again associated with the proofs of the colony’s progress, with the achievement of the ambitions of its people.

Things were going well for Kennedy and for the colony as a whole. The pastoral industries continued their rapid expansion until, by about 1883, virtually all the land that was ever to be stocked in Queensland was occupied. New laws that clarified pastoral lease tenures gave pastoralists the confidence to develop their holdings and facilitated the inflow of new money, especially from Victoria and Britain. Wool prices had declined from their peaks of about 1873, but they remained very attractive. Money and people of all kinds and from many places flocked to the bush in search of the opportunities offering on the pastoral frontier. An important secondary industry enterprise based on wool processing, the Ipswich Woollen Mills, was opened by Kennedy on 16 October 1877. The mill soon came to employ more than 400 people.15 The beef industry, for long the poor relation of wool, was on the threshold of enjoying great benefits from new meat processing facilities and new technology for canning and freezing for export. Mining had lived up to its earlier prospects and from 1882 there was new promise of something really big, at Mount Morgan. That promise was abundantly fulfilled, to the benefit of Rockhampton in particular and Queensland in general. Agriculture, particularly sugar, continued to expand.

So did Queensland’s population, which had almost doubled in ten years, from 120,104 in 1871 to 213,525 in 1881. The growth continued through the 1880s so that by 1891 the total had reached 393,718.16 Queensland had generally attracted more than its share of the migrants coming to the Australian colonies. The numbers increased when steamships took much of the fear, uncertainty and discomfort out of the long voyages from Britain and Europe.

The Queensland government began to pay inducements to shipping lines to use the much quicker Suez Canal and Torres Strait routes, stopping at north Queensland ports before proceeding south. That way, many migrants were induced to disembark at the northern ports, thus increasing the populations of those ports and their hinterlands.

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Left: Huston’s ferry on the Logan River at Waterford, 1871.

Centre: Gracemere station, near Rockhampton, 1869.

Right: Shipping on the Fitzroy River at Rockhampton, 1887. Mount Morgan gold was beginning to underwrite Rockhampton’s development.

There was vigorous but often unscrupulous recruiting by migration agents.

The agents puffed and painted an extravagantly rosy picture of the future that awaited the migrant to Queensland. By the time the new settlers discovered that they might have been better off had they stayed at home they usually did not have the resources to go back. The difficulties encountered by newly arrived migrants were often compounded by overt hostility from local unemployed people.

Periodic droughts, the worst in 1884, and economic slumps were but temporary setbacks, although they caused alarm and distress at the time. One such severe economic slump occurred in 1880, coinciding with a period from March to November when Kennedy was given leave to return to England to attend to private business. During his absence, Joshua Peter Bell, President of the Legislative Council, acted as Administrator. Bell was yet another Anglo-Irishman to make a notable mark on Queensland. His family had come to Jimbour on the Darling Downs in 1843. The Bells thrived until they became entangled in some of Thomas McIlwraith’s financial engineering through the Darling Downs and Western Lands Company and the Queensland National Bank in the 1890s.

Bell had been Colonial Treasurer in 1866, during Queensland’s first great financial crisis. In 1880 there was a similar crisis for the same reason – excessive borrowing to fund railway expansion. In March 1880, the Queensland Treasury was empty and no funds were likely to become available until a new government loan was floated. Premier McIlwraith, for a time, declined to go to the money markets to raise the loan until after an election. In the meantime, creditors of the government were told to wait.17 The crisis passed, but it did not make Bell’s time at Government House very comfortable. Bell was knighted in December 1881 but died three weeks later.

After he returned from England the remainder of Kennedy’s term was uneventful, although the Chinese issue haunted him. He went to Cooktown in May 1881 and there made a speech in reply to an address given on behalf of the very numerous Chinese people of that region. Kennedy said that he favoured increased Chinese immigration and looked with ‘great regret on the repressive measures which some people thought proper to introduce here, because I believe such measures to be suicidal to the interests of Cooktown and that of the colony.’18 Not many people in Cooktown would have disagreed, but almost everyone in other parts of Queensland and even beyond did take issue with him, strongly. In Darwin, where the Chinese population had grown to outnumber the whites by as much as four to one and was increasing rapidly,

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Left: Prince Albert and Prince George (both standing, in light suits) with Sir Arthur Kennedy (second from left, seated) and Georgina (seated in front, centre) and guests at Government house, August 1881.

