Chapter 6

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Strife and tempest ‘He came to the colony when just such a man was needed.’1 It probably would not have mattered who had been appointed Governor of Queensland to succeed Sir Anthony Musgrave. No matter who, there would have been a fight between George Street and Downing Street.

Queensland’s political leaders were in a fighting mood. The way they saw it in 1888, their last three governors had been far from satisfactory. Cairns had been a failure in every respect, Kennedy was thought to have been too old (although no complaint about his age had been made during his term of office), and Musgrave had refused to accept the advice of his ministers.

These men had all been sent to Queensland without consultation, under the arrangement that the Queen appointed the governors only on the advice of her home government. There was no opportunity for advice from Queensland, it was simply the colony’s duty to accept the new governor and pay his salary.

Now it was time for consultation, the Queenslanders said in 1888. The pay scale for Queensland governors was 5,000 pounds a year, which was the salary level for ‘first class governors’ throughout the Empire. ‘If we pay a first class salary we want a first class man and we want to be consulted about who that man will be’ Sir Thomas McIlwraith and others forcefully said. Downing Street said in reply ‘No, we alone advise the Queen.’ The reality was that the Colonial Office did not want its absolute discretion diminished in any way. It had to find positions for the large number of people it employed and who looked to the office to provide a career path. Jobs also had to be found for men who were owed favours by people of influence.

Left: Sir Henry Wylie Norman, military hero in India who brought peace to Queensland.

Middle: Boats ply the Brisbane River, with Parliament House visible behind, about 1895.

Right: View to Petrie Bight riverfront area.

The essential elements of those arrangements stayed in place for almost a century. Queensland, and the other Australian states, did not get the right to directly advise the Queen on the appointment of governors until after the Australia Acts were passed in 1986. However, in 1888, Sir Thomas McIlwraith proved the point that if Queensland did not have the right to be consulted

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about the appointment of new governors, then the colony at least had a practical power of veto. It could exercise that power by saying, when a new governor was named, ‘we will not have him.’ That is what Queensland did in the case of Sir Henry Blake.

Matters moved quickly after the death of Musgrave on 9 October 1888. It is certain that there was a desire in both Brisbane and London to appoint and install a new governor as soon as possible so that everyone could move on from the unfortunate Kitt case. Almost immediately, McIlwraith cabled London to ask who might be nominated to succeed Musgrave.

The reply was that ‘it was not a proper thing to consult the Colonies before the appointment was made, but that the Colony could be perfectly satisfied that the recruit would be satisfactory.’ 2 That unyielding reply made it certain that the aggressive McIlwraith would object to whoever was appointed by the British government. It seems that a few days later McIlwraith received advice from Queensland’s Agent-General in

Left: Constructing a tunnel on the Herberton railway extension, 1913.

Middle: Log dam for the Irvinebank water supply.

Right: Sir Henry Blake, the governor that Queensland refused to have.

London that the name of Sir Henry Blake was being put forward. Blake was an experienced colonial administrator, well credentialed for the Queensland position. He had recently been Governor of the Bahamas and was currently Governor of Newfoundland. His capacity was later proved by successful terms as governor in Jamaica, Hong Kong and Ceylon.

Blake’s appointment to Queensland was officially announced in London on 8 November 1888. McIlwraith as Premier conferred with Samuel Griffith,

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Leader of the Opposition. The two men collaborated to send a telegram to the Secretary of State for Colonies, Lord Knutsford, saying that Blake’s appointment was objectionable and unacceptable to the people of Queensland. Some reference was made to some of Blake’s earlier actions in Ireland which, according to McIlwraith, would make him particularly obnoxious to the colony’s large Irish community. Griffith later said he had objected to Blake ‘because of the apparent barrenness of Sir Henry’s career.’ 3 Both objections had been trumped up. Clearly, the only objection to Blake was that the Colonial Office had refused to share his name with Queensland’s leaders before announcing his appointment.

Feelings ran high, in Queensland, in the other Australian colonies and in London. There was popular support for McIlwraith’s action, but it was by no means unanimous. There was a suspicion that McIlwraith was manipulating the whole affair for political gain; there was a fear that Queensland’s actions might be putting relationships with Britain under intolerable strain. There was a sentiment that the British authorities were right to act as they did and that to allow the colonial governments a power of veto would be to allow those governments to manipulate vice-regal appointments for partisan political advantage.

