Sources and references

all for queensland

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Every effort has been made to acknowledge and contact the owners of copyright for permission to reproduce material. Any copyright holders who have inadvertently been omitted from acknowledgments and credits should contact the publisher and omissions will be rectified in subsequent editions. Š Office of the Governor, Queensland Publication details Published by Shady Tree, GPO Box 88, Darwin, Northern Territory, 0801 www.forrest.net.au First published in 2009 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Forrest, Peter, 1941Title: All for Queensland : the governors and the people/

Peter Forrest, Sheila Forrest.

ISBN:

9780980351552 (hbk) 978-0-9803515-6-9 (deluxe edition)

Notes: Includes index.

Bibliography.

Subjects: Governors--Queensland--History.

Queensland--History.

Other Authors/Contributors: Forrest, Sheila, 1953-

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The Governors and The People

Peter and Sheila Forrest 2009

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Contents Foreword Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley AO, Governor of Queensland Authors’ Introduction Maps

VI X XIV

PART ONE Laying the Foundations – 1824-1859 Chapter One To Erect a New and Separate Colony to be Called Queen’s Land The foundations of Queensland’s constitutional arrangements.

Chapter Two To Lay the Foundations of a Colony The convict outpost at Moreton Bay, early free settlement and growth to 1859.

1

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PART TWO Sovereigns and Ambassadors – 1859-1901 Chapter Three We Hail, with Triumphant Joy, this Glorious Event Governor Bowen arrives to erect Queensland as a separate colony.

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Chapter Four Affability and Hospitalities – Mostly Remarkable expansion and Governors Blackall, Normanby and Cairns.

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Chapter Five Restoring Affections From 1877-1889 – Governors Kennedy and Musgrave.

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Chapter Six Strife and Tempest Governor Norman through troubled times, 1889-1895.

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Chapter Seven A Piece of Cake Lord and Lady Lamington, the exciting couple who symbolised a new era.

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PART THREE Viceroys, Soldiers and Statesmen – 1901-1966 Chapter Eight Into the Promised Land New roles and status for Governors Chermside and Chelmsford in the years after Federation.

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Chapter Nine Different Men, Different Times Sir William MacGregor and Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams make the best of peace and war.

159

Chapter Ten A Land Fit for Heroes – But Not for Australian Governors Governor Nathan presides over Queensland’s roaring twenties.

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Chapter eleven The First of the Modern Governers Goodwin and Wilson, through good years and bad.

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Chapter Twelve Life is Great in the Sunshine State An Australian Governor, Sir John Lavarack; then the Abel Smiths help Queensland celebrate its centenary.

209

PART FOUR All Our Own – 1966-2009 Chapter Thirteen The Calm and then the Storm Governors Mansfield and Hannah – steady progress and then controversy.

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Chapter Fourteen Urbane and Capable Changes and challenges through the terms of Governors Ramsay and Campbell.

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Chapter Fifteen 247 Friends of Queensland Queensland’s first female governor, Leneen Forde, and a gentle soldier, Peter Arnison.

Chapter Sixteen Imbued with Altruistic Notions of Making the World a Better Place Style and substance for Queensland with Governor Quentin Bryce.

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Chapter seventeen An Ambassador for Queensland From a chancellery to Government House – Governor Penelope Wensley.

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Postscript

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End Notes

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Sources and References

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Image Acknowledgments

286

With Thanks

290

Index

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Foreword ‘As a proud Queenslander, conscious of my heritage, I pledge that I will do all I can to serve the people of Queensland and to promote and enhance the welfare and standing of the State. I give my solemn assurance that I will work with commitment and dedication to carry out the constitutional, ceremonial and civic duties that attach to the role of Head of State, believing sincerely that these duties contribute in an important way to ensuring the stability of our political system and to securing the prosperity of the economy and the well-being of the people.’1 A promise, solemnly made, in public and before friends, family and peers is one of the most profound and important acts a human being can undertake in our society, whether it is made during the ceremonies that punctuate our personal lives or during the ceremonies that mark the commencement of our civic offices. There is a sense of seriousness, of both the lesson of history and the promise of the future – and of creating a yardstick by which our actions may be measured – that pervades such occasions, and which mark them out as special in our memory.

Our society is built on promises – from the promise made by the democratic franchise itself to give a voice to every citizen in the governance of their State, to the promises made by our elected representatives to represent the people and fulfil duties of office with honesty and integrity, to the solemn promise made by every member of our judiciary to dispense justice with impartiality and according to the law.

As I took my oath to serve as Governor of Queensland, I was acutely conscious of the seriousness of the promises I would make and keep, to serve as Head of State of my birthplace.

As the 25th person to undertake to fulfil this solemn oath I was surprised by how little had been written about the efforts of my predecessors to fulfil their promises, and how the nature of the role had grown and adapted as the State itself had grown and changed over the 150 years since separation from New South Wales.

My predecessor, Governor Bryce (now Governor-General) also identified this gap in our history and commissioned this book to help contribute to a better understanding of the role of Governor. This book is a tribute to her strong commitment to improving our understanding of Queensland’s history and of the men and women who built the nascent colony into the modern and sophisticated State it has become today.

When I was asked to prepare a foreword for this book I was conscious that very few of my predecessors have chosen to commit much to paper about the nature of the role of Governor, its context and practice.

Perhaps this reticence has been the product of advice from those who urged the preservation of a ‘mystique’ around the office; or perhaps it stemmed from a more practical concern, to avoid fettering the discretions attaching to the office in the event of a constitutional crisis.

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Opposite, left: A gathering following the swearing-in of Ms Penelope Wensley AO as Governor of Queensland. Left to Right: Mr Patrick Vidgen, Clerk of the Executive Council; Ms Filomena Morgan, Clerk of the Executive Council; Commander Forbes Peters ADC RAN, Commanding Officer, Navy Headquarters South Queensland, Royal Australian Navy; The Honourable Paul de Jersey AC, Chief Justice of Queensland; Major General Richard Wilson AM, Commander, 1st Division, Australian Army; Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley AO, Governor of Queensland; The Honourable Paul Lucas MP, Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning; The Honourable Anna Bligh MP, Premier of Queensland; Mr Lawrence Springborg MP, Leader of the Opposition; The Honourable Mike Reynolds AM MP, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly; Air Commodore Mark Gower OAM retd, Official Secretary, Office of the Governor; Group Captain Paul Hislop, Temporary Commander, Combat Support Group, Royal Australian Air Force; Ms Kerri Beasley, Aide to the Governor.

Top right: Governor Penelope Wensley and Official Secretary Mark Gower inspecting guard of honour.

Centre: Premier Anna Bligh and Governor Penelope Wensley, Stuart McCosker at rear.

Below: Governor Penelope Wensley leaves Parliament House after the swearing-in ceremony, 29 July 2008.

Foreword

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My own preference is for greater transparency and profile for the key roles undertaken by the Governor, to enable the community to better understand the work that is undertaken on their behalf.

The primary responsibility of the Governor as Head of State is to ensure the continuance of a stable government which commands the popular support of the Parliament. The constitutional role also involves presiding over Executive Council and giving Royal Assent to Bills passed by Parliament, summoning and dissolving Parliament, appointing Ministers of the Crown and issuing writs for State elections. The work is serious and substantial.

Beyond this primary constitutional responsibility, the role of Governor has expanded and grown over the 25 tenures, and the authors have done an admirable job of tracking this evolution over time – as they have of identifying the continuities and the threads of similar experiences and connection with the community that can be traced through the separate but linked stories of each Governor’s term of office.

The work of the Governor in the community is perhaps the most visible part of the role. It is with this aspect that Queenslanders are most likely to engage with the Governor, whether through the Governor’s active involvement with the large and growing number of organisations that seek the Governor’s support and patronage, or through hearing the Governor speak publicly about the significant issues and challenges facing our communities or when meeting the Governor at functions and occasions organised all around the State where the Governor’s presence has been invited as a means of adding significance to the occasion.

Each Governor brings their own history, experience and interests to this aspect of the role. Each has had a different style and way of communicating and connecting with the community. Yet there are many similarities. In common

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From left: Governor Penelope Wensley and her husband Stuart McCosker at Badu Island child care centre.

The Governor and Stuart McCosker receiving gifts at Mabuiag Island.

Governor Wensley is welcomed to Mabuiag Island.

Open day at Government House.

Governor Penelope Wensley.

with all my recent predecessors, I have experienced a warm, interested and respectful reception wherever I have travelled throughout the State. From the northernmost tip, in the Torres Strait, through the cities and the towns, to the most remote regions and locations, I have been very gratified by the interest of Queenslanders in ‘their’ Governor – even by those who favour constitutional change. There appears to be a genuine appreciation and support for the ‘public voice’ that the Governor can bring to highlighting key issues, and a deep regard for the role of the Governor in giving recognition and thanks, on behalf of the community, to those who have made a significant contribution to improving the lives of all Queenslanders and of our State.

I have also encountered considerable interest – sharpened of course, by the celebration of our sesquicentenary – in the history and heritage attaching to the office of Governor, visible on the landscape in the place names recalling many, if not most, of our Governors, and on the plaques commemorating the great ceremonial occasions at which the Head of State has presided. By putting flesh on the bones of these names and events – whose origins have drifted into obscurity over the years, the authors have done a great service to Queensland history.

It is my hope that this book, richly researched, thoughtfully written and beautifully illustrated, will help to broaden the community’s knowledge of the differing and unique contributions each of our twenty five Governors has made to our history, and in so doing, help to deepen our understanding of the individuals and events that have defined and shaped the State of Queensland.

Penelope Wensley Governor of Queensland

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Authors’ introduction In 2007, we had a conversation with Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce, now Governor-General of Australia but then Governor of Queensland. She put it to us that a book was needed about the governors of Queensland, a book that would tell the stories of the individual governors in a way that would present them as human beings and would explain their roles and functions for the general reader.

‘Above all’ she said, ‘we need a book that will show the various governors and their spouses in the contexts of their times, a book that will tell of how the governors engaged with the people of Queensland and with their hopes, achievements and disappointments. Not a book about garden parties and ritual and formality, but a book about real people, about Queenslanders.’

Ms Bryce is a persuasive person and we very soon came to see that she was right. Such a book was needed and it could be a magnificent contribution to the state’s celebration of its 150th birthday. Although much had been written about the governors, there was no popularly accessible book that filled the gap between journalistic jottings and constitutional law textbooks.

We were delighted and honoured but also over-awed when Governor Bryce asked us to write the book. Her enthusiasm and her vision for the project quickly subdued the trepidation that overcame us when we thought about how large and complex the task would be. She said ‘Don’t worry, I will support you.’ We agreed to write the book and she kept her promise.

This is the outcome of that conversation. As Ms Bryce would wish, we dedicate this book to everyone who might read it, in the hope that her original ambitions for the work have been fulfilled. Above all, we hope that the book has succeeded in putting a human face on the governors; that it does de-mystify them and explain what they have done and what their purposes have been. We hope too that readers will see that the story of the governors is contained within a bigger narrative, the story of Queensland.

The office of governor is the oldest and highest of all in the apparatus of Australian state government. Many aspects of the governors’ roles and functions have changed over the years, as Queensland has changed. However, the fundamental purposes of the governors have never altered. They represent continuity and stability within our community. They embody the concept of allegiance to the Crown, a concept that today simply means allegiance to each other, a commitment to the common good and its advancement through our system of government with the governor at its head, deputising for the Queen.

The governors have always been impartial referees whose job it is to see that our government is carried on according to the rules of law and the conventions of the Westminster system. History reveals many instances, some of them surprisingly recent, when laws and conventions might have been stretched beyond breaking point but for the governor of the time. The governors have been our local Heads of State, pinnacles of our community who lead, encourage and guide us, make us feel better about ourselves. They personify our total community and our system of government. It is not a

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Above: ‘I gained a lot of respect for the military, and made many friends among people in the armed services community. I was a bit nervous about uniforms at first, but they quickly welcomed me,’ said Governor Quentin Bryce.

perfect system, but those who decry it need to explain why it is so envied by other communities that have different arrangements.

It is a striking thing that in Australia we take our governors for granted. We don’t spend very much time thinking about what the governors do and why. It is perhaps one measure of the success of the system that we can comfortably treat such fundamentally important things so casually. However, the other side of that coin is that because we do not think very much about the subject we do not trouble to learn as much about it as we should. This book is not written to support any argument for or against us having governors; it is simply an attempt to show why we have had governors in the past, who those governors have been, what they have done, why and in what circumstances.

For us, this book has been a huge task made achievable only by the help and support of many people and organisations. We mention many of them in our Acknowledgments at page 290. We crave the forgiveness of those many people we fear we may have overlooked.

There are some people and organisations that we must especially mention.

Not only did Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce develop the concept for this book and then commission it, she sustained and encouraged us over the long haul since 2007. We could not have done the job without that support.

In 2008, Ms Bryce left Queensland to become Australia’s first female GovernorGeneral. She was succeeded as Governor of Queensland by Ms Penelope Wensley, who immediately saw the value of this project and continued to nurture and sustain it. She has contributed invaluable comment and advice.

Her Official Secretary, Mark Gower, has courteously and efficiently met all of our needs for liaison and administrative support. We are very grateful to him and to all his staff, particularly Cecily Pearson and Kerri Beasley, for their encouragement, guidance and support.

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Above: Authors Peter and Sheila Forrest.

The State Library of Queensland promised at the outset to support the project.

We are extremely grateful to the State Librarian, Lea Giles-Peters, for keeping that promise without reservation. Wholehearted and unstinting support has been given, always expertly, always efficiently and always cheerfully.

Queensland is lucky to have such an institution, under such good management.

The Library appointed Dianne Byrne, Librarian, Original Materials, John Oxley Library, to be our particular point of reference. If this project has succeeded it is because of Dianne. She has been continuously available to us and ever-willing to respond to our requests for help of all kinds. We believe that this book shows the benefit of Dianne’s immense knowledge of the library’s collection, her uncannily astute perception of our needs, and her unfailingly cheerful willingness to help. Queensland’s documentary heritage materials and people like us who use them are extremely fortunate that there are librarians like Dianne as custodians of those materials. Dianne went beyond the call of duty as a librarian when she agreed to read the manuscript for us. Her painstaking attention to detail helped us avoid many pitfalls.

We defer to nobody in our admiration for Dr Ross Johnston’s teaching and writing of Queensland’s history over many decades. We were exceedingly fortunate when Ross agreed to review our manuscript in draft form. His prompt and good humoured corrections and suggestions have enhanced many pages of this book. We hasten to say that Ross should not in any way be

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held responsible for the infelicities and errors that we hope have not slipped though the net but we fear almost certainly have.

New par Historian Helen Gregory also critically reviewed our manuscript.

She applied to that task a tremendous knowledge of Queensland history, a quest for the happiest forms of expression and a mastery of detail. She also unearthed some obscure sources for us. Thank you, Helen.

Manfred Cross read the manuscript for us and we benefited greatly from his keen eye for detail and from his deep knowledge of Queensland’s history.

Manfred shared with us his recollections of personal associations with all the governors since Sir Leslie Wilson and those memories afforded us extremely valuable insights. Sue Dibbs and Margie Webb also read the manuscript for us. They each looked at our materials from different perspectives, Sue as an editor and Margie as an informed general reader. Their comments were immensely useful, helping us to achieve improved accuracy and a better balanced coverage.

In the early stages of the work, Kate Chapple was appointed by Governor Bryce to act as project manager. She took on that role with enormous enthusiasm and effectiveness. She ensured that our work got away to a flying start. She has maintained her interest and enthusiastic support.

We have produced many books in collaboration with the graphic design firm, Sprout, which has always achieved an excellent result for us. This has been the most challenging book so far but Sprout has met the challenge. Their design and layout work has achieved a superb result. Throughout, our working relationship with the Sprout team, led by Anya Lorimer, has been harmonious and effective. Thank you, in particular, Carly Frusher. You can be proud of this book because so much of it is yours.

Finally, we must explain why it is that there is some unevenness of coverage of the various governors in these pages. Some governors were in office for longer than others; some governors did more than others; there was a bigger story to tell about some governors than about others; there were more source materials for some governors than for others. In many cases, but not all, there was an abundance of photographs – generally speaking, there were more and better photographs relating to the early governors than for later ones. There was also the difficulty of sourcing sensitive materials relating to more recent times. All of these factors have frustrated our desire to give approximately equal space to each governor. We have done the best we could to achieve a balanced presentation.

As we complete our task, we cannot help reflecting that through this work we have met many friends among the fascinating people who shaped Queensland’s history since 1859. They often differed, often bickered and brawled, but they were all for Queensland. We came to have a warm regard, even affection, for them. We hope you will feel the same way about some of the people you will meet through these pages. We hope that for you this book is both interesting and useful.

PETER AND SHEILA FORREST1 September 2009

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Torres Strait Islands Bamaga

Weipa

Cooktown

Cairns

Mareeba Normanton

Burketown

Innisfail Georgetown

Townsville Camooweal Mt Isa

Bowen

Charters Towers Julia Creek

Hughenden

Cloncurry

Boulia

Mackay

Winton Clermont Longreach

Bedourie

Barcaldine

Emerald

Rockhampton Gladstone

Biloela Windorah

Bundaberg

Birdsville

Maryborough Quilpie

Charleville

Gympie Roma

Kingaroy Dalby

Cunnamulla

Toowoomba

St George Goondiwindi

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Warwick

Brisbane

maps

Darwin

Brisbane

Perth

Sydney

Adelaide

Canberra Melbourne Hobart

Gympie Noosa Kingaroy

Nambour Caloundra

Redcliffe Toowoomba

Moreton Island

Brisbane Ipswich Beaudesert Warwick

Stradbroke Island

Southport Coolangatta

Stanthorpe

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To erect a new and separate colony to be called Queen’s Land ‘The governors have stood for and upheld one fundamental principle upon which Queenslanders are agreed – that all people of all parties and all walks of life belong to the same community, a body politic that is a parliamentary democracy where government is conducted according to law. The highest purpose of the governors is to see to that.’1 This is a book about Queenslanders and their progress through history since the tenth day of December 1859. On that great day, at the direction of Queensland’s first governor, Sir George Bowen, Letters Patent issued by Queen Victoria were read to an elated audience. Queensland was thereby proclaimed to be a new colony, separate from New South Wales. The proclamation was read by Bowen’s acting private secretary, Abram Moriarty, who spoke from the balcony of a temporary Government House in Ann Street in Brisbane.

Later that day, Bowen appointed an Executive Council to take charge of Queensland’s government until a parliament had been created. Five days later, Moriarty became Queensland’s first public servant when Bowen appointed him Under Colonial Secretary.

Left: Queen Victoria’s long reign (1837-1901) spanned Queensland’s evolution from a convict outpost to a self governing colony and eventually a state within the Commonwealth of Australia.

Below: Brisbane begins to grow: Kangaroo Point, in about 1853.

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Queenslanders had been put in charge of their own affairs; from that day forward their futures were in their own hands. On 6 June 18591, Queen Victoria had assented to the creation of the new and separate colony, to be called Queen’s Land2 at her suggestion. However, the separation could not become effective until the first governor arrived to officially proclaim the separation and then establish the new colony’s government.

Through the 150 years since that momentous first Proclamation Day, Queenslanders have had special relationships with Governor Bowen and his successors. Through all those years, the governors have stood for and upheld one fundamental principle upon which Queenslanders are agreed – that all people of all parties and all walks of life belong to the same community, a body politic that is a parliamentary democracy where government is conducted according to law. The highest purpose of the governors is to see to that. They are to be referees if necessary; they are to transcend divisions and to be living proof of the idea that Queenslanders have things in common that unite them and make it possible for everyone to live together despite their differences.

Changing times: Left: Group at Government House, about 1898. From left, standing: Captain Barton, Captain Cecil, Captain Pelham, unknown, Sir E. Richardson, Mr P.W.G. Stuart, Captain Pakenham; sitting: the Hon. G.R. Le Hunte, Mrs Pakenham, Queensland Governor Lord Lamington, Lady Brassey, the Hon. Victor Cochrane-Baillie, Lady Lamington with baby Gem on her knee.

Right: Lady Mansfield and Sir Alan (Queensland’s Governor 1966-1972), with friends at Lone Pine sanctuary. This image was used for the Mansfield’s Christmas card from Government House.

In fulfilling their purpose, the governors perform many roles that are taken for granted. It has seldom been necessary for Queenslanders to reflect very deeply on why they have a governor and what that governor does. For a people as pragmatic as Queenslanders are, it is sufficient that their system works. It has stood the test of time and it is the envy of many communities who live under different arrangements. They know that their governor represents centuries of constitutional tradition that is at the core of our

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civilisation; they know that the governor is the symbolic head of Queensland – a special place where people have come together to live as Queenslanders, under the rule of law. That is enough.

It has lately become fashionable to dismiss those traditions and that symbolism as fossilised survivals from a vanished age. But it would be a pity if, during their state’s sesqui-centenary, Queenslanders did not pause for a moment to reflect on how the cornerstone of their organised society, as expressed through the state’s constitutional arrangements, has worked for them through those 150 years since Governor Bowen came to Queensland to set up the apparatus that would make it possible for Queenslanders to govern themselves.

After all, the traditions and symbolism of the governors as the formal pinnacles of our system of government are more than mere curiosities. They are central to the arrangements for the management of our community.

If there is one consistent theme in Queensland’s history, it is the steady desire of Queenslanders ever since 1859 to see their colony/state achieve economic and social development in the context of a system that guarantees stable, civilised, democratic government. Queensland has been lucky – for 150 years it has had such a system. The governors have been the symbolic heads of that system; the office of governor embodies all the accumulated and inherited tradition that came to Queensland with Governor Bowen.

That inheritance has not been the exclusive possession of Queenslanders of British descent; it has been embraced with particular enthusiasm by people who have come to Queensland from quite different places with quite different systems, traditions and symbols.

Bowen brought to Queensland a pre-fabricated system of government that had been fashioned from centuries of experience. Since then, the system has evolved and it has been enriched in the Queensland context. Whatever decisions we may make about the form of our system of government in the future, the system we have today will be the foundation for that future.

Bowen’s instructions directed him to ‘erect’ Queensland as a new and separate self-governing body politic, with all the institutions and procedures that went with the Westminster system and a constitutional monarchy. There would be representative government by a parliament that was in part elected; there would be responsible government in the sense that the colony’s administrators would be directed by and answerable to the parliament; and there would be an Executive Council that would give formal effect to ministerial decisions. The Crown, the sovereign Queen Victoria, would be at the head of the apparatus of government in Queensland and the governor would represent the Queen in the new colony. The governor would do all the things that were necessary to carry out government in Queensland but, in accordance with the Westminster system, the governor would act only on the advice of his ministers.

It was an apparatus that was created very quickly and then functioned very effectively in the new colony because, at least in its principles, it was well understood by everyone who was involved. Those principles were regarded as part of the birthright of every British citizen; they were part of the cultural inheritance of almost all of the people who had come to Australia from Britain since 1788.

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Those essential principles had been evolving in England since at least the reign of Henry the Second (1154-1189), the great king who took decisive steps to create a centralised system of administration and justice and who nurtured the notion that everyone in the country, even the highest nobles, had obligations to the king. In return, the king accepted the obligation to guarantee a stable and secure society, to defend its citizens and protect them against oppression.

Since 1189, those principles and the system begun by Henry had been continuously evolving in England. In 1215, Magna Carta declared that the people had rights the king could not take away and confirmed that the king was ‘below the law.’ In other words, there were limits to royal government.

Some later monarchs refused to accept this, but, after a turbulent seventeenth century that saw revolution, the execution of a king and a republican experiment, the supremacy of the law was confirmed.

Then the English people had decided that they wanted an end to the turbulence.

They wanted a monarchy, but it should be a constitutional monarchy, not a monarchy where the sovereign’s will was absolute. Instead, the people wanted

Left: Sir William MacGregor, one of the great men of the Empire. He made a decisive and very positive difference to Queensland.

Opposite: Top: Governor Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams (seated, third from right) and Lady Goold-Adams (seated, at left) on the occasion of the visit to Brisbane by British defence adviser Lord Jellicoe (seated, second from left) and Lady Jellicoe (seated, second from right).

Centre: The 1888 visit of Sir Anthony Musgrave (seated, third from left) and Lady Musgrave (seated, in centre) to the North Phoenix mine at Gympie.

Below: Staff at Government House during Sir Samuel Blackall’s term.

Far right: George Augustus Constantine Phipps, the second Marquis of Normanby.

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a monarchy based on the rule of law, resting on the principle that the will of the reigning monarch would be subordinate to laws made by parliament.

All citizens would be equal under the law and the monarch would have the responsibility of guaranteeing that equality.

In 1701, in circumstances of doubt about the continuity of succession to the throne, the English parliament enacted the Act of Settlement. It defined who might ascend to the throne and on what terms. The English wanted no more of the notion of the Divine Right of Kings that had brought the Stuart kings into conflict with parliament. The Stuarts had been Roman Catholics and they had subscribed to the view that they were God’s vice-regents on earth and were subject to no power other than God. The Act of Settlement therefore specifically excluded Roman Catholics from the succession. It was the final proof of parliament’s supremacy.

The Act declared itself to be ‘An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject.’ It concluded with an emphatic assertion of the supremacy of the laws made by parliament –

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The Laws and Statutes of the Realm confirmed.

And whereas the Laws of England are the Birthright of the People thereof and all the Kings and Queens who shall ascend the Throne of this Realm ought to administer the Government of the same according to the said Laws and all their Officers and Ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same The said Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons do therefore further humbly pray That all the Laws and Statutes of this Realm for securing the established Religion and the Rights and Liberties of the People thereof and all other Laws and Statutes of the same now in Force may be ratified and confirmed And the same are by His Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the said Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons and by Authority of the same ratified and confirmed accordingly.

In 1707, the Act of Settlement and the principles underlying it moved north into Scotland when the Act of Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain,3 comprising the countries of England, Wales and Scotland. Since then, the British system of government by a constitutional monarchy has migrated to many distant and different places.

The system came to New South Wales with the First Fleet in 1788. At first, the new settlement was governed as a Crown Colony, where the governor as the supreme local official implemented instructions formulated in distant Whitehall. However, as soon as it became apparent that New South Wales

Below: Cane cutting gang at Childers, about 1918.

All but three of these Greek men had come from the island of Kythera. It had previously been thought that white men could not do this sort of work in the tropics, but southern Europeans were proving that wrong.

Right, above: Travelling outfitters, near Yatala, in 1871. When travel was much more difficult, business people often went to their customers.

Centre: Mrs Taylor, at Isis Downs, near Isisford.

Below: Mollie, with Colin and Betty Milson at Springvale station, near Boulia, 1923.

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chapter one – To Erect a New and Separate Colony to be called queen’s land

would become something more than a prison, the British authorities began to plan for the progressive devolution of all the responsibilities of government to local people.

It is notable that the Australian colonies evolved in an environment when British policy was to give the colonies self-government as soon as the colonial communities wanted it – or even sooner. The British were mindful of the regrettable consequences of trying to suppress the aspirations the American colonists had for constitutional advancement. Until the last few decades of the nineteenth century, the memory of what had happened in America motivated a generous encouragement of colonial constitutional progress. So did the increasing acceptance of liberal notions of individual freedoms and the idea that those freedoms gained best expression and protection within a democratic constitutional monarchy. Then, as the nineteenth century closed in a fervour of Imperial excitement and unshakeable confidence in British greatness, colonial constitutional advancement was slowed down as the policy shifted back to a more cautious approach. Queensland, and all the other Australian colonies except Western Australia, were fortunate to have come to maturity during the more generous policy era. The result was that, by the third quarter of the nineteenth century, the Australian colonies were as democratic as any places on earth and considerably more democratic than the Mother Country itself. Had Australian colonisation occurred a few decades earlier, or later, our history would probably have been very different.

New South Wales was not very old when it was acknowledged in Britain that the colony’s future would be as a free society, best ruled by votes and not by the lash of the convict scourgers. The British colonial authorities resolved that New South Wales should eventually have a system of representative and responsible government. A governor, as local representative of the Crown, would be at the head of that government. The transition to such a form of self-government began in New South Wales in 1823, when a Legislative Council was created to advise the governor. At first, the Council was comprised entirely of the governor’s appointees. Then, from 1842, two thirds of the Council’s members were elected. In 1853, the Council drew up the New South Wales Constitution Bill, providing for a fully elected Legislative Assembly and a wholly appointed Legislative Council. This was ratified by the British parliament in 1855.

In accordance with the British system, the governor would continue to be at the pinnacle of government. The governor’s appointment would be a vice-regal one, in the strict sense that the governor would act in place of the monarch, to carry out the duties that would have been undertaken by the Queen had she been personally present in the colony. It would be necessary for the governor to assent to all bills passed by the parliament before those bills could become law; and the governor would appoint executive officers. However, as in Britain, the powers of the governor were not personal, nor were they to be exercised with a free hand. Rather, the governor’s duties were to be performed only on the advice of ministers, who in turn were to be answerable to parliament for their advice and actions.

These arrangements created both representative and responsible government for New South Wales. They came into effect in 1856.

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This was the model that Governor Bowen was instructed to follow when he ‘erected’ Queensland as a separate colony in December 1859. Since then, there have been legislative changes and other modifications that have occurred by usage and through the growth of constitutional conventions.

For example, Queensland no longer has a Legislative Council. However, the essential principles that were confirmed in England in 1701 and then brought to Australia in 1788 remain today as the foundations of Queensland’s constitutional arrangements.

The point is illustrated by the fact that if George Bowen came back to Queensland in its sesqui-centenary year he could quite comfortably take up office again. Little has changed in the fundamentals of his old job.

On 26 March 2009, Governor Penelope Wensley swore in the ministers of the Bligh government at Fernberg, Queensland’s present Government House. The swearing-in ceremony followed the election of the fifty seventh Queensland parliament. If Governor Bowen had been present on that occasion he would have heard echoes of the proceedings he had conducted in December 1859; Bowen would have completely understood and approved what was happening.

Illustrious and effective though he was as Queensland’s first governor, Bowen might now feel slightly out of place as a British citizen in Queensland’s highest office. He would be sensitive to the fact that since 1946 all but one of Queensland’s governors have been Australians. Since 1986,4 governors have been appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Queensland government rather than on the recommendation of the British government, which no longer has any responsibility at all for the government of Queensland.

Bowen might have been startled to see a woman doing his old job and to learn that Governor Wensley is in fact the third female to hold Queensland’s highest office. But Governor Wensley, for her part, might find much that is relevant today in a letter that Bowen brought with him to Brisbane. The letter to Bowen was from Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the Secretary of State for Colonies, and it was written on 29 April 1859.

‘I have the pleasure to inform you that the Queen approves your appointment to Moreton Bay, which will henceforth bear the appellation of Queensland.

Accept my congratulations ... ... for your guidance in the new Colony ... Abstain as much as possible from interference. Avoid taking part with one or the other ... you must be strictly impartial. Mark and study the idiosyncrasies of the community; every community has some peculiar to itself ... in your public addresses appeal to those which are the noblest ... ... keep up the pride in the mother country. Throughout all Australia there is a sympathy with the ideal of a gentleman. This gives a moral aristocracy. Sustain it by showing the store set on integrity, honour and civilised manners; not by preferences of birth, which belong to old countries. ...

As you will have a free press, you will have some papers that may be abusive.

Never be thin-skinned about these, laugh them off. ...

Above all, men are governed as much by the heart as by the head. Evident sympathy with the progress of the colony; traits of kindness, generosity, devoted

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energy ... a pure exercise of patronage; an utter absence of vindictiveness or spite; the fairness that belongs to magnanimity – these are the qualities that make Governors powerful. The Governor who is the least huffy, and who is most careful not to over-govern, he is the one who has most authority.

Pardon all these desultory hints; and, wishing you all health and enjoyment in the far land ...’5 Lytton was stressing the importance of the governor’s identification with the ambitions and achievements of the people of the colony; he was drawing attention to the opportunity the governor would have to represent the people, to themselves as well as to others. His special task was to see that Queenslanders knew who they were, had a good opinion of themselves and good reason to hold that opinion.

It is significant that in his advice to Bowen, Lytton took the governor’s formal constitutional duties for granted. Instead, Lytton emphasised the importance of the governor’s relationships with the people of Queensland. Those relationships are a dimension of the role of the governors that is often ignored or glossed over in discussions about vice-regal powers and responsibilities.

Bowen would have been surprised: Left: Governor Quentin Bryce on 21 July 2008, delivering her farewell speech as governor of Queensland before becoming Australia’s first female Governor-General.

Centre: Governor Leneen Forde, Queensland’s first female governor.

Right: Governor Penny Wensley, Queensland’s current governor and its third woman in the role.

In the pages that follow, we seek to redress that. We will illustrate how the various governors have carried out their constitutional duties, but we will also explore the ways in which the governors have shown their ‘evident sympathy’ with the people of Queensland and their progress.

We will join the governors and the people of Queensland in their journeys along some of the roads they have travelled since 1859.

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chapter two – to lay the foundationS of a colony

To lay the foundations of a colony ‘Sept 1st.1824. With a light breeze from the westward we weighed and quitted the port (Port Jackson) and made an offering to the NNE on our voyage ... to plant or lay the foundation of a colony on some eligible spot on the shores of Moreton Bay ...’1 Those were the words of the botanist and explorer Allan Cunningham, written as he travelled aboard the Amity, bound for Moreton Bay with Queensland’s first European settlers. Other passengers on the ship included the New South Wales Surveyor-General, Lieutenant John Oxley; his assistant Robert Hoddle; Lieutenant Henry Miller as Commandant of the new settlement, Miller’s wife Jane and their two sons; Lieutenant Butler; 14 soldiers, some with their wives; a storekeeper and his assistant; and 29 convicts.

On 14 September 1824, the Amity anchored off Redcliffe (called Red Cliff at first) and the settlement party landed. Oxley chose a settlement site within the triangle now created by Anzac Avenue, Redcliffe Parade and Humpybong Creek, where the main attraction was the availability of fresh water. There, over the next few months, a house was built for Commandant Henry Miller, as well as one barracks complex each for the soldiers and the convicts, a store and a few smaller buildings, including a gaol. Adjacent the gaol was a fixture that no convict station of the time could be without – a whipping post. Over the next few months, about 40 hectares were cleared for farming but it was Left: General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, in 1845. It is fitting that Queensland’s capital was named after him – he was the patron of the first European settlement at Moreton Bay. Below: The small beginnings at the convict settlement in Brisbane town, 1835. View from the south bank of the river, to what is now Brisbane’s central business district.

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wasted effort because the soil was hungry and unproductive. The prospects of the place ever becoming self-sufficient were obviously forlorn from the outset but it was the beginning of modern Queensland.

It was an unlikely start for a new society in the north. In September 1824 it might have seemed even more improbable that, just 35 years later, the Moreton Bay settlement would become the capital of the new colony of Queensland, separate from New South Wales and a place with its own distinct destiny.

Unlikely, improbable, but not completely unforeseen. Even in 1824, there were hopes, even plans, that the new settlement at Moreton Bay would one day be much more than a penal station.

Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales from early 1821 to the end of 1825, was, like Lachlan Macquarie, Patrick Logan and many other men who had a profound influence on embryonic Queensland, a Scottish soldier.

They were men whose backgrounds and military service in Europe, America and India had equipped them with a broader world view than was common

at the time. Brisbane had instructions from London to start a penal settlement at Moreton Bay but he looked beyond that limited objective. Brisbane insisted that a site suitable to eventually receive and maintain ‘a great number of persons’ should be chosen and convicts sent there only as a temporary expedient, ‘the best means of paving the way for the introduction of a free population.’2 Brisbane was an effective patron of the new settlement and it is fitting that the capital of the state that grew from his vision should bear his name.

The governor’s ambitions for Moreton Bay reflected an opinion about Australia’s future that had been gathering strength since before the First Fleet had set sail for New South Wales in 1787. Even then, some people thought

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Above: They revealed the unknown. William Landsborough (left) described the pastures of the central west. Ludwig Leichhardt (centre) travelled from the Darling Downs to the far north in 1844-45; he disappeared in 1848, provoking numerous searches that greatly expanded geographical knowledge.

Edmund Kennedy (right) was with Thomas Mitchell in 1845-46; he made his own expedition to the Barcoo and Cooper Creek in 1847 and then was killed in 1848 while exploring on Cape York.

Right: John McKinlay explored Queensland’s far west in 1861, during a search for Burke and Wills.

chapter two – to lay the foundationS of a colony

that the intended convict settlement in the Antipodes should one day be more than that; that it should be allowed to become a place where a new community, a free society, would develop with the full British inheritance of social and economic freedom under the rule of law. In the meantime, New South Wales was to be a Crown Colony, administered by governors who took their instructions from the British government via the Colonial Secretary.

There might have been additional reasons for the British decision to send convicts to Botany Bay but, as King George the Third explained in his speech to Parliament in January 1787, the primary motive for the venture was ‘to remove the inconvenience which arose from the crowded state of the gaols in different parts of the Kingdom.’3 That inconvenience had arisen because, since the American revolution, it was no longer possible to send convicts to the north American colonies.

By Letters Patent dated 25 April 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip was appointed Governor of New South Wales. He and his successors were empowered to make orders for the good government of the colony, entirely within their own discretion and subject only to the requirement that such orders should conform with British law unless the particular circumstances ‘clearly authorised a deviation.’4 Thus, the early governors were, in effect, given the authority to make laws for the colony – an authority that would normally have been entrusted to a parliament. The early governors of New South Wales in practice had greater powers than could have been exercised by the monarch within Britain itself.

Governor Phillip and his immediate successors, Governors Hunter, King, Bligh, Macquarie and Brisbane (for a time) were thus autocrats, with sweeping powers to make laws and administer them.

While the new colony was, in effect, to be a military dictatorship, British5 law and the fundamental principles underlying it were to apply. Even the convicts were to have the benefit of the law and they were entitled to look to the governor to uphold their rights. Their civil rights were constrained and partially suspended by their convictions and sentences but they were always entitled to due legal process, rough and ready though those processes might sometimes have been in early New South Wales.