Middle: Prince Albert (left) and Prince George.

Right: Pastoralist and politician Joshua Peter Bell was Administrator in 1880.

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the Northern Territory Times expressed the prevailing Australian view when it editorialised that Kennedy’s speech was ‘scarcely politic ... As an alien race who can in no way be absorbed into the Australian nation which is gradually being constructed out of various European nationalities, it was recognised that their presence here in overwhelming numbers would create a social difficulty of the most objectionable kind and they must inevitably supplant the ordinary labour of the country.’19 Kennedy’s affability and ‘soundness’ prevailed and the storm blew over. Soon after he returned from Cooktown, Sir Arthur and Georgina hosted a visit to Brisbane by the young royal Princes Albert and George (sons of Edward, Prince of Wales and grandsons of Queen Victoria) who were visiting Australia with a Royal Navy squadron.20 It is not known what the Sinophile Sir Arthur thought or did when the future King George the Fifth tied together the pigtails of two of his Chinese servants.21 Through the rest of their term, the Kennedys continued to grow in popular esteem. They lent their support to a multitude of good causes, particularly the Brisbane Children’s Hospital, or Hospital for Sick Children as it was first known. Georgina became patron of the hospital from 1882.22 As the Kennedys prepared to leave Brisbane, Sir Arthur was drawn into the conflict between the Queensland government and the British colonial authorities over the bold unilateral action of Premier Sir Thomas McIlwraith to annex New Guinea to Queensland. This was a response to fears that Germany might move to claim the area. On 4 April 1883, the police magistrate at Thursday Island, Henry Chester, acted on McIlwraith’s instructions to go to Port Moresby and there plant a Union Jack and declare the eastern half of New Guinea to be from henceforth a part of the British Empire, under Queensland control. The annexation was disavowed by London three months later, but Kennedy won plaudits locally for his support of McIlwraith’s action.

On what was probably the first occasion when a Queensland governor took the side of the local government against London, Kennedy had written to the Secretary of State for Colonies ‘I have only to express my entire satisfaction with the action of my government in the matter. I think that the apprehension of New Guinea being annexed by another European Power was reasonable and McIlwraith’s promptitude in adopting our only safeguard was very laudable.’23 McIlwraith’s New Guinea adventure had two very significant outcomes. It was the major catalyst for the convening of an Australasian Inter-Colonial Conference in Sydney in November 1883.24 The conference was a big step along the road to eventual federation of the Australian colonies. The second result was the 1884 annexation of the south-eastern portion of Papua by Britain.

There was genuine regret when Kennedy’s term ended and he and Georgina left Brisbane on 2 May 1883, although perhaps the Queensland feeling of fondness for them was not so deep as that of the Hong Kong Chinese who, in 1886, commissioned an imposing statue of Sir Arthur. It was installed in the Hong Kong Botanic Gardens but was not recovered after it was removed by the occupying Japanese forces during the Second World War. Georgina Kennedy had been present in July 1886 when Sir George Bowen, then Governor of Hong Kong, presided at the ceremony for the casting of the statue.25 Georgina died in London in about 1901.

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The Hong Kong connection might have been strengthened through the man who almost became Queensland’s next governor. Although the preliminary decisions and negotiations leading to the appointment of colonial governors were cloaked by secrecy and mystery, it is clear that as Kennedy’s term was coming to an end in 1882, Lord Kimberley, then Secretary of State for Colonies, offered the post of governor of Queensland to Sir John Pope Hennessy, who had followed Kennedy as governor of Hong Kong. Pope Hennessy quickly accepted the offer.