Many Australians were dismayed by stinging criticism of the colonial actions that appeared in the British press. The press comments suggested that Queensland’s actions were wrong in principle and insulting, damaging to the Imperial connection. That British perception imperilled Queensland in the money markets, where good standing was essential to such a heavy borrower of British funds. Australians also feared that any weakening of the Imperial connection would also weaken the developing Imperial defence shield that was thought to protect the whole country.

In the end, things were promptly resolved in a terribly British and civilised way.

Lord Knutsford called Blake in for a chat; Knutsford also exchanged cables with Sir Henry Norman, Governor of Jamaica. On 12 November, Norman agreed to resign from his Jamaica post and go to Queensland as its new governor.

Blake would resign from the Queensland posting and go to Jamaica to take Norman’s place there. On 30 November 1888, the necessary announcements were made in London.

Just as in the case of Blake, Queensland was not consulted about Norman’s appointment, nor was Norman’s name advised to the colony before it was submitted to the Queen. However, by now Queensland was in no mood to keep alive its quarrel with the Colonial Office. It had not succeeded in getting any promises that it would be consulted in the future. Instead, it had been met with a blank refusal to consult. However, Queensland felt it had made its point that it should not to be taken for granted; it was a first class colony and it was entitled to a first class governor. Griffith admitted that the affair had done nothing to change the appointment procedures, except that Queensland had won the right to reject ‘really unsuitable men ... but it would be absurd to originate hard and fast rules for the appointment of governors, just as it would be absurd to make hard and fast rules for the choice of a wife.’4 Queenslanders spent a good part of the next few months convincing themselves that Sir Henry Norman was a first class chap who was going to be

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a first class governor, a much better governor than the one who would have come to the colony had they not made such a fuss. There seemed also to be a lot of reflection about who Queenslanders were and how they were still loyal members of the Empire. There were even signs of regret that the Blake affair had become a confrontation, a petulant action by a rebellious teenager that trying to prove its independence from its parent.

Norman arrived in Brisbane in May 1889. More than 30,000 people, about a third of the town’s population, turned out to give the new governor a rapturous welcome. It was a toast to the ageing Queen, an apology and a promise to be better behaved in future.

General Sir Henry Wylie Norman was entitled to be thought of as a fine chap.

Born in London in 1826, he had joined the army in India in 1844. He served with distinction there through wars and mutinies and was twenty five times mentioned in dispatches. He was rapidly promoted and in 1861 he was appointed military secretary to the Governor-General of India. He became an aide-de-camp to the Queen in 1863; was promoted to the rank of Major General in 1869, was knighted in 1873 and was later promoted to the rank of General to become the sixth most senior military officer in the Empire.

In 1883 he was appointed to the governorship of Jamaica, where he supervised a difficult period of constitutional change. Reports that came from Jamaica at the time of his appointment told Queenslanders of Sir Henry’s ‘simplicity of manners and the amiability of Lady Norman.’5 Norman had been considering retirement when he was asked to fill the gap in Queensland.6 He came to Queensland with his third wife, Alice, neé Sandys.

Above: Lady Norman visited Bundaberg and saw the Fairymead house (left), the School of Arts (centre) and hospital (right).

Right: Lady Norman, neé Alice Claudine Sandys.

He had first married Selina Davidson in 1853 and had three daughters by her, but she died in 1862; he married Jemima Temple in 1864 but she died the next year. With Alice, he had two sons and a daughter, Grace, who came to Queensland with her parents. She was then 15 years old.

Norman got off to a good start when he arranged his voyage out, aboard the Quetta,7 so that he could stop off at as many Queensland coastal ports as possible before he arrived in Brisbane. His first Queensland landfall was at Thursday Island, on 20 April. Leading citizens from as far afield as Normanton had come to welcome him and, during official addresses, local people pressed