Absolutism was necessary in the context of a remote colonial prison managed by soldiers. However, it was also a context of emerging liberalism, a time when British people were beginning to jealously compare their freedoms with those in other countries. Freedoms and legal rights were being seen as precious things, part of the distinctively British heritage. Even in New South Wales, settlers who were not soldiers or convicts were heard to say that they ‘did not care for the Governor or the Orders of the colony – they were free men, and would do as they pleased’.6 There were critics of colonial absolutism in England too. Many said that the American colonies had been lost because Britain failed to respond to legitimate colonial claims for rights and freedoms. Certainly, the American revolution was an episode that vividly demonstrated to British authorities that they could only ignore colonists’ perceptions of their rights and liberties at their extreme peril. Then came the French Revolution and the even wider propagation of notions of the rights of man and inviolable individual freedoms, ambitions

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for representative government, responsible government and even a republic.

It was a time of intellectual ferment, a time when liberal ideas were being listened to with increasing sympathy – or anxiety.

The trend of the times, the rise of powerful new ideas is indicated by the fact that in 1794 the author Tom Paine was charged with sedition and had to flee England following the publication of his book The Rights of Man. There was not yet tolerance for such a challenge to the established order. In 1859, just as Queensland was being separated, John Stuart Mill’s book On Liberty and Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species were both published and acclaimed, tolerated as well as condemned. The liberals had won the debate with the conservatives; the old regimes that had fought to reinforce the established order and to suppress dissent had given way to an open society in which individuals were free to pursue knowledge and happiness with minimal interference by the state.

This new spirit of the age was to be a potent force for change in the new land that was becoming Australia. It was to strongly influence the course of affairs in New South Wales, including the region that was to become Queensland.

It spurred changes in the roles of the governors, transforming them from Below: The Archer homestead at Durundur. The Archers were among the first settlers to seek country beyond the Darling Downs, first in the upper reaches of the Brisbane Valley.

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autocrats into local heads of a constitutional monarchy within a democratic system of representative government where the governors acted on the advice of ministers who were responsible to parliament. The position of the governors would evolve into the local parallel of that of the monarch in Britain.

In retrospect, we can see that the changes came remarkably quickly. In 1787, Governor Phillip had been given the powers to act as an absolute monarch.

In 1859, the position of Queensland’s first governor, Sir George Bowen, was a vice-regal one – he was to act within Queensland in place of the monarch.

He had no greater powers than the monarch in Britain; like the monarch his powers were to be limited by constitutional arrangements that ensured the rule of law and prohibited absolutism. It had been a remarkable transition in just seventy years. However, the change had not occurred in a straight line, there had been ebbs and flows of philosophy and policy. One of the ebbs back toward absolutism had been the cause of Queensland’s creation.

A short lived regression to absolutism had resulted from the sharp rise in criminal convictions in Britain that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the consequent surge in unemployment. Convicts were being sent to New South Wales in increasing numbers but the cry often heard in Britain was that transportation had lost its terror, that under the liberal Governor Macquarie convicts in Australia were more comfortable and had better futures than they would ever have had in Britain. It was said that a convict could be transported, work for an assigned master for a few years and then get a ticket of leave that might also be a ticket to becoming a wealthy and respectable man. Not punishment at all, the critics said.

In response, the Secretary for Colonies, Lord Bathurst, sent John Bigge to the colony to review the state of affairs and recommend changes. ‘The prospect of Transportation to Australia must once again become an object of real Terror at Home and must outweigh all considerations of economic or social growth of Australia as a colony’ Bathurst directed Bigge.7 Moreton Bay, to become Queensland, was brought into existence by these chilling words.

Bigge duly recommended that the existing system should be toughened and that the worst cases among the convicts, those who refused to submit to discipline or committed further offences after arriving in the colony, should be sent to special penal stations, far from Sydney. They should be places where remoteness would deter escape and where severity would instil ‘salutary terror.’ 8 Northern regions would be especially suitable; the ‘punitive tropics’ were thought to be places where the hostile bush and even more hostile Aborigines would be powerful deterrents to escape. Convict gangs would clear the bush; when they had finished the convicts would move out and settlers could move in.9 Bigge’s recommendations were endorsed by the British government but not by Macquarie, who returned home at the end of 1821. He was replaced

by Sir Thomas Brisbane, the man who should be regarded as Queensland’s founding father.

Brisbane, a distinguished soldier and astronomer, came to Sydney with instructions to tighten up the convict system and especially to implement

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Bigge’s suggestions for distant penal outstations. To do that, Brisbane needed to identify a suitable venue.

In October 1823 Brisbane sent the colony’s Surveyor General, John Oxley, north to look for possible convict station sites at places that had been described by the earlier explorers James Cook and Matthew Flinders. The story of Oxley’s explorations of Moreton Bay and the Brisbane River in November and December 1823 has been well described by several scholars.10 So has the story of Oxley’s report to Governor Brisbane and the decision to establish a convict station in Moreton Bay. Because of that decision, on 1 September 1824 the Amity set sail on its voyage north.

On 17 September 1824, just three days after the Amity had arrived at Redcliffe, Oxley and Cunningham set out to further explore the Brisbane River. Then, on 10 October, Oxley, Cunningham and others returned to Sydney. There, Oxley’s report further excited Governor Brisbane’s interest in the northern satellite.

On 3 November 1824, Brisbane wrote to Lord Bathurst – ‘I propose to visit the newly discovered River and Country at Morton Bay, with a view of determining by personal observation the comparative benefits, which may result to the Mother Country from its being converted into a penal settlement, or left open to the purposes of Colonization and Commerce. ... At the same time, I hope to be able to furnish Your Lordship with a more particular account of the Climate, Soil, Natural Productions and Commercial capacities of Morton Bay and of the recently discovered River Brisbane.’ 11 Brisbane set out almost immediately, aboard the Amity with a party that included Oxley, Chief Justice Francis Forbes, Captain John McArthur (son of the John McArthur of Rum Corps and Merino fame) and Francis Stephen, the Clerk to the Executive Council. It was to be the first vice-regal visit to what is now Queensland and it had a momentous outcome.

Oxley took the party up the Brisbane River, this time to about Seventeen Mile Rocks. On the way, the governor carefully noted the area around the junction of Breakfast Creek with the river and agreed with Oxley that it would be a far better settlement site than Redcliffe. That view was reinforced when, at Redcliffe, it became apparent that Miller and his settlers were much troubled by ‘natives’ who stole tools and other articles at every opportunity. ‘As a result, the Commandant has been obliged to keep them at a respectful distance.’ 12 The ‘natives’ were regarded with respect and not a little awe by the Redcliffe soldiers and convicts. There are several descriptions of them being considerably taller and more powerful than the Aborigines the white men had hitherto encountered further south. Robert Hoddle wrote ‘The natives were a fine looking race of men ... in general very friendly, but anxious to possess all they saw on our persons ... In the interior they were troublesome and thievish to the party who accompanied Mr. Oxley, which compelled them to resort to violent measures.

They were liable to sudden gusts of passion ... yet a little management restores them to good humour. They were very jealous and never suffered their women to approach us. A white man, Parsons, who had been cast away on the Coast lived amongst them for nearly two years and received very kind treatment. They furnished him with food ... Nature supplies their wants in abundance. They lived in families, their huts were built of bark, with some regard to convenience ...’ 13 Oxley wrote that some of the men he saw along the Brisbane River were some of ‘the strongest and best-made muscular men I have seen in any country.’ 14

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Below: The junction of Breakfast Creek (at right) and the Brisbane River from Toorak Hill, about 1875. This area had been suggested as the main settlement site when the convict station at Redcliffe was closed down.

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chapter two – to lay the foundationS of a colony

We will never know how many Aboriginal people might have lived in the area that was to become Queensland when the white settlers first arrived. We do know that the Aborigines lived in confederations of family groups that were part of larger groups sometimes called ‘tribes’ but perhaps more accurately called language groups. Their governors were their spirit ancestors who had ordained their laws and rules of social organisation in the Dreamtime, the creative time when those ancestors made the world as the Aborigines inherited it.

At Moreton Bay, the first Aboriginal reaction to the white incomers was one of curiosity and cautious welcome, in the belief that the white men brought with them goods that would greatly improve their standard of living. The Aborigines were attracted to the Redcliffe settlement, and then to Brisbane, especially when the white men began growing crops. Conflict broke out when the Aborigines got to the crops before the white men did. Violence also often resulted when convicts escaped – the authorities had promised the Aborigines lavish rewards for the return of escapees; the escapees employed desperate measures to avoid capture by the Aborigines.

Left: King Sandy in 1899. Originally from the Toorbul Point area, when he died at Wynnum in 1900 he was described as one of the last of the Brisbane district Aborigines.

Above: Timber-getting, probably on Fraser Island. A photograph by Richard Daintree, who made a splendid pictorial record of colonial Queensland.

Brisbane and the other governors all had stern instructions from Britain to treat the Aborigines with fairness and compassion. In 1824, when the physical area of white occupation was still narrowly confined, those instructions largely took care of themselves. Later, as we will see, the governors’ task of reconciling their instructions and their consciences with the demands for settlement expansion proved to be all but impossible.

Untroubled, for the moment, by these considerations, Brisbane returned to Sydney. On 4 December 1824, the governor expressed himself to the Sydney Gazette newspaper to be ‘amazingly gratified with the excursion; and, from the knowledge He has been personally able to acquire, there can be little doubt but that Australia will, at no distant period, derive considerable and lasting

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benefit. ... We are credibly informed that His Excellency intends ... the removal of the present temporary settlement [to] about nine miles from the mouth of the Brisbane.’15 This was a site on the north bank of the river, between the mouth of Breakfast Creek and Toorak Hill.

In February 1825, Brisbane directed Miller to dismantle the Redcliffe settlement and take everything that could be moved to a new site on the Brisbane River. The settlement was relocated in May 1825 (although there is some doubt about the exact date),16 not to Breakfast Creek but instead to a spot further upstream, on the north bank of the river in the locality around the present William Street in Brisbane city.

The future of the new town was very much in Miller’s hands. As commandant, he was the delegate of the governor in the new settlement; he was the de facto governor. The governor had given him written instructions but the distance from Sydney meant that in practice the whole responsibility for the planning and management of the new settlement fell on Miller’s shoulders alone. In addition, Miller and the later commandants were appointed magistrates and the discharge of that office added to Miller’s workload. Although he was only a Lieutenant of the 40th Regiment, Miller was a very experienced soldier who had fought with distinction with the Duke of Wellington in many of the bloodiest battles of the Peninsular War, including Waterloo. He would have risen to higher rank but for the huge surplus of military officers once the Napoleonic Wars ended.

Miller worked hard to re-establish the settlement on its new site. Within a few months he had erected his own Commandant’s Cottage, on the present site of the old Government Printing Office, between William and George Streets. As the residence of the senior official in the settlement, it was often called Government House and it was the venue for official entertaining.

Governor Darling stayed there when he visited Brisbane in 1827, as did Governor Gipps in 1842.17 Not surprisingly, the odds were against Miller and progress was slow, too slow for Governor Brisbane, who recalled Miller in August 1825 and replaced him with Captain Peter Bishop.

Bishop was only at Brisbane for a few months before, in March 1826, he was replaced by Captain Patrick Logan. Logan was certainly the most effective and most controversial of all Moreton Bay’s commandants. His achievement was that while Brisbane was but a makeshift, temporary place when he arrived, within four years he transformed it into a town that would soon aspire to being a colonial capital.

The Moreton Bay establishment began to grow rapidly. By the end of 1826 there were 145 convicts in Brisbane; by 1830 there were 925.18 Logan began a development program that included the ‘New Farm’ and another farm; an improved water supply, a wharf and buildings that included a proper hospital, diverse living quarters and new barracks. He had William Street made into a formed road; he established a quarry on the Kangaroo Point cliffs and he opened a cemetery near what became Petrie Terrace. A government garden was commenced in 1828, later to evolve into the Botanic Gardens. Logan was also an enthusiastic explorer who added considerably to geographic knowledge of the Moreton Bay hinterland.

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Above: Map of Brisbane in 1844, by C.F. Gerler, with Gerler’s key. A town was being built on foundations laid by the convicts.

1 Andrew Petrie 2 Handel, cattle drover 3 Savory, the only baker 4 Bensteads, sawyers 5 T. Richardson, the only general store 6 Convict barracks 7 W. Kent (druggist shop) 8 Fitzpatrick (the first chief constable) 9 The lock up 10 The Constable’s place (only two in all) 11 Slate’s Post Office 12 Slate’s pineapple garden 13 Church of England 14 The hospital 15 Mort, the milkman 16 Wright’s hotel

17 General cemetery 18 Tread and windmill 19 Edmonston’s paddock 20 Old R. Jones 21 Dr Simpson (the first Commissioner) 22 Old Major Prior 23 The Gaol 24 Skyring’s Beehives (soft goods shop) 25 Hayes, milkman 26 Brothers Fraser (first house) 27 The Catholic church 28 McLean’s blacksmith’s shop 29 Edmonston’s butcher 30 Bow’s hotel 31 Taylor Shappart 32 Montifeur, financier

33 W. Pickering 34 Sergeant Jones 35 Soldiers Barracks 36 Officer de Winton 37 Commission stores 38 Queen’s wharf 39 Captain Wickham’s office 40 Commissioner T. Kent 41 Commissioner’s garden 42 Captain Coley 43 Government gardens 44 Father Hanley (the only priest) 45 Saw pits 46 Queen Street 47 The boat house and boatman’s House 48 The first tombstone (two graves)

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Logan’s 1827 selection of Limestone Hills (called Ipswich after 1843) as the site for a limekiln and sheep station was to prove especially significant.

Colonial Botanist Charles Fraser visited the locality in 1828 and noted that it was a place ‘which will at no distant period be the principal key to the internal communications of this most interesting part of Australia.’19 Fraser was right.

In 1828 Alan Cunningham had confirmed a route from Moreton Bay, through the gap which was given Cunningham’s name, to the rich lands of the Darling Downs that Cunningham had first described in the previous year, following an overland expedition via the New England region. Once pastoral settlement began on the Darling Downs in 1840, the Cunningham’s Gap route became vitally important and Ipswich was poised to evolve as a commercial centre for the pastoralists of the interior.

Today, Logan’s monuments and the most vivid evocations of Brisbane’s convict past are two buildings – the Commissariat Store on the river bank below

William Street (built 1828-29) and the windmill on Wickham Terrace (built 1829). But, unfortunately for Logan’s reputation, the Brisbane of his time became notorious and is still imagined as a place of truly terrible severity, a place where ‘excessive tyranny’ prevailed. There is room for argument whether Logan really was a cruel, sadistic tyrant, whether in the Brisbane of his time the sound of the lash really was incessantly heard; but it is clear that at the very least Logan was a man who applied discipline to the cruel limits of the standards of the day.

In October 1830, Logan and his soldiers were about to leave Moreton Bay, on transfer to India. Logan decided to undertake one last exploring expedition.

There was rejoicing among the convicts in Brisbane when they got word that, on 17 October 1830, Logan had been killed by Aborigines, at a place not far from the present town of Esk.

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Above left: The Sophia Jane, the second steam powered vessel to come to Moreton Bay. Like many sailing ships that were converted to steam, she retained her sailing rigging – just in case.

Above right: The Commissariat Stores building (in centre, with pediment). An extra storey was added in 1912. The Commissariat Wharf, later called Queen’s Wharf, is shown on the riverbank below.

chapter two – to lay the foundationS of a colony

Five more commandants were to follow Logan (Clunie, 1830-35; Fyans 1835-37; Cotton, 1837-39, Gravatt, 1839, and Gorman, 1839-42) before Moreton Bay was opened to free settlement in 1842. Moreton Bay contained its largest number of convicts (947) in 1831. From 1832 the numbers dwindled, until in 1836 there were only 368 convicts at the place. The figures included many women – 135 women are known to have been sentenced to Moreton Bay between 1829 and 1837. They were housed in a ‘female factory’ on the present site of the General Post Office in Queen Street until 1837, when they

Above: The windmill, viewed from South Brisbane, about 1835. Built in 1828-29, the wooden windmill sails were intended to power millstones for grinding grain. At first, the windmill did not function properly and instead convicts were put to work on a treadmill to provide the necessary power. The windmill dominated Brisbane’s skyline for many decades. It was later used as a weather observatory and, in the 1930s, it was used for television transmission experiments.

Right: Captain Patrick Logan may or may not have been a cruel tyrant, but he was certainly a very effective administrator and was responsible for laying Brisbane’s foundations.

were moved to Eagle Farm. Some had their children with them – in 1831 there were 43 children at Moreton Bay altogether, including the children of soldiers as well as those of convicts.20 There had been civilian officials attached to the convict settlement, but Andrew Petrie is generally described as Brisbane’s first free settler. He arrived with his wife, Mary, and young family in August 1837, aboard the James Watt, the first

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steam powered vessel to enter Moreton Bay. As Superintendent of Works, he overhauled and improved much of the settlement’s infrastructure. Petrie’s distinction was that he saw there would be opportunities in Brisbane once it became a free settlement. He stayed, and made remarkable contributions as a designer, builder, public works contractor and explorer.

Other civilians came in 1838. Sydney’s fiery Presbyterian evangelist and political radical, Reverend Dr John Dunmore Lang, was keenly interested in the northern settlement and he saw a need for mission work among the Aborigines there. He arranged for a party of German Lutheran missionaries to come to Moreton Bay to establish a mission at a place the missionaries called Zion Hill, now the Brisbane suburb of Nundah. They were Queensland’s first missionaries and its first successful agriculturalists.

By the time the Germans arrived, the convict apparatus was winding down.

The end of transportation from Britain to New South Wales had been foreshadowed and the official enthusiasm for maintaining the northern outpost was wilting. Transportation to New South Wales ceased in August 1840, although the British government continued to send convicts to Van Diemen’s Land and Norfolk Island.

Governor Bourke had been shrinking the Moreton Bay establishment since 1837. In May 1839, Bourke’s successor Governor Gipps decreed that almost all the convicts remaining at Moreton Bay should be withdrawn, leaving just a small number of officials and convicts to care for government assets pending the opening of the area to free settlement. There would be an interval before free settlement could begin, while surveyors did the work needed to make town planning and land sales possible. The chronicler of Brisbane’s early history, J.J. Knight, wrote ‘the heavy dark cloud which hovered over the settlement for 16 long, dark years lifted and revealed to view, not the exclusive haunt of the felon, but a home destined for the free man.’21 The end of the convict era at Moreton Bay meant, in the short term, a sharp drop in population, to about 200 convicts, officials and ‘free persons.’22 Throughout the convict period there had been a prohibition on free people approaching within fifty miles of the Moreton Bay settlement without special permission. The prohibition was not officially lifted until May 1842 but, in the meantime, permission to enter the settlement seems to have become easier to obtain. In 1840, ten free men came to settle in Brisbane – presumably, they were allowed to do this because they brought necessary skills or services to the place.

In 1840, a 60 ton schooner, the John, began plying regularly between Sydney and Brisbane. On 19 October 1840, a small quantity of goods was carried from Brisbane by pack bullocks, over the Great Dividing Range via Cunningham’s Gap, to new pastoral stations on the Darling Downs.23 Those pastoral stations were then but a few months old. In early 1840, land seeker Patrick Leslie had ventured north to look at the Darling Downs region that, 13 years before, had been lavishly praised by Allan Cunningham for its pastoral possibilities. Leslie was enraptured by what he saw. He and his kinsmen wasted no time bringing flocks to the new area, establishing Canning Downs and Toolburra as the first pastoral stations in what was

24

Main image: Wool being carted from the outback toward the coast, for shipment to Britain. The ‘golden fleece’ financed Queensland’s early development and drove the expansion of settlement.

Top right: Sheep in Queensland’s central-west – ‘put all your money into four feet,’ men said.

Centre right: Proud of his craft – shearer Jim Morris with his blade shears, Tara district.

Below right: Shearing with the ‘blades’ on Vindex station, near Winton.

chapter two – to lay the foundationS of a colony

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Part One – Laying the Foundations

to become Queensland. Journalist Theophilus Pugh observed in his 1859 Moreton Bay Almanac – ‘The Messrs. Leslie were the individuals who thus acted as the pioneers of their pastoral brethren, and the tale of their success soon brought a host of others. Flock after flock, herd after herd, came pouring in until the Downs was fully occupied, and the more adventurous and enterprising found themselves compelled to push further out into the unexplored wilderness.’ It was an exciting time, the whole of Australia was in a ferment of sheep-growing ... put everything into four feet, men cried.’

Waves of pastoralists came north to claim country where they could find it, each wave pushing beyond the previous edge of settlement. In 1841, the pastoralists crossed the Great Dividing Range from the Darling Downs and began claiming country in the Brisbane Valley. By May 1842, there were 45 stations in the Moreton Bay hinterland and 1,800 bales of wool had already

Left: Dr John Dunmore Lang, standing at right, addressing the New South Wales Legislative Council.

Lang was a strong advocate for separation of the northern part of New South Wales.

Above, and above right: The brothers Benjamin (at left) and Robert Cribb. In 1849, they were among the Fortitude migrants and, like many others who arrived on that vessel, they made a difference to Queensland.

Benjamin founded the Ipswich business that became Cribb and Foote; Robert was a Brisbane Council alderman and a Member of the Legislative Assembly.

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chapter two – to lay the foundationS of a colony

been shipped out of Brisbane.24 In 1843, the pastoralists pushed north into the Burnett then, by 1854, into the Dawson and Fitzroy districts. They moved out to the western edge of the Darling Downs, then even further out, to the Maranoa and toward the Warrego district. On the eve of Queensland’s separation in 1859, all the useful country between Rockhampton and the Warrego and from thence east to Brisbane had been claimed. Within that settled area, new communities began to evolve, towns were born, tracks linked the towns and the Queensland we know today began to take its shape.

From the Leslies’ small beginnings, by 1858 there were 3.5 million sheep in the area of the future colony, 450,000 cattle and 20,000 horses. Wool was the staple export.25 Wool gave validity to claims that before long the northern part of New South Wales would be able to stand on its own feet, and should be allowed to do so.

The pastoral expansion immediately quickened the tempo of affairs in Brisbane. Sydney merchants became interested in the profits that might be had from trade with the pastoralists via Brisbane. On 11 December 1841, the New South Wales Colonial Secretary, Edward Deas-Thomson, wrote to John Williams of Sydney authorising Williams to open ‘a store in Brisbane Town, Moreton Bay.’26 A few months later, a fortnightly paddle steamer service began running between Sydney and Brisbane.27 After a long delay in obtaining approval from London, the first sale of Brisbane lands was held in December 1842. The sales made it possible for a free economy to begin to develop.28 The convict era had officially ended in May 1842 when the restraints on free settlement were lifted and when the last Commandant, Lieutenant Owen Gorman, handed control of Moreton Bay to a civilian magistrate, Dr Stephen Simpson, who was also Commissioner for Crown Lands. In January 1843, retired naval officer John Clements Wickham took over from Simpson.

A serious economic depression afflicted the whole of New South Wales from 1842, but the financial difficulties did not seem to diminish the keen interest in sales of land in Brisbane and Ipswich. A more serious handicap to the development of Moreton Bay, now taken to include the whole settled area between the Tweed and Mary Rivers and west to the edge of the Darling Downs, was the shortage of labour that followed the end of the convict period.

There were local people, pastoralists in particular, who argued for the reintroduction of convicts to solve the labour shortage. The British government also wanted a place to which it could send ‘exiles,’ as convicts were now being called. In November 1849 and May 1850, 517 exiles were landed at Moreton Bay – the Bangalore, the second of the two ships that brought the men from England, arrived in May 1850. It was the last convict transport ship to come to the eastern mainland of Australia.29 The exiles were given conditional pardons and were easily able to find employment, mostly on pastoral stations. They were virtually free men, as long as they did not attempt to return to Britain.

Most of them seem to have merged into the general population.

That population was burgeoning. A census on 2 March 1846 showed that the ‘Northern Districts’ – Moreton Bay, the Darling Downs, and ‘outside areas’ (including some northern rivers areas) – contained 2,525 people. By the next census in 1851, the population had swelled to 8,375.30 This included the exiles, but they were heavily outnumbered by free immigrants who had come north

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from southern parts of New South Wales and by the free immigrants who, from 1848, began arriving by ship direct from Britain.

These free immigrants, especially the more than 600 people31 who arrived in 1849 aboard the ships Fortitude, Lima and Chasely under a scheme organised

by Dr John Dunmore Lang, completely changed the social character of the Moreton Bay region. Lang’s immigrants comprised a high proportion of educated, non-conformist tradesmen and small business people. Imbued with Lang’s ideas, they were fiercely against renewed transportation of convicts, not only because they feared competition in the labour market but, more fundamentally, because they wanted to live in a free, moral and law abiding society. Many of these immigrants were to become prominent in public affairs in the new colony. ‘No more important was the arrival of the Mayflower to America than the arrival of these three ships to Queensland.’32 The economic depression started to lift from 1848; the population was growing and Moreton Bay was acquiring the commercial and public

Below: Newstead House, from O’Reilly’s Hill, in about 1872. Built by Patrick Leslie, the house became Brisbane’s de facto ‘Government House’ after it was acquired by Leslie’s brother-in-law, the Government Resident John Clements Wickham.

Right: Patrick Leslie – in 1840, he was probably the first man to bring sheep to Queensland’s pastures.

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institutions that a free society needed. The Moreton Bay Courier newspaper had begun publication in 1846; a Moreton Bay District Association was formed to advocate the advancement of all the interests of the district; the first Circuit Court sittings of the New South Wales Supreme Court was held in Brisbane in May 1850; land sales were held in Drayton and Warwick in 1850 and a bank opened in Brisbane. Maryborough, where an improvised port had opened in about 1845, had become a flourishing town. Other towns were emerging.

Their progress is reflected in the 1851 and 1856 census figures33 – Town

1851 population

1856 population

Brisbane

2543

4395

Ipswich

932

2459

Drayton

200

263

Warwick

267

472

Dalby Maryborough Gayndah Gladstone Toowoomba (estimated)

109 299

353

92

152 224 1000

By 1853, the new status of Moreton Bay was recognised when John Wickham was appointed Government Resident (in effect, deputy for the governor), the new title indicating recognition of the northern district’s coherent identity and acknowledging the growth that had occurred. Wickham and his family had lived at first in the old Commandants’ Cottage but, in about 1848, they moved into Newstead House which had been built two years earlier by Wickham’s brother-in-law, Patrick Leslie. Newstead House became Brisbane’s de facto Government House, where the town’s most impressive social occasions were held and where governors came to stay.

The recognition extended to Moreton Bay may have been an acknowledgement by the Sydney government of the strength of the separation movement in the northern district. The tide of official opinion was now running strongly in favour of self-government in the colonies.

In 1850, the Australian Constitutions Act provided for the separation of Port Phillip (to become Victoria) and stated that the area in the north of New South Wales could also be detached and formed into a separate colony, upon the petition of householders in that part of the mother colony. The legislation made it clear that the separated areas could move toward responsible selfgovernment – they would not be Crown Colonies, subject to government by a governor acting on instructions form London. Instead, they would be given full responsibility for their own internal affairs.

The separation of Victoria was a powerful example for the north. On 8 January 1851, Dr Lang convened a meeting in Brisbane to consider the possibility of separation for Moreton Bay. There was enthusiastic support. The Moreton Bay and Northern Districts Separation Association was formed and separation became a lively issue. However, opinions about the merits of separation were sharply divided.

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Part One – Laying the Foundations

The decisive opinion was clearly going to be that of the British government.

Petitions and counter petitions were got up; representations were made from Moreton Bay by every available means. The general view emerged in Britain that smaller areas within a large colony should have separation and responsible self-government as soon as it became apparent that the interests of the smaller place could not be adequately catered for by existing arrangements; the British authorities thought New South Wales as it was in the early 1850s was far too large for administrative efficiency.

The New South Wales Constitution Act of 1855, which established responsible self-government in the parent colony, made provision for separation of portions of the colony by altering the northern boundary. If a portion of New South Wales was so separated – It shall be lawful for Her Majesty, by letters patent to be from time to time issued under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to erect into a separate colony or colonies any territories which may be separated from New South Wales by such alteration as aforesaid of the northern boundary thereof; and in and by such letters patent, or by order in council, to make provision for the government of any such colony and for the establishment of a legislature therein, and full power shall be given in any by such letters patent or order in council to the Legislature of the said colony to make further provision in that behalf.

By this enactment, the way was opened for the creation of a separate northern colony by simple administrative action.34 All that was necessary was a ministerial decision. The in-principle decision for separation was taken in 1856, but housekeeping concerning such matters as boundaries and financial adjustments had to be tidied up before separation could be finally ordered and the new colony ‘erected.’

On 6 June 1859, Queen Victoria signed the Letters Patent that approved the creation of the new colony and appointed Sir George Ferguson Bowen its governor. Five weeks later, the steamer Clarence paddled up the Brisbane River with the word Separation painted on its hull. The Moreton Bay Courier published a joyful poem – Good news has come to Brisbane Town Hurrah for Separation; Tis really true, we tell it you Without exaggeration.

We shall have for our Governor – ’Twill please you the relation – Sir George Ferguson Bowen, now Cheer, make it long, you sought it long, Loud be your acclamation Till echo bound the joyful sound Beyond the furthest station.

The time was seen, God bless our Queen Victoria thy donation We thankful own, bind to thy throne Today the new born nation.

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chapter two – to lay the foundationS of a colony

We fervent bend to Heaven, send Our ardent supplication That God may bless with peace and rest, This favoured infant nation.

Brisbane, be seen, now show to them, To all the wide creation That we are men, most worthy men To be extolled a nation.35

Above: ‘The Squatter Taking His Ease’ at Woroongundi station – watercolour by Charles Archer.

The writing desk in the centre was used by the Archer brothers to write detailed letters to relatives in Scotland and Norway.

Not quite yet an infant nation. Queenslanders had to await the arrival of their new governor, who would formally proclaim the separation of the colony and announce the arrangements for its erection.

Since 1824, the foundations had been laid. Now they were ready for the erection of the pre-fabricated system of government that Sir George Bowen would bring with him to Brisbane on 10 December 1859.

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chapter three – We hail, with triumphant joy, this Glorious Event

We hail, with triumphant joy, this glorious event ‘We, reposing special trust and confidence in the prudence, courage and loyalty of you, the said Sir George Ferguson Bowen, ... have thought fit to constitute and appoint ... you ... to be, during our will and pleasure, our Captain General1 and Governor-in-Chief in and over our said colony of Queensland.’ 2 Queen Victoria’s appointment of Sir George Bowen as the first Governor of Queensland followed a procedure that was already long established and was to continue, almost unchanged, until very recent times. The colonial governors, and later the governors of states, were and are representatives of the monarch and thus it was and is within the monarch’s personal prerogative to appoint and dismiss them.

In exercising that prerogative, Queen Victoria and her successors acted on the advice of the British government. That in effect meant the Colonial Office, a powerful government department that was first established to manage colonial affairs in North America and was the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Colonies, usually known as the Colonial Secretary.

The governors who came to Queensland through the colonial period (and even long afterwards) were selected from within a narrow group of ‘suitable’ people. They were aristocrats or at least well connected ‘gentlemen’, or they were military officers; they had sometimes held political office or public service positions in Britain; some of them needed a salaried career and what better career than being a governor? Others were independently wealthy and simply wanted to serve the Empire in a useful and distinguished way. In many cases, there was a mix of all these characteristics and motivations.

There was a hierarchy of governorships – the appointment to Queensland was relatively junior, New South Wales was better, but a posting to India was a glittering prize. Some men moved through the hierarchy – Bowen, for example, was a career governor who lived in various government houses almost continuously from 1859 to 1886.

Ambitious men like Bowen knew that if they were to climb the vice-regal ladder they had to please the Secretary for Colonies and his bureaucracy.

The governors had to furnish regular and full reports with commentaries on local affairs. They certainly had to explain actions they had taken on any constitutionally sensitive issues and their involvement in any controversies.

Their instructions required them to act on the advice of their local governments on local matters, but they had to jealously safeguard Imperial interests in areas such as defence, external trade and international relations.

In practice, the governors had to exercise their own judgments in many cases where they might have preferred to wait on advice from London. Time and distance often prevented that, at least until after telegraphic connections between Australia and Britain were established in 1872. Bowen complained Left: Queensland’s first governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen in 1882, when he was beginning a term as Governor of Hong Kong. At the time of separation in 1859, he was the man for Queensland’s hour.

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also that he had pitifully few resources of books and wise men to guide him – he had no library and early Queensland was not well endowed with men who could give the counsel a governor might need.

It was a robust era. The governors were appointed, given a set of instructions and told to get on with it. If they did well they were promoted, if they failed they were recalled or at least not re-appointed. They had to be good all round men of courage and sound judgment, decisive and energetic, able to deal with the sternest challenges.

What could have been more challenging than Bowen’s instructions to go to the place that was to be called Queensland and there ‘erect’ a new self-governing colony?

Queen Victoria’s Letters Patent appointing Bowen were signed on 6 June 1859.

While that date is often said to be Queensland’s date of birth, the fact is that the new colony was only conceived on that day. Clause ten of the Letters Patent provided that they would not come into effect until the document was received and published in Queensland by its new governor. Thus, the reality of Queensland’s separation had to await the arrival of Governor Bowen.

That is why Saturday, tenth December 1859, is the great day in Queensland’s history. On that day, Sir George Bowen arrived in Brisbane town, took the oath of office as ‘Captain-General and Governor-in Chief’ and had it proclaimed from the balcony of his temporary Government House that he had done so.

Queensland was born.

The new colony had come a long way since the first convicts were landed at Redcliffe in 1824. It had also been a long journey for Sir George and Lady Bowen, from the Greek island of Corfu to Queensland.

George Bowen, 38 years old when he arrived in Brisbane, was born in Ireland where his English father was a church rector. Bowen began life with no particular advantages except the opportunity for a good education and that was a chance he turned to very best advantage. He was sent to the excellent English public school, Charterhouse, then won a scholarship to Oxford. There he was academically and socially successful. He took first class honours in Classics and gained his Master of Arts in 1847 and made many personal connections that were to propel him ever upward in his career.

Then he went to Corfu, one of the Greek Ionian islands that had been a British protectorate since 1815. On Corfu, Bowen was a political secretary in the government and Rector of the Ionian University. He travelled on horseback across Greece from the Gulf of Corfu to Istanbul (then Constantinople); he spoke modern Greek fluently and he wrote widely about the Ionian region and won minor celebrity through his three books about that part of Greece. Bowen returned to England in 1851 to take up a fellowship at Oxford and in 1852 he helped campaign for the election of William Gladstone, later to be Prime Minister on four occasions. It was a valuable association that was strengthened later, when Gladstone also became involved in the government of the Ionian islands. Bowen returned to Corfu in 1854. In 1856 he was knighted and in the same year he married Contessa Diamantina, daughter of Count Candiano di Roma, the President of the Senate of the Ionian islands. In 1859 Bowen was appointed Governor of Queensland, an appointment which was largely due to

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chapter three – We hail, with triumphant joy, this Glorious Event

Gladstone’s patronage and influence. For the rest of Bowen’s working life, his occupation was ‘Governor.’3 Lady Bowen, the exotic and noble Contessa Diamantina Roma, is often said to have been the first Greek to come to Queensland. Although she was a Greek national and spoke modern Greek fluently, her personal orientation was far more Italian than Greek; Italian was her first language and it was the language that she and George Bowen used in private moments.4 Diamantina Roma was connected by blood or marriage with many notable Greek and Venetian statesmen, soldiers and members of European royal families.5 Her own family was part of the Venetian nobility that had taken over Corfu in 1401 and had governed it until 1797; the Venetians on Corfu never forgot that they were Italian.

Left: Sir Augustus Charles Gregory – explorer, surveyor, pastoralist and parliamentarian. He had a decisive influence on land settlement policy and administration through the colony’s first two decades.

Above: A letter from Bowen to Gregory about the naming of Roma Street in Brisbane.

Diamantina Roma was just 26 years old when she arrived in Brisbane. The Bowens already had one child, Adelaide Diamantina, who had been born on Corfu in August 1858. Three more children were to be born to the Bowens at Government House, Brisbane – Zoe Caroline in 1860, Agnes Herbert in 1862 and George William in 1864. A fifth child, Alfreda Ernestine, was born in Auckland in 1869.6 Lady Bowen was a dutiful, self-effacing woman who radiated courtesy, kindness and generosity. Robert Herbert was probably perceptive and accurate when he wrote that ‘Her beauty is more in expression than in feature.’7 A classic beauty or not, the Contessa was undoubtedly graceful and gracious, an exotic ornament in the otherwise monochromatic social firmament of infant Brisbane.

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part two – Sovereigns and Ambassadors

Sir George was ‘portly and tall’ and, from every account, an intellectual showoff who peppered his writings and his conversation with Latin and Greek quotations and obscure literary allusions. He was bombastic, pedantic, longwinded and a relentless self-publicist. The Contessa was genuinely loved by the community; Sir George was endured, often admired but never loved except, perhaps, as the Queen’s surrogate.

Despite his frailties, Queensland was lucky to have Bowen as its first governor.

He had the opportunity to make a very significant and positive difference to the fortunes of the infant colony; he seized that opportunity and made the most of it. Few men have done as much for Queensland – it is arguable that none have done more. Bowen was not an endearing man but, at least during his term in Queensland, he was effective. Queensland was his first vice-regal appointment; it was a humble one and he was fiercely determined to rise to better governorships. He was in the prime of his life and he had powerful incentives to work hard and well. He did, and Queensland was the beneficiary.

So, in particular, were later governors – Bowen blazed the track along which they all walked.

Bowen has the unique distinction of having been the central figure of the events of 10 December 1859. It was the day when, as reported by the Moreton Bay Courier newspaper ‘The great event of our history stands recorded. A new epoch in the annals of Australia has come to pass; ‘our era’ has commenced; and the delays and disappointments of the past are amply compensated by the triumphant success of the present. ... We have attained the object of our wishes – the goal of our long cherished hopes, and it will be for us to show that, although young, we are vigorous, – although wealthy, we are careful; and that, although few in comparison with other colonies, we may yet become many by attracting the peasantry of Great Britain to our shores.’

Through several previous days, the people of Queensland had worked themselves into a state of feverish excitement in anticipation of the governor’s arrival and what it would mean. Sir George and Lady Bowen had landed in Sydney several weeks before, aboard the British warship Cordelia. News of their arrival had travelled to Brisbane by steamship, while Sir George spent some days in Sydney consulting with the New South Wales governor, Sir William Denison, and other government officials concerning the details of the separation of Queensland. Lady Bowen spent the time recovering from seasickness. Then the Bowens re-boarded the Cordelia for the final leg of their journey to Brisbane.