It is astonishing that Kimberley had made the offer at all, because Pope Hennessy had provoked difficulty wherever he had been in a series of earlier appointments. The Colonial Office had resolved the difficulties by promoting him to another position. Perhaps Kimberley was again ‘kicking Pope Hennessy upstairs,’ but Kimberley quickly saw his mistake and realised that while the Colonial Office might have been able to get away with Pope Hennessy’s antics in Crown Colonies, it would be a different matter in a self-governing colony such as Queensland. The offer was revoked, with Kimberley justifying the revocation by saying privately to Pope Hennessy that he was unacceptable to Queensland because he was a Roman Catholic. That explanation did not ring true to Pope Hennessy, nor is it substantiated by any evidence that anyone in Queensland was consulted about the proposed appointment. In any event, Pope Hennessy never came to Queensland and had to be content with an appointment to Mauritius.26 The episode was the first of two instances in the 1880s when Queensland almost got governors quite different from those who were eventually appointed. The second phantom governor was Sir Henry Blake, but, before that controversial case arose, Sir Anthony Musgrave came to Queensland as its sixth governor.

Sir Anthony Musgrave and his wife, Jeannie Lucinda, brought to Queensland every credential needed to make their term a scintillating success. In many ways it was, but its brilliance was at the end eclipsed by a bitter constitutional wrangle that ended only when Sir Anthony died suddenly at Government House on 9 October 1888.

By the time he arrived in Queensland, Musgrave was one of the empire’s most experienced and widely travelled colonial administrators. Born at Antigua in 1828, Musgrave spent his childhood in the West Indies before he became secretary to the governor of the Leeward Islands. He spent most of the rest of his life in colonial service, at first on various Caribbean islands, then as governor of Newfoundland (1864-69) and British Columbia (1869-72). In 1872, Musgrave was posted to Natal, then to South Australia as governor of that colony from 1873 to 1877. In 1875 he was knighted; then in 1877 he went to Jamaica for six years as governor before coming to Queensland.

Anthony Musgrave was an intellectual, a man who thought deeply about his own responsibilities and about the condition of the world. While in South Australia, he wrote ‘Studies in Political Economy’, the first of several books.

He was thought by some to be a little old-fashioned and slightly stuffy, but he seems to have had no difficulty achieving wide personal popularity wherever he went. When his transfer to Queensland was announced it was welcomed, Musgrave was obviously a senior and very well respected colonial governor and his appointment was taken as a compliment to the colony. The Brisbane Courier said that his record proved him to be a man ‘of large experience in all

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Top: Brisbane School of Arts, Ann Street.

Centre: Lands and Works Department, George Street Brisbane, 1880s.

Bottom: Brisbane Supreme Court.

Right: Townsville in 1886. The town was boosted by the rich Charters Towers goldfield.

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parts of the world ... of mellow judgement ... with all the essential qualifications for the high office he is now called on to administer.’27 There was nothing in his record to suggest that his career would end in disagreement and death.

In 1853, Musgrave had married Christiana Byam but she died five years later. In 1870 he married Jeannie Lucinda Field, a 36 year old wealthy, well connected, well educated and previously stubbornly single woman from a very prominent New York family. Jeanie, better known as Lucinda in Queensland, was energetic and intelligent. She was a modern American woman with a well developed social conscience that motivated her to encourage and assist many charitable projects and organisations, often by way of financial support from her own purse as well as by association and personal exertion. Less happily, she sometimes had difficulty in concealing the knowledge she had wealth, education and position that people around her lacked. Conclusive evidence is elusive, but there are many indications she used her private means to make it possible for her husband and herself to undertake activities that would not have been possible from the proceeds of the governor’s salary alone.

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In November 1883, the steamer Ranelagh brought Musgrave and his party from Sydney to Moreton Bay. The Queensland government launch Kate had brought an official welcoming party out into the Bay. The first greeting was by Premier Sir Thomas McIlwraith. Five years later, Lucinda Musgrave and others blamed McIlwraith for Sir Anthony’s sudden death.

The Kate took the Musgraves upstream to the municipal wharf at Petrie Bight, where the Mayor of Brisbane welcomed the party ashore. Then there was a procession through the town to Government House, where the Musgraves were met by Administrator Sir Arthur Palmer before Sir Anthony was sworn in to office.

Below: The steam yacht Lucinda, named after Jeannie Lucinda Musgrave, wife of Governor Sir Anthony Musgrave. Built in Scotland in 1884 for the Queensland government, the vessel carried many governors on visits to northern ports. In 1891, a draft of the Australian Constitution was prepared on board the Lucinda, during a Constitutional Convention. She served the government until 1923 and then became a coal lighter.