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on him the significance of the island for Australia’s defence. Two days later, the governor was welcomed to Cooktown, the Chinese residents of the area being especially enthusiastic in their hospitality and expressions of loyalty.8 Then on to Townsville, where ‘nothing in any way approaching such a popular reception has been accorded to any public man here before.’ Community leaders came from Hughenden and beyond; 114 men from regional infantry volunteer units assembled for inspection and a salute of 17 guns was fired to show the eminent General the might of Queensland’s defence. Flinders Street was festooned with flags and bunting and a procession along the street included 1,600 children.9 After a hectic day in Townsville, the Quetta sailed for Brisbane. The Courier Mail exhorted the people of the capital to put on the best possible show of welcome – ‘in the selection of no former Governor have the people of Queensland had such a direct and far-reaching influence as in the choice of the General who will in a few days take up his residence in the vice-regal lodge on the banks of our beautiful river. On that account it is the imperative duty of every section of the community to do honour to Sir Henry Norman and to give him a right loyal and enthusiastic welcome.’10 The whole community did exactly that. For days beforehand trains from the country had been crowded, while Brisbane people decorated themselves and their town for the arrival.

Late on the morning of 1 May 1889, the new governor and his party transferred from the Quetta, anchored in Moreton Bay, to the government steam yacht Lucinda for the final stage of the journey to the municipal wharf at Petrie Bight in Brisbane. Every vantage point was crowded with people ‘and tremendous cheers were raised by the crowd. ...’ it was a ‘magnificent demonstration ... the ovation accorded to His Excellency was tendered to him as the representative of the Queen, after whom our territory is named; as the living symbol of law, order and authority under which we have prospered and can alone hope to progress ... as an eminent fellow citizen of that Empire on which the sun never sets and whose thousand cities and provinces girdle the globe.’11 When it was all over, Norman wrote to his colleague Lord Carrington, the Governor of New South Wales – ‘I was quite unprepared for the warmth of my reception although at the northern ports I had been received with much kindness and enthusiasm. It is impossible to believe that the people are not thoroughly and heartily loyal to the Queen and proud of their connection with the Mother Country.’ 12 As far as Norman was concerned, the ill-feeling of the Musgrave affair was ancient history.

Norman had arrived in Queensland at an optimistic time. Population growth had continued and by the time of the 1891 census the colony had 393,718 people. There had been setbacks in the 1880s, but drought breaking rains at the end of 1888 had brought an improved tone to all sectors of the local economy. Pastoralists began to exploit artesian water as quickly as the limited number of boring plants permitted. Artesian water was making it possible to run more sheep and to exploit previously waterless areas.

It was confidently thought that tapping the underground water would make properties drought proof and might even make agriculture feasible on the driest of the inland plains.

The better season brightened the prospects for agriculture. Sugar was doing well. Some of the large plantations found that Pacific Islanders were in short

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supply, so they imported gangs of labourers from Java, Japan and Ceylon.

Small farms were being opened up and central mills were being established where the small farmers could bring their harvest to be crushed. Mining was going well at Charters Towers and on the new fields near Croydon. Queensland was becoming Australia’s major gold producer. Shares in the Mount Morgan company had bubbled and burst several times in the 1880s, but the promise was still real. New public buildings were being constructed apace, and so were railway extensions – as fast as the government could borrow the necessary money. Main lines were reaching the ends of their planned routes and branch lines were being built to complete the system. However, by 1892, Queensland had the largest public debt per capita in the whole British Empire.13 Anti-Chinese agitation subsided after 1888, when the Australian colonies acted co-operatively to pass laws restricting immigration and preventing Chinese people from entering one colony and then moving into another. The issue had been a major reason why the Australian colonies agreed to discuss possible federation. Queenslander Sir Samuel Griffith was a leading light in the federation movement. Griffith also worked out a scheme which took the heat out of the Pacific Islander issue and foreshadowed an end to the labour traffic. In February 1890, that perennial reminder of the worst aspects of the islander traffic, the imprisonment of the Hopeful crew, faded from memory when Norman ordered the release of the prisoners.14 This time, there was no argument – Norman simply did as his government advised.

At the end of 1889, unemployment became serious in Brisbane. Norman donated money from his own pocket to relief funds, but warned ‘in my opinion the working class of this colony should accustom themselves to the exercise of thrift and self-reliance. ... I enclose a cheque for 20 pounds.’ 15 The jobless were but one of many ominous signs that difficult times might lie ahead for the colony. Indeed they did. Queensland’s economy was brittle. There was heavy Below: Shearers went on strike for ‘union rules’ in 1891 and 1894. There were fears that the strikes would bring civil war to Queensland.