As the Moreton Bay Courier recounted ‘5th instant was the first day on which the arrival of H.M.S. Cordelia was looked for, and on that account, a series of holidays, lasting over four days was commenced. Steamers went down to the bay – visitors poured in from the country, – and flags waving by day, and fireworks by night, gave a glimmering idea of the enthusiasm held in check until the actual landing.’ However, there was a delay of four days while the Cordelia battled contrary winds and the ship’s captain avoided making ‘bad weather – out of consideration to Lady Bowen.’

It was arranged that a flag would be hoisted at the Government Resident’s office in the town when there was definite news of the arrival of the Cordelia Right: Lady Bowen, the Countess Diamantina Roma, was admired and loved in Queensland.

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chapter three – We hail, with triumphant joy, this Glorious Event

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in Moreton Bay. At about sunset on Friday evening, 9 December, mounted troopers who had been on the lookout at Sandgate galloped into Brisbane and shouted out the news that the Cordelia was coming across the bay. ‘Flags were everywhere hoisted as the glad intelligence spread like wildfire through the city and other demonstrations of joy were made.’

At about half past nine the next morning the river paddle steamer Breadalbane and two other vessels paddled downriver to meet the Cordelia, which had anchored off the river mouth overnight. The Breadalbane carried the reception committee, comprising Robert Herbert (Bowen’s former private secretary, who had sailed to Sydney with Bowen but had come to Brisbane some days before), the Government Resident, Captain John Wickham, the resident Supreme Court judge, Alfred Lutwyche, Colonel Gray, Ratcliffe Pring (soon to be Attorney General) and other ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ as well as a band to play ‘enlivening strains’ as the Breadalbane paddled downriver.

The Breadalbane tied up alongside the Cordelia; the reception committee went aboard the Cordelia and were introduced to Sir George ‘with Lady Bowen sitting apart from the crowd watching the proceedings with evident interest.’

Master of ceremonies for the introductions was Abram Moriarty, a public servant from Sydney who had been seconded to Queensland for nine months to act as Bowen’s private secretary.

Then the Bowens and the official party boarded the Breadalbane for the journey upriver to a landing stage located in the Botanic Gardens. Everywhere along the river there were signs of welcome, with cheering echoing from other vessels, decorations on riverbank buildings and flags flying – even the Greek flag as a compliment to Lady Bowen’s Greek heritage.

Finally, the Breadalbane reached the landing place. More than 4,000 people were assembled on the nearby riverbanks – the crowd might have been even greater but for the earlier return home of many country people who could wait no longer. A 21 gun salute was fired while the governor stepped ashore to be welcomed by John Petrie, Mayor of Brisbane. Then the vice-regal couple passed under a triumphal arch before they stepped into the carriage that was to head a procession up to Dr Hobbs’ house, which stands today as the Deanery within the St John’s Cathedral precinct.

‘Arriving at Government House, His Excellency and her ladyship ascended to the balcony, where they were loudly cheered by the throng below, and soon afterward His Excellency took the requisite oaths of office.8 The Queen’s commission, appointing His Excellency Governor of Queensland, was then read by Mr. Herbert from the balcony and that was followed by Abram Moriarty’s reading of Bowen’s proclamation that he had assumed the office of Governor-in-Chief.’

Bowen then spoke. ‘... I shall not fail to represent to our gracious and beloved Sovereign the loyal greeting with which you have received Her Majesty’s first Representative among you. I shall have the pleasure of seeing you all again at the pavilion at ten o’clock on Monday morning and until then I bid you all Goodbye.’

It was as well that the next day was one of rest because a marathon of proceedings awaited the Bowens on the Monday, 12 December, when they began to meet the people. From soon after daylight, more than

38

Below, top: Sketch showing the view from Brisbane’s lower George Street area, toward Kangaroo Point.

Sawmill in centre right foreground.

Bottom: Petrie family members prepare to fly a flag to honour the arrival of Governor Bowen on 10 December 1859. The women are in front of the Petrie family home, at the corner of Wharf and Queen Streets in Brisbane.

chapter three – We hail, with triumphant joy, this Glorious Event

Above left: Dr Hobbs’ house (on ridge line, in centre). The house was leased for use as a temporary Government House, between 1859 and 1862. On 10 December 1859, the proclamation of Queensland’s separation from New South Wales was read from the balcony of the house.

Above right: John Petrie came to Brisbane as a child in 1837. By 1859 he was Mayor of Brisbane.

4,000 Queenslanders had again assembled at the Botanic Gardens to await the Bowens, who arrived at 10 am and were welcomed with resounding cheers.

The official party gathered on a platform, beneath a banner carrying the words ‘We hail, with triumphant joy, this Glorious Event – Our National Birth.

Aid the infant State with wise Legislation; let Industry – the mother of its existence – feed the flame of its vitality; and young Queensland will then become the Queen of Lands.’

A series of addresses was read – from the people of Queensland, the Mayor and Corporation of Brisbane municipality, the clergy of Brisbane, the Cordwainers of Brisbane, the working classes, and the people of Ipswich. To each of these addresses the Governor replied individually and at length. The welcomers stressed the advantages of their ‘rich and fertile land’ and their previous sufferings from ‘the evils consequent upon a distant legislature.’10 Bowen pledged his best efforts in laying the foundations ‘for this new and mighty and flourishing province of the British Empire. ... My object here (in Brisbane), as in the other principal settlements of Queensland, (all of which I hope to visit in the next twelve months), will be to see and judge for myself – to ascertain the real wants and wishes of the inhabitants of all classes, in order that the views and measures of the Governor may harmonise with the voice of the people’ he said.

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In his reply to the ‘Working Men of Brisbane’ he warned against class division. ‘... you characterise your address as proceeding from “Working Men.” I feel certain that you do not mean by that phrase to imply that you belong to any separate class whose feelings and interests are adverse to, or even distinct from, the feelings and interests of any other class of inhabitants of this colony. In a new and free country like that in which we are living ... every man is emphatically a working man. You will at all times find me your zealous fellow workman in all that may tend to promote the happiness and welfare of the people of Queensland.’11 Bowen kept his promise to Queensland. He set to work with vigour and enthusiasm. He had not been idle, even through his first weekend in Queensland.

Queen Victoria’s Letters Patent had very precisely instructed Bowen about the kind of government he was to ‘erect’ for Queensland. There was to be representative and responsible government, with a parliament comprising an appointed Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly.

Once the parliament was brought into existence, Bowen was to make laws ‘for the peace, order and good government of our said colony ... with the advice and consent of the said Council and Assembly.’ That would achieve representative government.

There was also to be an Executive Council, which would advise the governor on the administration of the colony. By convention, once a government had been formed within parliament, the Executive Council would comprise the premier (who would usually but not always also be the colonial secretary) and the various ministers. They would be responsible to parliament and thus Queensland would have responsible government.

However, pending the first session of parliament and the formation of a government, Bowen had the authority and responsibility to govern Queensland as a de facto Crown Colony, in much the same way the early governors of

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chapter three – We hail, with triumphant joy, this Glorious Event

New South Wales had managed that colony before the development of democratic institutions. Bowen did not back away from that task but he wanted men who could give him good advice and who could see that decisions were effectively implemented. So, Bowen established an interim skeleton government, comprising reliable senior men who would act as ministers and who would also comprise an Executive Council.

Bowen could not afford to waste time – there were too many urgent administrative matters that needed immediate attention. On 10 December, presumably at the interim Government House and soon after the reading of the commission from the balcony of the house, Bowen formed his first Executive Council by appointing Robert Herbert as Colonial Secretary and Ratcliffe Pring as Attorney General, both of them to be Executive Council members. At the same time, Abram Moriarty was formally appointed Bowen’s private secretary, in place of Herbert who had previously held that position. A Government Gazette, Number One of Volume One, was issued the same day to announce the appointments.

On Monday 12 December, the Executive Council had its first meeting and its first decision was to appoint Abram Moriarty to be the Clerk to the Council.

Moriarty thus became Queensland’s first public servant. On 15 December, Moriarty was appointed Under Colonial Secretary – filling the position that would today be that of the permanent head of the Premier’s department.

On 18 December, the Executive Council was enlarged when Robert Ramsay Mackenzie was appointed Colonial Treasurer.13 Bowen now had the essential apparatus of government in place. He had achieved in days what had taken many decades in other places. Other colonies had grown into democratic self-government only after progressing through several earlier stages of development. During those stages of growth, institutions progressively evolved and local people gradually gained experience in the business of government. Queensland, on the other hand, was to have responsible and representative government right from the beginning of its life as a self-governing colony, even though there were very few people in Queensland who had any experience of representative politics or public administration. Creating the system of government and tactfully teaching people how to run it was Bowen’s challenging task.

Far left: The Chinese were reviled and victimised by many white settlers, but the fruit and vegetable crops from their gardens kept outback people in better health.

Centre and right: Chinese men load bananas on to a punt at Geraldton (called Innisfail from 1911) in north Queensland, and then take the bananas by river towards market.

Above: Not all Queensland’s early Chinese migrants were miners or labourers.

He was assisted through the critical first months by several very able people.

There was much criticism of Herbert’s appointment, from those who thought that a local man should have been given the job – and from disappointed local men who weren’t considered for the historic appointment. (We say men, because the enfranchisement of women and the possibility of their entering politics was in the far distant future.) However, there was one very good reason for Bowen’s choice – Herbert was newly arrived in the colony and he was not aligned with any of its many factions.

Herbert was young, just 28 years of age, but he was well equipped for the job by personal background and experience. He had aristocratic connections and had some private means; he went to school at Eton, then did well at Oxford and began to read law before accepting an appointment as a private secretary to William Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1855.

Due to political upheavals, the appointment was short lived and Herbert went

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back to studying law. He was admitted as a barrister but never practised. In 1859, when Bowen was seeking a private secretary and a man who might be able to take up important offices in Queensland, Herbert was recommended

by Gladstone and probably also by Lord Carnarvon – Herbert’s cousin and parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonial Office.14 Herbert took the position and travelled to Australia with the Bowens. He was told that his appointment to the position of Colonial Secretary would only become permanent if he won election to the parliament and then secured the necessary support to form a government. Herbert achieved that and, on twenty second May 1860, he became Colonial Secretary and Premier by virtue of his ability to command a majority in the parliament. He held that office until February 1866, and again, briefly, later that year. He was a highly effective first Premier of Queensland – hard working, a good administrator, learned, with more experience of government than most other Queenslanders at that time. Despite his youth and his aristocratic manner, he was able to attract political and personal support. By all accounts, he was charming and unfailingly courteous. Above all, he was able to work in a very productive partnership with the impatient and often difficult Bowen.

Ratcliffe Pring, Queensland’s first Attorney General, had been the colony’s first resident barrister. An English lawyer, he had migrated to Sydney, then came to Moreton Bay in 1857 as Crown Prosecutor. He was to have a tempestuous career in Queensland politics and the law, but for several years he was probably one of the best and certainly busiest legislators Queensland ever knew.15 Robert Ramsay Mackenzie was described by Bowen as a pastoralist ‘of high honour and integrity, of methodical habits of business.’ Like so many of his fellow sheep-men, Mackenzie had come from Scotland with a modest fortune and had at first done well in Australian pastoral pursuits. He was insolvent by 1840 but recovered and by 1853 he owned a substantial slice of the best country in the Burnett district and in the Central Highlands. He won election to the first Queensland parliament and held his seat until 1869, when he returned to Scotland to assume his family’s baronetcy.16 The business of setting up the machinery of government in hand for the moment, Bowen began to keep his promise to visit all the principal places of settlement beyond Brisbane. On 20 December 1859, Sir George and Lady Bowen began a tour of Ipswich, a town for which Bowen seems to have later developed a special fondness. The Bowens went first to Booval, then they were escorted into the town centre by a cavalcade of about 400 horsemen. That night, the visitors were entertained at the North Australian Club; there was a levee next day and a ball at night. The Bowens were finding that vice-regal appointments to the Australian colonies were not sinecures.17 The Ipswich visit was soon followed by a trip to Gayndah. Then, in late March 1860, Bowen made his first tour of the ‘interior.’ On 10 April 1860, Bowen wrote to Herman Merivale, Under-Secretary for the Colonies – ‘I ascended from the coast to the table-land of the Darling Downs through Cunningham’s Gap ... ; which, though not equal as some enthusiastic Queenslanders imagine, to ‘anything in the Alps’ is certainly finer than anything I ever saw in the British Isles.

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‘Some of the squatters had descended in to the lowlands to meet and escort me to their houses, so we formed a very picturesque cavalcade as we wound up through the luxuriant forest of the Gap. On the summit I was greeted with loud cheers ... and there I found another batch of hospitable squatters, with a cold collation and plenty of champagne and hock ... ‘[in] the residences of the squatters ... I found carpets and curtains, plate and pianos, champagne and crinoline, in places where fifteen years before the face of a white man had not been seen.

‘I was escorted into Warwick by 400 horsemen. I rode one day ... seventy miles in eight hours – of course, with a change of horses. You should never send a Governor here who cannot ride and shoot.’18 By now, Bowen felt that he had gained a good understanding of what Queenslanders expected of their governor. He was firmly convinced that a governor of any of the Australian colonies should be much more than a

Below: Ipswich in the early 1860s. The town came to prominence quickly because it was most convenient for the pastoralists of the hinterland. For a time, it was proposed as Queensland’s capital.

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titular and ceremonial head of the system of representative and responsible government. He wrote to the Duke of Newcastle on 7 April 1860 – ‘Nothing can be more opposed to this theory than the wishes of the Anglo-Australians themselves. The Governor ... is expected not only to act as the head of society; to encourage literature, science and art; to keep alive by personal visits to every district under his jurisdiction the feelings of loyalty to the Queen, and of attachment to the mother country, and so to cherish what may be termed the Imperial sentiment; but he is also expected, as head of the administration, to maintain, with the assistance of his Executive Council, a vigilant control and Below: Key figures in Queensland’s first government of its own; Ratcliffe Pring (left) was the colony’s first Attorney General; Abram Moriarty was Queensland’s first public servant; Robert Ramsay Mackenzie was the first Colonial Treasurer and Robert Herbert (at right) was the first Colonial Secretary and Premier. These men were appointed by Bowen pending elections and the first sitting of the Queensland parliament.

supervision over every department of the public service. In short, he is in a position in which he can exercise an influence over the whole course of affairs exactly proportionate to the strength to his character, the activity of his mind and body, the capacity of his understanding, and the extent of his knowledge.’19 In the light of those observations, it is not surprising that the distinctive quality of Bowen’s time in Queensland is that he was an interventionist governor. He had clear and strong views about what was best for the colony and he used his considerable influence and his actual or perceived authority to achieve outcomes that accorded with his visions. In particular, it is clear from the historical record that he worked through Herbert, Premier of the colony for the first six years, to get what he wanted. On many occasions, Bowen skated right up to the edge and even went well beyond the constitutional limitation that he should act on the advice of his ministers and give consent to their decisions. The reality often was that Bowen advised and the government consented.

In retrospect, Bowen’s intervention may appear surprising and inappropriate.

However, it caused little surprise or dismay at the time. The practice of

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responsible government had not been fully developed when Bowen arrived in Queensland. There was little community experience of the system and there was still a lingering notion that the sovereign (hence the governor) had powers independent of the parliament and should exercise them for the public good.20 Bowen was right when he said that Queenslanders expected him to play an active role, guiding parliaments and ministries. There was a community perception that Bowen had considerable personal power and there was an expectation that he should use that power. The point was well illustrated when he visited Rockhampton in October 1862. The Rockhampton community demanded that he provide them with a steam dredge, new roads, more immigrants and telegraphic communications. When Bowen explained that his hands were tied and the matters raised were the responsibility of Parliament, which was in recess at the time, the Rockhampton people were undeterred – they told Bowen to summon a special session of Parliament and then direct the law makers to pass the laws the Rockhampton people wanted.21 Bowen may have been flattered by the perception that he was omnipotent, but he also knew very well that the high expectations also meant great disappointment and even hostility when he could not deliver all that his supplicants asked for.

It did not take him long to find out that even the vice-regal cloak was a poor shield against criticism of the harshest and most direct kind.

Had Bowen not seized many initiatives in the early days, matters would have proceeded much more slowly and far less satisfactorily. The colony simply did not have enough people of talent and experience to form the pool of wise legislators and administrators that good government required, so Bowen found that he had to encourage, cajole and even direct.

Whatever injury Bowen may have done to constitutional niceties, it must be said that in the first six years of his term Queensland enjoyed some of the most far-sighted, productive and stable government that it ever had. The stability of those early years contrasted with what was to follow, when Queensland governments were marked by kaleidoscopic instability.

Bowen returned from his travels filled with a sense of urgency about the many things that needed to be done. Apart from anything else, the rapidly growing population was creating demands that had to be met.

When Bowen arrived, Queensland’s non-Aboriginal population was said to be 23,520, an increase from 10,296 in 1851 and 16,907 in 1856. In 1861, the total had increased to 30,059, comprised by 18,121 males and 11,938 females. The rate of increase between 1856 and 1861 had been almost 80%. Some of the population growth had resulted from natural increase, but there were 4,902 immigrants from Britain and Europe and 5,117 people had come from other Australian colonies, mainly New South Wales.

In 1861, Brisbane had 6,051 people while Ipswich had 3,002. There had been spectacular growth in some of the country towns – Drayton’s population had increased from 263 to 320 in the five years, while Toowoomba, which was of no account in 1856, had 1,180 inhabitants by the 1861 census. Rockhampton was home to almost nobody in 1856, but 698 people lived there in 1861. The pastoral industry was the colony’s major employer, with 4,331 people working within it. Domestic service ranked second, with 2,004 employees.22

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Bowen and other authorities thought it unlikely that the high rate of population increase would continue – but it did, due in large measure to aggressive government promotion of Queensland as a land of golden opportunity for British and German migrants. In 1865, the colony had 86,921 people; in 1869 it had 109,161. Thus, during Bowen’s eight and a half year term in Queensland, the colony’s population multiplied almost fivefold. The demands on the government also multiplied and there was a particular obligation to find employment for the migrants who had been enticed to Queensland by careless promises of abundant work at high rates of pay.

In December 1859, Bowen’s first task was to secure the money that would be needed to carry on government, pending the first sitting of the parliament which would introduce revenue raising measures and vote supply to enable government to be carried on. Bowen arranged bank borrowings in Sydney, pledging the colony’s future revenue from land sales and rents.23 Then he planned Queensland’s civil service. He wrote a minute for the Executive Council suggesting the structure of the bureaucracy and that entry to the public service should be by merit, assessed by competitive examination.

On 23 January 1860, the Executive Council adopted Bowen’s suggestions and the first entry examinations were held in September 1860.24 Entry by merit and competitive examination! – that was a novel concept, but it was strictly adhered to by Bowen. He was often besieged by young men who had come out from Britain with letters of introduction and who expected the governor to find public service employment for them. Bowen refused to entertain their applications.

Bowen then turned his mind to education, which was a matter of special concern to him. He was mortified by census figures which showed that more than 30% of the population could neither read nor write, while a further 12% could read but not write. More than 40% of children aged between five and fourteen were not attending school. When Bowen arrived in 1859, the colony had just two ‘National’ or public schools that had been provided by the New South Wales administration, at Warwick and Drayton (a National school, soon to become the Normal School, opened in Brisbane in January 1860). There were five church schools (either Church of England or Roman Catholic) in Brisbane, two in Ipswich, one on the Darling Downs and two at Maryborough.

In the same places there was a total of 30 private schools, conducted for profit by teachers who charged a small sum per week per pupil.25 Elsewhere, there were no schools at all. A handful of children were educated privately; for the rest, a hard life was their only schoolroom.

Bowen devised a scheme where the government would provide National or state primary schools in places where the population justified it. In smaller places, there would be primary provisional schools, where, if the local community provided a school building and teacher accommodation, the government would appoint and pay a teacher. Then there would be Grammar Schools, government supported secondary schools that would equate with the English public schools. The plan was that eventually these grammar schools would be established in each of the principal towns of the new colony. Government aid to church schools would be phased out, along with all financial support for places of worship.26 Later in 1860, the parliament passed laws to implement Bowen’s scheme.

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Bowen seems to have gained particular satisfaction from opportunities to open new schools or to present prizes. There was a special moment for him when he opened the Ipswich Grammar School in 1863 because the school represented the achievement of many of his highest ambitions for the colony’s education system. Bowen said at the opening – ‘Educated myself at an English public school and university, my sympathies are naturally enlisted in the inauguration of the first public school established in this new Colony, with the object of providing for our youth some of the higher branches of a liberal education. ... I observe with great satisfaction that this institution will be carried out, so far as circumstances permit, on the well-tried plan of the old public schools of England. ... This school professes to teach grammar in its widest sense ... not a mere preparation for some specific business, trade or profession but a preparation for the whole business of life.’27

Above left: Flooding at the new goldfields town of Gympie, 1870.

Above right: Rockhampton grew from a forlorn port for the failed gold rush at Canoona.

The interval between Bowen’s arrival and the first sitting of parliament from 22 May 1860 presented an opportunity for Bowen to set an agenda for Queensland’s early years. He took steps to establish a police force and several corps of Volunteer Rifle Brigades as a first move toward the creation of the colony’s own defence forces. He planned legislation to implement his vision for education and he worked with Herbert to frame land laws that

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he hoped would reconcile the competing interests of large pastoralists and small farmers. He advocated increased immigration and used personal contacts in Britain to achieve that. He promoted the incorporation of local government bodies, arguing that local government was the only security against undue centralisation and the best means of keeping public spirit alive in remote localities.28 Bowen and his first Executive Council governed Queensland for five months.

It was a great compliment to Herbert that he, as an outsider, was able to comfortably secure election to the first parliament and then command the majority in the Legislative Assembly that enabled him to head the first ministry and become the colony’s first premier. It was an even more remarkable achievement that, in an era of loose and unstable political alliances before the mature development of political parties, Herbert was able to hold the office of premier for six unbroken years. That was a record term until William Forgan Smith held the office from 1932 to 1942.

Bowen and Herbert seemed to be able to work together very effectively, which is a tribute to Herbert’s patience and tact because dealing with Bowen was never easy. It is difficult to look back over 150 years and discern whose influence was dominant in particular situations, but the overall outcome was good government, stable and far-sighted. However, it was not all plain sailing for Herbert, nor for Bowen.

The arrangements for creating the first Queensland parliament had been placed in the hands of the Governor of New South Wales, who needed time to define electoral districts and finalise the electoral rolls. When the rolls were

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closed, they excluded about one third of Queensland’s adult males because, said the New South Wales authorities, the instructions from the Colonial Office required that the new Queensland parliament should be a mirror of the parliament of the mother colony and based on franchise entitlements that existed before 1858. These arrangements attached a property qualification to the right to vote. However, in 1858, the New South Wales franchise had been extended to all adult males. The New South Wales governor had advice that the pre-1858 model should be followed and this was the basis on which the electoral rolls were compiled for the elections held in April 1860.

It soon became clear that this advice was based on a mistaken interpretation of the Colonial Office instructions and that a serious error in law had been made. The error was pointed out to Bowen by Justice Lutwyche, as early as January 1860. However, Bowen did nothing about the matter, saying that the problem would be one for the new legislature to deal with itself.

Lutwyche was not easily put off. Lutwyche was an able and effective judge, but he and Bowen seem to have disliked each other at first sight. Bowen excluded Lutwyche from the Government House circle on the grounds that his wife, Mary Ann, was ‘unsuitable’ – she had been the judge’s housekeeper.

Lutwyche suggested that Bowen was trying to suppress the achievement of full democracy. He began to publicise the view that the Queensland legislature was invalidly constituted, particularly after the parliament sought to reduce Lutwyche’s salary to a level far below what he had been paid as a judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court. Lutwyche said publicly that as a matter of law all adult males should have been given the vote. That was a popular argument.

Left: Somerset in 1874. The settlement on the tip of Cape York was intended as a refuge for mariners and as a sign of Queensland sovereignty in the far north.

Above, top: Gladstone in about 1868. The town had several false starts before it kept its promise to become one of Australia’s most important export ports.

Centre: A paddle steamer at the main jetty at Cairns in 1877, when the new town was just a year old and developing as a port for the hinterland goldfields.

Below: Concrete pylons under construction for the first iron Victoria Bridge, 1869. Opened by Governor Normanby in 1874, the new bridge replaced an earlier timber structure and was described as ‘permanent’.

However, it was swept away by floodwaters in 1893.

Bowen was drawn into a maelstrom of controversy, during which it became apparent that Lutwyche had been right and all the proceedings of the Queensland parliament were invalid because of the defective election procedure. The matter had to be rectified by the British parliament, which enacted special legislation in October 1861 to retrospectively validate all the proceedings of the Queensland parliament since May 1860. Because of the bungle, universal manhood suffrage was not introduced to Queensland until 1 January 1873. Lutwyche and others insinuated, or said outright, that the whole debacle was a ploy by Bowen to frustrate the achievement of full democracy in Queensland. Bowen’s apparent personal identification with the large pastoralists of the Darling Downs left him vulnerable to such innuendos.

There was one enduring constitutional outcome. Lutwyche (and his wife) had created so many antagonisms it was resolved to take steps to ensure that he could never become governor, even in an acting capacity. Lutwyche was, until 1863, Queensland’s only Supreme Court judge. The normal arrangement would have been that in the absence or incapacity of the governor, the most senior Supreme Court judge would act as governor. That made it highly likely that Lutwyche would be called on to act as governor at some time. To forestall any possibility of that, the office of lieutenant-governor was created and the President of the Legislative Council was usually appointed to that position to act as governor when necessary.29 Thus, for many years, Lutwyche and later judges were excluded from the possibility of acting as governor. There has been no appointment of a lieutenant-governor since 1949.

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Despite these and many other difficulties, Queensland in Bowen’s time entered a period of sustained social and economic growth. There were many signs of progress. In Brisbane in 1864, Bowen laid the foundation stones for the Brisbane Town Hall (in Queen Street, roughly opposite the present Myer Centre) in January, then for the first cross-river bridge in August. In May 1865 he was able to declare the new bridge open.

The quality of life was getting better, even if the benefits of developments like the Cobb & Co coaches that began running from Brisbane to Ipswich in 1865, the extension of a telegraph system within Queensland and its linking with interstate systems and the introduction of gas lighting in Brisbane, did not benefit everyone in the community. For most people, life was hard and ungenerous. Many migrants had been lured to Queensland by the false promises of immigration recruiting agents who thought only of the bounties

Mary Ann Jane Lutwyche (left) was thought to be ‘unsuitable’ and was the reason for arrangements designed to prevent her husband, Supreme Court Justice Alfred Lutwyche (right), from ever acting as governor. Alfred was a stormy petrel who said that Queensland’s first parliament was not properly constituted. He was later proved right.

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for each passenger they enticed aboard a migrant ship. Aboard the ships, the assisted migrants and many others found themselves between decks in overcrowded, filthy and unhealthy circumstances. Sometimes they had to fight for food. Their anxieties about the very real risk of shipwreck were tempered by the joyful prospect of a life of plenty in Queensland – but when they arrived they usually found that the only work was menial and ill-paid, with wages less than they might have got had they stayed home. If they arrived at the wrong time in the economic cycle they might well have found there was no work to be had at all, at least not anywhere near the coast.

For everyone, migrants or not, life was often a desperate struggle against the spectres of poverty, accident and ill health. There were almost no government social welfare cushions, while private charity was very limited and capricious with its benefits. Newspapers of the day carry many references to accidents, on the roads and elsewhere, that meant death or penury for individuals and their families. The newspapers also contain frequent references to people cutting their own throats or using other tragic measures to end what they saw as an unequal struggle.

The struggle to earn a living often forced people who had never previously gone more than a few miles beyond their place of birth in Britain or Europe to travel far inland to seek work on the new pastoral stations of the interior. There was work to be had in the bush in Bowen’s time. The last of the explorers were searching for Leichhardt and Burke and Wills and were finding grasslands that were coveted as the new pastoral El Dorado. Pastoralists pushed into the new areas, sometimes even ahead of the explorers, and the pastoral frontier often expanded as much as 300 kilometres in any one year. The new stations needed an abundance of labour, especially in the initial development phase and before gangs of South Sea Islanders30 were taken inland in the 1870s to put up fences, sink dams and perform other tasks that white men would only do at much greater cost. Queensland certainly rode on the sheep’s back and the ride was getting better as wool prices rose and as new management methods on the inland plains increased the productivity of the Merino. The rush for grass was halted by the 1866 drought but, by the time Bowen left Queensland, sheep were everywhere except in the far western districts of the colony.

That far western region had been expanded in 1862 when the colony’s western border had been pushed even further out, by approximately 300 kilometres, so that it ran north from Poeppel’s Corner, rather than from Haddon’s Corner as before.

Bowen was troubled by the impact of pastoral expansion on the original occupants of the land. He had come to Queensland with Utopian ideals regarding the treatment of Aborigines, but events and his contact with pastoralists quickly made him aware how difficult it would be to reconcile ideals with the realities of inexorable pastoral expansion. Bowen was caught between, on one hand, the almost unanimous view of colonists that Aborigines would have to give way to white settlement, and, on the other hand the demand that Aborigines be treated humanely and the legitimacy of their presence in the land acknowledged.

That latter view was expressed in Bowen’s instructions from the Colonial Office, which itself was under pressure from British lobby groups, including the Aborigines Protection Society and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery

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Society. Bowen’s position was made even more difficult by the events at Cullin-la-Ringo station, near Springsure in October 1861, when 19 white people were murdered by Aborigines. It was an open secret that the vengeance was terrible and indiscriminate.

Similar episodes, on a smaller scale, were happening right across the pastoral frontier. We will never know how many people were slaughtered during the early years of white settlement in the outback. Colonists had an interest in exaggerating the ferocity of Aborigines and the numbers of killings they committed. Missionary organisations and similar bodies, for their own propaganda purposes, often greatly magnified the scale of white reprisals.

White men who were guilty of atrocities were also often guilty of adding a zero to the number of notches they had on their rifle butts or to the number of black ears they had pinned on a wall at their station.

It is certain that many dozens of white people were killed during the early years of confrontation between settlers and Aborigines on the frontier and it is also certain that many hundreds of Aborigines died. Some historians31, say that there might have been as many as 20,000 Aboriginal deaths on the Australian pastoral frontiers. However, clear evidence to support such figures

Above left: Dancing between decks on an immigrant ship. However, a voyage to Australia as a migrant was rarely very much fun.

Above right: Roll call on the quarter deck of an immigrant ship.

is elusive and estimates of total deaths are based on many assumptions and guesses. Whatever the truth, it is certain that the Queensland Aborigines survived the first phase of pastoral settlement. Their disappearance from most districts came later and was due to a much more subtle cause – the fatal attraction of the food and the goods that might be had wherever the white man settled and the alcohol and opium that might be available around new towns and stations. That attraction meant that Aborigines were exposed to diseases against which they had no natural immunity; it also meant all the dependence and degradation that were symbolised by the annual ‘blanket day.’ White people shrugged and sighed that the Aborigines were ‘dying out.’

That was certainly true. It was a process that killed many more people on the pastoral frontier than bullets ever did.

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Above: The landing of immigrants from their ship, 1870s.

Bowen’s response to these tragedies was to ask that the Native Police should be curbed. The Native Police Corps had been established by the New South Wales government in 1848 and had become active from 1849 in the McIntyre and Condamine rivers districts that were to become part of Queensland. The Corps was comprised of white officers in charge of Aboriginal men who were usually drawn from distant districts and were often enthusiastic killers of Aborigines in other places. The Corps became notorious for its callous ‘dispersals’ of Aborigines on the pastoral frontier. Bowen was keenly aware of the problem and asked the British government (which had charge of military matters) to post soldiers to troubled districts to replace the Native Police. That did not happen, but in 1864 the Native Police Corps was placed under the control

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of the Queensland Police Commissioner. In addition, Bowen pleaded with British authorities to send missionaries who could create sheltered enclaves where Aborigines could be gradually introduced into white civilisation and protected from its worst impacts in the short term.32 Missionary activity and the development of plantations where Aborigines could be put to work were the keys to the salvation of the Aborigines, Bowen argued.

Top left: Jimbour House, about 1877, soon after the Bell family built the palatial homestead on their extensive Darling Downs property.

Second from top: Drawing room at The Hollow homestead, near Mackay, about 1875.

Third from top: Shearing with blade shears. Early Queensland rode on the sheep’s back – and the shearers’ toil.

Below: The library at Westbrook homestead on the Darling Downs, about 1898.

Main image: A woodcut depicting ‘village on the Darling Downs,’ 1870.

Missions were set up and so were cotton and sugar plantations. The plantations brought a whole new set of problems for Bowen and, more acutely, his successors. Cotton was promising while the American Civil War raged and cut off supplies of cotton from the southern states to the mills in northern England. However, when the war ended the demand for Queensland cotton slumped. The outlook for sugar was better, but its proponents argued that sugar could only be grown with the aid of imported coloured labour, from China or India. When labour could not be arranged from those places, Pacific Islanders, were recruited from the New Hebrides and nearby islands and put to work on plantations and on many inland pastoral stations.

Abuses in the ‘Pacific islands labour traffic’ became a matter of notoriety. By 1867, the Queensland parliament was being told that vessels plying to the New Hebrides to recruit labour were ‘manned by rough and lawless men who behaved toward the natives with injustice.’ The Islanders were being induced to enter contracts they did not understand, transported to Queensland in unspeakable conditions on grossly overcrowded vessels and then put to work for ten shillings per month, payable at the end of a three year contract. British official and popular opinion was outraged – in Britain, the South Sea Islander trade looked very like slavery and Britain prided itself on the pioneering measures it had taken to end the slave trade. British opinion was unwilling to tolerate situations in Queensland that contradicted the British stance.

Again, the problem became even more intractable for Bowen’s successors as time went by.

Bowen was able to encourage the establishment of a mission to Aborigines at Somerset, on the tip of Cape York, from 1867. From 1862, Bowen had been instrumental in establishing what was intended to become a naval base on Albany Island. The place would demonstrate Imperial sovereignty in the region and it might even become a regional trading centre, Bowen argued; it was also intended to become a coaling station and a port of refuge and rescue for mariners. In 1864, the venture was relocated to the nearby mainland and called Somerset. The place did not thrive, but it was a spearhead for the development of Queensland interests in the Torres Strait region. The mission closed down in 1868.33 Bowen’s influence was also decisive in the establishment of seaports that he saw as places that would facilitate the carriage of goods and people over more direct routes to and from the interior. Port Denison (Bowen) was one of the places that owed its genesis to him; others were Cardwell and Burketown.

Townsville came into existence from 1864 to serve the hinterland pastoral interests of Robert Towns and John Melton Black, but the new port had to wait a few years for the discovery of gold around Ravenswood and Charters Towers before it began to achieve its destiny.

Toward the end of Bowen’s term, in 1867, gold was discovered at Gympie. Gold and copper had been mined at other places in Queensland before 1867, but

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Gympie showed signs of being a far more productive and long lasting field.

It was also a sign that in the near future the revenue from mining might eclipse the receipts from wool and thus provide welcome diversification within the colony’s economy. In 1867, there was also a sign of things to come in the north-west of the colony when Ernest Henry found copper near the place that became Cloncurry.

Queensland was burgeoning. To prove it, in 1863 the parliament resolved that it should commission a handsome and imposing new Parliament House, to replace the temporary expedient of the colony’s first parliament in the former convict barracks. On 14 July 1864, Bowen laid the foundation stone for the new building, but completion was not achieved until after Bowen’s departure from Queensland.

However, there had earlier been a significant sign of the importance the Queensland community attached to the office of governor when a purpose built Government House was commissioned and completed well ahead of

Above left: ‘The encampment of blacks at Rockingham Bay’ north Queensland.

Above right: Aborigines at Mackay, 1865.

the new Parliament House. It had been the new colony’s first major public works project.

Commissioned in 1860, the new Government House crowned the achievement of separation and symbolised the colony’s golden age. Since their arrival, the Bowens had lived in Adelaide House, the residence that had been built by Andrew Petrie and completed in 1855 for one of the Fortitude immigrants, Dr William Hobbs. Adelaide House was a substantial and imposing building that had been an appropriate choice when it was selected for rental as a temporary Government House. However, the house, in Ann Street, was remote from the main town area and what was already the government precinct in William and George Streets.

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Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin was entrusted with the design and supervision of the new Government House, while Joshua Jeays was engaged as builder.

Located on a prominent site within the Domain below the southern end of George Street, the building’s design was a triumphant accomplishment for Tiffin. Fine proportions, restrained and classical design features and the skilful use of local stone and timbers achieved a handsome and dignified, but not overstated, presence for the building.34 Bowen thought it was splendid – ‘the handsome and commodious building ... erected by the spontaneous and loyal liberality of the first Parliament of Queensland. ... good public reception rooms, private apartments for the Governor and his family ... also the Executive Council Chamber and offices for the Private Secretary etc.’ The house was furnished by the government, but there were to be annual inspections by the Colonial Architect and any item found to be broken or damaged other than by fair wear and tear was to be replaced at the governor’s own expense.35

Below: ‘The Wills Tragedy at Cullin-la-Ringo, 1861.’ The painting depicts the aftermath of events at the Wills family station, when 19 white settlers were killed by Aborigines.

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The Bowens were able to take possession in May 1862. They almost immediately took advantage of the better opportunities offered by the new house for entertaining and the general reception of visitors. What is now called Old Government House quickly became the focal point of Brisbane’s social life. The first big function in the new house was the Queen’s Birthday ball, held on 16 June 1862. Despite the sombre mood of mourning for the recent death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, the ball was a brilliant occasion, ‘such as had never before been witnessed in the colony,’ according to the Moreton Bay Courier.36 Bowen announced that he would be available to members of the public once a week at his new house, and that ‘persons having business which will not admit of delay will be admitted at any hour he may be in town and disengaged’, and he hoped to make Government House ‘a neutral ground on which men of all parties can meet in harmony’. Lady Bowen made similar arrangements to receive the women of Brisbane, of whatever rank, at receptions every Thursday from noon to two pm.