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Musgrave took office at a time of profound change. The era of colonial childhood and of contented acceptance of external direction had passed.

The Australian colonies were now entering their adolescence, a time when they began looking to the outside world and their possible relationships with that world. Old ideas about the Mother Country were changing and governors were being called on to manage the change. Governors had to learn to be

Left: Jeannie Lucinda Musgrave – wealthy, independent and progressive.

Below: Governor Sir Anthony Musgrave – perhaps a little old fashioned.

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tactful statesmen more than just effective administrators. There had been local political changes too. For more than twenty years since separation, the governors had been the dominant figures on the government stage.

By the 1880s, a new breed of men had forced their way on to that stage.

Some of them, particularly Thomas McIlwraith, thought that the stage had room only for them, not for a governor as well. Parliamentary alliances were becoming more stable and political parties were creating power bases for their leaders. The electorate had been democratised and in 1888 McIlwraith pioneered a new style of election campaign – an appeal to nationalism and narrow Queensland parochialism, against the broader but less popular view of his opponent, Samuel Griffith. McIlwraith won and, for the next century, successive Queensland political leaders heeded the lesson.

The labour movement was becoming organised, in politics as well as in workplaces. From 1886, unions of shearers and bush workers became mass movements. In the same year, Queensland legislated to pay members of parliament, making it easier for working men to seek election. In 1888, Thomas Glassey was the first declared Labour (the modern spelling of Labor was not adopted until 1912) member to be elected in Queensland and he was joined in parliament by John Hoolan in 1890. In 1889, Queensland’s Australian Labour Federation adopted a program for political action and an ambitious manifesto of political objectives. Ten years later, the world’s first Labour government took office in Queensland.

Where once the premiers like Herbert had looked to the governor for their authority, now they looked to the solidity of their parliamentary majority. A more modern kind of politician was emerging. They were men who played the political game much harder. Again, McIlwraith was the exemplar – ‘a man with a face like a dugong and a temper like a buffalo,’28 an able bully, dominant and domineering, aggressive and ruthless, a stranger to principle, a man who was never far away from scandal and who blurred the distinctions between Queensland’s welfare and his own. McIlwraith allowed no man, not even a governor, to stand in his way. Musgrave detested him;29 McIlwraith probably despised Musgrave.

Musgrave’s term began peacefully enough. Opening the parliament in July 1884, he referred to the main issues of the day and foreshadowed his government’s program. He had sent to London the resolutions of the first Intercolonial Conference in 1883 and in reply the Colonial Office advised that it would annex New Guinea and administer it with the aid of an annual contribution of 15,000 pounds from the Australian colonies. There were proposals to establish a Federal Council of the Australian colonies; Queensland proposed to appoint an Agent-General to represent the colony and recruit migrants in Britain; immigration would be stepped up; new regulations would be made to prevent a recurrence of recent scandalous abuses in the Pacific Island labour trade. New land laws would be introduced to reconcile the competing interests of large pastoralists and small scale farmers and selectors, while giving better tenure to the pastoralists. Despite the recent drought, Musgrave said, there were signs that prosperity was returning and government revenue was recovering.

Musgrave conscientiously travelled throughout Queensland, taking particular interest in the development of new industries. At Maryborough in May 1884,

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he was able to visit enterprises like Walker’s engineering works, Hyne’s sawmill and the Vulcan foundry, businesses that were to become identified with the development of Queensland’s own secondary industry.30 At Cooktown, Musgrave was more cautious than Kennedy had been, contenting himself with saying ‘the man would be considered one of Queensland’s greatest benefactors who could solve the labour question and bring about the development of agricultural lands without the benefit of an alien race.’31 During a trip back to England in 1886, Musgrave frequently spoke in public on Queensland’s behalf. He took the opportunity presented by wider audiences to refer to broader issues such as the need for Australian defence and the desirability of Australian federation.32 On this point, he was at one with his friend Samuel Griffith, premier of Queensland between 1883 and 1886.

In the meantime, Lady Musgrave was devoting her considerable energies to practical good works in Brisbane. She invariably greeted immigrant ships as

Left: Sir Thomas McIlwraith – forceful but doubtfully honest.