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reliance on revenue generated by wool and thus the colony was at the mercy of price fluctuations and droughts. Government borrowings were so heavy that the payment of interest became a serious challenge for the Treasury when the slightest adversity arrived.

Adversity came often through the next five years. It was a strenuous and troublesome time, perhaps the most tumultuous period in Queensland’s history. Norman’s six years turned out to be one of history’s turning points for the colony as the early optimism was overwhelmed by gloom and despair.

There were record floods in 1890 and again in 1893; shearers’ strikes in 1891 and then again in 1894 came dangerously close to erupting into civil war and a global depression from 1891 was at its worst in 1893. Although the slump was relatively brief, it hit Queensland especially hard because it was so overborrowed and because falling wool prices eroded the colony’s revenue base.

Some of the colony’s proudest financial institutions collapsed in scandalous circumstances, including the Queensland National Bank which was in effect the government bank. A structural change began in the pastoral industry and many of the pioneers lost control of their holdings to mortgagees who were often British investment companies. As happened on Banjo Paterson’s On Kiley’s Run, absentee land owners took over and the bush became a hungry place.

Below: Plantation owners and Pacific Islanders at the Hambledon sugar plantation, near Cairns, about 1889.

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The difficult conditions caused social distress, polarised sections of the population and provoked riots and strikes. There was a return to political instability when the McIlwraith bandwagon was derailed by financial collapses and scandals. The temperature of public affairs rose when the labour movement emerged as a political force, at almost exactly the time Norman arrived in Queensland. In 1890 the Australian Labour Federation drafted a political platform and the establishment of the Labour Party was formalised in December of that year.16 There was anxious debate about regional separation; about national defence and about the possible federation of the Australian colonies. There was a feeling widely abroad that a distinctive new nation was emerging. What sort of place should Australia be and how should its wealth be shared? There were diverse answers to those questions. Many people often found it difficult to accept opinions that were different from their own and some found it hard to accept the rules of public debate in a democracy.

Through these years of disaster, depression and disputation, Norman proved that he was still at heart a professional soldier. He was resolute, obedient to what he perceived to be his sovereign’s command, keenly interested in public affairs, personally and politically conservative, self-effacing, gentle but always firm and determined that things should be done correctly. He was invariably congenial and before long he had endeared himself to Queensland in the way that Samuel Blackall had done.

Above all, Norman was hard working. The hard work began as soon as he landed in Brisbane. There was a queue of foundation stones to be laid, including one for the fine Albert Street Methodist church which was laid

by Lady Norman on 8 November 1889. The Norman family was especially supportive of this church. There were hospitals to open, funds to raise, balls, dances, and dinners to host. Sir Henry began to pursue a particular interest in natural and human history, through the Royal Geographical Society, Queensland Branch. He regularly attended the society’s meetings and he presented several scholarly papers to it during his time in Queensland.18 That was just in Brisbane. Norman took very seriously his responsibility to travel as widely and often through the colony as he could. He accepted that, no matter where they lived, Queenslanders wanted to see their governor. They wanted to show him their district, they wanted to press their claims on him, they wanted to reinforce the feeling they were part of the family that had the governor at its symbolic head. Norman also had in mind his responsibility to the Colonial Office to regularly send reports on Queensland affairs and commentaries on Queensland attitudes towards the issues of the day.

The railway extensions had lately made travel within Queensland a little easier because it became possible for the governor to take a special train to districts at the head of each section of new line. However, the railway extensions had also created towns where there had been none before. All of these places wanted a visit from the governor while they were still new. From the railheads, Norman often proceeded by coach or even on horseback to get access to more distant places. Travel to coastal centres was less difficult because it was possible to use the government launch Lucinda or commercial steamers to proceed from Brisbane. Usually, Norman’s trips away from Brisbane were extensive

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Above: The 1890 banquet for Governor Norman on the Stoney Creek bridge, then under construction, on the Cairns to Kuranda railway line.

and they involved him, and often Lady Norman, in using a combination of transport methods.

That was the case in April and May 1890, when Norman visited north Queensland. On the morning of 28 April, the governor arrived in Cairns by the Lucinda. There was the usual welcome in the town, with participation by schoolchildren, volunteer soldiers and representatives from outlying centres such as Port Douglas, Thornborough and Herberton. Addresses were presented, including one by Chinese people who appeared in full court dress.