The move to the permanent Government House was welcomed by Lady Bowen in particular. She was a talented hostess and the new house gave her more scope to entertain. She was a keen gardener who particularly admired the brilliant orange flowered creeper, Bignonia venusta or orange trumpet flower, which flourished in Brisbane and soon came to be known as Lady Bowen’s Creeper. She relished the opportunity to develop the Government House garden, in collaboration with Walter Hill, Curator of the Botanic Gardens. She

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also enjoyed living closer to her particular friends, especially Eliza O’Connell (wife of Colonel Maurice O’Connell, then President of the Legislative Council).

These friends lived in the nearby terrace houses, Portland Place, Hodgson Terrace and Harris Court, at the lower end of George Street.37 From 1865, the Bowens spent some of the summer months at a rented house in Sandgate. Later governors did the same, until the Lamingtons preferred to go to Toowoomba during Brisbane’s hotter and more humid months.38 Despite her pregnancies and the demands of her small children, Lady Bowen won warm popular regard for her energetic work for local charitable institutions. These institutions were not always fashionable or successful to begin with, but her involvement changed that for the better. In 1863 she consented to act as patron of an organisation that successfully established a Servant’s Home, badly needed in Brisbane to provide shelter and training for young women, many of them newly arrived migrants, who would otherwise have had to roam the streets in search of work. Lady Bowen attended weekly committee meetings and her involvement with this charity was the catalyst for its notable success.

Left: Government House, 1867. The splendid building was the first major public work to be commissioned by the new Queensland government. The Bowens moved into the building when it was completed in 1862.

Below: At Government House – Rosina Palmer and her sister Fanny Carandini. The sisters were part of a very popular family light opera troupe.

From 1864, she wholeheartedly supported the creation of what came to be called the Lady Bowen Lying-In Hospital. During the births of her own children, Lady Bowen had the benefit of attendance by midwives, as did most women who could command the midwife’s fee. However, she was aware that many babies were born in terrible circumstances, without any skilled support for the mother. Those mothers needed a place where they could undergo their confinement in proper conditions. Lady Bowen headed a management committee which rented a house in Leichhardt Street to get the institution started; in 1866 she opened purpose built premises in Ann Street. The hospital moved to larger premises on Wickham Terrace in 1887 and finally, in 1938, it was absorbed within the Brisbane Women’s Hospital.

Lady Bowen similarly supported the development of what became known as the Lady Diamantina Orphanage. The institution began in Countess Street in Brisbane in 1864 and moved to a new site in what became Greenslopes in 1883.

In 1901 the buildings became the Diamantina hospital, for the treatment of chronic diseases. The Princess Alexandra Hospital now occupies the site.39 These charities were among Lady Bowen’s special interests, but it seems that during her time in Queensland she took every opportunity to encourage and support any movement that would advance the welfare of Queensland people. She had a particular interest in music, which she encouraged and patronised whenever possible. All Hallows convent school, established from 1861, was one of the few places in the colony where music was appreciated and taught. She encouraged that and presented the school with a portrait of herself.40 She also supported her husband in his official duties, even if in an advanced stage of pregnancy as on 25 February 1864, when she turned the first sod to commence the construction of Queensland’s first railway, from Ipswich to Grandchester. It was the first stage of a proposed line from Ipswich to Toowoomba.

Railway development was a major pre-occupation in Queensland during the Bowens’ time in the colony. Parliament committed to a railway building programme in 1863, the strategy being to construct light narrow gauge lines

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westwards from the main coastal ports as quickly as possible. In 1865 at Rockhampton, Bowen turned the first sod for the line that was intended to cross the Great Dividing Range and terminate in the central interior. Twenty seven years later, Bowen’s successor, Governor Norman, was able to travel by train to the new town of Longreach, just a few months after the line opened there. By then, a start had also been made on a line west from Townsville, first to Charters Towers but eventually to Winton and Mt Isa. The railways were to transform Queensland, but the heavy borrowings that their construction required meant that the colony teetered on the edge of bankruptcy on many occasions through the colonial period. The most serious crisis erupted in 1866. It almost cost Bowen his vice-regal career.

In January 1866, it was thought that the colony’s affairs were in a stable and prosperous condition when Robert Herbert resigned as Premier and announced

Left: Lady Bowen with her children Adelaide Diamantina, top left, Agnes Herbert, lower left, George William Howard, in front centre, Zoe Caroline, at right. A son, Edward George di Roma was born in 1857 but did not survive; a daughter Alfreda Ernestine Albertha was born in New Zealand in 1868.

Right: Panorama of Brisbane, 1862. Twenty years after the area was opened to free settlement, a city was emerging.

Far right: Geraldton (later Innisfail), 1885.

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his intention to return to England. Arthur Macalister was pleased to take over as Queensland’s second Premier, but a time bomb was ticking away in the form of the colony’s huge public debt. The debt was manageable as long as the general economy remained buoyant and as long as the government could keep borrowing to meet operating expenses. However, a sharp drought, a slump in wool prices and events in the financial world suddenly caused severe problems.

In 1865, the government offered debentures on the London financial markets, hoping to raise necessary funds. The attempted fund raising failed. The government then turned to the Agra and Masterman bank, which agreed to arrange a loan of one million pounds. Then, on 11 July 1866, news came that the bank had collapsed and the loan proceeds would not be forthcoming.

The government suddenly found itself without any money, unable to pay public servants, let alone meet its obligations to railway builders and other contractors. The crisis was compounded by the continuing arrival of assisted migrants who swelled the pool of local unemployed people.

The Treasurer, Joshua Peter Bell, proposed that the government introduce a Bill for a law to permit the government to issue its own paper money to the value of 200,000 pounds. The notes would not be backed by the gold standard and they would have value only within Queensland. Bowen told Bell and the Premier that he did not approve the measure and would be obliged to reserve the Bill for assent by the Queen, pointing out that his instructions required him to do this in cases where there might be an impact on the currency of the realm. Bowen counselled an increase in taxation and the raising of money by an issue of Treasury bills.

Bowen was at loggerheads with his government. Macalister said that because Bowen was frustrating the intentions of his government regarding the financial

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crisis, he and his ministers had no option but to resign. At first, Bowen refused to accept the resignations but when they were presented a second time he accepted them, on 20 July. That night, a crowd of over 3,000 people assembled in the Brisbane Town Hall. Bowen was vilified for his apparent lack of sympathy for working class people who were suffering extreme distress because of the crisis. Bowen was seen as the person responsible for prolonging the crisis and blocking government proposals to resolve it. Passions ran high; reminiscent of the 1808 Rum Rebellion, there were calls for Bowen’s arrest and for Government House to be burned down. On 9 August, an ‘indignation’ meeting initiated a petition calling for Bowen’s recall and this was later sent to London.

Left: Stanthorpe’s first school, about 1872, when tin mining was bringing life to the town.

Centre: Logan district school, built by the local community in 1870.

Right: A slab and bark dwelling in Gympie, about 1871. Like so many early dwellings in the bush and on the goldfields, it was built entirely of local materials, with the help of some wire and a few nails made by a blacksmith.

In the meantime, Bowen turned to Herbert, who was still in Brisbane and was still a back bench member of the Legislative Assembly. Herbert and four others were appointed members of the Executive Council. Herbert was able to gather enough support in parliament for the passage of a Bill which provided for increased taxation and the issue of Treasury Bills, as Bowen had earlier advised. Bowen assented to the Bill and the crisis passed. Herbert resigned as premier on 7 August and Macalister resumed office.

All ended well, but Sir Walter Campbell and several other scholars have made it clear that Bowen acted irregularly in several respects. He was wrong to foreshadow that he would not assent to Bell’s Bill and he should have waited for that Bill to be tested in the parliament; he was wrong in arguing that his prior sanction as Governor to the course proposed by Bell and Macalister was required; he was wrong to turn to Herbert before Herbert had obtained a majority in the parliament; and in general he acted precipitately. Above all, he

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appears to have imposed his will on the parliament. He had certainly violated a number of the fundamental principles of constitutional government.41 Nevertheless, the crisis was resolved quickly and it is fair to say that it might have dragged on and become even more serious but for Bowen’s decisive, if overbearing, intervention. The Colonial Office seems to have taken that view because it supported and even praised Bowen’s actions.

Nothing more was heard of the petition for Bowen’s recall, but the episode appears to have soured Bowen’s enthusiasm for Queensland. When the crisis had settled down, Herbert wrote to his cousin, Lord Carnarvon, who had just become Colonial Secretary within the British government. ‘I quite concur in the action taken by him [Bowen], as indeed do all the more respectable and educated colonists. ... it may be as well that I should mention that Sir George would be glad to be transferred from Queensland, either to Sydney or to some other suitable government.’42 At the end of 1865, Bowen’s term in Queensland was extended, dashing his hopes that he would soon be appointed to a superior governorship in a more congenial place. He had been passed over because the Colonial Office was tired of the way that Bowen constantly pushed himself forward in despatches. Minutes made by officials included ‘It is a great pity Sir George Bowen will not leave himself alone ...’ and ‘it is very difficult to retain a just state of mind towards an officer who is always obtruding and exaggerating his own merits and claims.’43 Herbert, who was probably Bowen’s only close male confidante, and Lady Bowen had to bear the brunt of the irritability that resulted from Bowen’s disappointment. On 16 June 1866, Herbert wrote to his mother ‘Sir George Bowen’s lucid intervals are rarer than they used to be. He is very anxious to get to some other place, and astonished that he has not been promoted to one of the most valuable Governments. Lady B. still looks young and pretty but is not very strong. The summer heat and her husband’s eccentricities are trying to her health.’44 Eventually, Bowen accepted an offer to become governor of New Zealand.

Bowen was delighted, but for Lady Bowen the parting from Brisbane was sweet sorrow. She had been taken into the hearts of local people in a way that her husband never was. It was as though the community wanted to love Sir George, their governor, but when they found that impossible they lavished their patriotic emotion on the Contessa Diamantina Roma. There was also sympathy for her having to endure such a difficult husband. For her part, Brisbane was a place of special attachment. Lady Bowen could be satisfied as she departed Queensland that because of her efforts the colony was a better place when she left than when she had arrived, particularly for less fortunate people. Three of her children had been born in Brisbane and had been baptised at St John’s Pro-Cathedral; she had nurtured the garden around Government House and she had formed many close friendships in the town.

Queensland began saying goodbye to her more than a month before the departure on 4 January 1868. There were receptions and presentations, including a brooch in the shape of an Irish harp, given by the pupils of All Hallows convent school. The brooch was made from Queensland gold, pearls and emeralds.45 On the day of departure there was a levee at Government

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House. At three pm, the Bowens walked through arches and flags, down to the landing stage where they had first set foot in Queensland eight years before.

Lady Bowen was sobbing and scarcely able to walk until she was finally carried aboard the Platypus that was to take her out to Moreton Bay, there to board a larger vessel bound for New Zealand.46 As the Platypus steamed down the river toward the present site of the Story Bridge, Lady Bowen was able to wave to the girls of All Hallows who had assembled in their school grounds to farewell her.

Bowen governed New Zealand from 1868 to 1873 and then was Governor of Victoria between 1873 and 1879. In Victoria, his career suffered another setback when he mishandled a crisis that was reminiscent of Queensland in 1866. This time, Bowen was not so lucky. He was recalled and then given the inferior posting of Governor of Mauritius. There, he seems to have regained Colonial Office favour and in 1882 he was appointed to the more coveted position of Governor of Hong Kong. He retired from that position in 1886 and returned to Britain. Lady Bowen died in 1893. In 1896 Sir George was married again, to the widow Florence White, but he died in 1899. Sir George and Countess Diamantina Roma were survived by their son and four daughters.

Robert Herbert did rather better than Bowen in the years after Queensland.

Back in Britain from 1867, he joined the Colonial Office and was its Permanent Under-Secretary from 1871 to 1892. Thus, Bowen became subordinate to his former private secretary. Herbert died in 1905. The only serious setback in his life had been a series of unfortunate investments in Queensland pastoral ventures.

Abram Moriarty, the other central figure in the ‘erection’ of Queensland, returned to Sydney in September 1860 and was immediately appointed Chief Commissioner of Crown Lands. He enjoyed a successful public service career before he retired to Goulburn in 1896. There he lived in the home he called Brisbane Grove until his death in 1918, aged 89 years.

Queensland’s first governor, its first premier and its first public servant had thus all prospered since they had combined to create Queensland as a self-governing community. They had each played a very important part in Queensland’s success, but there can be no doubt that, 150 years later, particular homage should be paid to Bowen.

Charles Bernays did that in 1922. Bernays, Clerk to the Queensland Parliament and the son of the first man to hold that office in 1860, was a keen student of Queensland’s governors through the colonial period. He fairly summarised Bowen’s contribution to Queensland when he wrote ‘His career in this State marked him out as a man of exceptional talent and well fitted as the Sovereign’s representative in a dominion then only in its swaddling clothes. Our first governor was not only a student of books but also of men, in those early days a strong man was needed to guide the destinies of the young colony and to exercise a restraining influence on the impulsive and somewhat headstrong leading politicians of the period.

‘Some people have expressed doubt whether our first Governor had quite the right conception of constitutional government and whether he did not apply the curb more as the head of a Crown Colony than as Governor of a Sovereign

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Above: Queensland’s first train crosses Pot Gully, west of Ipswich, following the opening of the Ipswich to Grandchester line in July 1865. The colony’s railway system expanded very quickly, at the cost of huge public debt that kept Queensland on the brink of insolvency.

State. This is an entirely wrong conception of Sir George Bowen. Constitutionally, he was sound beyond all doubt, but those were the days when a governor’s responsibilities were greater than they are today – a period when foundations were being laid and precedents created and when leading public men were new to the arts of self-government and showed impatience upon being met with the most justifiable restraint. Today, these same difficulties do not arise because we have a generation born and brought up to the requirements of constitutionalism.

‘Our first Governor ... may be considered one of the great Empire builders of a great nation. He brought to our baby colony in 1859 a keen intellect and mature experience and he set a high standard in the conduct of our public affairs.’47 Bowen had been the man for Queensland’s hour.

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

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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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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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A piece of cake ‘Queenslanders thought of themselves as Britons, citizens of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, the Empire on which the sun never set. They were supremely confident that, for them, no challenge was too great, no test too stern.

There was a profound sense that Britain was home and that the British Empire had created an extended family of people who shared a very special heritage, especially the heritage of the Westminster system and the rule of law that set people of the British Empire apart from Kipling’s ‘lesser breeds without the law.’

In Queensland, the Lamingtons personified the Empire and everything it had achieved, everything it stood for.’ 1 It is always difficult, even in retrospect, to confidently argue that a precise period of time was one of history’s turning points, a time after which things were never the same again. That claim can be made for the Lamington years, between 1896 and 1901. They were years when all the changes set in motion by the disturbances of the early 1890s became final. They were years when the course of Queensland’s history changed profoundly. Afterwards, things were certainly never the same again.

The late 1890s were the crucible years2 when colonial Queensland was smelted into a state of the Commonwealth of Australia; years when the new twentieth century dawned to reveal a future that was going to be very different from the old century that was closing. As the colony prepared to become a state in the Australian Commonwealth, Queenslanders took stock and asked themselves ‘Who are we, where have we come from, what have we achieved?’

Their colony had been born at the height of the Victorian era; its childhood was spent wrapped in the secure blanket of the comfortable and certain progress of the British Empire as that mighty empire rose to its zenith. The Victorian period climaxed and then closed while the Lamingtons were in Queensland. In September 1896, five months after the Lamingtons arrived in the colony, Queen Victoria’s reign became the longest in British history.

In the following year she celebrated her Diamond Jubilee; then she died in 1901 just three weeks after Queensland became a state within the new Australian federation. Throughout Queensland, those two events gave rise to extraordinary demonstrations of popular enthusiasm for the Queen and Empire, demonstrations that were at odds with the ‘temper democratic, bias offensively Australian’ that is often said to have been the mood of those times.

In Queensland, the spirit of the era was perfectly suited to the couple who came to Government House in 1896. Although not as nobly born as the Marquis of Normanby or as illustrious as Sir Henry Norman, Lord and Lady Lamington had close links to Queen Victoria. They were young, stylish, wealthy and well-connected. They seemed to symbolise the promise of the glamour and sophisticated modernity of the coming Edwardian era.

Left: Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, Lord Lamington, Governor of Queensland from 1895 to 1901.

When the Lamingtons arrived in 1896, Queensland had 450,000 people. It was the most decentralised of all the Australian colonies – only a quarter of its population lived in Brisbane. The majority lived in places scattered between Thursday Island and Birdsville, between Burleigh Heads and Burketown.

Queensland’s community (especially in the north) was far more ethnically

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diverse than the population of any other colony; fewer of its people worked in factories and more of them worked in the primary industries than did the people of other Australian colonies. Immigration had been strong until the late 1880s and this had meant that more Queenslanders had been born overseas than was the case in any other part of Australia. Despite Queensland’s comparative ethnic diversity, the overwhelming majority of its people or their immediate forebears had been born in Britain (then including Ireland).

Since 1859, Queenslanders had lived through times when the pace of change must have seemed tumultuous but, with hindsight we can see that through Queensland’s short history there had been steady progress and the consolidation of human achievement. People marvelled and wondered at the changes that had been wrought, but there was rarely any shock of the new. For Queenslanders, their world at the end of the nineteenth century remained a comfortable place where some things might change but old certainties did not.

Then, as the new century loomed, the colony stood on the threshold of a very different future as a state in the Commonwealth of Australia. In 1901, there were 503,266 Queenslanders and Brisbane’s population was 119,428.

Queensland soldiers had been the first Australians to be sent to war in South Africa, where they fought for the last time as Queenslanders; they came home as members of the Australian Army that was created on 1 March 1901.

Electricity, telecommunications, internal combustion engines, motor cars and motion pictures were about to transform everyone’s material and social lives.

In 1897, thousands flocked to see the first moving picture ever exhibited in Brisbane, a film that showed the celebrations in London for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. A year later, Thargomindah was lit by hydro-electricity generated by the town bore. Change was happening everywhere. The foundations of new institutions were being laid, institutions like hospitals, libraries, art galleries and tertiary educational facilities that would profoundly influence Queensland in the coming century.

Eventually most of the change was socially beneficial, but it took time for changes to be absorbed into a new order of things. In the 1890s, employers and employees had been at loggerheads. Lord Lamington had only been in Queensland for six months when he observed ‘The division existing between the two classes [i.e. wage earners and capitalists] appears to me far more accentuated than what I have known at home … the better off class have a positive dread of the possible supremacy of the working class. Whilst from the speeches of the latter … I would conclude that they have an excessive hatred of the better off class … an old colonist declared to me that the tension will one day became unbearable and a severe struggle will ensue.’3 Happily, the old colonist’s forecast was wide of the mark. The tensions were resolved or submerged when a new political and industrial landscape emerged from the 1890s conflict. That took time; time through which the tensions often bubbled dangerously close to the surface. It was part of the governor’s role to help resolve the tensions, to remind people that although they might be at odds with each other about some things, they were all Queenslanders, all members of one great family, there was more that united them than divided them.

Despite the many reasons for anxiety, the strongly prevailing mood of Queenslanders at the end of the nineteenth century was one of proud

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celebration of great achievement, of confident welcome to a new century wherein the rewards of past achievement would be enjoyed.

It was a mood that inspired a tremendous welcome to the Lamingtons when they arrived in Brisbane on 9 April 1896. More than 50,000 people turned out to greet the new governor and his wife, proof that Sir Henry Norman had rebuilt the loyalty of Queenslanders.

Happily for posterity, Lady Lamington recorded her recollections of her time in Queensland. Although it was later called a diary, it is more than that.

It is a fascinating description of the colony as she saw it. It confirms that Lady Lamington was the most active and involved of all the governors’ wives since Lady Bowen.

The Lamingtons came out to Queensland aboard the ship India. For Lady Lamington who suffered badly from sea sickness compounded by morning sickness during her first pregnancy, the voyage was a series of agonising intervals at sea, relieved by interesting, often fascinating and delightful, but all too brief times ashore at ports of call. Finally, the India reached Queensland waters. ‘I used to lie there [in the ladies’ deck cabin] and watch the shores of Queensland and Islands – such beautiful green right down to the water’s edge Below: Mary (May) Houghton Lamington, neé Hozier. Lady Lamington left an invaluable written record of her time in Queensland.

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(which I afterwards knew as mangroves) and the sea such a wonderful blue – it was very lovely.’4 At Thursday Island the Lamingtons began their five years of vice-regal service in Queensland. ‘My husband was met on the landing stage by many deputations and addresses from every kind of sect and nationality. The Chinese address was especially interesting, using much flowery language about the supposed charms of my husband and myself’ Lady Lamington wrote.5 The Lamingtons were fascinated by what they saw of the pearling industry and its polyglot people; they were learning that there was more to Queensland than wool and gold, bushmen and miners.

From Thursday Island, the India proceeded down the Queensland coast toward Brisbane, with intermediate stops at Cooktown, Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton and Maryborough. The India did not put in to Bundaberg, but a basket of fruit was sent out to the ship on behalf of the people of that town. In the basket were mangoes ‘which we ate in my cabin and thoroughly enjoyed – this was my first sight of a mango.’ 6 Already Lady Lamington was a Queenslander!

At last, at 4.30 pm on 8 April, the ship anchored off the Pile Light, in Moreton Bay. The next day, there was the usual transfer to the Lucinda for the last stage of the journey to Brisbane. At the Petrie Bight wharf, there was an address of welcome and then the party got into carriages ‘and drove slowly in a long procession through the whole town under arches and mottoes of welcome – every roof and balcony as well as the street being crammed with cheering people, and one got quite tired of bowing.’ 7 The procession took the Lamingtons via Queen and George Streets to Government House. Along the way ‘we saw one arch entirely covered with Aboriginals, splendid looking men, a most wonderful sight … At last we arrived at Government House …’8 where Lord Lamington was sworn in by Sir Samuel Griffith, Chief Justice of Queensland.

From the time of his birth in London on 29 July 1860, Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, the second Baron Lamington, was destined for just such a job as this. He was descended from the great Scottish hero, Sir William Wallace, whose daughter married a Sir William Baillie. By the fifteenth century and perhaps even earlier, the Baillie family ‘of Lamington’ were substantial landholders in the highly productive farming country around Lanark, to the south-east of Glasgow. Governor Lamington’s grandfather, Sir Thomas John Cochrane, had been an Admiral; his father Alexander Dundas Ross CochraneWishart-Baillie, had been a member of the House of Commons for most of the years between 1841 and 1880. He had built the family seat, Lamington House, near the village of Lamington, in Lanark. He was ennobled in 1880 as the first Baron Lamington of Lamington. He married Annabella Drummond, the grand-daughter of the Duke of Rutland.

The second Lord Lamington (as he was to become) was educated at Eton and Oxford (Bachelor of Arts 1883) and was said to have been brought up under the tutelage of his father’s close friend, Lord Beaconsfield (Benjamin Disraeli), creator of the Conservative Party and twice Prime Minister. Lamington then became assistant private secretary to Lord Salisbury, thrice Prime Minister for terms totalling 13 years between 1885 and 1902. In 1886, Lamington was himself elected to the House of Commons for the Conservative Party, then became the second Baron Lamington and was translated to the House of Lords

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when his father died in 1890. Politically, he was a ‘staunch Conservative and loyal Imperialist.’ His interest in Imperial matters had a practical outlet in 1891 when he was selected to travel to the Indo-China region as a member of an official party that was to suggest British territorial annexations to forestall French expansion in the region. After the party broke up, Lamington stayed in the region to travel across what is now Vietnam and Thailand and possibly into southern China, through areas said to have not been previously visited by Europeans.9 On 13 June 1895, Lord Lamington married Mary (called May by her family, friends and new husband) Houghton Hozier, daughter of Sir William Hozier, later Baron Newlands and his wife Frances Anne, neé O’Hara. The O’Haras had extensive land holdings at Raheen, in County Galway in Ireland.10 May was 26 years old at the time of her marriage. The Hozier family was also based around Lanark and had extensive rural holdings as well as lands within the city of Glasgow.

For Lamington, a suitable marriage had perhaps been a pre-condition for the kind of appointment that came his way in October 1895 when he was chosen to succeed General Sir Henry Norman as Governor of Queensland.

So far, Lord Lamington had trodden the career path typically followed by well-to-do members of the lesser nobility. Lamington did not need the five thousand pounds a year salary attached to the job in Queensland, but he did accept the personal obligation of public service that then came with birth into wealth and privilege. It is likely that the position of Queensland governor was designed to be a test for him, a test of his suitability for even higher office.

He passed the test and after his time in Queensland he became Governor of Bombay, a considerably more prestigious appointment.

Above: Lord Lamington arriving at Cooktown’s wharf; at right: Lord Lamington (in centre) standing on a buggy to address the welcoming crowd at Cooktown.

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In several respects, the personal styles of both the Lamingtons and the ways in which they carried out their work represented a subtle shift in the emphasis given to some aspects of the roles of the governor and his consort.

Queensland’s first seven governors, from Bowen to Norman, had been career colonial administrators, drawn from the British colonial service meritocracy.

Lamington, the eighth and last colonial governor, was a wealthy patrician.

So was his wife – if anything, she was even wealthier and better connected.

If there was ever any doubt about their standing in British society, it was dispelled when it became known in Queensland that Queen Victoria had consented to be a god-parent of the Lamington’s first child, Victor.

It is therefore unsurprising that during the Lamington years there was a shift away from the involvement of the governor and his wife in the mundane and practical day to day affairs of the colony, toward the more social and ceremonial roles. The earlier governors had to nurture the evolution of Queensland’s institutions of government; ministers and other political leaders were inexperienced and inevitably came under the tutelage of the early governors. However, by 1896, Queensland’s institutions and its politicians and public servants had matured. In the absence of crises, and there were none during the Lamington years, they did not need the guidance or day to day attention of the governor.

On the other hand, the Lamingtons were in Queensland during the high point of adulation of the Queen and a crescendo of fervent expressions of loyalty to the Empire. Given the Lamingtons’ personal qualities and their apparent connections to the Queen, it was natural that the new vice-regal couple should be seen and treated as the local personification of the Empire and all it stood for. Lord Lamington was more than the head of government in the colony; he was the embodiment of the Queen in Queensland, his appointment was truly vice-regal. A special dignity and status attached to him and to his consort.

It was perhaps ironic that the Lamingtons were the first and the last vice-regal couple in Queensland to bask in the full glow of the Empire. After Federation and the death of Queen Victoria, there was to be another shift in the role of the state governors. The Governor-General, as the Australian head of state, was perceived to be closer to the Crown and the state governors never again stood in the royal sun in quite the way that Lord Lamington had done.

There was one dimension of the Queensland governors’ work that had not significantly changed since 1859. Governor Bowen was instructed that he was to tour frequently, to build loyalty to the Queen by creating a sense of continuing contact between the governor, as the Queen’s representative, and the people.11 Bowen and his colonial successors, except Cairns, had taken that instruction very seriously.

Lamington was a traveller by inclination and he relished touring Queensland.

Quite often, Lady Lamington travelled with him. That had important consequences. Earlier governors had usually travelled without their wives, especially into more remote places. Inevitably, in these circumstances, functions for the governor tended to become all male or male dominated affairs. Lady Lamington made it clear she wanted to meet Queensland women.

Balls and other social functions suited to the attendance of women became more common during vice-regal tours, even in remote and new places.

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Above: Sketches of Aboriginal men who were members of the guard of honour to welcome the Lamingtons to Queensland in 1895.

Right: Crowds lining Queen Street to welcome the Lamingtons and watch the vice regal procession through the city. Some people who had vantage points on top of a shop awning were injured when the awning collapsed and they fell to the ground.

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In April 1899, the Lamingtons toured central-western Queensland, where Lady Lamington saw things and met people that sometimes surprised her. The party went by special train to Barcaldine and then they stayed at the nearby Dunraven homestead of the Coldham family. ‘It was such a nice station house, not very big, but most comfortable, the chief sitting room being the big verandah nearly level with the ground, with squatters’ chairs and pretty plants and bits of harness and whips hanging on the big wooden pillars. … I believe now owing to drought the Coldhams have given up their station … the whole country was a mass of big deep cracks from the dryness.

‘We drove one day to see the shearers at work … not long before there had been serious strikes and fighting and they were supposed to be a rough lot. … We also went round the shearers’ quarters, great rough bunks of deal boards like the steerage in a ship and, outside, a table with legs stuck in the ground. After we had seen all round we went outside and all were photographed together – all the men were most civil and kind; I wish I could tell them now what a pleasant remembrance it is to me.

‘Next day we went to Longreach where there was an Agricultural Show. We went to the hotel13 and dressed there for a Ball which they gave to welcome us. Next day we attended the Show … that night we were told the hotel had been burned down two years running. Mrs. Stuart and I looked into some of the rooms before going to bed and our confidence was not restored by what we saw. In the middle of the night (my room was on one side of the passage and my husband’s on the other) I was woken up by a man stumbling in my window from the verandah, so drunk he could only sit on the floor propped up by the window frame … eventually the man staggered away. The bath in the morning was covered with a sort of slime which I took at first to be dirt – as everything was very dirty – but it turned out that all the water was Artesian water from the Artesian bore and that our baths were not artificially heated but were the natural heat of the water, the water leaving this slimy deposit and smelling strongly of sulphur. We later went on to see the bore, which is such a godsend to this country … we then went to see the school … We also looked in at the little house of the St. Andrew’s Bush Brotherhood.’14 It seemed that every community believed it had a right to at least one viceregal tour during the term of each governor. Every community was keen to

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Left: Longreach railway station 1899, Lady Lamington standing at centre right, holding a dark parasol and wearing a fly veil.

Centre: Lady Lamington in a Cobb & Co coach at Longreach, going to the show.

Right: Elderslie Street, Winton, in 1896. Three years later, Lord Lamington heard the first vice-regal performance of Waltzing Matilda in the town.

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demonstrate its progress and its industries, every community was anxious to demonstrate that it was second to none in the strength of its loyalty to the Crown. As a result, the Lamingtons saw shearing, they saw cane crushing, they went down gold and coal mines, they toured factories and they opened enterprises or laid foundation stones for things that showed progress, things like schools and hospitals and railway extensions and roads and bridges.

Some of these developments were very important because they changed Queensland. The Queensland Agricultural College, opened on 9 July 1897, was Queensland’s first tertiary level educational institution; Lord Lamington also opened or identified with the beginnings of institutions that became the State Library, the Queensland Art Gallery and the Brisbane Central Technical College.

In September 1896, he chaired a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (Queensland), when pastoralist and nature conservation advocate Robert Collins read a paper about the beauties of the southern highlands of Queensland. Lord Lamington showed keen interest in the area and soon afterwards he visited it, under Collins’ guidance. In 1899 the name Lamington Plateau was formally applied to the region, to commemorate the governor’s visit and to recognise his support for Collins’ conservation proposals. In 1915, an area of 47,000 acres was set aside as the Lamington National Park.15 On 29 September 1900, Lord Lamington visited the western Queensland town of Winton. The visit might have been unremarkable, except for proceedings at a dinner held at the town’s Post Office Hotel. There were many speeches during the dinner and many songs were presented, ‘capped by Mr. Ramsay with Waltzing Matilda, one of Banjo Paterson’s ditties composed in the Winton district’, reported the Western Champion.16 The local Gregory News reported that ‘toward the end, by special request of His Excellency, Mr. H. Ramsay rendered a western song, Waltzing Matilda, composed by Mr. A.B. Paterson, the well known war correspondent,17 during a stay in Winton some years ago, the company joining in the chorus.’18 It was the first performance of the song ‘under viceregal patronage.’ Perhaps Lamington knew of the Scottish connection between Paterson and himself – Paterson’s family had come from the land around the small village of Carmichael, located about eight kilometres from the village of Lamington and the Lamington family seat.

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In April 1898, Lamington began travels that were to him perhaps the most interesting he undertook during his Queensland years – he joined a party for a six week expedition through New Guinea. Sir Hugh Nelson, former Premier of Queensland, and several scientists were included in the party, which was joined in Port Moresby by Sir William MacGregor, Administrator of British New Guinea and future Governor of Queensland. The tour was by no means a jaunt, it extended to some of the most remote and difficult parts of New Guinea. One result of the expedition was the identification and collection of many new botanical species; another was that Lamington contracted what may have been malarial fever. For some years to come, he suffered recurrent attacks of the fever.

Lord Lamington was a ‘man’s man,’ more interested in sports like shooting, polo, golf and cycling than in intellectual pursuits. According to Charles Bernays, he was sometimes gruff and unapproachable. According to his wife, he sometimes left her to deal with visitors who did not interest him – he simply disappeared on these occasions. He did win the respect and admiration of the people of Queensland, but he did not win their love.

Lady Lamington, on the other hand, genuinely endeared herself to the Queensland community. Her full participation in her vice-regal role had to be deferred for a time after her arrival in Brisbane because she was by then approaching the latter stages of her first pregnancy. A son was born on 23 July 1896. At the request of Queen Victoria, he was to be named Victor Alexander, after the Queen’s eldest grandson and the heir to the throne who had died in 1891. The Lamingtons added the additional Christian name Brisbane to acknowledge the child’s birthplace. Victor’s christening, at St John’s pro-cathedral, gave rise to scenes reminiscent of the Lamingtons’ arrival. The streets near the cathedral were packed ‘and there was such a crowd at the cathedral gates that she [Lady Lamington] took the baby out of the arms of his nurse and held him up for the people to see and they cheered him to the echo.’19 On 14 February 1898, daughter Grisell Annabella Gem was born in Brisbane.

Lady Lamington employed nurses to relieve her of the day to day burden of caring for the children and thus the interruptions to her vice-regal role were comparatively brief. One of her first tasks was to supervise the redecoration of Government House. She thought that the sombre brown tones in which the house was painted and furnished were oppressive and she ‘soon replaced the furnishings with fresh, cool chintzes and cretonnes which she had some difficulty in obtaining, together with varnished floors and basket tables and chairs in the hall and Aboriginal weapons around the walls she made it into a delightful home.’20 Lady Lamington was to supervise two other major projects at the House – extensions including a billiard room in 1899 that later served as the first meeting room for the University of Queensland Senate, then major redecorations and renovations in anticipation of the 1901 royal tour by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York.

It was shortly before this tour that the lamington cake was probably devised

by Armand Galland, chef at Government House from 1899 to 1901. There are many accounts of the origin of the lamington, but the most likely explanation was given in 1999 by Robert Galland, great-grandson of Armand. Robert believed that his great-grandfather ‘was asked to make some cakes for an afternoon tea and found he had not made enough so he whipped up some

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Above right: Victor and Gem Lamington, in the grounds of Government House.

Centre: Lady Lamington with baby Gem, 1898.

Below: Victor Lamington sitting on the leaf of a Victoria regia waterlily in Brisbane Botanic Gardens, 1897.

Right: The Lamingtons in front of Government House, with baby Victor.

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French butter cake, added French-style chocolate and dipped it in coconut.

Everyone loved the cakes, particularly Lord and Lady Lamington so I believe my great-grandfather named the cake in their honour.’21 Since its creation, the defiantly popular cake has been eagerly eaten at smoke-ohs and at morning and afternoon teas everywhere from shearing sheds to Government Houses.

Lamington drives have probably raised millions of dollars for good causes; the lamington has featured in many recipe books; and has even been the subject of Dame Edna Everage’s satirical soliloquys.

Whatever contribution she may or may not have made to the creation of the cake, Lady Lamington quickly showed in Queensland that she was a woman of practical compassion – a warm and sympathetic person who felt keenly about the plight of less fortunate people. She thought carefully about how she might best use her position to make a positive difference to the community.

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She knew that as the governor’s wife she had one powerful tool at her disposal – patronage, in the best sense of leading, encouraging and supporting. She took the lead in establishing institutions that were badly needed to provide services and facilities that otherwise would not have been provided. She lived in Queensland through a time when governments took a very narrow view of their obligations to help people who needed help, in particular the sick and the poverty stricken. Governments excused themselves by arguing that citizens should provide for their own health and welfare and if they could not, or would not, make that provision then they must rely on charity.

It was a time when there was a sense of obligation on the part of people who were wealthy and influential to act charitably and support the provision of things that governments did not provide. However, that sense of obligation led to effective outcomes only when there was leadership and example set by people who were respected. Lady Lamington used her position to provide powerful leadership and to set a compelling example which resulted in the Queensland community gaining several institutions it would not have otherwise have had at that time. Her patronage gave impetus, status and direction to those institutions. In the beginning, it was not something that came easily to her. ‘At first, presiding over meetings was a misery of shyness to me and later on became such a pleasure’ she wrote.22 Before long, she was confidently making speeches to farewell soldiers bound for the Boer War and she was officially opening new organisations, such as the Cookery School at the Brisbane Technical College.23 She actually undertook classes at the Technical College, completing and passing courses in wood-carving, first aid and home nursing. She was especially proud of her nursing qualification and was later to use it to practical effect in France during the Great War.24 Her keenest personal interests were in the area of health care. In that, she was following a family tradition – her family had endowed hospitals and other health care facilities in Scotland. In Queensland, her proudest achievement was the establishment of a hospital for women. She recorded in her diary ‘I had my first meeting about my little hospital as I still heard many women bemoaning not having a place to be treated for their special diseases, so I determined to continue my efforts. The meeting was attended by many doctors and the general public and various Government ministers. … We held meetings at Government House and the doctors were elected by vote … it ended in four of the best doctors in Brisbane being on the staff, including Dr. Lillian Cooper, the only lady doctor then in Brisbane. The next business was to get a small suitable bungalow within our means and I found two little ones close together; one served as nurse’s quarters, kitchen and out-patients department, the other as wards for the in-patients. Nine or ten patients was our limit. After getting all the necessary instruments and building, a quite plain wooden operating room was joined on to the main building by a covered way, doing all as neatly and cleanly and cheaply as possible. We had our little ‘Opening’ … that afternoon, alas, we could have filled the hospital twice over, a state of things that never altered while I knew the Hospital.’25 As the Lamingtons prepared to leave Queensland in 1901, they were showered with gifts and souvenirs. ‘Best of all, the Government Ministers asked me to sign the lease of a large piece of land that they gave me, on which to build the

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Photographs taken in 1899 by H.W. Mobsby during an official tour through the Torres Strait Islands by the Home Secretary J.F.G. Foxton, Dr Roth and W.E. Parry-Okeden, Commissioner of Police.

Above: Yarrabah mission superintendent’s residence.