Centre: Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, four times Administrator between 1886 and 1896.

Right: Archibald Meston, moved in parliament for the reduction of Governor Kennedy’s salary because Kennedy had Chinese staff.

they berthed and took a particular interest in the welfare of any young women who were not met by friends, relatives or employers. She was instrumental in the creation of what became Lady Musgrave Lodge, a place where these young women could live while settling in to Queensland. The lodge was opened on Petrie Terrace, in 1885; it subsequently moved to Wickham Terrace and later into new purpose built premises in Spring Hill. Similarly, she was a moving force in the creation of the Governesses Home, in Milton. These and many other activities were combined with the revival of social life at Government House on a scale it had not seen since the departure of the Bowens.33

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It was not all work and no play for the Musgraves. Earlier governors had taken long summer vacations, usually at Sandgate, although the Kennedys had favoured Toowoomba. The Musgraves were pioneer patrons of the attractions of the Gold Coast, from 1884 travelling regularly on the Kate to stay in a summer house on the banks of the Nerang River at Southport. Later, Governor and Lady Norman used the house. However, it was virtually derelict in 1901 when it became one of the original buildings of the Southport School. Within the school, the governors’ former holiday residence was called Government House.34 The Musgraves could well have felt content with Queensland, and Queensland with them, but over all the contentment hung the unresolved and vexatious issue of the Pacific Island labour traffic. The importation of the islanders had been regulated and it was subject to stricter controls than in the past.

However, there were many who still felt that the traffic was indistinguishable from the slave trade that Britain had earlier fought so hard against. Musgrave was under instructions from the Colonial Office to monitor the trade vigilantly and critically. Those instructions coincided with his own private sentiment that the trade was undesirable. On the other hand, there was still a large and influential section of Queensland opinion that the trade was not so evil as was often made out, and was in any case essential for the colony’s prosperity.

Thomas McIlwraith was one man who held that view.

By 1888, Musgrave and McIlwraith were in serious conflict over New Guinea.

Under the co-operative arrangements between Britain and the Australian colonies, supervision of New Guinea’s administration had been vested in the Queensland governor. Musgrave believed that he was exercising this

Below: On the beach at Sandgate, 1871. Sandgate was the preferred summer resort for many early governors.

Right, above and below: Lady Musgrave Sanatorium for children at nearby Shorncliffe.

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Top: Immigration Depot, William Street, about 1868.

Centre: Stores near the Town Reach wharves, Eagle Street Brisbane, 1880.

Below: Work on the Eagle Street wharves, 1880.

supervision on behalf of the British Colonial Office, not the Queensland government, and was therefore not obliged to consult locally on New Guinea matters. McIlwraith said that the governor must consult his ministers and act on their advice, on New Guinea matters just as he was obliged to do on Queensland affairs. The disagreement was unresolved when Musgrave died.35 The New Guinea conflict had the makings of a constitutional crisis. A crisis did soon come, but it arose out of a different issue. It might at first appear that there could be no relationship between the murder and kidnapping of islanders during a recruiting voyage in the Pacific and the theft, four years later, of two pairs of boots in Townsville. However, Musgrave certainly thought there was a close connection between the two cases. In 1884, seven men were convicted on murder and kidnapping charges arising out of incidents aboard the labour recruiting vessel, the Hopeful. The circumstances were aggravated and lent strong support to all those who clamoured for an end to the importation of islanders.