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Norman had seen and done all this before, but he could not have been prepared for what came next. The luncheon on the partially completed Stoney Creek railway bridge must surely have been the most amazing vice-regal banquet in Queensland history. The adventure began when the party was taken to board a train for an excursion along the new railway line which was being built between Cairns and Kuranda. The line was the first stage of a network that was eventually to extend to Mareeba, Herberton and well beyond. Even today, that railway line is a marvel. In 1890, it was a miracle wrought by muscle and engineering ingenuity.

Work on the 75 kilometre line to Kuranda had commenced at Cairns in 1886 and was eventually completed in June 1892. The line climbed from sea level to a height of 327 metres; it passed through 15 tunnels, around 93 curves and over dozens of bridges. Many of the bridges were high above ravines and waterfalls. The most complex and spectacular of all the bridges was perched 25 metres above the cascading Stoney Creek. Still incomplete in April 1890, that bridge was to be the venue for the luncheon in honour of Governor Norman.

The train set off through the level ground on Cairns’ outskirts, with Chinese gardeners by the wayside ‘showing their enthusiasm and wasting their substance by setting off two or three million crackers. None of the Chinese will be able to afford a shilling’s worth of opium for the next forty years.’ wrote the Brisbane Courier’s reporter. ‘... when the train arrived at Stoney Creek the whole party, which probably numbered 350 gentlemen were loud in their praises of the happiness of the idea of having a picnic.

‘The Stoney Creek falls are themselves worth travelling the distance and swallowing the smoke to see. Imagine a huge ravine through which a brawling stream twenty yards wide comes tumbling and then plunges into the gorge below ... the track runs right to the waterfall before it crosses to the other side. Here the line is to be taken over a splendid bridge, high above the bed of the creek below.

All but the last section of the bridge has been completed. The contractor, Mr John Robb, had planked the completed section, roofed it over and spread a long table down the middle portion where the banquet was laid. A really excellent repast was prepared and no more romantic spot for a picnic could possibly be imagined. ... the wine was excellent, hock, claret and chablis all from the celebrated vineyard at Ararat in Victoria, equal to anything imported.

‘There was only one toast, ‘His Excellency the Governor’. His Excellency responded, but only those who were seated well above the salt heard a word due to the roar of falling waters in our ears.’

Then the train returned to Cairns, in time for Sir Henry to be taken to a concert, banquet and ball in the town that evening. Finally, at 1.30 am, the hard working governor re-boarded the Lucinda for the voyage to Townsville.

New brick and concrete buildings in Townsville had elbowed aside the timber and iron ‘hurry up’ structures of the pioneering era, although the recent floods had done serious damage even to substantial new premises. From Townsville, the governor went west by train. Along the way, it stopped at isolated places to allow the members of little communities to meet their governor.

At Ravenswood Junction (later Mingela), school children assembled in what seemed like the middle of nowhere to sing the national anthem and present the governor with gifts of pineapples, oranges, flowers and specimens of gold.

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Toward Charters Towers, ‘even before the train got near the station, assurances were visible that it was high holiday on the great goldfield. All along the road could be seen little crowds of people arrayed in their best and posted on the most commanding eminences such as balconies, mullock-heaps and even poppet heads – all endeavouring to get a sight of our Governor.’ Addresses were presented when the train reached the railway station. Later, the governor descended the Day Dawn Freehold mine. Then it was on to Hughenden, the pastoral town that aspired to become the capital of a separated north Queensland.20 The feeling in favour of separation was actually strongest in Townsville and in the sugar districts where planters hoped that separation might enable them to continue to import islander labour. In Townsville, Sir Henry gently poured cold water on the idea of separation. He pointed out that in the event of Australian federation, a single and united Queensland would be in a much stronger position than two or three independent provinces. The cost of administration would be much lower if there was only one government; and it was certain that three comparatively small colonies would find it much harder to borrow money than a single stronger colony. ‘From every point of view, then’ the governor said, ‘separation would compel Queensland, which at present occupies a leading place in Australia and is forging ahead to the very front rank in respect of rapid growth of population, immense resources and the amazing energy and enterprise of her citizens, to sink in its divided parts each into the semi-obscure and uninfluential position of Tasmania.’21 That was food for thought for the separationists.