Centre right: Murray Island courthouse, Torres Strait, showing the Hon. J.F.G. Foxton presenting portraits of Lord and Lady Lamington to the island’s people.

Below: The mission station at Weipa.

Left, centre: The last of the native huts on Murray Island.

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Above: The proclamation of Federation at Brisbane’s Treasury building, 1 January 1901.

permanent Women’s Hospital – a gift I greatly appreciated – they had already arranged to subsidise the hospital as a State Institution.’26 Lady Lamington’s other ‘good works’, often conducted in a personal and private way, included support for a Brisbane Rescue Home for ‘fallen women’; visits to lepers confined on the Peel Island lazaret and to inmates of mental asylums, and support for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb Association.

She wrote that she was always uncomfortable in Brisbane’s heat. To escape the worst of it, the Lamingtons spent several summers in Toowoomba, once at the disused Blue Mountains Hotel which the vice-regal party simply took over for several months, and in other years at Harlaxton House, which was rented for them on at least two occasions.

In the ordinary course of events, the Lamingtons’ five year term of office would have ended in April 1901. It seems that the Lamingtons were prevailed upon to extend their term in Queensland until December 1901, so they would still be in office at the time of the first sitting of the new Commonwealth Parliament and the related royal tour by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York. It was agreed that the Lamingtons might take six month’s leave from late 1899, so that they could return home. While in Britain, Lamington was knighted – he was to be knighted again in 1903, prior to his becoming Governor of Bombay. During his leave, Lord Lamington often spoke in public about Queensland, invariably emphasizing the loyalty of Queenslanders as evidenced by their participation in the Boer War.27

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On his return to the colony in May 1900, Lord Lamington spoke at celebrations for the jubilee of the Presbyterian Church in Queensland. He said that he noted with approval the movement toward Federation; also the action taken by Australia to support the Empire in the war in South Africa, and the considerable achievement in work to ameliorate the lot of Aborigines.28 He had been pleased by 1897 legislation that was designed to help Aborigines by restricting the sale of opium, confining them to reserves and providing for the appointment of ‘protectors.’29 The Clerk to the Queensland Parliament, Charles Bernays, observed that ‘The period during which Lord Lamington reigned in Queensland was not marked by any disturbance of the political atmosphere, and a Governor, no matter what his capacity for dealing with such situations, is to be congratulated upon escaping them.’30 Bernays’ suggestion that the political atmosphere was ‘undisturbed’ during the Lamington period is perhaps at odds with the reality of a tempestuous environment within the Parliament. Political parties were still emerging; no one party consistently commanded a majority and most governments were based on alliances of minority groupings. As a result, ministries were formed and re-formed with a frequency that today would be alarming. Lamington had five premiers in five years – Nelson, Byrnes, Dickson, Dawson and Philp, but this instability seems to have been taken for granted.

Given Lamington’s personal conservative persuasion, it is a measure of his tact and diplomacy that the world’s first Labour government came to office in Queensland during his term, without Lamington indicating any discomfort or disapproval. Under the leadership of Anderson Dawson, the history-making government held office for only six days but it was a sign of things to come.

Despite some misgivings, Lamington welcomed the creation of the new Commonwealth of Australia. The great day of the birth of the new Australian nation passed without much ceremony in Brisbane. Because of uncertainties about protocol, the various governors were not invited to the huge celebrations that took place in Sydney. On the afternoon of 1 January 1901, in a short ceremony at Government House in Brisbane, Lord Lamington was again sworn in, this time as ‘Governor of the State of Queensland and its dependencies in the Commonwealth of Australia.’31 The 1901 royal tour now demanded all the Lamingtons’ attention. Planning was delayed by initial uncertainty. It was at first intended that the Prince of Wales would make the tour to participate in the inauguration of the new Commonwealth, but this proposal was suspended because of the Queen’s declining health. The Queen died on 22 January 1901 and the Prince of Wales became King. It was then thought that there should be no royal tour while the nation mourned Queen Victoria. Finally, it was decided that the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary) should come to Australia to open the first sitting of the new Commonwealth Parliament and that they should then tour within Australia. The Lamingtons played a prominent advisory role in planning the tour because they were friendly with the royal couple – Lady Lamington had earlier been a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess.

Government House had to be refurbished and plans had to be made to entertain the royal visitors. To make room for the royal party, most of the Lamington household was moved out of Government House and into

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Parliament House for the duration of the visit. Then, plans were thrown into disarray when Brisbane was declared a plague infected port. This prevented the entry of all shipping, including the royal yacht which was to bring the royal party to Brisbane. Eventually, the visitors came by train. The royal visitors had a crowded schedule in and around Brisbane for several days, then, on 24 May, they departed for the south by train. Lord Lamington had personally arranged a special surprise for his guests. At Cambooya, outside Toowoomba, the royal train halted so that the visitors could watch an exhibition of camp-drafting while they enjoyed a smoke-oh of billy-tea and damper. Lord Lamington is said to have participated in the camp-draft.

The remainder of the Lamingtons’ term must have seemed an anti-climax.

They finally left Brisbane on 20 December 1901. Their departure was reminiscent of their arrival – a levee at Government House in the morning; presentation of farewell gifts; a procession through the streets; then by train to Pinkenba and finally by the government launch Lucinda to the liner Aorangi which was anchored in Moreton Bay. There were huge crowds and genuinely sorrowful goodbyes.

In 1903, Lamington was appointed Governor of Bombay. Given the size of the Bombay province and the significance of India within the Empire, it is clear that Lamington’s new appointment was a considerable promotion for him. The new office suited him – his prerogatives in India were much broader than they had been in Queensland and they were unfettered by any local legislature.

India also offered opportunities for ‘big game’ hunting, opportunities that Lamington seized with enthusiasm.

Lord Lamington seemed to thrive in India, but Lady Lamington did not. Due to poor health, she left India some time before his term expired in 1907. An illness had affected her hearing. ‘I realised that I was deaf and would never hear distinctly again’ she wrote. Later, after an operation, ‘a piece of bone was found to be pressing on her brain.’32 She lived with the affliction until her death in 1944.

The Lamingtons retired to Lamington House, where Lord Lamington was said to have been well known ‘for his excellence as a landlord and host. One remembers him striding over the heather, upright, strong and untiring – and later riding more slowly on his white Iceland pony.’33 Their retirement was interrupted by the Great War. Lord Lamington joined an Army unit as a recruiting officer. In that capacity he went briefly to the Western Front. From 1919, Lord Lamington served for some years with the British Relief Unit in Syria.

In 1916, when the Great War was not going well for the Allies, there was a call for women to go to the front to serve as nurses, drivers, ambulance officers and doctors. Lady Lamington responded to the call and she went to France with a Voluntary Aid Detachment to serve as a nurse in a French field hospital.

She wrote to friends in Brisbane ‘I originally passed my nursing course at the Technical College in Brisbane … I worked in a hospital in France for some time and had entire charge of the operating theatre, and had to be at all operations and I had charge of the room where the dressings were done. … One sees some awful sights, but if one can do good, one can bear anything.

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Above: The Lamington plateau – Lord Lamington showed a keen interest in conservation of the area and in 1915 it was set aside as a National Park.

‘In my ‘off time’ I am learning to do some of the minor work of making munitions … Victor is home on three days leave … he is with the Scots Guards at the front. Grisell is a cook in another hospital. Lord Lamington has just started five days in the trenches in France, as all officers now have to go there … If Lord Lamington’s regiment was only near London I would attach myself to a hospital for Australians, as my heart always goes out to them. They have been so splendid.’34 In later years, Lord Lamington was consistently active within the numerous organisations that existed in Britain to discuss imperial affairs and promote particular points of view about them. The underlying theme of these discussions was invariably the opportunity for the extension of British influence and trade. Lamington frequently spoke about Queensland issues in these forums.

He was also President of the East India Association, an organisation devoted to the study of Indian affairs.

He was somewhat frail by 1940, when he was shot during a sensational incident in London. On 13 March 1940, the East India Association conducted a joint meeting with the Royal Central Asian Society. The meeting was attended by about 170 people and, as it was breaking up, ‘a man of Indian nationality fired into a group of eminent men who had taken part in the proceedings.’ Sir Michael O’Dwyer was shot dead and three other men were wounded, including Lord Lamington who suffered a severed artery in his wrist and a shattered hand.35 It seems that he never fully recovered from these injuries and he died at Lamington House in September 1940.36 Lamington House was later demolished because the family could not afford its upkeep.37 The village of Lamington remains in Lanark as testament to the family’s former importance in that locality. In Queensland, there are warm memories of the last colonial governor and his wife, the attractive young couple who symbolised the spirit of a very special age.

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Into the Promised Land ‘Australia has passed through her period of probation and has entered into the promised land of the heritage of a nation.’ 1 For Queensland, it had been a long journey to federation’s promised land, beginning in 1859 when its first governor, Sir George Bowen, led the way out of the wilderness. He found Queensland a dependant and neglected part of New South Wales and fashioned it into the new status of a self-governing colony. The infant colony grew and grew until, in 1901, it became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia.

When Queensland’s ninth governor, Sir Herbert Chermside, took his oath of office on 24 March 1902, it had only been 42 years since Sir George Bowen the first governor, had sworn to serve the Queen and Queensland. Through those years, Queensland’s population had multiplied more than twenty fold, to over half a million (277,003 males, but only 221,126 females.)2 For the first time, in 1901 the majority of Queenslanders were people born in Australia.3 Settlement had spread from Moreton Bay into the remotest places; industry and society had blossomed. There had been setbacks, stops and starts, but there were more forward steps than backward ones.

Through all those years, the governors had been powerful influences in Queensland affairs. In the beginning they had been very directly involved in actual government. That role receded (but never entirely disappeared) as Queenslanders gained confidence and experience in the management of their own affairs. Other roles did not recede – if anything, they became more important as the colony grew. ‘The Office of Governor was an integral part of the life and development of the colony ... The Office gave continuity in the relationship between the colony of Queensland and the United Kingdom, and wove a substantial thread throughout the tapestry of colonial history. It provided a focus for social life and a significant point of reference for certain political and legal issues, and occasions made colourful by the pomp and circumstance of ceremony and ritual formality.’4 Above all, the governors were a focus for the celebration of Queensland identity and achievement. As the new colony grew, new communities, new enterprises

Left: Lord Chelmsford – aristocratic, intellectual, fond of music, a cricketer. He was not completely successful in Queensland, but he nevertheless rose to the illustrious position of Viceroy of India.

Right: Lord Chelmsford (third from left, seated) at the opening of the Brisbane Exhibition in 1907.

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and new organisations of all kinds clamoured for vice-regal recognition.

A governor’s visit to a new town or the identification of a governor with a good cause was more than just a benediction by a very important person. It was part of the process of Queenslanders recognising each other, being drawn into the Queensland family, being applauded for what they had already done and being encouraged in their future endeavours. It was a vital strand in the thread that bound Queenslanders together.

As federation was being discussed in the 1890s, it had seemed to some people that the new states of Australia might not each need a governor of their own.

There would be a Governor-General of Australia and that would be enough, some argued. The argument overlooked the fact that each state would still have its own government which had sovereign powers over its own areas of responsibility that had not been transferred to the new Commonwealth.

The system of each state government was to be as before, a constitutional monarchy that needed to have a governor at its head. The argument also overlooked the fact that the people of each state, Queenslanders especially, still regarded themselves as very special and distinct people. Certainly they were Australians but even more certainly they were Queenslanders. Having their own governor certified and reinforced that.

Federation made surprisingly little difference to the position of Queensland’s governors. While the colonies had agreed to surrender some of their powers to the new nation, in other respects the business of government within each colony, now state, would go on as it had before. It was quickly established that, notwithstanding federation, the state governors would be appointed by and would report to the United Kingdom government as before. They would not answer to the Governor-General and the state governors would continue to communicate directly with the United Kingdom government.5 Queensland’s governors after 1901 therefore were in the same position and carried out the same functions and exercised the same powers that their predecessors had done since 1859. It was their duty to summon and prorogue the parliament; they had the power to dissolve the Legislative Assembly, to grant or deny requests for elections, to appoint ministers, and to preside over the Executive Council as the body that gave formal effect to the decisions of the government. In these and other matters, the governors were expected to act on the advice of their ministers, but they retained a reserve power to act according to their own discretion. When they acted in a manner that was at variance from the advice of their ministers, governors were required to report the circumstances to the British government immediately.

The governors also had the continuing responsibility to advise, encourage and warn their ministers. It was their duty to be watchful, to observe any departures from the integrity of the operation of government and to bring such departures to the attention of the responsible ministers. The governors were thus to be umpires, upholding the democratic system according to its rules.

Those were the formal roles of the governors. There were also social and ceremonial roles, the vitally important functions of acknowledging and encouraging the achievements of Queensland people. Again, federation had no impact on these roles – Queenslanders continued to demand that they should be able to see their governors, no matter where they lived.

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Below, left: Lady Chelmsford, a progressive woman who worked hard to achieve better child health and education.

Above, right: The dining room at Government House, ready for dinner guests, 1908.

Centre, right: The drawing room at Government House, October 1907.

Below, right: View through the hallway to the drawing room, Government House, October 1907.

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These were old arrangements, old certainties that the vast majority of Queenslanders were comfortable and content with. Having a governor was something that people understood, even if they did not give the subject very much thought. It was a reassurance of stability and continuity in a world that was otherwise full of daunting challenges and confusing changes.

The year 1902 held more than its share of such challenges and changes. It provided ample proof that while the promised land had been entered, Queenslanders were not yet in paradise. Sir Herbert Chermside began his term as governor at the climax of a catastrophic drought, possibly the most severe and widespread natural disaster Australia has ever experienced. It was a calamity everywhere in the eastern half of the continent, but especially in Queensland because it was so dependent on pastoral and agricultural production. In 1901, about 30% of Queensland workers earned their wages in the pastoral and agricultural industries,6 while the state’s revenues were proportionately reliant on the annual wool clip. After 1903, government revenue was also diminished by a decline in mineral production, everywhere except on the Mount Morgan field.7 Wool continued to be the main economic generator, despite price fluctuations and droughts.

The 1902 drought had actually begun from 1896 and persisted until about 1905, with variations from district to district. In 1892 Queensland had almost 21 million sheep; by 1902 there were only 7.2 million left.8 The state’s flock did not recover to the 1892 number until 1913. The state’s cattle herd was not quite so badly affected, but it probably declined by at least 40%. Agricultural production was drastically reduced, although not for as long as the drought prevailed on the inland plains. From the 1880s, fencing, artesian water and closer settlement had all made for more intensive stocking, but the drought was a salutary warning to Queensland that its natural capacity for expansion of the pastoral and agricultural industries was not limitless.

Sir Herbert Chermside could have been forgiven if he had never given much thought to droughts before he came to Australia, but he was soon to find that in Queensland even governors were governed by the seasons.

Chermside was born in England in 1850. He went to school at Eton, then achieved brilliant results at the Royal Military Academy. He graduated top of his year and was commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1870. He then had a series of military and consular postings in the Middle East before taking command of the British forces on Crete in 1897. He then went to the Boer war. He was steadily promoted, eventually to Major General in 1898. He was knighted in 1897. In 1899 he married Geraldine Webb, whose brother had come to Queensland, served in its army and gone to South Africa with the Queensland local forces.9 Geraldine was then 29 years of age, ten years younger than her husband.

In December 1901, Chermside’s appointment to succeed Lord Lamington as Governor of Queensland was announced. News of the appointment was well received locally, with news reports emphasising the brilliance of Chermside’s military career. Premier Robert Philp lauded Chermside’s suitability and stated that the new governor had agreed to accept the same salary as previous governors, five thousand pounds a year.10 From this salary, the governor had to meet the costs of entertainment at Government House and the wages of personal staff. Perhaps, when he raised the matter, Philp was already

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sensitive to the political reality that the governor’s salary might soon become a contentious issue.

There were two novel features surrounding Chermside’s arrival in Brisbane and his installation as governor. He and Lady Chermside arrived in the capital by train from Sydney via Toowoomba,11 instead of coming by sea to Moreton Bay and then by government launch up the river to the city as all their predecessors had done. Instead of naval guns firing a salute, ear-splitting fog warning signals were used to announce the vice-regal train’s approach to Central Station in Brisbane’s Ann Street.

The Chermsides were also the first, and perhaps the only, vice-regal couple to be welcomed to Queensland by a citizens’ reception. The reception was paid for by public subscription and organised by volunteers. It was noted that there were hardly any ladies present, probably because the gentlemen economised by leaving their wives at home.12 It was a sign of the necessarily frugal times. The Queensland government was facing a deficit of 1.5 million pounds, at a time when revenue had

Left: Lord Chelmsford – an intellectual.

Below: Lady Chermside; Sir Herbert Chermside on right. He was ‘a plain little general with a big moustache.’

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shrunk because of the drought, and because some revenue sources had been surrendered to the new Commonwealth government. Drastic measures, including public service retrenchments and even the introduction of income tax, were being debated in the parliament. Chermside immediately sensed that his salary, higher than any other paid by the Queensland government, would be a focus for public scrutiny and criticism. He almost immediately offered to accept a 15% salary cut. This was not then accepted by the government, but the salary was later reduced to three thousand pounds a year, then to two thousand. Chermside accepted these cuts on the condition that the reductions would relieve him from all obligations to entertain at Government House.

The salary cuts took the heat out of the issue and Chermside was admired in many quarters for graciously accepting the reductions when he was under no legal obligation to do so. Premier Philp said that the governor ‘had acted in the most honourable manner in thus recognising the financial exigencies of the State.’13 However, there were some who grumbled that Chermside had profited from the arrangements because in net terms he was better off with the lower salary but without the obligation to entertain.

Chermside resented the criticism. It reinforced the impression already forming in his mind that there was public derogation of the office of the governor and that there had been a diminution of its status since federation and the creation of the new office of Governor-General. As a career military officer who had risen to the highest ranks, Chermside no doubt felt it was particularly unfortunate that as Governor of Queensland he would no longer have the nominal command of the state’s military forces, which had been absorbed into the Commonwealth forces in 1901.14 Federation had brought other changes, in vexatious areas that had been difficult for all the colonial governors. The Commonwealth parliament had moved quickly to pass laws entrenching the national aspiration for a ‘White Australia.’ Immigration of ‘coloured’ people was to be so severely restricted

Above: Lord Chelmsford (centre, front) and members of the Automobile Club at an outing, Brisbane, April 1908.

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that it was virtually prohibited. That ended the debate and division about Chinese immigration. There was to be no more recruitment of Pacific Islander labour after 1904 and repatriation of islanders from Queensland was to begin immediately. The sugar industry was to be subsidised to make the use of white labour viable. In 1902, only 16 per cent of sugar was produced by white labour; by 1909 almost all sugar was produced by white men.15 Federation had subdued the demands for regional separation in the sugar areas, taking another contentious item off the list of matters about which governors were exhorted when they travelled in the north.

In October 1902, the Chermsides suffered further unhappiness when a son was still-born.16 By now, Queensland seemed to be an unlucky place for them.

Lady Chermside was described as ‘a sweet and homely woman, very delicate in health.’ After the still-birth, she withdrew from vice-regal activity to a considerable degree and allowed her sister-in-law, Mrs Webb, to deputise for her on many occasions.17 At about this time, only six months after his arrival, Chermside foreshadowed to the state’s political leaders his intention to resign before the expiration of his term. He used his wife’s ill health to justify his decision but it is clear that he was unhappy in Queensland.

However, Chermside did his duty. He was that sort of man. He was, according to Lady Tennyson, wife of a South Australian governor who later became Governor-General, ‘a very short plain little man with a biggish moustache.’18 He was most at home on the military parade ground and he obviously found it difficult to unbend anywhere else. He was a poor public speaker who tried to cover his inadequacies by including what he thought were learned references in his speeches. Sometimes he was found out, as when he presented a paper to the Royal Geographical Society. When he finished speaking, a press reporter approached the governor’s private secretary to ask for a copy of the speech notes. The reporter then felt a hand on his elbow and heard the voice of Premier Sir Hugh Nelson saying ‘Don’t bother, you will find it all in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.’19

Above: Horses and buggy ready to start from Inverleigh station, west of Normanton, during Lord Chelmsford’s epic outback tour in 1908.

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The governor was more comfortable in May 1902, when he reviewed the troops of the Queensland Battalion of the Australian Commonwealth Horse.

The troops had served in South Africa as the Queensland Mounted Infantry before their absorption into the Commonwealth forces. It was the first time that the men had paraded in their new uniforms. A highlight of the parade in the Domain was Chermside’s presentation of the insignia of Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George to Colonel Harry Chauvel for his distinguished service in South Africa with the First Queensland Mounted Infantry.20 A few weeks later, on 27 June 1902, Chermside appeared in his own resplendent British army uniform to address a huge ‘peace demonstration’ in Brisbane to mark the end of the Boer War. He reminded the crowd that he had fought in the war, which resulted in ‘one of the greatest victories that has ever occurred under the British flag ... a triumph of abstract principles ... an earnest [pledge or part-payment] of the Anglo-Saxon responsibility to promote, through the agency of moral energy the interests of that universal peace and goodwill amongst mankind which is the truly democratic teaching of that gospel of which our civilisation is the outcome.’21 In May 1903, Sir Herbert toured Queensland’s central-west and north-west.

He travelled by train and was struck, between Winton and Hughenden, by ‘the spectacle of the country for miles and miles south-westward of Hughenden [which] is even more dreary than that of the permanent desert and forcibly obtrudes the fact that the last general drought is not everywhere a thing of the past.’ He advocated ‘palliative measures,’ including the extension of light railways so that stock could be moved from drought stricken districts even after stock routes had closed.22 From September 1903, Chermside skated on the thin ice at the edge of political instability and constitutional crisis. Premier Robert Philp had won the 1902 election by eight seats but he did not have a tight hold on his majority. Philp resigned and Chermside sent for Billy Browne, Labour Opposition Leader, and invited him to form a government. Browne declined the offer, believing that Labour should wait until it was in a stronger position before attempting to take office. Chermside then commissioned Warwick newspaperman Arthur Morgan to form a government. Morgan was then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, but it was, on the face of it, a strange decision on Chermside’s part because Morgan had no party backing and had never been a minister.

It became apparent that Morgan was a caretaker for prominent Labour man William Kidston, who was to become Premier in 1906 at the head of a coalition government.23 In the meantime, there was a recurrence of the instability that had plagued Queensland politics since separation. In June 1904, provoked by yet another debate about his salary, Chermside submitted his resignation, but offered to postpone his departure until after the political situation settled down.

Finally, on 30 September 1904, Chermside advised the government that he was going – he would take pre-retirement leave and would not return. Lady Chermside had already left for England. On 10 October, a farewell lunch for the governor was held on the Lucinda while it cruised the Brisbane River, with 90 ‘gentlemen’ aboard. Chermside then proceeded from Government House to Central Station. From there he went by train to Toowoomba, to spend his last night in Queensland at Gabbinbar, the residence of Sir Hugh and Lady Nelson.24

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Chermside had been in office in Queensland for just two and a half years. He returned to England and gained further promotion in the army before his death in 1929. He had married for the second time in 1920, following the death of Geraldine in 1910.

Sir Hugh Nelson, President of the Legislative Council, was now to act as governor for 13 months, until Queensland’s tenth governor, Lord Chelmsford arrived in November 1905. Nelson was one of four notable local men who acted as governor for extended periods between 1883 and 1915. The others were Sir Arthur Palmer (for five extended periods between 1883 and 1896); Sir Samuel Griffith (1901-02), and Sir Arthur Morgan (in 1909 and in 1914-15). In a later era, any one of these men could have been appointed governor in his own right. Their biographies illuminate the lives of typical men who led Queensland through the critical period from the 1880s to 1914.

Below left: Sir Hugh Nelson, Premier of Queensland 1893-1898, and Administrator in 1904-05.

Centre: Entrepreneur and Premier, Sir Robert Philp.

Right: Sir Arthur Morgan – newspaper man, Premier and Administrator.

Palmer was one of the last of the early breed of Queensland’s leading pastoralists cum political leaders. Born in Ireland in 1819, he came to Sydney in 1838 and was a New England district station manager by 1840.

In 1863 he took up Beaufort station on the Belyando River in Central Queensland. In 1868 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and he there aligned himself with pastoralists’ groupings. In 1870, at a time of great political instability, he was asked by Governor Blackall to form a government. He did this and held office until 1874. Later, he became associated with Thomas McIlwraith, through alliances in politics, business and marriage. Palmer was later tainted by financial scandals, although he was not disgraced in the way that McIlwraith was. He was knighted in 1881 and became President of the Legislative Council. In that capacity he acted as Administrator in the absence of the governor; in 1895 he was appointed Queensland’s first lieutenant-governor and acted as governor in the interval between the departure of Norman and the arrival of Lamington. Palmer died in 1898.25 The mercurial Sir Samuel Griffith was perhaps the most outstanding jurist and political figure that Queensland has produced. Born in modest circumstances

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in Wales in 1845, he came to Ipswich with his family in 1853. He was a brilliant and wide-ranging student at Sydney University before going to the Bar in Queensland in 1867. Within nine years he was a Queen’s Counsel. In 1872, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and two years later became Attorney General. It was the first of a string of ministerial offices, crowned by the premiership in 1883. In the same year he became a leading figure in the federation movement. In 1891, he was very largely responsible for the first draft of the proposed Australian constitution. In 1893 he became Queensland’s Chief Justice, a position he held for ten years before he became the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. Vain and ambitious for the prestige of high office, Griffith had been responsible for the change in 1898 which provided that the Chief Justice, rather than the President of the Legislative Council, should hold the dormant commission to act as Queensland’s lieutenant-governor in the absence of the governor. That change enabled Griffith to act as governor in 1901.26

Sir Hugh Nelson was born in Scotland in 1833, came to Queensland with his family in 1853 and immediately set about gaining pastoral experience. Before long, he had extensive pastoral holdings of his own. He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1883, beginning a political career during which he combined ‘McIlwraith’s political largesse and entrepreneurial flair, Griffith’s liberal legalisms and the wealthy’s fear of Labour and the lower orders.’ Before he was appointed to the Legislative Council and elected its President in 1898, he held a diversity of portfolios and was premier for five years. He was knighted in 1896 and died in 1906. ‘During years of crisis, he was the linchpin in Queensland politics.’27 Sir Arthur Morgan acted as governor before the arrival of Sir William MacGregor in 1909 and again after MacGregor’s departure in 1914. He was born near Warwick in 1856 and took over the Warwick Argus newspaper on his father’s death in 1878. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1887; became Speaker in 1899 and held that position until he was unexpectedly asked to form a government in 1903. In 1906, following the death of Sir Hugh Nelson, he resigned the premiership in favour of William Kidston and accepted the

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Left: A gathering at Mackay, Lord and Lady Chelmsford on right of landing at top of steps.

Centre: At the Maryborough Boys’ Grammar School speech day, December 1906. Lord Chelmsford standing, third from right in second row; Lady Chelmsford (holding flowers) seated second from right in front row.

Right: Lord Chelmsford was a model governor in many respects but he mishandled a constitutional crisis and exposed himself to strong public criticism.

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presidency of the Legislative Council, an office he held until his death in 1916.

He was knighted in 1907.28 Beside these robust colonial men who had thrust their way to the top of the rough and tumble that was colonial politics, the refined Lord Chelmsford must have seemed a delicate anachronism. However, the news of his appointment was welcomed in the belief that there was much in Chelmsford’s personal background and career to indicate that he would be a more useful and interesting governor than the lacklustre Chermside. There was also gratification that the Chelmsfords were wealthy people, well able to spend their own money to restore Government House to its place at the pinnacle of the state’s social life.

Lord Chelmsford was a mild mannered aristocrat, a gentle and reflective man who loved music, books, thoughtful discussion – and cricket. He was the son of General Frederic29 Thesiger, and the grandson of a man who had been Lord Chancellor. In 1879, General Thesiger had led the British forces in South Africa to the most inglorious defeat in British military history, against the Zulus at the battle of Isandlwana. The General was recalled after the defeat, but he rescued his career with a war-winning victory over the Zulus before his replacement arrived. General Thesiger, the second Baron Chelmsford, died in 1905 and his son Frederic John Napier Thesiger thereupon became the third Baron Chelmsford.30 His accession to the peerage effectively meant that he would have to retire from the Bar and seek a career in public service. The offer, made in July 1905, to go to Queensland to become its governor, was therefore very timely.

Queensland’s Lord Chelmsford was born in London in 1868. He was a keen and successful student at Winchester school and then at Oxford, graduating with first class honours in law in 1891 and then obtaining a Master of Arts in 1894.

He was a good cricketer, playing for Oxford and occasionally for his county, Middlesex. In 1894 he married Frances Guest, a cousin of Winston Churchill and a daughter of the wealthy industrialist Lord Wimborne. Chelmsford became a barrister and developed a successful practice in the specialised parliamentary jurisdiction. At the same time, he was a member of the London County Council and several school boards, where he was closely involved in the reorganisation of the London schools system.31 When news of his appointment as governor reached Queensland on 26 July 1905, the Brisbane Courier obtained a comment from its London correspondent, ‘Lord Chelmsford gives one an altogether favourable impression of his personality. He will easily fit into his new office, which will be the beginning of a new career ... he has entered the colonial service with some deliberation and can hope for substantial promotion in it. He may safely be credited with unusual ability, as well as energy. ... Lord Chelmsford is a tall, clean shaven, handsome man, retaining a good deal of the Oxford athlete in his stride and the set of his shoulders. He has an agreeable voice and genial manner. In short, he appears to have all the qualities necessary to win ready popularity among the Australian people. Both he and Lady Chelmsford have strong musical tastes and have experience in the work of several choral societies and glee clubs [singing groups]. They have heard with some special pleasure of the keen interest taken in music by the Brisbane people ... The new governor and his lady have five pretty children, all of them sturdy enough to bear without risk the change from

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England to the warmer climate of Queensland.’32 Lady Chelmsford was later described as ‘a woman of infinite charm with great intellectual gifts.’33 The Chelmsfords sailed to Sydney on the ship Macedonia. On 30 November 1905, the Chelmsfords arrived in Moreton Bay aboard the coastal steamer Wodonga, which had brought them on from Sydney. There was a return to time honoured procedures when the Wodonga was met in the Bay by a party of dignitaries who came from Brisbane on the Lucinda. The Chelmsfords transferred to the Lucinda, which then proceeded upriver to Petrie Bight in Brisbane. Strenuous efforts had been made to decorate the town with greenery and bunting but ‘it rained steadily all day and the spectacular effect of the arrangements that had been made for the welcome was much marred.’34 There was a procession to Government House, where Lord Chelmsford became Queensland’s tenth governor when he was sworn in by Chief Justice Sir Pope Cooper.

The Chelmsfords had a good start to their three and a half years in Queensland.

The drought had broken by 1905 and there was now to be a series of generally good seasons and good commodity prices until toward the end of 1925.

Confidence and progress returned, so did a feeling that it was permissible to enjoy life. With the revival of prosperity there came a renewal of interest in and support for cultural activities. The Chelmsfords led the way in that movement. They set a new tone for the considered involvement of governors and their wives in social issues and cultural activities.

The Public Library of Queensland and the Brisbane Technical College had been opened by Sir Herbert Chermside in 1902.35 On 18 December 1905, Chelmsford opened what was then called the National Art Gallery, in a space set aside on the third floor of the government’s Executive Building in Brisbane.

The art collection had been assembled by trustees over some years, but never previously had a home.36 In June 1906, Brisbane was enhanced when Lord Chelmsford unveiled a statue of Queen Victoria in what was then called the Executive Gardens, now Queen’s Park. The governor said on that occasion ‘when your children ask you what is the meaning of this statue of Queen Victoria one answer ... is that the position of the Sovereign of Great Britain changed during the reign of Queen Victoria. The Queen was the first to establish the true functions of the Sovereign in a Constitutional Government – and Australia, when she was free to choose her type of government, deliberately chose that of the Mother Country. ... there is such a feeling of common interest and common sympathy throughout the territories of the Empire that the Queen came to be regarded as the symbol of unity and this could only be because the Queen had won the trust and confidence of her people.’37 The Chelmsfords hosted musical soirees and glee club gatherings at Government House. Lord Chelmsford was a capable cellist; his wife was an accomplished pianist. They encouraged the Government House staff to form their own glee club and provided musical accompaniment for it. Lady Chelmsford was a talented watercolourist. The Chelmsford children were brought up according to advanced educational ideas and they were commonly taken to public functions to prepare them for the roles that would almost certainly be their lot in life.

The Chelmsfords were strong supporters of the Children’s Hospital and on at least one occasion, in 1907, they threw open the grounds of Government

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Above left: Three of the Chelmsford children in the garden at Gabbinbar, Toowoomba – from left: Fred, Andrew and Bridget Thesiger.

Below left: Interior, Brisbane Institute of Social Service nursery/kindergarten, opened in an old tobacco factory on the corner of Brunswick and Ivory Streets, Fortitude Valley, in 1907. Lady Chelmsford was President of the Institute, which became the Crèche and Kindergarten Association in 1910.

Above right: Children and staff on the rooftop of the Brisbane Institute of Social Service, 1907.

House for a huge fête to raise funds for the hospital. The event was highly successful and the money raised was applied to a special ward that was named in recognition of Lady Chelmsford.38 They actively worked for the improvement of health facilities generally and for children’s health in particular. Lady Chelmsford was instrumental, with pioneer paediatrician Dr Alfred Jeffries-Turner, in the establishment of the Lady Chelmsford Milk Institute which worked to created a series of milk depots where clean milk was distributed for infants. She also played a major part in the establishment of the Mother’s Union, aimed at improving standards of ‘home life’ and child upbringing. Both the Chelmsfords were very actively involved in ‘rescue’ work for women and children.

Lord Chelmsford strongly supported moves for the creation of a university for Queensland, making the point that a university was one of the essential institutions of statehood. In September 1906 he spoke at the annual meeting of the Queensland University Extension Standing Committee, saying that he was pleased to publicly identify with the committee as a signal to everyone that the achievement of a university was a matter of concern for the whole community and should never be a matter for political controversy.39 The Chelmsfords’ support for these and many other causes was more than merely formal. They set an example of practical involvement. By that example, and through their words whenever they had an opportunity to speak publicly, they emphasised that people who were fortunate enough to live comfortable lives had a moral duty to help those people who were not so well placed.

Lord Chelmsford’s words were always far more than platitudes and they were extensively reported by the press. Lady Chelmsford was a modern woman who did not accept that she should walk in her husband’s shadow. She was a very competent public speaker and in her speeches ‘a deep womanly sympathy for those in need was the predominant note.’40 One social problem was too much for the governor. Commonwealth action to repatriate the last of the Pacific Islanders was intensifying in 1907. There was almost unanimous public approval for the repatriations but little concern for the consequent impact on the people who were being sent back to their islands, in some cases after many years in Queensland. By no means did all the islanders want to go home. On 22 July 1907, about 100 islanders publicly demonstrated in Brisbane, making it known that repatriation would

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impose very serious hardship on them. The ‘terrified Kanakas’ marched through Brisbane’s Queen Street and then into George Street, where they sought audiences with government ministers. The Home Secretary and other ministers declined to see them, so they marched to Government House and requested to see the governor. Chelmsford received their leaders, heard them out and then said all that he could say – ‘I am kindly disposed towards them and will do everything in my power provided the proper course in such a case is followed.’41 Through all this, the Chelmsfords found time to regularly visit even the most far flung parts of the state. Lady Chelmsford made a point of going with her husband wherever possible, taking every opportunity to encourage women and activities of special concern to them. However, she was not asked to accompany the governor on one remarkable expedition in 1908, when Lord Chelmsford went where no other governor had gone before.

In June 1908, the governor set out with his aide, Captain Verney, the brothers Joey and Colin Bell and three other men. The trip, by buggy, began on the western edge of the Atherton Tableland and proceeded from there to the most remote north-western areas of the state, to Camooweal and beyond.

Everywhere they went there were welcomes and invariably a ball at night.

At Cloncurry, the governor was able to note the revival of mining activity that had resulted from the extension of the railway line from Townsville via Richmond.42 In all, the party travelled more than 1,400 kilometres, over rough tracks or no tracks at all.43 The able, appealing and hard working Chelmsfords had not put a foot wrong in Queensland and it is therefore surprising that the governor stumbled when he had to deal with a difficult constitutional issue. The Colonial Office had always advised its governors to allow problems to work themselves out in the political arena as far as possible, so as to avoid the criticism that would invariably follow from the exercise of discretions and reserve powers.44 The problem for Chelmsford arose when the Legislative Council refused to pass Wages Boards bills proposed by the recently elected Premier Kidston. The premier advised the governor to appoint additional Legislative Councillors who would favour the bills and enable their passage. Chelmsford declined that advice and instead commissioned Robert Philp as premier and granted

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Philp a dissolution of the Legislative Assembly when he could not command a majority there. Kidston won the election, which was the first at which Queensland women were able to vote. The women had gained the franchise in Commonwealth elections in 1902, but it was not until 1905 that laws were passed to enable them to vote in state elections.

Chelmsford was attacked in parliament and rebuked by the Colonial Office for his poor judgement. The Office said that he should have accepted the advice of Premier Kidston and had he done so there would have been no crisis and no political controversy about the actions of the governor.45 However, the incident was no setback to Chelmsford’s career. ‘Though the Colonial Office considered Chelmsford had erred, his acceptance of the financial burden of an Australian governorship, his intellectual ability and attention to the social duties of the office ensured that he retained the British government’s confidence.’ 46 Connections in high places were also a help, no doubt.

Queenslanders were surprised and disappointed when it was announced in early 1909 that their governor would leave the state, a year before the expiry of his term, to become governor of New South Wales. The departure, on 26 May 1909, had one novel feature. The Chelmsfords left Government House in a motor car.

Left: The local reception committee waits to meet Lord Chelmsford, outside Cloncurry, in 1908.

Above: Georgetown children form a goat escort for Lord Chelmsford during his far northern and western tour, 1908.

They did well in New South Wales. Lord Chelmsford established a close and effective working relationship with the state’s first Labour government. Many years later, there was astonishment in Labor (the spelling change had been formalised in 1912) circles when firebrand Labor premier Jack Lang appointed Chelmsford to be Agent-General for New South Wales in Britain. ‘He is a peer of the realm, he is not one of us, never can be, he is not dinkum’ said the critics.