Two of the Hopeful case prisoners were sentenced to death and the other five received long prison terms, with up to three years to be served in irons. There was a wave of public sympathy for the convicted men, who, many sympathisers said, ‘had only done what many before them had done.’ A petition from sixty Queensland parliamentarians was presented to Musgrave, who reluctantly commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment. Musgrave made it plain that he was acting on the advice of his government and did not want to be seen as taking any personal view that crimes were less serious when the victim was a coloured person.36 In March 1888, Benjamin Kitt was convicted of stealing two pairs of boots, valued at a total of two pounds. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment, harsh even by the standards of the day. In July 1888, the McIlwraith government advised Musgrave that he should pardon Kitt. By this time, public agitation for the release of the Hopeful prisoners was building up and there were signs of support from McIlwraith’s party, which had been victorious against Griffith in the elections of May 1888. The governor immediately sensed that the Kitt case was a prelude to advice that would soon come from the government to release the Hopeful prisoners, something that his conscience would not allow him to agree to. Musgrave later reported to the Colonial Office that the government’s actual purpose in Kitt’s case ‘is to nullify all pretence of retention of the personal decision of the Governor. The real object in view is to pardon the convicts in the notorious Hopeful case, in respect of which agitation has recently been stirred up by the parties who were useful supporters of the present government during the late general election.’37 Musgrave judged that he needed to demonstrate to the government that, in considering whether to exercise the prerogative of mercy, the governor retained an independent discretion to act as he thought right, regardless of the government’s advice. Accordingly, he declined to act on the government’s recommendation to exercise his prerogative in Kitt’s favour. A week later, in early September, the McIlwraith government re-submitted its advice to the governor and again Musgrave declined to act on it, saying that he had no reason to believe that the jury’s decision and the judge’s sentence in Kitt’s case were wrong. McIlwraith and his ministers submitted their resignations.

Musgrave then asked opposition leader Griffith to form a government but

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part two – Sovereigns and Ambassadors

Above: Sir Anthony Musgrave’s funeral. His sudden death in 1889 ended conflict with his ministers.

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chapter five – Restoring affections

Griffith declined to do so, saying that the ministers had good grounds for their resignations. A constitutional crisis of epic proportions had erupted and Queensland was without an effective government. Musgrave referred the whole matter to the Colonial Office, but McIlwraith kept up the pressure. Instead of waiting until the Colonial Office had dealt with the matter, McIlwraith insisted on his immediate resignation and that of his ministers.

Ever the populist, McIlwraith seized the moment. He used the Legislative Assembly to present the situation as a test of Queensland’s independence and integrity as a self governing colony. According to the Brisbane Courier, McIlwraith delivered ‘a stinging blow to effete Imperialism.’ The newspaper said that it was for the governor to resign if he could not accept the advice of his ministers, not vice-versa. ‘Our Rip van Winkle governor has gone to sleep and has dreamed he still presided over some belated Crown Colony.’38 It was impossible for Musgrave to get a hearing for his argument that he was seeking to uphold the independence of the legal system and that he did indeed still have the right to exercise independent judgement. There were angry public meetings in many places and, on 7 September, a crowd of perhaps 8,000 people marched on Parliament House to support McIlwraith.39 There were loud calls for the removal of Musgrave and for the appointment of local men as governors in future. McIlwraith was listening.

The crisis was resolved on 9 September 1888, when instructions were received from the Colonial Office that Kitt should be set free. It was a humiliating rebuff for Musgrave, but it did end the constitutional crisis. Later, a communication from London came for Musgrave, partially vindicating him by saying that he had acted within the scope of his appointment, but that it might have been better if he had subordinated his personal opinion to the advice of his ministers. ‘On the other hand, it is to be regretted that Ministers should have felt themselves compelled to take an extreme course of pressing their resignations after the Governor had telegraphed to the Secretary of State for instructions.’40 It was too late for Musgrave to be consoled. On 9 October 1888, he was at Government House when a heart attack claimed his life. The conclusion is inescapable that the stress of the events over previous weeks precipitated the episode. The following day, Musgrave was buried at Toowong Cemetery. It was estimated that about 40,000 people joined the funeral procession, which may be some evidence that Musgrave was not so out of touch with ordinary people as was sometimes said. McIlwraith and Griffith, united by hypocrisy, were among the principal mourners.

On 11 October, Lady Musgrave met with McIlwraith. She told him that Sir Anthony had only acted in good faith and for the good of the colony, but he had told her he understood the position of his ministers. She was not so charitable herself and told McIlwraith she thought the government’s actions had been influenced by ulterior motives.41 Lady Musgrave left Queensland on 30 October 1888, to settle in England.

She probably never forgave McIlwraith, but she did forgive Queensland. In 1918, two years before her death, she wrote ‘We lived in Queensland about four years. A beautiful country, cordial inhabitants and a fine climate promised us a pleasant term there. But in our fifth year, the hand of Death took my husband from me. He lies in a beautiful cemetery at Brisbane.’ 42

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