Left: The ropeway at Irvinebank, built to convey ore from the distant Governor Norman mine to a stamp battery.

Below: Charters Towers was ‘the world,’ at least for locals, in 1895.

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Above: Brisbane in about 1895 – Town Hall at left; Queen Street from Creek Street (centre) and Eagle Street, showing Mooney Memorial Fountain, at right. The fountain was erected by public subscription to honour a volunteer fireman who lost his life while fighting a blaze.

A few days later, in Mackay, the governor again trespassed into the political arena. However, nobody in his audience seemed to mind when he said ‘In going through the sugar districts I have kept my eyes and ears open, and one thing has struck me which I had previously heard disputed, but never believed, namely, that the black labourers employed were not so well treated as in some cases they might be. I have heard and seen quite enough to convince me that this is not the case.’22 The statement was loudly cheered, by a community which was anxious about new Queensland laws affecting the labour trade and about the prospects of federation and a national government outlawing the trade altogether.

Mackay was another centre that had come a long way in the 1880s. During the seven years since the last visit by a governor, the government sponsored central mill scheme had made small scale sugar farms possible; the population had increased and a series of fortuitous fires had made room for new buildings.

As in Townsville, local people clamoured for separation and again Norman’s response was cautious.23 During the first half of 1891, Sir Henry kept a close eye on the events of the 1891 shearers’ strike. ‘Through the 1880s, a heady brew of ideas and principles had been fermenting and building up pressure in Queensland. By 1890, all the ingredients for a social and industrial explosion were bottled up. Then, in January 1891, the stopper burst from the bottle when the great shearers strike broke out.’ 24 The opposing forces of capital and labour had been forming battle lines for many years. Unions had been established in Queensland ever since 1858, but unionism only became a mass movement in the 1880s when bush workers joined unions in large numbers. The Queensland Shearers Union began to advocate the principle of the ‘closed shop,’ where all shearing would be done by union members according to union rules. Pastoralists responded by insisting on ‘freedom of contract,’ their right to engage whoever they pleased on whatever terms might be negotiated. In 1890, shearers went on strike at Jondaryan station, on the Darling Downs. The station continued its shearing with non-union labour, but unionists then declared Jondaryan wool ‘black,’

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which meant that union members elsewhere, including railwaymen and wharf labourers, should refuse to handle the wool. The pastoralists gave in at Jondaryan, but, from August 1890, employers combined to win victory in a national maritime strike.

Each side then resolved to fight to the bitter end in a supreme test of the principles that were at stake. What rights should unions have; should they have the right to insist that only union members could be employed in workplaces?

Was it to be ‘union rules’ or ‘freedom of contract?’ The battleground was to be in the pastoral districts of Queensland, where the unions were strongest and where the employers were organised and concentrated.

The strike broke out in January 1891. As sheds were due to start work, shearers announced their refusal to work on the employers’ terms. Large numbers of the men withdrew to strike camps on the edges of the pastoral towns. The biggest camps were around Barcaldine, which also happened to be the headquarters for both the unions and the employers. Conflict erupted between unionists and non-union men who had been brought from the southern colonies and New Zealand. The tension was heightened when union leaders advocated and carried out desperate measures – including the burning of grass and woolsheds, the shooting of horses belonging to non-union teamsters and the abduction of non-union men.

The government was alarmed. Law and order was under threat, it claimed.

So was railway revenue from wool cartage, as well as the income from wool sales. At a time when the economy was teetering on the brink of an abyss, stability was essential and so was every revenue penny. On 20 February 1891, the government decided to send troops into the strike areas. Eventually, 1442 men were attached to military centres at Barcaldine, Clermont, Hughenden and St George. On 18 March, arrests of strike leaders began. In June, the strike collapsed – the unionists simply did not have the resources to fight the battle any longer.

Through all of this, Norman had been thoroughly approving of the government’s actions. He sent frequent despatches to London to allay concerns there that Queensland was disintegrating into anarchy and indicating that he applauded the use of troops in the pastoral districts. At first, Norman was probably out of line with majority public opinion, but, as the strike dragged on and as union tactics became more extreme, public opinion shifted markedly toward the government’s position.