‘He is just as much a Labor man as any of us here,’ Lang retorted.47 By then, Chelmsford had served as First Lord of the Admiralty in the British Labour government headed by Ramsay MacDonald.

Lord and Lady Chelmsford returned to England in March 1913. When the Great War broke out in 1914, Chelmsford rejoined his Dorset Territorials regiment and went with it to India. In January 1916 he was appointed Viceroy of India, one of the most elevated and envied positions in the whole of the Empire.

He proved his mettle in that role, working to develop a plan for reforms that eventually resulted in constitutional progress for India.

In 1921, the Chelmsfords returned to England, where Lord Chelmsford died in 1933. Lady Chelmsford survived until 1957. The couple had given outstanding service to Queensland, not least because they set an example of thoughtful involvement in community affairs.

At a farewell banquet in Brisbane, Lord Chelmsford had said ‘the northern state is yet, relatively, only at the beginning of things. Spaciousness of territory as yet unoccupied is matched by amplitude of resources still awaiting development. To translate promise into performance, character means more than either numbers or opportunities. The essential foundation is the preservation of ideals and the maintenance of fortitude.’48 That was to prove good advice for the years of war and grief that were soon to come.

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Different men, different times ‘MacGregor was able to spend a good deal of time encouraging and opening new institutions. Goold-Adams had to spend much of his time unveiling war memorials and attending services commemorating the war dead.’ 1 On 28 June 1914, the heir to the throne of the decaying Austro-Hungarian empire was assassinated in the central European city of Sarajevo, now the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the most momentous event of the twentieth century, an incident that changed the world forever. Just two pistol shots resulted in the outbreak of a cataclysmic war that convulsed the world and cost millions of lives. It was the Great War, the First World War, the ‘War to End all Wars.’ The war brought on the Russian revolution; it sowed the seeds of economic depression and made a second world war inevitable. It ended the dominance of previously great world powers and it brought new nations, including the United States, Russia and Japan, to prominence. It even brought twilight to the empire upon which, many said, the British sun would never set. Britain’s long ascendancy was over. Although she nominally won the war, Britain never recovered from the financial and human costs she had paid. She could no longer afford an empire.

Left: Sir William MacGregor made his own way in life, from abject poverty in Scotland to Queensland’s Government House. He was one of Queensland’s most notable governors.

Below: Lady Mary MacGregor, Sir William’s second wife. The couple was married in Fiji in 1883.

Right: Sir Samuel Griffith, one of the most outstanding Queenslanders of all.

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The reversal of imperial fortunes brought to an end the careers of many men who had been professional colonial governors and administrators. Some of them were great men whose lives and work had made a difference to the world. Sir William MacGregor was not the least of them, perhaps he was one of the greatest. His forty two year career in colonial service ended in July 1914, when he departed Queensland after five years as its governor. He left an indelible mark on the state, just as he had done at each of the many other postings where he had served the empire. All those places were better places because he had been there; Queensland was no exception.

On 20 October 1846 it must have seemed overwhelmingly unlikely that the newborn William MacGregor was destined to ever be anything more than a farm labourer in the Towie district, about seventy kilometres west of Scotland’s Aberdeen. His father, John, was a farm worker while his mother Agnes had also been an agricultural labourer until her marriage. William was her second child and her first son. Agnes was to bear nine children altogether.

William was working as a ‘servant cattleman’ by the age of fourteen and possibly some years before that. However, he had been to his parish school and he continued to pursue an education while working to help support his family. He was a bright and extraordinarily hard working scholar and he worked for a time as an assistant school teacher. His first strokes of good fortune came when his abilities and his character were recognised by three local men, the parish church minister, the school teacher and the doctor.

William was encouraged to think he could study for the church ministry but then the doctor interested him in medicine and science.

When William was nineteen, he left home to go to Aberdeen Grammar School to complete his school education. He paid for this out of his own savings but it is likely that he was also assisted by his three patrons. However, he had to interrupt his school attendance from time to time so that he could go back to work to earn enough money to keep going. In 1867, he passed entry examinations for Aberdeen University, winning a small bursary. He began the study of medicine in 1868 and graduated in four years. In his last year he submitted a thesis that should, according to the university’s rules, have been written on superfine paper and bound with green ribbon. MacGregor could not afford that and remonstrated with his examiner ‘Is it an examination in calligraphy?’ He won his point and the thesis won a gold medal from Glasgow University.

MacGregor achieved all this despite, or perhaps because of, his enforced marriage to Mary Thompson on 4 October 1868. Mary had earlier become pregnant; William accepted responsibility and agreed to marry her. It was not a happy marriage and William never had good relationships with its two children.

On 9 May 1872, William was registered to practise medicine. He immediately began work at the Royal Lunatic Asylum at Aberdeen. Within a year, he had agreed to go to the British colony of Seychelles, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, about 1,600 kilometres off the east coast of Africa. There he was to work for the Colonial Service as a doctor, magistrate and administrator.

He took Mary with him, but left son James in Scotland. A daughter, Helen, was born to the couple in the Seychelles in 1874.

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Top left: The former Queensland Museum building which became the home of the State Library in 1902.

Second from top: The Queensland National Bank – a fine building, but the bank fell victim to the 1890s financial crash and the manipulations of Sir Thomas McIlwraith.

Second from bottom: Holy Trinity Church of England, Fortitude Valley.

Bottom: John Stevenson and son Graham outside the Queensland Club.

Above, centre: Sir Hamilton and Lady Goold-Adams, transferring from the Bombala to the Lucinda on their arrival in Queensland.

Above right: Lady Goold-Adams wrote on this photograph ‘A photographer waiting at Government House took this picture before we had even gone inside.’

The move to the Seychelles was a critical step in MacGregor’s career because it was there that he came to the notice of the governor of the colony, Sir Arthur Gordon, a fellow Scot and a son of one time British Prime Minister, the Earl of Aberdeen. Gordon was a rising star in the Colonial Office and MacGregor was to rise with him. When Gordon was transferred to Fiji in 1875 he arranged that MacGregor should go to Fiji too, as chief medical officer and public health officer. MacGregor progressed within the Fiji administration to eventually become colonial secretary and then acting governor.2 Fiji was an eventful posting for MacGregor. His first wife died of dysentery there in 1877. He had to deal with a measles epidemic that claimed the lives of about 40,000 Fijians, out of a total population of about 150,000.3 Around that time, MacGregor performed a remarkable feat of courage and strength when he rescued a number of people after a shipwreck. A vessel bringing Indian labourers to Fiji was wrecked when it struck a rock, about twelve hours sail from Suva. The immigrants were stranded on the rock and MacGregor organised rescue efforts. When he and other rescuers got to the scene, MacGregor repeatedly clambered along a broken mast to reach the rock. Then he carried the Indians to safety on his back. A woman had been swept out to sea and two men who tried to help her were also swept away. MacGregor attached himself to a rope and then swam out to the floundering victims. He seized a man under each arm and then clamped a handful of the woman’s hair between his teeth. Then he and the trio were pulled back to safety on the rescue vessel. MacGregor made no mention of this incident in his reports but it did become known and he was awarded the Albert Medal for bravery and the Clarke medal for saving lives at sea.4 In 1883, MacGregor married Mary Jane Cocks, daughter of the Suva Harbour Master. The couple had two daughters, Alpini Viti, born in 1884,

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and Mary, born in 1886. The second marriage was a much happier one for MacGregor, although he and the second Mary had to endure long periods of enforced separation.

In 1886, MacGregor represented Fiji at a Federal Council meeting in Tasmania, called to discuss proposals for Australasian federation. There MacGregor met Samuel Griffith. The two men were kindred spirits, intellectuals with not dissimilar backgrounds and very similar interests. Their friendship lasted until MacGregor’s death. Griffith was influential in securing MacGregor’s next appointment, as Administrator of British New Guinea. MacGregor arrived at Port Moresby on 4 September 1888, proclaimed British sovereignty and then began a very effective administration under the joint arrangements between Britain and the Australian colonies. These arrangements brought him into closer contact with Australia, and MacGregor became well and favourably known in Queensland in particular. MacGregor’s term in New Guinea was distinguished by his wide ranging explorations; often where no white man had been before; his vivid descriptions of New Guinea’s people and places; his introduction of a system of law and order and his sponsorship of public health measures. In New Guinea and everywhere else, perhaps because of the insecurity he had felt ever since childhood, he relentlessly drove himself to do more and to do better. He was knighted in 1889 but never rested on his laurels.

In 1898, MacGregor was appointed governor of the west African colony of Lagos. There, he was closely involved in important research that confirmed the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria. In 1904 he was appointed

Left: Sir William MacGregor, seated in centre, at a settler’s home near Tamborine. The governor was no stranger to hard and humble living.

Above right: Governor MacGregor and his party crossing Guanaba Creek, en route to Tamborine Mountain.

Below right: Waterfall at Mt Tamborine.

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governor of Newfoundland, where his deft management of several delicate issues won him praise as ‘the model of what a colonial governor should be.’5 By now, he was recognised by the Colonial Office as a very effective officer who could be relied on to handle difficult situations tactfully and well. Just the kind of man who was needed as governor of Queensland.

The Colonial Office wistfully compared MacGregor’s management of problems in Newfoundland with Lord Chelmsford’s far less adroit handling of difficulties that had arisen during his term in Queensland. When Chelmsford chose to leave Queensland, MacGregor was appointed to succeed him. News of the appointment was released in London on 27 March 1909. The Reuters correspondent in London wrote for Australian readers ‘Sir William MacGregor’s promotion is universally admitted to be well deserved. His Excellency was regarded as by far the most successful Governor of Newfoundland in modern times, having handled a series of difficult questions with rare judgement.’6 The Colonial Office was anxious that MacGregor should proceed to Queensland as quickly as possible because there had been vigorous public criticism of his predecessor, particularly from the ‘Kidstonites’ who felt that Chelmsford’s constitutional decisions had disadvantaged Kidston and favoured Robert Philp.

There was also increasingly forceful rhetoric from the emerging Labour Party which argued that the states did not need governors at all, or, if they were to have governors then those governors should be Australians. Every day that Queensland was without a governor pending the arrival of the new appointee lent support to the argument that an imported governor was unnecessary.

The British authorities were anxious to restore the situation to normal before those notions gained wider currency in Queensland. However, MacGregor had to finalise some delicate matters in Newfoundland before leaving that colony.

Then he went to Scotland for a brief holiday. He planned to leave England at the end of August 1909, so that he would reach Queensland well before the state’s jubilee celebrations began.

The departure had to be delayed. Not long before he was due to sail, MacGregor was struck down by a most painful indisposition, probably gallstones. An operation was essential. William and Mary MacGregor and their daughter Mary finally sailed in mid-October, aboard the liner Orsova. The ship reached Pinkenba, at the mouth of the Brisbane River, on 2 December 1909. After the usual welcoming formalities and procession, the new governor was sworn in by Chief Justice Sir Pope Cooper.7 It was to be the last such swearing in at Queensland’s first and only purpose built government house.

The MacGregors were not at what is now ‘Old Government House’ for very long. In July 1910, they became the first vice-regal occupants of a ‘temporary’ government house, Fernberg, in the Brisbane suburb of Paddington. Almost a century and fourteen governors later, Fernberg is still Queensland’s Government House.

For more than a decade before the MacGregors arrived, there had been plans to build a new government house. A 58 acre site was reserved within Victoria Park and about three kilometres from the centre of the city. Plans were prepared for an imposing and extensive vice-regal residence on the site, at an estimated cost of about 130,000 pounds. Site works began and proceeded to the point where foundations were laid. Then, works were suspended. At first,

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the suspension was said to be only temporary. However, the new government house project was never proceeded with and eventually the Queensland Teachers College was built on the abandoned foundations. Part of what was to have been the government house site was given over to the Victoria Park golf links.

Financial considerations no doubt influenced the decision, but it is likely that other factors included a growing perception that since federation the office of state governor was not as important as it had been in colonial times and a grand government house was therefore no longer necessary. It is also possible that the disenchantment with Chelmsford at the highest political levels created a background for decisions that might diminish the status of Queensland’s governors.

Moves to establish a university for Queensland had been gathering momentum since the idea was first seriously mooted in the 1890s. In 1902, Government Architect Alfred Brady reported on three possible sites for a university, including the Government Domain on which Government House stood. By 1908, a definite decision to establish the university had been made and it was resolved that the commitment to the new institution should be announced as a central part of the state’s jubilee celebrations in December 1909. Then it was decided that the new university should be sited in and around Government House. The university would move in and the governor would be moved out, to a temporary government house pending construction of the permanent building in Victoria Park.

On 10 December 1909, exactly fifty years since Bowen’s proclamation ‘erecting’ Queensland had been read from the balcony of Dr Hobbs’ house above Adelaide Street, Governor Sir William MacGregor stood before a gathering at Government House to inaugurate the new university, to formally hand over the keys to Government House and to formally assent to a bill that had been passed by the parliament on 7 December 1909, transferring Government House and its surrounds to the University of Queensland.8 MacGregor’s emotions were mixed. As a man of enlightenment and learning, he was delighted that the state was to have a university and he was more than willing to accept any personal inconvenience that might result from his family having to move house. However, he felt that the George Street site would be far too small for the university’s needs.

Fernberg, the MacGregor’s new home, had been leased by the Queensland government for a rental of 250 pounds a year, with an option to purchase for 10,000 pounds.9 The arrangement permitted the MacGregors to move out of Government House while the government conducted an exhaustive search for an existing grand home in Brisbane that might be suitable to house the governor for an indefinite period. Agents were appointed to look for suitable houses and a short list of about six properties was submitted to the government, in the price range of around 10,000 pounds. From many points of view, the most suitable property might have been Sir Samuel Griffith’s Merthyr, in New Farm. Griffith had little use for Merthyr since he had become Chief Justice of the High Court in 1903. He was invited to indicate if he would be prepared to sell and at what price. Griffith replied that he ‘should be much tempted by an offer of 25,000 pounds.’ The cryptic note on the government’s

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Top right: Original design for Fernberg by architect Benjamin Backhouse, about 1864.

Below, top: Fernberg in 1885, with the Stevenson family on the upper verandah. At this time, the original house was intact.

Middle: Fernberg extensions under way.

Below: Fernberg in the 1930s.

file was ‘Lead him not into temptation’10 and Merthyr was dropped from the list of sites under consideration.

The MacGregors moved to Fernberg in July 1910.11 A year later, the government exercised its option to purchase the property, despite clear advice that it was not ideal even as a temporary government house because it was too small and needed too much repair and upgrading. Brady had reported unfavourably on Fernberg in January 1909 – ‘it is a three storey brick building, surmounted by a tower, the whole covered externally with a cement plaster, colour washed.

The floor area of the Hall and Reception rooms is only 1,758 sq. feet as against 3,660 sq. feet in Government House ... if the property was purchased, very extensive additions would have to be made ... general repairs and painting would also be needed ... formation of gardens and lawns for garden parties difficult and costly ... the approaches to the house would also have to be much altered and extended.’12 No doubt, short term expediency had prevailed in the government’s decision to ignore Brady’s advice and to proceed with the purchase. Fernberg was available, the governor was already in residence there and the quick and tidy transaction enabled the embryonic university to take early possession of what had been Government House.

Fernberg might have had many inadequacies, but it had history on its side. Designed by well known architect and builder Benjamin Backhouse and completed for the prominent merchant and plantation owner, Johann Heussler, in 1866,13 the house occupied a commanding position with splendid views to the town of Brisbane. The name Fernberg meant ‘distant hill’ in Heussler’s native German. It was one of the first grand homes of Brisbane.

Heussler encountered financial difficulties and from about 1872 Fernberg had a succession of occupants before the Scottish born pastoralist John Stevenson bought it in 1882. Stevenson made very extensive alterations and additions before he in turn fell victim to financial over-commitment and the depression of the 1890s. Then Fernberg was owned by Mount Morgan gold magnates William Pattison and Walter Hall for almost a decade, before it was sold in

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1901 to Adelaide Palmer, sister-in-law of John Stevenson. Finally, Adelaide Palmer sold to the Queensland government in 1911.14 The plan that one day Queensland would build a new government house was not abandoned for many years but it was never implemented. That became more and more unlikely as each extension and major renovation increased the government’s commitment at Fernberg. New works, repairs and landscaping were under way almost continuously from 1911 through to 1936, when Governor Sir Leslie Wilson argued for a return to the old government house in George Street. The government of the day declined Wilson’s suggestion and instead, in 1937, commissioned another round of extensive works at Fernberg.15 That amounted to a commitment to Fernberg as a permanent government house and after that no more was heard of alternative proposals.

By then, the University of Queensland was on the way to its permanent home at St Lucia and the development of Sir William MacGregor Drive on the new campus was underway to honour MacGregor’s service as first Chancellor. He had been unanimously elected to the position at one of the University Senate’s first meetings, held on 22 April 1910. Although the Senate doubtless had in mind the prestige of the governor’s position when it made the appointment, a better choice could not have been made. MacGregor was a man of learning, ideas and considerable intellectual achievement. It was entirely appropriate that he should formally open the university on 26 February 1911 – there could have been no finer role model for the graduates that the university hoped to produce.

MacGregor stressed that all thinking should be rigorous and conclusions should be based on careful analysis of objective evidence. Logical thought, not comfortable assumption, was his personal method. In particular, he argued

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that more and better scientific investigation of the problems of agriculture would greatly benefit Queensland. He said that such research would especially help the expansion of the sugar industry, an industry that MacGregor strongly supported now that it was doing without the labour of Pacific Islanders.16

Above left: Sir William MacGregor (standing, centre rear, with plume on hat) and Lady MacGregor (seated, third from right, in dark dress) and Miss Mary MacGregor (seated at extreme left), following a luncheon aboard a visiting Japanese naval flagship, 15 March 1910.

Centre left: Governor Sir William MacGregor presides at his last meeting of the Executive Council of Queensland, 19 July 1914. Sir William is seated in centre at rear, then, from right (Sir William’s left) – Hons. J.G. Appel, J. Tolmie, J.W. Blair, J. White, E.H. Abell Esq. (Clerk, standing), A.H. Barlow, W.H. Barnes, W.T. Paget and Digby Denham (Premier).

Below left: A citrus farm at Mapleton, 1912 – subduing the land.

Below right: Japanese labourers from the sugar cane fields at Hambledon plantation, near Cairns, 1896.

Everywhere MacGregor had been, he took an extremely active interest in the health of the community, particularly in preventive medicine. He used his considerable personal influence with the state’s political leaders to secure support for the Institute of Tropical Medicine that had been established in Townsville on 1 January 1910. The Institute had grown out of the desire of Australians to settle their northern regions with a white population. There was a strong view that if the tropical north could be freed from disease, then white people would thrive there.17 At the official opening of the Institute in 1913, MacGregor said ‘the most careful attention to the habits of life, in respect of food, clothing, sanitation, and especially great care in looking after the interests of mothers, will be necessary to enable Europeans to become domesticated in the tropics ... but ... beyond doubt, the North of Australia is extraordinarily healthy .. it is comforting to know that the conditions for white colonisation of the tropics are unusually favourable.’18 He was less enthusiastic about a 1911 report which showed that 31.7 per cent of all Queensland children had physical defects affecting their educational performance and that 97 per cent of children had diseased teeth.19 MacGregor was therefore pleased to be able to open the new Mater Private Hospital, on 14 August 1910. He also gave vital impetus to moves to create a medical school in Queensland, joining three other medical men who were members of the university Senate, John Lockhart-Gibson, Sir David Hardie and Wilton Love, to advocate that a medical school should be established within the university. The move took a significant step forward at the time of MacGregor’s departure from Queensland, when the university resolved to establish a medical school to commemorate his services ‘to the Empire.’ At the same time, a citizens committee was raising funds for what was first intended

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to be an outright gift to MacGregor. The governor indicated that he would not accept such a gift, but that the funds should be allocated to a medical faculty at the university. A substantial amount was raised and it became the nucleus of the capital cost of establishing a medical school. However, new faculties of Agriculture and Commerce were given higher priority and the Faculty of Medicine was not established until 1935. Then, the MacGregor Fund stood at 4,230 pounds. The amount was applied to furnish and equip the Sir William MacGregor School of Physiology.20 These were keen personal interests of MacGregor’s and he pursued them very effectively. Another special interest had always been the welfare of native peoples and he showed that interest in Queensland’s Aborigines. He also showed that he was not one to mince words when he reported to the Secretary of State for Colonies that Queensland’s policy and legislation to deal with Aborigines had failed. ‘In the vicinity of towns they manage to obtain a certain amount of alcohol, or opium if there were Chinese in the district. Dirt, rags, venereal disease, hunger and exposure are hurrying the native race to extinction ... Unless some success attends the stations under the management of the several churches another fifty years will extinguish the native race in Queensland.’21 London applauded the report but Queensland did very little.

MacGregor did not neglect his obligations toward the wider concerns of the whole Queensland community. By 1911, that community comprised 605,813 people, with almost 140,000 of them resident in Brisbane.22 It was an increasingly prosperous population. Drought had given way to a run of better seasons, closer settlement in pastoral and agricultural districts was creating employment and new communities; mining was steady and manufacturing was slowly increasing.

On 28 October 1910, MacGregor was involved in the consecration of Stage One of St John’s Anglican Cathedral.23 On 21 August 1913, he chaired the meeting that resulted in the formation of the Historical Society of Queensland, a development that he had very strongly supported and publicly encouraged.24 Beyond Brisbane, MacGregor travelled around the state as keenly as any of his predecessors, taking advantage of new transport technology to do so. He was often the first governor to be seen in a motor car in some more remote regions. In 1912 he was certainly the first governor to travel by car between Winton and Longreach. While in Winton he had spoken at a dinner hosted by local Shire Councillors. During his speech, ‘His Excellency, as usual, gave his hearers something to think about’ reported the Western Champion newspaper. ‘[He] showed great interest in questions relating to the health of country school children, hospitals and agriculture. A suggestion by Sir William that a flying machine would be useful over such a large scope of country as he had seen seemed to amuse his hearers.’25 A flying machine! And this was eight years before the airline Qantas was born in Winton!

Through his term, MacGregor was able to avoid constitutional difficulties.

However, he was criticised in 1912 when he was rather too openly supportive of the conservative Denham government when it took firm action to break a general strike. MacGregor was naturally sympathetic to working people but he had no sympathy for those who denied the importance of work. He put activist trade union leaders into that category, saying that they strove for power harder than they worked for the welfare of their union members.

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The 1912 general strike.

Right: Strike-breakers assembled at Old Government House.

Below, top: Onlookers Middle: Strike-breakers with their rifles.

Bottom: Volunteers defending (Old) Government House.

He felt that true liberalism was being squeezed to death between militant unionism and the conservative reaction. The criticism of MacGregor abated when, in April 1912, Denham’s party handsomely increased its majority at a general election.26 Through all of this, Mary MacGregor stayed in the shadow of her illustrious husband. She ‘delighted in homely pursuits’ and might have been happiest when she and her husband took brief holidays at the then isolated and unfashionable Noosa.27 The MacGregors left Queensland on 15 July 1914. They retired in Scotland, where Mary died on 4 December 1919. William had died on 3 June 1919.

Many extended tributes were published in widely scattered parts of the world.

An obituarist for the Aberdeen University Review perhaps best summed up his career and his qualities – ‘He began life with no advantages except his innate ability, and rose to be one of the really great men of his time. ... He was a great administrator – always working for the good of the subject races and helping them to develop ... Contact with a world of men gradually softened a certain roughness of manner, until he became the courteous man of his later years. But he was always a great personality, a great fighter, striving continually for the cause of right and justice, and using his scientific knowledge for the good of humanity.’28 Sir William MacGregor had been a brilliant achiever; his successor in Queensland, Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, was an unimaginative plodder. MacGregor had governed through a generally peaceful period of stability and expansion, while Goold-Adams arrived in Queensland just four weeks before Australian troops landed at Gallipoli and less than three months before Thomas (always referred to as ‘T.J.’) Ryan won an historic election victory for Labor. MacGregor had been able to spend a good deal of time encouraging and opening new institutions.

Goold-Adams had to spend much of his time unveiling war memorials and attending services commemorating the war dead.

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Goold-Adams was no stranger to war. He was yet another Queensland governor who was born in Ireland into a family that had come from Scotland several generations previously. Born on 27 June 1858, he at first sought a naval career but then chose to join the Royal Scots Regiment. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1878 and went to southern Africa in 1884. In 1885 he was promoted to captain, then to major in 1889. He led several dangerous expeditions into the interior; he fought in the second Boer War and helped defend Mafeking, where he was mentioned in dispatches. He was deputygovernor of the Orange River colony between 1901 and 1910; then became High Commissioner on Cyprus in 1911. In November 1914, he formally annexed Cyprus on behalf of the British Crown, one of his last acts before he was appointed Governor of Queensland. In 1911 he had married Elsie Riordon, of Montreal in Canada.29 He was knighted in 1902.30 Sir Hamilton’s term as Queensland’s governor was to be dominated by the Great War. He and Lady Goold-Adams arrived in Brisbane on 15 March 1915, just as the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was preparing to leave its training ground in Egypt and go into battle at Gallipoli. Recruiting for the AIF had begun on 8 August 1914, four days after the Great War had broken out.

Australia had immediately pledged to send an expeditionary force to fight anywhere they might be required by the British government. The 20,000 men who were needed quickly volunteered. They were the first of a total of 416,809 Australians (out of a total population of about four million) who enlisted for service during the war; 57,705 of them were Queenslanders. Of the Queenslanders, 6,850 men were killed and 15,590 were wounded.31 In Queensland and everywhere else in Australia the enlistment rate was very high as a proportion of the population; so were the casualty rates. Every Australian community suffered the grief and loss of war, none more than in outback places where often almost every man of military age enlisted. Those men often did more than their share of the hard fighting. By the time it was over, sorrow hung in the air over outback towns and over every homestead, stock camp and shearing shed. The war claimed family and friends from all such places.

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Below left: Lady Goold-Adams drawing the ballot for the first soldier-settlement block of land opened for selection at Beerburrum, 16 November 1916.

Middle: Governor Goold-Adams, with top hat, talking with medal winning soldiers at Enoggera, 1916.

Right: Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams.

Far right: The Goold-Adams family at Government House, with aviators Keith Smith (standing, left), Wally Shiers (standing, centre) and James Bennett (standing, right), with Ross Smith seated second from left. The men had been the first to fly from England to Australia. December 1919.

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Every Australian who went to the Great War was a volunteer. At first, the number of volunteers was more than was needed. That changed when it became apparent that the war was not going to be a glorious adventure, a chance for a free trip to exotic overseas destinations. It was confidently predicted that the war would be over in a few weeks, so young men who wanted the adventure and the overseas trip were urged to join up quickly, before it was all over.

Instead, the war dragged on for more than four years of indecisive stalemate.

Its battlefields, especially on the Western Front, may have been the closest thing to hell on earth that man has ever devised.

As the casualities mounted, there were louder and louder calls for more and more men. However, recruiting raised the very complicated issue of the attitude of the Irish community toward the war. The issue loomed large in Queensland, where the proportion of Irish people in the community was high. Ireland was in revolt against Britain and many Queenslanders of Irish background, often encouraged by their church, took the view that it was not the proper role of anyone of Irish heritage to fight Britain’s battles for it, certainly not for so long as Britain denied ‘home rule’ to Ireland. Other Queenslanders saw this attitude as disloyal, even seditious. As the war dragged on, the community became bitterly divided, particularly when the Commonwealth government strenuously but unsuccessfully attempted to introduce compulsory military service. Goold-Adams was to find himself dragged into the vortex of this division and bitterness.

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Queensland’s transition to militarism began harmlessly and good-humouredly enough for Goold-Adams in April 1915 when he opened a miniature rifle range at the South Brisbane Technical College, a facility designed to turn young men into marksmen before they joined up. The governor impressed everyone when he easily won a competitive shoot on the new range.32 Clearly, he was a man who had the sort of skills that were useful and admired in Queensland. That was reinforced before long, when Goold-Adams showed that he had a very good eye for a horse, good enough for him to be pressed into service as a judge of everything from thoroughbreds to draught horses at the many shows he attended.33 In the early stages of the conflict, when not very many others in Queensland had first hand experience of war, the governor’s opinion on all matters military was sought and respected – after all, he had been a soldier for a long time and a hero at Mafeking. He was influential when he pointed out that Queensland industry could and should do much to produce armaments;34 that Queensland people could raise funds to buy equipment such as tanks and warplanes, that returned soldiers could be settled on the land and every assistance should be given to help them achieve success there.35 He also said that ‘he could see no reason why those who could not take an active part in this great war should sit down and be made miserable by the stoppage of innocent amusements.’36

On 11 January 1916, the governor was centrally involved in a Brisbane public meeting that had consequences that have resonated throughout Australia ever since. Goold-Adams addressed the meeting, which ‘decided that the first anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli should be suitably celebrated in Queensland and that the other states should be invited to take similar action. ... The date to be observed should be April 25 ... the chief objects of the day should be the commemoration of our fallen and for the honour of our surviving soldiers.’37 Queensland took the lead in the first Anzac Day commemorations in 1916. Premier Ryan arranged that the King should send a message38 that

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was read at commemorative gatherings and church services. The message seemed to confirm that Australia had indeed made a glorious entry onto the world stage when its men landed at Gallipoli at dawn a year earlier.

Although the war overshadowed everything else, the Goold-Adams involved themselves fully in Queensland community activities. In June 1915 they undertook an extensive tour of north Queensland and for the rest of their term they travelled as widely as they could, particularly to open local shows.

Everywhere they went, they attended ‘patriotic’ meetings, called to express support for the war and to raise funds for war related organisations. They laid foundation stones for war memorials and unveiled them on completion, perhaps the first of them on 4 November 1916 at Mowbray Park in Brisbane.39 While in Brisbane, Lady Goold-Adams gave birth to two children, Richard in 1916 and Elizabeth in 1918.40 She nevertheless found time to strongly support the work of the Girl Guides, Red Cross and the Boy Scouts. On 15 November 1919, at the request of Lady Baden-Powell, she convened a meeting at Government House to form a committee to establish the Girl Guides movement in Queensland. The objective of the meeting was accomplished and then Lady Goold-Adams took an active continuing interest in the movement.41 She also went to Burketown with her husband in June 1917. The people of the isolated town of ‘goats, claypans and glass bottles’ were very grateful because she was the first wife of a governor to pay Burketown a visit for many years.42

Left: Scene in front of the Brisbane GPO on Anzac Day, 1916. A saluting base was established opposite the Post Office. Queensland led the way in commemorating the Gallipoli landing on 25 April 1915.

Centre and right: Anzac Day procession in Brisbane, 1917.

Later in 1917, Sir Hamilton and his wife were both involved in the establishment of the Bush Nursing Association and the Mission to Seamen.

They were also both closely associated with a major milestone for Queensland education when the Brisbane Church of England Grammar School for Boys (‘Churchie’) was opened on its new and permanent site at East Brisbane. The school had started at Toowong in 1913, then moved to a site adjacent to St John’s Cathedral before acquiring the East Brisbane site in 1917.43 Teaching commenced on the new site on 12 February 1918 and, on 18 February,

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Sir Hamilton formally opened the school. On the same day, Lady Goold-Adams opened the school boatshed.44 Hamilton Goold-Adams was a dutiful plodder, not an eloquent speaker nor a man who had the gift of being able to mix comfortably in any gathering.

He overcame these inadequacies because he was a naturally pleasant person who became moderately popular because he was genuinely interested in other people, whatever their rank or station. However, he was an instinctively conservative man. He did his best to work harmoniously with the Labor government that took office on 1 June 1915 and the new premier, T.J. Ryan, did his best to work with the governor. Despite the best intentions of both men, there were times when the relationship came perilously close to breaking down.

In 1915, in the first elections with compulsory voting, Labor had won a handsome majority and for the first time in Queensland’s history the party was comfortably able to govern in its own right. Conservatives were alarmed and would have been even more anxious had they been able to foresee that Labor would govern the state for the next 42 years, save for a brief interruption between 1929 and 1932. In July 1915, the governor’s speech at the opening of parliament foreshadowed the introduction of bills to achieve sweeping industrial law reforms, the breaking up of large freehold estates, reform of the public service, extensions of public ownership and the establishment of state owned business enterprises.45 Two matters that were not mentioned in the speech were to cause Goold-Adams particular difficulty. One was the matter of the loyalty of Irish Queenslanders to the British cause in the war and their loyalty to the Crown and to the office of governor. The other was Labor’s determination to abolish Queensland’s Legislative Council.

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Left: Not everyone was able to march on Anzac Day in 1917. Photographer Alwynne Elliott, of the Fifth Light Horse, was wounded at Gallipoli and spent time at the Army hospital at Kangaroo Point.

Right: Wounded men from the Fifth Light Horse, at Kangaroo Point hospital, 1916.

John Fihelly was secretary of the Labor caucus and Minister Without Portfolio in the Ryan government. He was therefore a member of the Executive Council.46 In September 1916, at a Queensland Irish Association meeting, Fihelly vehemently denounced the British government. Goold-Adams regarded the speech as being grossly disloyal and stated that he would refuse to speak with Fihelly or sit with him on the Executive Council.47 The majority of the Labor parliamentarians quickly disavowed Fihelly by moving a motion to censure him. Ryan persuaded caucus to withdraw the motion; Fihelly apologised and the matter was resolved but not forgotten.

Ever since the first sittings of the Queensland legislature in 1860, there had been tension between the elected Legislative Assembly and the appointed Legislative Council. After the Council had blocked some of its key legislative proposals in 1915, the Ryan government resolved to implement long standing Labor policy to abolish the upper house. There were serious strains in the relationship between the governor and the government when Goold-Adams twice refused to accept advice that the Council should be enlarged by the appointment of new members who would vote for the Council’s abolition.48 Confrontation was avoided when the government chose to suspend its plans for abolition of the Council until after Goold-Adams’ term ended.

The Goold-Adams left Queensland on pre-retirement leave, on 12 January 1920.

En route back to England, they broke their journey in South Africa so that Sir Hamilton could again see the country in which he had spent many eventful years. He contracted a chill that developed into pleurisy and pneumonia and he died in Capetown on 12 April 1920. Lady Goold-Adams survived him for many years. living in England until her death on 26 August 1952.49 Sir Hamilton had not been one of Queensland’s great governors, but he had done his duty as he saw it.

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A land fit for heroes – but not for Australian governors ‘In selecting governors, it would be wise to follow the same policy as in selecting wine. Choose something with plenty of body in it, as it will mature well.’1 The Great War’s slaughter ended on 11 November 1918. There was no great victory – nobody had won. There was just an armistice, an agreement that the fighting would stop. When it did stop, 15 million people were dead and perhaps 20 million more were to die of the influenza that the troops spread around the world as they went home. The Western Front that stretched from Belgium through France and into Switzerland had hardly moved from where it had been in late 1914. There was much unfinished business, many unresolved things that led inexorably to economic depression and then to another war that would cost even more lives.

What had it all been for? That was a hard question to answer. It was easiest to take refuge in platitude and say it had been fought to make the world a better place, to make Australia a land fit for its returning heroes. Queenslanders felt that their state held special promise to be such a land. After all, they said, their state was a big place, a golden land in the sun, filled with resources.

There was confidence that Queensland could now achieve the destiny that had been delayed. There was optimism and there were high expectations but there was also great tension because there were many conflicting opinions about just where that destiny lay and how it might be reached.

There was agreement about one thing: that the chance to make Queensland a better place must not be missed. Vision and leadership would be essential.

It was going to be a challenging time for people in public office because, if they failed, the disappointment would be great and the recriminations would be sharp. It would be a testing time for everyone, not least for Queensland’s thirteenth governor, Sir Matthew Nathan. Would he embody the spirit of the new age and help lead the state into the brave new world, or would he be just another place filler?

Left: Sir Matthew Nathan – urbane, charming and far sighted. He was just as much at home at Windorah as he might have been at Wimbledon.

Queensland was lucky. Nathan proved to be a very good governor, the right man for some of the most fortunate years in the state’s history. Part of his gift was that he encouraged Queenslanders not to waste their good fortune, to make sure they built for the future while they enjoyed the present. He was ‘an uncommonly good man, accessible, hospitable and the possessor of a marked gift for friendship.’2 He was strong, determined and hard working, a man of charming manners, a courteous and polished host with an unerring instinct for entertaining. He was a prodigious reader who thoroughly informed himself in advance about every place he visited, wrote his speeches himself and made sure they were based on research, not comfortable assumptions. By the time he arrived in Queensland he had probably read and thought about the state as much as most local residents.

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It may have been that he was better educated than most governors because he was Jewish. He was born in London in 1862, into a financially comfortable family of Jewish origin on both sides. At that time, Jewish boys were not welcomed at the best English public schools and so Matthew and his siblings were privately educated by a series of governesses and tutors. He then went to the Royal Military Academy where he was an outstanding cadet, graduating with sixteen prizes and the academy’s Sword of Honour. He joined the Royal Engineers and was soon sent overseas to help build fortifications, harbour defences and railway lines in Egypt, the Soudan, Sierra Leone, India and Burma. In 1891 he joined the fortifications branch of the War Office before being seconded as Secretary to the Colonial Defence Committee. In 1899 he was sent to Sierra Leone as that colony’s acting governor, then in succession he was governor of the Gold Coast in Africa (1900-04), Hong Kong (1904-07) and

Natal (1907-09). During his time in Hong Kong, he did notable and enduring work to establish a central urban planning and reconstruction policy, regulating the previously chaotic growth of the territory. He initiated work on major thoroughfares in the Kowloon Peninsula and started construction of the Kowloon to Canton (Guangzhou) railway. Nathan Road, Kowloon’s major thoroughfare, was named in his honour. He was knighted in 1902.

Nathan returned to Britain in 1909 and then held several increasingly important public service positions until he rose to become Under-Secretary for Ireland. That was not a happy posting for him because he was blamed by his superiors for misjudging the outbreak of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland.

He was brought back to England but continued to hold very senior positions until 1920.

He never married, but he enjoyed the company of women and seems to have been magnetically attractive to them. It was an open secret that he conducted a series of discreet affairs with intelligent and beautiful women who sparkled

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From left: The Industrial Home for Boys at Indooroopilly, conducted by the Salvation Army, opened in 1922.

Nothing could be taken for granted in the bush, not even water. This boy is drawing water from a soakage at Birdsville.

An Isisford boy fills a cask with water for his household while his goat team patiently waits to begin the haul into town.

Pupils and teacher at the Windorah State School, 1931.

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in the social and intellectual firmaments. One liaison was with Constance Spry, the author of books about cookery and flower arranging. In Queensland, there was intense competition to be his partner at official functions. When he departed the state, he left behind more than one broken (or at least chipped) heart.3 His appointment as Governor of Queensland was announced in London in July 1920. It is certain that more than usual care was taken when the British authorities selected Nathan for the job. There had been tension and conflict between the Queensland government and Governor Goold-Adams, just as there had been difficulties during the tenure of Lord Chelmsford. After Chelmsford, Sir William MacGregor was hand picked as the man who could rebuild the bridges. Now, Nathan was entrusted with the same demanding task.

Nathan started the repair work before he left England. In October 1920, he spoke at a London gathering organised by the Royal Colonial Institute to farewell him and Lord Stradbroke, Governor-designate of Victoria. Nathan is reported to have said ‘... he applauded the firmness with which Australia had maintained the “White Australia” doctrine ... the maintenance of a high standard of living called for advanced legislation and the schemes developed in Queensland would be watched with keen interest by the whole world. It remained for Australia to see that her whole continent was irrigated and that no drop of water needed for the land should enter the sea.’4 Those words were tailor-made for Queensland, especially to reassure the labour movement that had been so vehemently supportive of ‘White Australia’ but advocated no more governors, at least not imported ones.

On 16 October 1920, Nathan and his personal staff left England on the liner Orontes5 which reached Brisbane on third December. Dredging of the Brisbane River made it possible for the Orontes to proceed upstream as far as New Farm, where the new governor boarded the Lucinda for the last stage of his voyage to

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Petrie Bight. There was an especially enthusiastic reception for Nathan as he proceeded along Queen Street. For many people, the occasion seemed to mark the end of the sombre and sorrowful days of war and it seemed to be a new day in a brighter world. An address by returned soldiers was a novel feature of the welcome. Nathan told them ‘that he was glad to meet representatives of the men who made it possible for him to come to this land.’ After being sworn in, Nathan had lunch with the premier and his ministers.6 Two days later, the new governor was cheered by more than 10,000 people at the Brisbane Cricket Ground, where Australian cricketers were playing England.7 Nathan’s Queensland innings was off to a good start.

He continued to display very good form through the next five years. They were peaceful and prosperous years, sometimes called the Roaring Twenties.

Queensland’s economy was benefiting from a wool boom that began in 1916 and lasted until 1926, with prices in real terms rising as high as they ever were at any time between the 1870s and the present. Seasonal conditions were generally excellent, until late 1925. The sugar industry was completing its transition from plantation agriculture to small farming, with migrants from southern Europe thoroughly disproving the old notion that white men could not work in the tropics. Men who had started as cane cutters often became businessmen or farmers on their own account and they started families that changed Queensland forever. North Queensland communities grew and grew. In other farming districts, closer settlement intensified and agriculture diversified. Returned soldiers were settled on land of their own. Mining, especially copper mining at Cloncurry, had a resurgence during the Great War and the boom was sustained for some years thereafter. Near Cloncurry, in February 1923, prospectors found signs of the huge mineral deposits near the place that was to become Mt Isa. Modern construction techniques and the use of steel and new money made taller buildings possible. In Brisbane, some office blocks even reached the

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From left: Brisbane street scene during the 1912 strike.

It was the age of the motor car, the electric tram, the telephone, the wireless – and even the gramophone.

Cominos’ Central Cafe and American Bar in Longreach in the 1920s. Greek people brought commercial catering, fruit and vegetable supplies, confectionery and the Hollywood sophistication of milk bars to many towns.

Harry Corones (extreme right, back row) with an aerial survey party in Charleville. The Corones family were legendary hotelkeepers.

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dizzy height of six or seven storeys while the City Hall tower was soaring even higher. Queensland’s population in 1921 totalled 755,972, with 209,946 people living in Brisbane, 24,168 in Rockhampton, 21,353 in Townsville and 20,676 in Toowoomba.

There was common talk of ‘Australia Unlimited.’ People pointed out that the continent was roughly the same area as the United States, that it had similarly unlimited resources and therefore its destiny was for its economy to become at least as large and prosperous as America’s. Armchair geographers and agriculturalists looked at the big rivers that flowed out to sea or towards Lake Eyre. The dreamers said it would be a simple matter to harness the rivers and harvest their wasted water so that it could be used for irrigation and hydro-electric projects.

New science and technology seemed to promise that one day all this might be possible. It was the jazz age, the age of the gramophone, the telephone, the wireless, aeroplanes, motor cars, electricity, perhaps even reticulated water and sewerage. Queensland stood on the threshold of great things.

There was a strong feeling that everyone should share in the new prosperity and comfort when it came, a feeling that the state could now afford to spend more on education, health and social welfare. There was even money for roads. Hitherto, the only roads in the state had been made by local authorities and they did not want to spend money on ‘through’ roads that might take people away from their own districts. In 1920, the state government formed the Main Roads Commission (later Department) to build ‘main’ roads that would connect towns and create a state-wide road network.8 Country women in particular put the argument that rural districts should be given the amenities that people in the city had so long taken for granted. On 8 August 1922, a conference for country women was held in Brisbane. It was opened by Lady Forster, wife of the Governor-General, and it was addressed by

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Sir Matthew Nathan. The meeting resulted in the formation of the Queensland Country Women’s Association (QCWA).9 Nathan became a particularly enthusiastic supporter of the organisation and he forged a link between Queensland’s governors and the QCWA that continues in 2009. Nathan was more than a passive patron of the QCWA. He made it a practice wherever he went in rural districts (and he went to them all during his term) to speak with women about forming a local branch of the QCWA and to supply them with literature about the association. He performed many ‘stump-capping’ ceremonies for the QCWA – symbolically placing a galvanised iron cap over one of the stumps upon which a new hostel or meeting room might rest, the cap hopefully being a barrier to the progress of white ants. No doubt it made a pleasant change from laying foundation stones!

The QCWA was not Nathan’s only active interest in ‘quality of life’ issues and Queensland’s general welfare. He thought that if white people were going to live comfortably in the tropics their houses should be designed for tropical conditions. In 1923 he donated ten guineas to start a fund for a prize for a competition for better tropical house designs. Nathan was too far ahead of his time in this respect and there was little support from other individuals or organisations. He actively supported the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movements;

he advocated the study of local history and the preservation of materials relating to it, he strove to promote British immigration to Queensland and he accepted appointment as Chancellor of the University of Queensland in 1922.

Nathan had not been in Queensland long when he declared that, while he wanted to see people in all parts of the state, he also wanted to see native wildlife. ‘Humanity is humanity everywhere’ he said, ‘but only in this country can I see various strange and interesting plants, mammals and birds.’ He was taken on a number of short tours by the naturalist Alec Chisholm, who later

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From left: Sir Matthew Nathan, centre, on an expedition to the Great Barrier Reef, October 1923.

Nathan was a pioneer advocate for research and conservation of the reef.

Mrs K.B. McRae (at left), Mrs E.A. Atherton (centre) and Miss Grace Broghero inspecting a tobacco crop at Mareeba, about 1929.

The view from a verandah at Government House, looking over blooming jacaranda trees.

Right: Sir Matthew Nathan unveiling the Beaudesert War Memorial, 1921.

recalled ‘Once, when we were travelling in the south east, he addressed twenty small schools within a few days and at each one of them he made a different speech ... he was an able and dedicated administrator, a broad minded and refreshing companion and in general a very good bloke.’12 Nathan’s interest in the Great Barrier Reef was more far-reaching. He strongly believed that there should be systematic scientific study of the reef. In September 1922 he took the lead in forming the Great Barrier Reef Committee.

He chaired the committee in 1922-23, and was one of the reef’s first and most effective messiahs. As scientist Dorothy Hill wrote ‘Vice-Regal support for the new group was significant in view of the lack of money for research.’13 Perhaps even more significantly, the governor led the way in making the general community aware of the reef’s values. Typical of his proselytizing was his address to the Rotary Club of Brisbane on the first anniversary of the formation of the committee – ‘The magnitude, the mystery and the nature of this phenomena is so well indicated by that stirring name, the ‘Great Barrier Reef’ ... In so far as the reef is of world interest it is fitting that the study of it should claim the consideration of fine intellects in all parts of the world. But the Great Barrier Reef belongs to Australia, and especially to Queensland. We are here responsible for yielding the riches it owes to the world.’ Nathan went on to argue the case for sustained and continued inquiry, with the establishment of a marine biological station an immediate priority.14 Although Nathan was a bachelor, he made Government House a welcoming and comfortable place. His sister-in-law, Estelle Nathan, described a visit to Fernberg in October 1924. ‘A long drive across the hills and bumps on which Brisbane stood, over bad roads with sharp turns, brought us to Government House, itself situated on a steep little hill. It was ... inconveniently far out. The garden was delightful, I never ceased admiring the mauve Jacaranda tree ...

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How can I describe the perfect Britishness and Victorianism of the house and its appurtenances? It might well have been one of the larger ‘residences in their own grounds’ of Wimbledon. ... The rooms were large, light and well arranged, furnished in solid mahogany or satinwood. Royal portraits hung in the dining room and many of Matthew’s own portraits elsewhere. Matthew was an adored and admired Governor. He took the deepest interest in the life, occupation and produce of the country, stimulated all associations for betterment of conditions ... Droughts, being the curse of the country, schemes for irrigation and land reclamation were always in his mind. He also collected many historical works on the colony and eventually presented his valuable library to Brisbane.’15 In actual fact, in 1926 Nathan presented his library of Australian materials to Queensland, on condition that it be kept at the office of the Queensland Agent-General in London, for general reference and especially to inform people on his death who were considering emigrating to Australia.16 After the Second World War, the materials were brought to Queensland and they are now held by the State Library.

The Shakespearean actor Allan Wilkie often found himself in Brisbane and was invited to Government House. He enjoyed ‘delightfully informal Sunday evening supper parties when servants were dispensed with and the Governor and his aides personally waited on the guests, amongst whom one could always count on finding whatever interesting visitors happened to be in Brisbane at the time.’17 In March 1925 it was announced that the governor would leave Queensland later in the year.18 Nathan began a series of tours to farewell the people he had come to know so well. In April he journeyed through the south-west of the state, then in June he visited the pastoral districts of the far west, central west and north. Later, he made a final visit to most coastal communities.19 He travelled more than 4,200 miles by motor car and 8,000 miles by train.

Everywhere he went, he spoke to school children, visited hospitals and looked at productive enterprises. Everywhere, there was genuine sadness that he was leaving Queensland.

On 21 September 1925, he left Brisbane for Hong Kong, sailing via Thursday Island.20 Later, he returned to England, where he retired to a country estate in Somerset. He died there, on 18 April 1939. As he left Queensland, the Brisbane correspondent for The Argus newspaper wrote ‘Sir Matthew Nathan has exercised an intellectual ascendancy in Queensland which has been of very great value to the community. He has been indefatigable ... If ever there was a tradition in Queensland that governors were merely ornamental personages who gave receptions and graced social functions, Sir Matthew has disposed of it effectively.’21 That was not entirely true. Nathan’s impending departure rekindled public debate about a number of questions that had been put to one side during his term. Should Queensland have a governor at all? If yes, who should appoint him? Should governors be local men or should they continue to be British?

The questions had been raised by a few people as long ago as the 1890s, but a strong majority of Queenslanders seemed content with the existing arrangements. Then, in 1915, a Labor government was elected on a platform that included doing away with the Legislative Council. That raised questions

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Top left: Edward Granville Theodore, Queensland premier who was determined to abolish the Legislative Council. He got his way in 1922.

about the governors, who were seen as probable obstacles in the path of Legislative Council abolition.

Centre: At the races at Eagle Farm in 1920, from left, HRH the Prince of Wales, Acting Premier John Fihelly, and William Lennon.

Ever since its creation in 1860, there had been arguments about the size, authority and legitimacy of the Council. Queensland’s original constitutional arrangement was that its legislature should be comprised by an elected Legislative Assembly and an appointed Legislative Council. Bills for proposed legislation needed to be passed by both houses before the governor could sign them into law.

Below: Weighing in at the Birdsville races, about 1926.

Below right: A civic reception in Tambo for Premier T.J. Ryan, 1917. Tambo was in Ryan’s Barcoo electorate.

There was no express stipulation about the size of the Council, although a convention developed that the Council should have approximately two-thirds the number of members of the Assembly. In 1860, the first eleven members of the Council were nominated by the Governor of New South Wales, for five year terms. Subsequent appointments were to be made by the Governor of Queensland, for life terms. Some of the vexed questions that arose out of these arrangements included whether the Council had any authority over the Assembly’s money bills (the Privy Council held in 1885 that it did not, but the Council ignored that ruling) and was the governor bound by advice from his ministers about the appointment of new councillors? Did the governors have the discretion to reject advice to appoint new councillors if the appointments would enlarge the Council to a size much greater than two thirds the size of the lower house? In particular, did the governors have the power to reject

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advice to make new appointments if the purpose was obviously to abolish the Council and thus radically change Queensland’s constitutional arrangements?

From 1915, the Ryan Labor government began to take active steps to implement its long standing policy to abolish the Council. A 1908 law provided that if a bill was twice passed by the Assembly but twice rejected by the Council, it could then be submitted to a referendum. Bills to abolish the Council were passed by the Assembly in 1915 and again in 1917 but on each occasion the Council rejected the proposal. In 1917, the government put the proposal to a referendum but it was soundly rejected, by 179,105 votes to 116,196. Then the government pursued a strategy to appoint new members who would ‘swamp’ the Council and create a majority who would vote for abolition. This strategy was thwarted when Governor Goold-Adams agreed to make some of the new appointments that the government sought, but declined to make the full number of appointments that would be needed to swamp the Council.

Premier Ryan seemed content to let the matter rest for the time being but it was vigorously revived after October 1919 when Ryan left Queensland to enter federal politics and Edward Theodore took over as premier.

Theodore devised a two pronged strategy. There would be an interval between Goold-Adams’ departure and the arrival of his successor. Theodore would use his considerable powers of persuasion and personal charm to try to ensure that Goold-Adams chose a suitable man to be lieutenant-governor during this interval. Theodore wanted a compliant man to act as governor, a man who would rubber stamp proposed new appointments to the Council. The second limb of Theodore’s strategy was to argue for the appointment of Australian governors, who would be nominees of the Queensland government, not the British government. Going further, the new premier took Labor policy off the shelf and argued for abolition of the office of governor altogether.

The long-standing procedure in Queensland was for the appointment of a lieutenant-governor, normally a man who was or had been the President of the Legislative Council, who would hold a dormant commission to act as governor in the event of the absence, incapacity or death of the substantive governor.

There was also an administrator, normally the Chief Justice, who would act as governor if both the governor and lieutenant-governor were unavailable to perform the governor’s duties. Appointments to both offices were made by the governor, on the advice of the premier.22 Legislative Council president Sir Arthur Morgan, who had been lieutenant-governor, died in December 1916.

Chief Justice Pope Cooper was then appointed lieutenant-governor for short periods between 1917 and 1919. However, Goold-Adams was reluctant to appoint Cooper for the longer period that would follow his departure because he, Goold-Adams, thought that the irascible Cooper would not be able to work harmoniously with the government.

By late 1919 Goold-Adams was not well and he did not want to delay his departure from Queensland. It was important that he choose a lieutenant-governor before he left, somebody suitable to act as governor during the possibly long interval before a new governor could take up office.

Cooper had been eliminated as a possibility and Goold-Adams now considered William Hamilton, the President of the Legislative Council. However, Hamilton was not suitable because he had a criminal record, having been convicted of conspiracy during the 1891 shearers’ strike. Sir Robert Philp was also a

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possibility, but Goold-Adams thought Philp would be too obviously politically partisan. That left just one name on Goold-Adams’ short list, that of William Lennon, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.

Top left: Motor cars were a wonderful development, but they could not guarantee arrival at the end of a journey over unmade roads.

Centre: Floating a car across the flooded Cooper Creek.

Below: ‘Roads’ became quagmires when it rained, dustbowls when it did not..

Top right: Sir Matthew Nathan’s vice regal progress through the far west – travelling from Hammond Downs to Windorah. From left, George Cartwright of Moothandella (at horses’ heads), George Hammond of Hammond Downs seated on buggy at left, Sir Matthew next to him, and two unknown men.

It appears that Goold-Adams conferred with Theodore, who enthusiastically advised the governor that Lennon was certainly the most suitable choice and should be appointed. Lennon was Theodore’s man, a man who would do as he was told. Theodore was almost certainly delighted when Goold-Adams agreed to put Lennon’s name forward to London. The Colonial Office was alarmed by Lennon’s overt identification with the governing Labor Party and by the possibility of his partisanship, but it eventually reluctantly accepted Goold-Adams’ advice that Lennon was the best man for the job. The Office agreed to the appointment, provided that Lennon resigned from the position of Speaker and from the Assembly.23 The Colonial Office consideration of the matter caused some delay which obliged Goold-Adams to delay his departure. Eventually, the outgoing governor was able to formalise Lennon’s appointment and then leave Queensland by train on 26 January 1920, to catch

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up in Melbourne with the vessel he should have boarded some days before.24 On 19 February 1920, Lennon appointed fourteen more Labor nominees to the Council. Labor now had the secure upper house majority it needed to pass a bill to abolish the Council. However, Theodore chose to bide his time on the abolition while he went to London to secure new loans for Queensland and to discuss the appointment of a new governor with British authorities.

Lennon’s appointment may have been constitutionally permissible, although there was argument about that. Constitutional or not, it was certainly unorthodox and irregular, a departure from the Westminster spirit if not its letter. The episode caused alarm in London, well beyond the Colonial Office and particularly in the city, the financial district to which Queensland turned when it wanted to raise loans. The state was still a very heavy borrower but potential lenders took a very jaundiced view of ‘socialistic’ measures promised by the Theodore government to control prices, lift land rents and perhaps even abolish the office of governor. Conservative British lenders took the view that the Legislative Council, backed up by the governors, had been a bastion against unbridled socialism. Without these institutions Theodore could do whatever he liked, the financiers thought.

Theodore went to London in mid-1921, to try to allay these fears and to secure new loans and to seek discussions with the British government. Theodore intended to make the point that Queensland should have the right to appoint its own governors and that Lennon should be the first of them. He was also to argue that London should not in future withhold assent to Queensland legislation. He tried hard, but Theodore’s arguments were weakened when an independent delegation from Queensland, led by Sir Robert Philp, arrived in London to lobby against some of Theodore’s proposals, particularly those that would affect pastoral lands. As to appointment of governors, Philp and his colleagues made the perfectly valid point that many, probably most, Queenslanders wanted the system of appointment of British men by British authorities to continue. It was the best guarantee that there would be no political partisans in Government House, the best guarantee that there would always be an independent umpire who saw to it that the game was played by the rules.

In July 1920 it was reported in London that Theodore had asked Lord Milner, then Secretary of State for Colonies, that no further governors should be appointed to Queensland and that instead the governor’s duties should be performed by the lieutenant-governor, starting with Lennon. The request was disregarded and, on 13 July, the Colonial Office advised that the King had appointed Sir Matthew Nathan.25 During the discussions with Milner, Theodore is said to have undertaken that he would not use the Lennon nominees in the Council to abolish that body until a new election had been held for the Legislative Assembly.26 On 16 July, Queensland’s Agent General entertained a number of British and Australian dignitaries at a dinner at London’s Trocadero restaurant. In a toast to Theodore, the Under-Secretary for Colonies, Leo Amery, said ‘he believed that Mr. Theodore held advanced views that age would cure.’ In selecting statesmen (meaning governors), Amery said ‘it would be wise to follow the same policy as in selecting wine. Choose something with plenty of body in it, as it will mature well.’ In his response, Theodore was conciliatory toward the Colonial

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Office, but he made a ‘violent outburst against the financial interests which, he asserted, had prevented him from achieving his purpose of floating a loan because of the unfortunate misapprehensions prevailing regarding the bona fides and motives of the Queensland Ministry, which was supposedly careless in honouring its obligations.’27

Top left: Spillway at the big dam, Mount Morgan.

Left, below: An engine pushes a train up the rack railway toward Mount Morgan.

Top right: View from the Queensland National Hotel, toward the Mount Morgan town and mine.

If Theodore was chastened, he did not show it. He returned to Brisbane and called a snap election in October 1920. His government was returned, but with a drastically reduced majority. When Nathan arrived a few weeks later, he assumed, along with almost everyone else, that no more would be heard of Legislative Council abolition because the election result seemed to indicate community disapproval of the proposal and Theodore would accept that the electorate had not given him any mandate to abolish the Council.28 Those assumptions were wrong. In October 1921 Theodore again presented his Abolition Bill. This time, the bill was comfortably carried in both houses.

The bill went to Nathan for approval. He reserved it for imperial assent, with the comment that a refusal of assent would simply give Theodore more ammunition to shoot down the office of governor. Nathan also pointed out that local opponents of the bill had made very little to use of proper political processes to defeat it. The new Secretary for Colonies, Winston Churchill, clearly disapproved of what had happened, but recommended assent on the basis that the bill was a matter purely of local concern and Imperial advisers should not intervene to prevent it becoming operative.29 Advice of the royal assent was received in Brisbane on 22 March 1922 and so the Abolition Bill became law. When it was proclaimed the following day, the Legislative Council ceased to exist.30 The tension immediately subsided. The question of who should be appointed governor and by whom did not arise again until toward the end of Nathan’s

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term. Throughout Australia, the Labor Party was showing signs that it took seriously its policy commitment that the state governorships should be filled

by Australian appointees. In 1923, Nathan sensed which way the wind was blowing. He offered to resign if he was not wanted in Queensland and if his resignation would facilitate the implementation of Labor policy. He was sharply reminded by the Colonial Office that the home government’s policy was still to continue sending governors from London and to retain those already in office until the six Australian states could reach unanimity on the question.31 That unanimity appeared possible in 1925, when the Labor Party was in office in every state except Victoria. Nathan had been appointed for a three year term but, when that was expiring, Theodore pressed him to stay on until such time as the new policy for the appointment of Australian governors might be consummated. Then, Theodore hoped, an Australian could immediately be appointed to Queensland.

Nathan’s term was extended, but as the extension drew to a close the British government took no steps to appoint a successor, pending clarification at the 1925 Premier’s Conference of whether the Australian states would come to the one view about the appointment of Australians. Queensland delayed making any suggestions to London, believing, certainly correctly, that London would not accept a suggestion from Queensland unless it conformed with the unanimously adopted position of all the states.32 The unanimity was never quite achieved because, in 1925, Victoria held out against the other states and refused to agree that from henceforth state governors should be Australians. William Lennon again took over as

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Top left: A fireplough track across the downs was a good road in the 1920s.

Above, top: Mt Isa in 1929, six years after the first mineral discoveries there.

Below: Mt Isa miners in 1929.

Right: January 1925 – Qantas Pilot Moody prepares to take newlyweds Lila and Owen Harris from Colane station, near Winton, to Longreach to catch a train for their honeymoon trip.

chapter ten – A land fit for heroes – but not for Australian Governors

lieutenant-governor when Nathan left Queensland in September 1925. Queensland did not press for a permanent appointment as governor and it seemed that London was happy to allow matters to drift along until opinion about the appointment of local men as governors was clearly expressed within Australia, one way or the other. Finally, it seemed that the status quo had prevailed.

By way of confirmation of that, new Royal Instructions to the Governor of Queensland were issued in 1925, replacing those that had been given to Bowen in 1859. The new instructions provided that ‘the Governor shall be guided by the advice of the Executive Council, but if in any case he shall see sufficient cause to dissent from the opinion of the said Council he may act in the exercise of his said powers and authorities in opposition to the opinion of the Council, reporting the matter to us without delay and his reasons for so doing.’33 That made it crystal clear that Queensland’s governors retained perogatives and discretions and that the ultimate authority rested with the monarch and those who advised him or her. That position was not changed until 1986 and nor were the arrangements whereby Australian state governors were appointed by the monarch on the advice of the government in London.

In February 1927, the British doctor and colonial administrator Sir John Goodwin was appointed to be Queensland’s new governor. It would be twenty more years before an Australian took over at Government House.

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The first of the modern governors ‘Intense loyalty and pride in the British connexion, together with a tendency towards rough disrespect for pomp and authority.’ 1 The constitutional experts had no way of knowing it then, but after 1925 they could put away their textbooks for almost sixty years. Following Sir Matthew Nathan, it was not until 1983 that a Queensland governor had to once again deal with problems that raised complex constitutional issues.

In the meantime, the governors could give priority to their ceremonial responsibilities and to their duty to show ‘Evident sympathy with the progress of the colony ... kindness, generosity, devoted energy ... these are the qualities that make a governor powerful,’ as Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton had counselled Queensland’s first governor, Sir George Bowen, in 1859.2 Sir John Goodwin and Sir Leslie Wilson, the governors of Queensland between 1927 and 1946, were both men who were well suited by the shift in emphasis of their roles. They could be called the first of the modern governors. They were far more than figureheads – they still had important duties as the head of state. They had to be ready to act as constitutional umpires if required.

However, it was never necessary for them to intervene in the processes of government in the way that some earlier governors had done, whether by necessity or by inclination. Queensland had matured and the processes of government no longer needed that intervention. Instead, the new focus of the governors’ task was to engage with the wider community, to show it ‘evident sympathy,’ to encourage and acknowledge its achievements, to inspire and lead by example. Their challenge was to show Queenslanders who they Left: Sir Leslie Orme Wilson – Queensland’s longest serving governor and a most popular one.

Below: The Duke and Duchess of York (later King George the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth) leaving Government House during their 1927 tour.

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Above: Brisbane’s Anzac Square under construction in 1931 – oil painting by Frances Lahey.

were and who they might become, to cause people to reflect on that and on their obligations to each other and to the world beyond. An additional heavy burden on the governors in the years between 1927 and 1946 was to maintain morale and sustain hope through very difficult times.

After Sir Matthew Nathan’s departure in September 1925, William Lennon acted as governor for almost two years. They were the last years of the Roaring Twenties, years of prosperity that by early 1927 were looking very brittle. By then, pastoral districts were suffering badly from the ‘1926 drought,’ a climatic catastrophe that was reminiscent of 1902. The drought struck suddenly at the end of 1925 and quickly had very severe impacts because there had been much imprudent over-stocking through the good years that experts assured everyone were normal. Wherever possible, stock from the inland pastoral districts were moved to agistment in coastal areas or on the Central Highlands.

Outback towns suffered when the shearing season was abbreviated and many men were forced to take work as scrub-cutters, felling trees to bring down edible foliage as a desperate last resort to keep sheep alive. The teamsters had been fighting a losing battle against the motor lorry men for fifteen years. Now, drought forced them off the scene forever because there was no grass and often little or no water for their draught animals along the routes they used to travel. The wagons vanished from the roads just as aeroplanes appeared in outback skies.

Queensland’s economy was still dominated by rural industries and the state still rode on the sheep’s back. Therefore, the coastal cities also suffered when the rains didn’t come in 1926. It is often said that the economic depression began with the Wall Street stockmarket slump of October 1929, but in Queensland it was the 1926 drought that brought depression. In May 1927, more than two years before the great crash, it was reported that ‘In view of the condition of parts of the country, it is not surprising that city business people complain of a dullness of trade. Many wholesale houses are giving enforced holidays to members of their staffs and retail houses are very slack.’ Paradoxically, new city buildings were still being developed apace ‘... still more large buildings are rising. Buildings have been begun or are projected for half a dozen banks

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in Queen Street. These include the Commonwealth Bank on a site next to the General Post Office. Fine buildings for the Bank of New South Wales and the Bank of Australasia are already in progress.’3 New monuments were being erected in Queensland’s built landscape and the district that was to develop into the Gold Coast was already becoming an iconic holiday destination. During Easter 1927 ‘people flocked to the south coast beaches in numbers exceeding expectations. A feature of seaside development in recent years has been the increased use of the splendid beaches from the southern end of Moreton Bay to the border at the Tweed.’ The weather was fine and warm, but it was suggested that ‘for some years a change in the seasons has been noted in Queensland.’ The state had missed the usual summer monsoonal wet seasons but there had been rain in the winter.4 The momentum of the earlier prosperity was to sustain the state for another year or two, until the global economic crisis of 1929 brought a severe contraction in world trade and dried up credit. Queensland’s economy still rested on a rural base and the shrinking demand for export commodities was keenly felt. Before long, as many as a third of the state’s wage earners faced the stark reality of unemployment.

In the meantime, between 1925 and early 1927, the British government delayed appointing a new governor to Queensland to replace Nathan. It was waiting to see whether the Australian states would reach a common policy that there should be no more British governors. The London authorities were quite willing to acquiesce in whatever decision was reached in Australia, as long as it was a clear and unambiguous decision. In the end there was no decision at all, but while the premiers were debating the matter there had been a stream of representations from Australian organisations and individuals who asked London not to depart from the previous practice of appointing British men to the Australian posts. British appointees were more suitable than local men, the arguments went, because they owed no obligations to any party or section in Australia. They were invariably people of high standing in Britain and had connections that were an invaluable advantage for the state to which they came. In particular, they had direct access to the British government.

They were from ‘home’ and there was still a very strong sentiment that Britain was home, the source of Australian civilisation and a most important trading partner. The London authorities discerned that the demand for Australian governors was the electoral catchcry of populist political leaders more than it was a cry from the heart of the Australian people.

Certainly there was no expression of outrage or even slight disappointment from the Queensland community or even from the state government when, on 2 February 1927, it was announced in London that the King had appointed Sir John Goodwin to be Governor of Queensland.5 It was hoped that the new governor would arrive in Brisbane in time for him to be the state’s host for the Queensland element of the Australia-wide royal tour by the King’s second son and his wife, the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth). However, Sir John and Lady Goodwin could not leave England in time. The royal visitors spent a week in Brisbane in early April 1927. Apart from a weekend at Tamrookum station near Beaudesert, when the Duke spent six hours in the saddle mustering cattle, the royal couple stayed at Government House. On their way there,

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the visitors drove past a large group of men working on Baroona Road. ‘They lined the footpath for fifty yards, waved muddy shovels and cheered.’6 That was typical of the informal and enthusiastic welcome. The Duke and Duchess went to the races at Eagle Farm, they met schoolchildren and they visited returned soldiers in repatriation hospitals. In one ward, the Duchess met John Allardyce, a limbless soldier who was originally from the Glamis estate in Scotland, the property of the Duchess’ father, the Earl of Strathmore.7 The Duke had an honorary degree bestowed on him by the University of Queensland while the Duchess met with women from the QCWA. A crowd of more than 5,000 people watched in sombre silence as the Duke laid a wreath at the Stone of Remembrance at Toowong Cemetery.8 Finally, a large crowd assembled at South Brisbane station to farewell the visitors as they left by train for Sydney.

Through it all, William Lennon, the doughty fighter for an end to royalty and governors, was an impeccable host.9 A month later, Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Herbert John Chapman Goodwin (called Sir John in Queensland) and Lady (Lilian) Goodwin arrived in Brisbane. The new governor was then fifty six years old. He was born in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), the son of surgeon-soldier John Goodwin and his wife, Marion. Goodwin had an Australian connection through his mother, who had been born in Melbourne into the prominent family that descended from the racing man Herbert Power, who is still honoured by the annual Herbert Power Stakes race run during the Melbourne spring racing carnival. Sir John followed his father’s footsteps into medicine and the military. He graduated in 1892, then was commissioned as a lieutenant in the British Army Medical Service. From 1896 he was with the army in India and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for service on the North-West Frontier. While in India, Goodwin married Lilian Ronaldson, in 1897. The couple returned to England in 1902 and Goodwin was then medical officer at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, before being sent back to India, where he was an army surgeon-specialist for five years. From 1914, he served in France, where he was three times mentioned in dispatches. In 1917, he was sent on a mission to the United States to establish co-operative medical arrangements between the armies of the two countries. In January 1918 he was appointed director general of Army Medical Services. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1919 and had reached the rank of lieutenant general in 1923, when he retired from the army. He was appointed honorary surgeon to the King and was also an organising adviser for the British Empire Cancer Campaign.10 On 13 June 1927, the liner Orvieto brought the Goodwins up the Brisbane River to the usual landing, welcoming addresses, a procession through Brisbane and the swearing in ceremony. Sir John was known to be a quiet and unobtrusive man, but he told reporters in Brisbane that he was ‘a lover of outdoor life and all sports. In my young and unregenerate days I was very fond of the ‘gee gees’ but I was never much of a gambler. I was a keen huntsman in England. I am fond of shooting, hunting, fishing and polo. I was an enthusiastic polo player but I had a very bad smash. I still love the open spaces and I enjoy a good horse race. Lady Goodwin is even more fond of the country life than I am and when she goes to a race meeting or an agricultural show it is hard to drag her away. She is a good horsewoman and takes an intelligent interest in all rural affairs.’ Sir John said that he was especially keen to see Queensland’s ‘wide open spaces’ and to hasten the foundation of a medical school within the university.11

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He fulfilled both those ambitions. He saw a lot of Queensland very quickly and was able to say at the end of his first year in office that he had travelled 22,000 miles through the state.12 Although the medical school was not established until after Sir John left the state, his encouragement was a significant impetus toward the eventual outcome.

Goodwin was able to acknowledge one notable advance in Queensland medical services when he opened the state’s first cancer clinic, at Brisbane’s Mater hospital.13 He was particularly gratified by another medical development when, on 15 May 1928, the aerial medical service that was to become the Royal Flying Doctor Service was established at Cloncurry. The service at first used aircraft made available by QANTAS, the outback aviation company that

Above: Sir John and Lady Goodwin.

had been created in western Queensland from 1920. The governor said he felt that ‘provision of aerial medical services would fill a much felt want and that its establishment would prove of untold comfort and benefit to many of those people in the far west who had so many difficulties and hardships to meet.’14 By 1928, QANTAS was running scheduled air services in Queensland. However, there was still plenty of room in the sky for pioneering and record breaking.

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In March 1928 the governor was among one of the largest and most excited crowds that had ever gathered in Queensland, at Eagle Farm racecourse to welcome Bert Hinkler. The aviator had flown to Brisbane from his home town of Bundaberg, after completing the first solo flight from England to Australia in a time of fifteen and a half days. Goodwin said to Hinkler ‘Throughout the whole of the British Empire men and women have watched the progress of your flight with the keenest interest and your safe arrival on the completion of your wonderful achievement afforded untold delight throughout the world.’15 Then, on 9 June 1928, Goodwin welcomed Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm and their American crew, Harry Lyon and James Warner, when they arrived in Brisbane at the end of the first flight across the Pacific.

The governor was soon to see proof that aviation could be a hazardous undertaking. In May 1930 another huge crowd gathered, this time at the new aerodrome at Eagle Farm, to witness the arrival of Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from England. As she landed, Johnson’s aircraft was caught by a wind gust and the aircraft crash landed in a grassy patch adjacent to the main landing strip. The governor, with many others, rushed forward to the scene of the crash but the aviatrix had been taken away, unhurt, by the time the governor got there.16 The aviators were conquering the sky and it seemed that Brisbane’s million pound City Hall, with its clock tower that reached almost 300 feet above street level, was doing the same thing. The new building had been ten years in the making when it was finally opened by Sir John on 8 April 1930. It was one of the last exuberances of the 1920s and it would be many years before Queensland could again afford anything like it. Several large construction projects were commissioned in the 1930s, but they were undertaken by the government as unemployment relief projects. Restraint was the mood of the times. Sir John responded to that mood in March 1931 when he agreed to forego ten percent of his salary in an effort to help the government manage its financial problems.17 It was a difficult time to argue for nature conservation but Goodwin threw his weight behind a far sighted group of people, led by Romeo Lahey, who met in April 1930 to form the National Parks Association of Queensland. The governor was widely reported when he said ‘I think every possible effort should be made to preserve the parks and the flora and fauna of this country. ... It would be nothing short of deplorable if Queensland fauna, much of which was found in no other part of the world, was allowed to disappear.’18 The Association’s early success was due in large measure to the credibility it gained from the viceregal connection.

Possibly because they had no children of their own, the Goodwins took a particularly active role in promoting education and child welfare. Sir John was following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Sir William MacGregor, as a medical governor when he vigorously endorsed the campaign for better eye health among the children of the western parts of the state.19 Lady Goodwin strongly supported women’s charitable organisations that worked for the relief of needy women and children. In addition, she identified with and worked for the Victoria League, the National Council of Women, Girl Guides, the Country Women’s Association and the crèche and kindergarten movements.20 The Goodwins also supported St Vincent’s Orphanage at Nudgee, which the

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From top left: Lady Goodwin Crèche and Kindergarten.

Ascot (Eagle Farm) racecourse grounds.

Opposite, from top: View to Parliament House, across the river and Botanic Gardens, from Kangaroo Point.

Centre: New Farm Park.

Far right: Fernberg.

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governor opened on 18 December 1928. Sir John ‘had the happy knack of at once claiming juvenile attention’21 during countless visits to schools. He and Lady Goodwin had close associations with both the Church of England Grammar School (Churchie) and St Margaret’s school. Churchie named one of its boarding houses after Sir John and, in 1950 that house adopted the Goodwin family crest as its own. To the end of his life, Sir John kept in touch with the Goodwin housemaster. In 1953 he wrote ‘your account of Charles Porter’s high jump of six feet three and three quarter inches really amazes me!’22 Sir John lived long enough to be thrilled by Porter’s later Olympic and Commonwealth Games medal winning performances.