Contrary to legend, the strike did not result in the formation of the Australian Labour Party – that process had begun some years earlier. However, the strike was a watershed in Queensland’s history. The industrial and political landscapes were never the same again.25 In October 1892, Norman travelled into the districts where the strike had been most bitterly fought. He and Lady Norman and their daughter Grace, accompanied by a small party of government ministers as was customary, went by train to Bundaberg and from there to Rockhampton on the Lucinda. Lady Norman and Grace visited Mount Morgan, then returned to Bundaberg while the governor and the ministers proceeded by special train from Rockhampton to the central railway line terminus at Longreach.

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The line had only reached Longreach in February 1892 but the town had sprung into life with all the alacrity of a booming gold rush settlement, with 200 carpenters at work in the first months. By October, the town was as new and bright as paint and virgin galvanised iron could make it. Longreach people were confident their town would soon be the ‘Chicago of the West’ – if only they had a bore water supply, their own local government body, schools, reserves around the town and closer settlement of nearby areas so that the local population would increase. Norman and the ministers listened carefully, took note and said ‘we’ll see what we can do.’ There were receptions, addresses and wine parties; even an address by the town’s school age children. The governor said that he would normally order that the children at the government school should have a holiday to mark his visit, but the problem in Longreach was that there was not yet a government school.

Again, there were demonstrations of loyalty and enthusiasm at all the new railway towns the governor’s train passed through, places not quite so new

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Above: The 1893 floods in Brisbane – the corner of Adelaide and Creek Streets, with the Gresham Hotel at centre right.

Right: The golden water from deep down. Artesian water sustained life in dry western districts. Top: the new bore at Hughenden; centre: testing the flow from a bore on Springvale; below: water gushes from a bore at Leichhardt Farms.

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as Longreach but nevertheless still very youthful – Emerald, Bogantungan, Alpha, Jericho, Barcaldine and Ilfracombe.

Floods had almost become routine since Sir Henry arrived in Queensland, but there was nothing routine about the flood of February 1893. Heavy rains and floodwaters devastated large areas of the south east, but it was in Brisbane that the flooding was most conspicuous and damaging. Extensive areas of the town, including the central business district, were submerged. The iron Victoria bridge was swept away and its loss seemed to be strongly symbolic of the inexorable power of nature over man.

Sir Henry led the way in supporting relief funds, both with formal patronage and by putting his hand in his own pocket. Brisbane had hardly cleaned up after the floods when there was a need for yet more relief work, to alleviate distress caused by the economic depression. Nine out of the 11 banks trading in Queensland failed, most conspicuously the Queensland National Bank which closed its doors on 15 May 1893.26 Scandal and ruin resulted, for ordinary bank depositors as well as for directors and financial manipulators like Thomas McIlwraith.27 Queensland reeled, then began to slowly recover. The colony was back on its feet, although still staggering, when it came time for the Normans to leave Queensland. He was getting on in years and for that reason he had in 1893 first accepted, then declined, the offer of the highly prestigious position of Viceroy of India. He thought he was too old. For the same reason, he refused to consider an offer of re-appointment in Queensland after his term was due to end on first May 1895, although he did agree to an extension until the end of 1895 while arrangements were made for his replacement.28 Sir Henry had worked hard throughout his life, not least in Queensland.

His only recreation seemed to be to go canoeing on the Brisbane River. He and Lady Norman did take summer holidays, first at the house Morven, at Shorncliffe (later St. Patrick’s school) and then at the Southport property that had been used by the Musgraves. A two story extension to that house was built during these years.29 On 11 November 1895, the Brisbane Courier eulogised the departing governor.

‘This week Queensland bids farewell to the worthiest and most popular of all the gentlemen, many of them both worthy and popular, who have held the office of Her Majesty’s representative. ... What the colony has to be thankful for today is that his presence, his character and his influence have been a power, and a power always on the side of the angels. ... he has won hearts because he has shown himself a simple, unpretending English gentleman ... possessed of a genuine sympathy with the higher aspirations of all the people .... He came to the colony at a time when just such a man was needed ... Sir Henry was present everywhere with guidance, cheer and substantial help, forgetful even of his high place if he might but aid the distressed...’ 30 The Normans returned to England, where Sir Henry acted as Queensland’s Agent-General in 1896. In 1902 he was promoted to Field Marshal. He died in London in 1904.

In Queensland, he had been a steady man through turbulent times.

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