The Goodwins were approaching the end of their Queensland term when, on 30 March 1932, the governor opened the Grey Street bridge over the Brisbane River. The impressive new structure was constructed, in part, as an unemployment relief measure. To celebrate the opening a carnival was held on the riverbanks. It was organised by the Social Service League, which was founded in Brisbane in 1931 to alleviate social distress caused by the economic depression.23 Toward the end of 1931 or in early 1932, Sir John indicated his desire to retire on a date slightly earlier than the expiry of his full five year term in June 1932. It was said that this was a convenient arrangement, procured by Premier Arthur Moore ‘because in the event of the Labor Party being successful at the next election the policy of appointing governors from Great Britain might be discontinued.’24 At the election held in 1929, Moore had led the Country and Progressive National Party to victory, administering Labor’s first defeat since 1915. Almost immediately it was elected, the Moore government’s fortunes began to decline and it was apparent by 1931 that Labor would most probably return to office. Perhaps Moore did engineer Goodwin’s early retirement to ensure that London could appoint a British governor before Labor returned

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to office. Certainly London acted unusually promptly when it announced on 16 February 1932 that Sir Leslie Wilson would succeed Goodwin.25 On 6 April 1932 the Goodwins were given a well attended public farewell at the Brisbane Exhibition grounds. The next morning they left for Britain aboard the liner Orana. The Goodwins lived quietly in retirement in England until Sir John’s death on 29 September 1960. Lady Goodwin, who had been in poor health for some years before her husband’s death, died in July 1961.26 Soon after Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, who had been Queensland’s fifteenth governor, died in England in 1955, a letter from a Mr G.H. Copeman was published in The (London) Times. Copeman congratulated the newspaper on the obituary it had recently published, but went on to say ‘Only a native of Queensland could attempt to portray what Sir Leslie Wilson meant to that far-off state. ... He was a very astute judge of the Australian character and fully appreciated those twin aspects – intense loyalty and pride in the British connexion, together with a tendency towards rough disrespect for pomp and authority. ... His annual tours throughout the Queensland countryside were highlights in the lives of people in the lonely outback. His visit to a town would generally be the occasion for horse-racing and other sporting events by day, and a ‘coming out’ ball in the evening, at which any girl of appropriate age who could acquire a white evening dress could be presented to the Governor as a ‘debutante.’ As another example, Sir Leslie appreciated that in a country with few traditions, there could yet be some traditions that ranked very high in the emotions of the people. He understood the sacredness of the Anzac tradition and the great importance attached to Anzac Day parades and ceremony. But after fulfilling his role as a representative of the British Crown he could in the evening attend a reunion of ex-servicemen and be ‘Good old Leslie’ to the diggers.’

In 1932, Sir Leslie Wilson was appointed to be Queensland’s governor for a term of five years. In the end, he held the office for fourteen years. Queenslanders

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Left: The Goodwins and party walk across the Grey Street Bridge after its opening.

Centre: Sir John Goodwin ready for Lodge.

Right: Sir John Goodwin (seated) watching rifle practice and Enoggera army camp, August 1931.

were very glad that he stayed because he suited them and they certainly suited him. They each understood and admired the other.

Wilson had very good credentials for appointment to Queensland. He possessed a natural but distinguished presence, he was energetic, debonair, affable and courteous and keenly interested in everyone he met. Born in England in 1876, he was the son of a stockbroker. He joined the army in 1895 and fought in South Africa where he was severely wounded and repeatedly decorated for bravery and efficiency. From 1903 to 1909 he was in Sydney as aide-de-camp to the New South Wales governor, Admiral Sir Harry Rawson.

In 1909, in Sydney, Wilson married Winifred May Smith, daughter of Charles Smith who had come to the colony from Scotland in 1836 and had amassed a great fortune from shipping and commercial enterprises.

The Wilsons went to England in 1909. In 1913, Wilson was elected to the House of Commons for the Conservative party. In 1914, he was re-commissioned into the army and fought at Gallipoli and in France. Again, he was badly wounded and again he was highly decorated. He returned to parliament until 1922, when he was appointed Governor of Bombay. That was a challenging appointment because he had to deal with serious industrial and political unrest, even violence. ‘He showed a steadfast courage and confidence in pursuing a policy of comprehension and goodwill, supplemented whenever the need arose by firm action.’27 While in India he strove, in particular, to improve local health and education facilities. The Wilsons returned to England in 1928 and in the following year Leslie was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Indian Empire. Through the next few years, Wilson pursued a particular interest in tropical medicine and helped to set up the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London.

Then he was invited to go to Queensland. The day following the announcement of his appointment as governor he told Australian press representatives that

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he already had many connections with Australia. He had worked in Sydney years before and during that time he had gone duck shooting in Queensland with Lord Chelmsford. His wife was from Sydney and his elder son, Peter, was jackarooing on a sheep station in the Riverina district. The Wilsons said that their daughter, Marjorie, would come to Queensland with them, while younger son David would stay in England to complete his studies at Oxford University. The reporter for the Melbourne Argus thought ‘He will certainly fill Australian requirements as a sport-loving governor, for he still plays cricket for Marylebone and other clubs. He also plays golf and lawn tennis, shoots and rides and enjoys yachting.’28 On 13 June 1932, Sir Leslie was sworn in as Queensland’s governor. He immediately began planning for his first tour into Queensland’s regional areas. These tours became annual events and he tried to visit each district at least once every two years. One of his early excursions was a month long trip to the Torres Strait, where he and Lady Wilson and Marjorie travelled to even the most outlying islands. ‘Each island seemed to vie with its neighbours in making our visit as pleasant as could be, decorating the approaches with arches of welcome, showing us excellent examples of native dancing besides being generous in their gifts of shell, basket work and mother-of-pearl work, which they do extremely well. Generally speaking, the men, women and children are really happy. They are encouraged by white teacher-superintendents to develop on improved native lines, fostering native village life and avoiding Europeanisation as much as possible. One thing that gave me great pleasure was that at many of the islands there were troops of boy scouts with a regulation uniform of red lava-lava, and girl guides who were distinctively arrayed.’ Sir Leslie noted that Thursday Island had lost much of its old glamour of the pearling boom

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times that he had seen when he previously visited the place, 29 years before.

Pearling was in decline and not so many ships called at the island as before.29

From left: Miss Marjorie Wilson – a pillar of strength for Sir Leslie.

Lady Wilson and Sir Leslie, in court dress.

Below, from top: Sir Leslie Wilson, Marjorie Wilson behind, on a pearling lugger during their trip to Torres Strait.

Sir Leslie Wilson congratulates a winning trainer at the Eagle Farm races, 1937.

While travelling he took on a most arduous workload, opening shows, visiting schools and hospitals, inspecting whatever new development or scheme the particular district could show him, attending receptions and balls, going to race meetings, playing golf, inspecting Boy Scout and Girl Guide groups. Sometimes he gave speeches at least ten times each day and often the program continued for three weeks without a day off. ‘It seems that every time I eat I have to make a speech’ he said in Mackay in 1936. ‘Sometimes I think it would be better to starve.’30 He frequently travelled by car and often had to help dig his vehicle out after it became bogged, following sudden storms that quickly turned unsealed roads into quagmires. Wilson laughed about these misadventures and even seemed to enjoy them.31 Lady Wilson did not always accompany him on these trips but, until her marriage in 1941, daughter Marjorie proved a more than capable stand-in. ‘Marjorie actually loved the life and she was very good at it. She was an enormous help,’ recalled Lesley Wilson, niece of Marjorie and granddaughter of Sir Leslie and Lady Wilson.

During the war years the demands were even more intense because there were patriotic meetings, each local Red Cross branch and comforts fund committee needed recognition, there were Volunteer Defence Force parades and always there were speeches to be made, speeches that honestly described the war situation but gave encouragement and hope for eventual victory. Because he had been a high ranking military officer and because he was obviously well connected, listeners hung on his every word about the war. He took advantage of new technology to make frequent radio broadcasts, often appealing for support for some particular cause, at other times simply chatting with his audience.

‘He had an incredible memory for people,’ Lesley Wilson recalled. ‘He might go to a tiny outback place and then go back again two years later and he would be able to tell Mrs Jones how marvellous her scones had been last time and he hoped they were just as good this time. People really loved him for that, they felt that he was really taking notice of them as individual people. And he was, of course.’32 In September 1933, Wilson wrote to C.H. Feilden, who was about to come from England to become an aide to the governor. ‘The really busy time does not start again until March and the busiest time of all is from June until about November. I think you will like the people here. They are simple, not well off, but most kind and hospitable, I like them immensely.’33 Wilson gave particularly strong support to several organisations that worked to improve the circumstances of disabled or disadvantaged children. On 14 September 1932, Sir Leslie and Lady Wilson attended a meeting at Brisbane City Hall to establish the Queensland Society for Crippled Children. A public appeal for funds was launched and Wilson broadcast over the Australian Broadcasting Commission radio station 4QG to support the appeal. On 4 December 1933, Sir Leslie opened the Montrose Home for crippled children, originally located in Taringa. Marjorie Wilson became president of the Montrose Home younger set and for many years she visited children at the home.

Similarly, Sir Leslie was instrumental in the foundation of the Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme. From 1931, the Townsville Toc H club had

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brought small numbers of children from outback areas to Townsville so that the children could have a holiday and experience the seaside. Similar schemes were started in other districts. It became apparent that some of the children had health problems. Wilson became aware of the situation and he convened a working party of health professionals and community leaders to discuss the possibility of starting a state-wide scheme. A draft constitution was drawn up and the governor suggested the name Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme. Then, on 6 December 1935, a public meeting was held in Brisbane. A council was formed and the scheme was inaugurated. In the years since then, many thousands of children have benefited from the scheme, which has operated with government assistance and the support of many kindred organisations.34 Successive governors of Queensland have continued to support the scheme, but no support was more critical than Sir Leslie Wilson’s in the formative years. He acted as president of the scheme and strenuously supported the fund-raising that was so critically important before governments became more generous.

One fund-raising device, for the Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme and other charities, was the holding of an annual Government House Fête.

The first of these was held on 29 April 1933 and was a huge success, raising almost 4,000 pounds for the Queensland Society for Crippled Children. This was an astonishing result at a time when money was very hard to come by.

The fêtes had the dual benefit of opening Government House and its grounds to the community as well as raising funds.

Wherever Wilson went, he encouraged worthwhile causes and initiatives.

He was ahead of his time when he pointed out that small communities should record their pioneering history and preserve documents relating to that history. In Brisbane, he fostered the growth of the Historical Society of Queensland. The Society had been formed in 1913 with the support of Sir William MacGregor but it had no permanent headquarters. On 10 December 1933, Wilson spoke to an Historical Society gathering to commemorate the anniversary of Governor Bowen’s arrival. ‘It is one of the most important functions of an intelligent community to keep two things always in view – the careful study of the past as a means of watching its developments and effects on the bodies politic and civic, and to utilise the knowledge of the past as a guide to the future’ he said.35 He went on to suggest that historic sites in Brisbane should be identified and explained. In 1934, Wilson suggested that Newstead House should be handed over to the Society for use as a headquarters and museum. In 1939 the suggestion was adopted when Brisbane City Council resolved to place the historic house under the control of a trust for the society.

Wilson returned to the theme of preservation of the state’s historical record on 5 April 1934, when he opened the Oxley Memorial Library (now the John Oxley Library, within the State Library of Queensland.) ‘I say quite honestly that I do not think that during the years since Queensland became a State enough has been done in the direction of collecting and preserving historical records.

Priceless years are passing when it is possible to collect information from people who helped to form this State. Invaluable records ... may be sent elsewhere or possibly out of Queensland. It is a duty which this generation owes to the past, to the present and certainly to the future.’36

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Top, left: A communist delegation waits outside the premier’s office, 1936.

Top, centre: Washing day, 1938.

Top, right: A display home made from asbestos cement sheets, 1937.

Left, centre: Story Bridge fitters.

Left, below: The Story Bridge construction team on the day of completion, 1940.

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There had been vice-regal support of surf lifesaving since Queensland’s first lifesaving club opened at Coolangatta in 1909. Wilson showed very keen interest in the movement and gave it strong personal support. In January 1934 a ‘Governor’s Surf Carnival’ was held at Coolangatta, with competition involving eleven Queensland teams and two from New South Wales. The governor and Lady Wilson attended the carnival and a huge guard of honour and march past was arranged in their honour. At the governor’s suggestion, a novel fund-raising technique was used to give the huge crowd of spectators the opportunity to support the lifesavers even if they had not brought much cash to the beach. Cards were issued on which pledges for donations could be made.37 Other sport of all kinds was strongly supported. Wilson believed that ‘healthy bodies make healthy minds’ and he led the way by example when he picked up a cricket bat or a golf club at every opportunity. He was a capable cricketer but not so capable on the golf course. No matter, his bonhomie made good any inadequacy.

Wilson was very active within the Boy Scout movement. He never missed a chance to urge the claims of the Scouts on the public and he used broadcasts to good effect. Manfred Cross, who was to have a distinguished career as a federal parliamentarian and is a notable student of Queensland’s history, recalled Sir Leslie’s involvement. ‘I first met him in 1940, when I was twelve’ Manfred said. ‘I was a patrol leader of the Bardon Scout group and my patrol won the colours that had been given years before by the Goold-Adams, who were keen supporters of the Scouts and Guides in the very early days of those movements. I went to Government House to receive the prize from Sir Leslie, we got talking and he asked me to become his Boy Scout aide-de-camp.

‘Of course I agreed and I found myself going with him to all sorts of parades and functions. He was an astonishingly good mixer, completely at ease in any group and with the ability to make other people feel at ease with him. He was highly respected and he certainly was a very hard working and popular governor. He was a great advocate for Queensland and did an enormous amount of good for the state. He had arrived in Queensland just as the Forgan Smith Labor government came into office. It was of a very different political colour from his own inclinations, but nevertheless he was impressed by the new government and formed good relationships with it. He was very forthright and he was never afraid to say publicly what he thought the government should do. But he had the ability to do it in a constructive and non-partisan way and it was invariably good advice and Queensland benefited from it.

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‘During the war years he did some wonderful public relations work for Queensland.

Hundreds of thousands of American troops came and went. Whenever he could, Sir Leslie would meet and greet them, wish them well, mix with them informally and relate to them as one soldier to another. He would get dressed up in his British army uniform and wear all his medals and the Americans loved it, they thought he was quite wonderful.

‘He loved a drink and one of my regular duties was to make a good stiff Scotch for him. He had a great capacity for liquor and that fitted into the hard-drinking culture of those days, but I don’t think I ever saw him the worse for wear. He was just a remarkable man in every respect’ Manfred remembered.

Given that he too had been at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, it is not surprising that Wilson was particularly active in commemorating the wartime sacrifice of Queenslanders. For him, Anzac Day was a day for practical

expression of the debt to the dead and the maimed, a day when people were reminded of the debts they owed. ‘Anzac Day was the day when people met together to sympathise with the relatives of those who did not return and to renew the promise that they would be worthy of those who made the greatest sacrifice. We can pay our tribute, we can renew our promises ... let our hearts waken to all that we owe to the day, to the incapacitated and to those who mourn’ he said at a ceremony at Brisbane’s Anzac Square on 25 April 1934.38 When world war broke out again in 1939, Wilson made short films to encourage Queenslanders to support the Red Cross Prisoner of War Street Adoption Scheme. He appealed to everyone to support the scheme so that POWs could be sent Red Cross parcels. ‘Don’t think, but act. Get a sign for your street that says “This Street Supports a Prisoner of War”,’ he urged. His friendly and engaging delivery created a sense of urgency and importance and it did motivate many people to donate to the cause. He set an example himself when he had a sign affixed to Fernberg’s front gate.

Wilson never lost sight of the need to encourage the state’s economic development. He stressed the continuing importance of rural production and wore a woollen tie to show support for woolgrowers. A large population was the key to Queensland’s development, he thought.39 Queensland’s population

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From left: People queue for clothing ration tickets during the Second World War. Brisbane women with American sailors, 1941.

Soldiers enjoy a last drink before they entrain, 1940.

Preparing for the worst – gas mask drill at Rosalie / Torwood, 1942.

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had reached one million in 1938 and by then the end of the depression was in sight, although conditions were difficult until the war stimulated production and created the jobs for which so many people had waited so long. In the meantime, there was a heavy reliance on unemployment relief projects.

One of these was the Hornibrook Highway, a timber decked bridge linking the Redcliffe Peninsula to Sandgate, across Bramble Bay. Sir Leslie opened the new bridge, almost three kilometres long, in October 1935. He forecast brighter days ahead and pointed out that the population of the Brisbane area was growing rapidly and there was a need for such projects.40 The Hornibrook Highway had been a spectacular undertaking that had employed hundreds of men for more than three years. An even larger project, the Story Bridge across the Brisbane River to link Kangaroo Point with Fortitude Valley, was commenced on 24 May 1935, the day of the silver jubilee of the reign of King George the Fifth. Five years later, on 6 July 1940, a crowd estimated at 37,000 cheered as Sir Leslie declared the new bridge open.

Parochial Queenslanders said their new bridge was bigger and better than the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It wasn’t, but the project had employed 400 men and the bridge had been designed and fabricated in Brisbane while 89 per cent of the cost was expended in Queensland.41 In 1936, Sir Leslie’s first term in office was extended to 1942 and then there were further extensions through the war years until June 1946. In the whole history of the British Empire only the Governor of Bombay between 1795 and 1811 had served a longer term in a single location.42 Through these years, elder son Peter settled on the land in the Surat district. Peter’s children, Charles and Lesley, still live in Queensland. In 1941, Marjorie returned to England to marry her father’s former aide, Captain John Richards. Younger son David, after brilliant achievements at Oxford, joined the army. He was killed in action in the Middle East in November 1941.43 On 6 April 1946, there was a citizens’ farewell for the Wilsons, held at the Brisbane Exhibition grounds. It was an occasion reminiscent of the nineteenth century demonstrations of affection for Queensland governors. Almost every community organisation from throughout the state was represented, there were massed brass and pipe bands, there was a combined choir of 700 voices and 2,000 Boy Scouts and Girl Guides were assembled to form an outline of the map of Queensland.44 The Wilsons then returned to England. They kept Currimundi House, the holiday home they had built at Caloundra in the 1930s, and they often returned there. Sir Leslie was suffering from dementia when he was killed in a traffic accident in England in 1955. Lady Wilson then moved back to live at Currimundi House, where she died in June 1959.

Warm memories of Sir Leslie Wilson lingered in Queensland for many years and still do in the hearts and minds of the dwindling number of people like Manfred Cross who knew him. His granddaughter Lesley Wilson recounts that she is still often asked if she is related to him. ‘Once I got pulled up for speeding and when the policeman looked at my licence he asked me if I was related to Sir Leslie. It was at least thirty years after my grandfather had left Queensland. Well, of course I had to tell the truth. The policeman said “He was a fine man and I will let you off this time, but he would have wanted you to set a better example.”

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Life is great in the Sunshine State ‘Life is great in the Sunshine State, every Queensland heart sings a song, To its tablelands and its golden sands, we are proud to say we belong.

And our faith is great in the Sunshine State, for our Queensland future is grand, From the northern cane to the western plain, it’s a full of promise land.’1 On 9 April 1896, a ten year old boy was in the huge Brisbane crowd that so enthusiastically welcomed Queensland’s eighth governor Lord Lamington and his wife. Fifty years later, on 1 October 1946, that same boy came home to Queensland to be sworn in as the state’s sixteenth governor.

It had been an eventful fifty years for John Dudley Lavarack, just as it had been for Queensland. Lord Lamington arrived in Brisbane by ship and paraded in a horse-drawn coach through the streets of Brisbane on his way to be sworn in.

Sir John Lavarack arrived at Eagle Farm aerodrome in a Trans Australia Airlines DC3 aircraft that had been escorted from Sydney by three Royal Australian Air Force Liberator bombers. Sir John and Lady Lavarack travelled by car, with a police motorcycle escort, from the aerodrome to Parliament House for the swearing-in ceremony. The British born nobleman Lord Lamington swore to do his best for Queensland on behalf of Queen Victoria. Queensland’s native son, self-made man Sir John Lavarack, swore allegiance to Victoria’s great grandson, King George the Sixth. Many things had changed beyond belief but the fundamentals were much the same.

Queenslanders hoped for change in 1946 but they also wanted continuity.

They had just come through six years of war. Victory had confirmed their faith in their country and its institutions but they hoped victory would bring changes that would mean more peaceful and prosperous lives for everyone.

They knew it would be just as hard to win the peace as it had been to prevail in battle. Queenslanders knew that Lieutenant General Sir John Lavarack had played an important part in winning the war. Now they hoped that he would help them make the best of the peace. Their hopes and the expectations were high because Lavarack was one of them, the first locally born man to hold the state’s highest office. He was one of Queensland’s most notable sons.

He was born in Brisbane on 19 December 1885, the third child of English born parents Cecil Wallace Lavarack and his wife Helen Jessie, neé Mackenzie. Cecil Lavarack had been a major in the British army but was working as a draftsman in the Queensland Lands Department when John was born. Cecil also served part time in the Queensland Defence Force. At the time of John’s birth, the family lived at Dunaross, in Heidelberg Street, East Brisbane. John went to Brisbane Grammar School between 1899 and the end of 1904, when he won the Cockle prize for mathematics at the senior examinations. In June 1905, he sat for an examination for entry to the permanent Australian army as an officer.

He was successful, achieving high marks in all subjects. On 7 August 1905, he joined the army as lieutenant on probation in the Royal Australian Artillery. His appointment as a permanent officer was confirmed and until 1909 he served in New South Wales and Victoria. Then he was posted to Queensland, first to Left: Sir Henry Abel Smith – he took Queensland by storm.

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Brisbane, then to Townsville (where, in 1966, his name was honoured by the naming of Lavarack Barracks) and Thursday Island. In 1911, he was described as ‘A zealous and industrious officer ... He possesses a vigorous brain and a very good memory.’ However, there were hints that Lavarack had a volcanic temper, was moody and often withdrawn. Despite this, in 1912 he succeeded in a very competitive examination for entry to the military staff college at Camberley in England.2 At Queenscliff in Victoria on 10 October 1912, John married Sybil Nevett Ochiltree, daughter of Dr Edward Ochiltree of Ballarat. Sybil accompanied John when, on 11 December 1912, he sailed for England. Lavarack had almost completed his course at the staff college when the Great War broke out in August 1914. He was transferred to the British army and for six months worked at the War Office in London. In 1915, he went with British artillery units to France and Belgium. By then he had been appointed a brigade major. At the end of 1915 he went with British forces to Greece before, in 1916, he was recalled for duty with the Australian Imperial Forces on the Western Front. He fought at Pozieres and on the Somme until 1917, when he was transferred to the staff of the then Colonel Thomas Blamey. It was an unfortunate move for Lavarack because he and Blamey seem to have loathed one another at first sight. Later, Blamey did all he could to impede Lavarack’s career.

Lavarack was frequently in action through 1918 and by the end of the war he had been thrice mentioned in dispatches and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the French Croix de Guerre. In addition, he was appointed a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George. The medals were hard won, but Lavarack was to find that the hostilities on the Western Front were merely a prelude to even fiercer battles between high ranking Australian military officers in a staff room war that began in 1919 and did not end until 1946. Lavarack held a variety of postings in the small Australian permanent army, including a term as Chief of General Staff. He would have been entitled to think that he would be considered for command appointment at the very highest level when the next war broke out.

However, from 1928, Lavarack had wrecked his own chances when he published perceptive but politically incorrect papers that criticised the prevailing ‘Singapore strategy’ which emphasised Australian naval defence and relied on the supposedly impregnable British defence shield created by the naval base at Singapore. Lavarack argued that this strategy was misguided.

He saw that the Singapore shield was a concept more than a reality. He said Japanese aggression was likely and might include actual invasion of Australia.

He argued that Australia should strengthen its army so it could resist any such aggression. Lavarack was right and many highly placed people knew it, or ought to have done. However, Lavarack’s message was one nobody wanted to hear, least of all the high-ranking Australian naval officers who did not want the army to grow at their expense. The message was also unpalatable to the politicians of all persuasions who sensed the community was war weary and unwilling to pay the taxes that increased defence spending would require. Lavarack’s many enemies and rivals seized the opportunity to assert he was ‘unsound.’

In October 1939, Lavarack was passed over when Blamey was appointed to command the Second Australian Imperial Force. In 1940, as a consolation

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Left, from top: Panoramic view of Gold Coast development from Lennons Broadbeach Hotel, about 1965.

The Spit at Southport, about 1965.

Bidders and spectators at an auction of brigalow land in the Chinchilla district, about 1965.

A section of the Bruce Highway, between Brisbane and Cairns, 1958.

Above, left: Sir John Lavarack, Queensland’s first Australian born governor.

Above, right: Sybil Lavarack, a tower of strength in Government House.

prize, Lavarack was appointed to command the Australian Seventh Division, then based in Egypt. Lavarack won distinction in April 1940 when he organised and personally led the first stages of Tobruk’s successful resistance of the previously irresistible German general, Rommel. Lavarack did too well for Blamey’s liking and so Lavarack was ordered to leave Tobruk and go to Syria. Blamey was taking advantage of Prime Minister Curtin’s patronage that allowed Blamey ‘to deal virtually as he wished with Lavarack and other subordinate generals, making or breaking careers according to his own criteria.’3 Lavarack may have dismayed the jealous Blamey when in Syria he achieved some of the first Australian successes of the war. Those successes significantly boosted Australian morale, as Paul Hasluck recounted in the official war history. ‘It was a campaign that was hard for those who fought it but stimulating for those who read about it at home – the story of an advance, simple enough to understand and studded with heroic incident. ... it had an especially heartening effect as an Australian victory achieved under an Australian general, Lavarack, and an example of Australian gallantry in the field.’4 In 1942, Lavarack was knighted for his work in Syria. The citation in support of his knighthood, signed by the British generals Wilson and Wavell, stated that Lavarack had proved himself ‘a Commander of high ability ... abilities of a high order both in the Western Desert where he organised the original

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defence of Tobruk, and during the Syrian campaign.’5 Blamey’s response was to withdraw Lavarack to Australia and then keep him away from any fighting command where he might win further laurels. From 1942 to 1944, Lavarack commanded the First Australian Army that was then in Queensland preparing for counter-offensive operations against the Japanese. In February 1944, just when it appeared the men would go north and into action, Lavarack was sent to Washington as the head of the Australian Military Mission there. He did not return to Australia until August 1946. Lavarack retired from the Army a month later, ending a military career that had given much to Australia but might have given even more but for personality clashes and bitter rivalries.6 As the war ended, consideration was being given in Australia and in London to the appointment of new governors in both Queensland and New South Wales.

At the end of 1945, New South Wales Premier William McKell travelled to London to argue the case that an Australian should be appointed to succeed Lord Wakehurst as governor of his state. It was widely reported that McKell’s argument was strongly resisted by the Dominions Office, as the Colonial Office had become. At the same time in Queensland, Premier Frank Cooper was expected to resign to make possible the promotion of the state’s Treasurer Ned Hanlon. ‘The Governor of Queensland, Sir Leslie Wilson, will leave for England in March and Mr Cooper’s acceptance of Governorship is a foregone conclusion by all political parties’ reported the Canberra Times.7 In resisting McKell’s proposal, the Dominions Office confirmed the obvious constitutional reality that Australian state governors were appointed by the monarch and advice to the monarch about such appointments would be given by the responsible British minister and certainly not directly by the relevant Australian state governments. However, it was also obvious that times had changed greatly since the 1920s, when the question of appointment of Australian governors was last in contention. There had been a war and Australia had grown up because of it. It had looked to America for support at the critical moment when Japanese invasion appeared possible and when it had become starkly apparent that Britain was wholly committed to fighting the war in Europe. America had given the support and reassurance that Australia desperately needed. The episode did not necessarily weaken the affections of Australia for Britain but it did demonstrate that Australia had arrived at a new place in the world. In that new place, it was increasingly untenable to say that Australians should not hold their own country’s highest positions.

As the Canberra Times editorialised on the New South Wales case ‘It is out of step with practical Empire politics for the desires of self-governing portions of the Empire to find themselves frustrated in the attainment of their desires. If Whitehall obstructs the Australian states or any of them in their desire to have an Australian appointed as Governor, the whip hand does lie with the states concerned. It is not essential that the office of Governor should be filled ... the unedifying spectacle might arise of State after State leaving vacant the office of Governor. ... there is nothing that a Governor can do that a Lieutenant-Governor cannot do.’ 8 The Dominions Office gave in, at least to the extent that it agreed to appoint an Australian as governor of New South Wales. Whether it appointed the Australian whom McKell might have suggested is unknown but, on 1 April 1946, it was announced that the Australian Lieutenant-General John Northcott would become Governor of New South Wales.9 A few weeks later, it was reported

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Below: South Molle Island, 1950s.

Right: ‘The finest resort south of the Equator, Royal Hayman Hotel, Hayman Island.’ The island resort represented the height of style and sophistication.

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that Sir John Lavarack, not Frank Cooper, was the likely appointment as next Governor of Queensland.10 However, Lavarack’s appointment was not officially announced until 1 September 1946.11 It seems probable that in the cases of both the New South Wales and Queensland appointments, the Dominions Office eventually avoided confrontation by agreeing to appoint Australians, but not the particular Australians whose names were put forward by the state governments. In 1946, few Australians could quarrel with the appointment of high ranking locally born military officers rather than recently retired former politicians. Lavarack and Northcott had served most of their careers outside the states they were to govern and thus they were detached from local political affiliations and controversy.

Certainly, the news of Lavarack’s appointment was welcomed in Queensland.

‘One of Us Now Our Governor’ shouted the Courier-Mail headline on 2 September 1946. The newspaper went on to report that Sir John and Lady Lavarack had three adult sons, while Sir John had five brothers and two sisters living in Queensland. On 1 October 1946, the Brisbane Telegraph was equally parochial when it reported ‘Governor is Home ... Sir John Lavarack came home to Brisbane today, after a distinguished military career, to become Governor of his native state.’

The Courier-Mail estimated that 50,000 people lined the processional route between Fortitude Valley and Parliament House, where Sir John was sworn in. Two days later, the government hosted a welcoming garden party at Parliament House for one thousand guests.12 After his military career and the posting to Washington, Lavarack found it hard to settle down to a quite different life as Governor of Queensland. On 31 October 1946 he wrote to a friend ‘I feel, as I expected, rather out of things here in Queensland. It is hard to settle down to the rather humdrum life of a State Governor after having some slight experience of international affairs.’13 Throughout his career, doubts had gnawed at Lavarack’s soul, doubts about whether he had made the right career choices, doubts whether in his profession he had gone as far as he should have. Commentator Malcolm Ellis wrote ‘His career was a series of disappointments ... they were mainly due to his own deficiencies of temperament, which made him apt to lose control of his temper and to make it plain at the wrong time how little he suffered fools gladly.’ 14 As governor, he seems to have been able to keep his temper under control, but he was always a dour and reserved man, never off parade and never at ease and relaxed. This prevented him from attaining anything like the immense personal popularity that had been enjoyed by his predecessor Leslie Wilson and was to come the way of his successor Henry Abel-Smith. By contrast with them, Lavarack was an austere and somewhat remote man. At first, that element of his character harmonised with the mood of the early post-war period. However, as better times came and Queensland learned to relax and enjoy itself, Lavarack seemed to be left behind. He was lucky to have in Sybil a wife who was more outgoing and far more adept at connecting with the community. It was generally felt that she more than made up for whatever the governor lacked.

That is not to say that Lavarack was unpopular, he was not. He was admired and respected because of his military record and the office he held, but he did

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not win affection. He did enjoy particular popularity among returned service men and women, the Red Cross, Legacy clubs and among Boy Scout and Girl Guide groups. They were his natural constituencies, he shared their interests and their points of view.

Just two weeks after Lavarack had been sworn in, the Queensland parliament took action to increase the governor’s salary and allowances. One of the arguments against the appointments of Australians to the post had been that very few local people could afford to take the job because it had invariably been necessary for the governors to dip into their own pockets in order to maintain vice-regal activities. It was agreed on both sides of parliament that the considerable financial sacrifice should no longer be an obstacle to local appointments. An appropriation of 3,000 pounds was made for the governor’s salary, with an additional 4,431 pounds for Government House expenses, including the salaries of six staff positions (aide, official secretary, clerk, clerk-typist, orderly and lodge keeper) and the costs of travelling, printing, stationery, postage and other expenses.15 It was a more generous arrangement than before, but the governor was certainly not going to be able to afford a lavish touring and entertainment program.

Despite the constraints, Lavarack did manage to travel extensively around the state, particularly in the early years before ill health overtook him. He attended countless locals shows and often stayed in a district for several days on either side of the core activity so that he and Lady Lavarack could meet with community groups, visit schools and hospitals and talk with community representatives. Everywhere he went, there was a good chance that Lavarack would meet returned soldiers who had served in units he had commanded. The tours were extensive, often lasting six weeks or more, and travel was usually

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Below left: John Ferguson and Lesley King at the Casa Maria, Brisbane, 1949. Tea – but not wine, could be drunk at restaurants.

Below: John Wilcox and Beryl Copeland jiving at the Blue Room, Brisbane 1956.

Right, top: Mount Tibrogargan looms over a pineapple farm in the Glass House Mountains district.

Centre: Sun-soaked tropical fruits going to market.

Bottom: Harvesting pineapples, Glass House Mountains, 1956.

Chapter Twelve – life is great in the sunshine state

by train. Before long, Sir John formed the view that increased population in rural and regional districts was essential for post war recovery. He publicly argued for decentralisation, for a halt to the ‘drift to the cities,’ for renewed efforts to ‘people the north’ and for the strengthening of the British Empire as a bulwark against impending world chaos.

These were not controversial positions, nor were his warnings about ‘the enemy within.’ It was a time of global insecurity and Queenslanders were not exempt from anti-communist paranoia. Lavarack warned that there should be vigilance against internal subversion. Returned soldiers, in particular, strongly agreed. However, Lavarack did earn a stern rebuke from federal Labor government immigration minister Arthur Calwell when he argued that it was selfish for Australia to seek migrants from Britain, which needed all its people to help its own post war reconstruction. Calwell was stung because his programs provided for large scale immigration from Britain. ‘I am amazed that any person in his high office should intrude into political affairs. If the governor wants to play politics he should resign and stand for election to a federal seat.

He can’t have it both ways,’16 Calwell said. The affair did not damage Lavarack and in 1950 Queensland’s Labor government re-appointed him for a further five year term from October 1951.17 The new age of international aviation passenger services brought many important and interesting visitors to Government House. People like the Earl and Countess Mountbatten and Montgomery of Alamein had shared wartime experiences with Lavarack and they also had the same keen interest in the welfare of returned service men and women. There had been a proposal that King George the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth would undertake a royal tour in Australia in 1949, but late in 1948 all arrangements were indefinitely postponed due to the king’s ill health. The king died on 6 February 1952 and there was genuine mourning everywhere. However, there was joy when the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth the Second, was crowned in June 1953. The joy became excitement when it was announced that the Queen and Prince Philip would tour Australia in early 1954. It was to be the first visit to this country by a reigning monarch.

Preparations for the tour seemed to mark the end of the dreary post war years of restraint and shortages. Queenslanders could now enjoy the fruits of better times, funded by a wool boom from 1949, a resurgence in mining activity and an increase in industrial production. Population growth had been slow through the war years and Queensland’s 1947 population, 1.1 million, was only a modest increase on the 1938 figure of one million. However, by 1954, the total had grown to 1.3 million. From the time of the queen’s coronation, the main topic of conversation among those Queenslanders was the forthcoming royal tour, especially such questions as where they might catch a glimpse of the royal couple, how could their community show that it was more loyal than any other, how could it be even more imaginative than any other place in commemorating the tour. Newspapers were filled with stories about people who would be close to the Queen when she arrived and there were endless features about preparations at Government House, where the royal visitors would stay for several days. People who could be expected to have personal contact with the Queen, even the Lavaracks, needed to rehearse so there would be no awkward moments.

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The Queen and Prince Philip arrived in Sydney on 3 February 1954. Thirty five breathless days later, they arrived in Brisbane for the Queensland component of their tour, from 9 to 18 March. Within that time, there were side trips to Bundaberg, Toowoomba, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay and Rockhampton.

Everywhere the reception was tumultuous. Queensland took pride in the warmth of its welcome. The Courier-Mail claimed on 10 March 1954 that ‘Sydney’s decorations, if you want the truth, were more vivid than ours: Melbourne was more grand beyond anything we could attempt: Canberra more impressive in pomp and circumstance. Yet none of them could have charmed the Queen as Brisbane did yesterday. None had the gaiety and the friendliness and spontaneous happiness of this welcome. It was pure Queensland, warm and hospitable, a little informal and unbuttoned, perhaps, but transparently genuine. Her Majesty has seen nothing quite like it before.’ The newspaper then claimed on 18 March that at the farewell function the night before, an evening garden party at Fernberg, ‘The Queen has seen nothing more beautiful in Australia. The air was warm and saturated with moonlight; palm trees were silhouetted against the sky.’ Through all of this, the impressive, soldierly figure of Sir John Lavarack was never far away.

In 1955, Lavarack’s term was renewed for a further year,18 then in 1956 a further extension was arranged. There were persistent rumours that Premier Vince Gair coveted the governor’s job but first he had to deal with industrial strife in the shearing industry and then instability within the Labor party that had made Queensland its fiefdom since 1915. In January 1957, Lavarack fell ill and was ordered to rest for several months. On 25 January, Chief Justice Alan Mansfield was sworn in as Administrator to act during Sir John’s absence on sick leave. In May 1957, the Lavaracks moved from Government House to their own home at Buderim. Sir John did not return to duty. His term as governor ended on 30 September and he died on 4 December 1957. He was given a state funeral.

He had been a notable Australian and he had been a great Queenslander.

Lady Lavarack lived in retirement at Buderim until her death on 22 December 1974. She had been the quiet achiever. During the Second World War she had played a leading part in the AIF Women’s Association that provided support for the wives of Australian soldiers on active service. Before she arrived in Queensland she told reporters she had noted during her time in Washington that many American women were ‘interested, involved and efficient’ and she hoped she might be able to encourage Queensland women in those directions.19 She did that, firstly by setting an example of active involvement in organisations like Food for Britain, the Red Cross, the QCWA and the Victoria League. She regularly made the grounds of Government House available for large fund-raising fêtes, with up to 15,000 people attending on single occasions. She became president or patron of at least 43 community organisations and played a leadership role in each of them. On 15 October 1957, almost one hundred women’s organisations combined to organise a farewell tribute function for her. She deserved that. She also deserved the thanks of all Queenslanders for her part in taking the governor to the people.

There had been profound changes in Queensland during the Lavaracks’ time at Government House. The state was reaching out, toward its centenary in 1959. Then the state would really come of age. It would be the right time, Queenslanders thought, to show the world what their state was made of

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From top: A boomerang, a crown and a pineapple – cakes with a special Queensland flavour for the Queen, 1954 Below: Marie Douglas sorting new Chocolate Royal biscuits introduced by bakers Websters for the Royal Tour.

Right: The Queen and Prince Philip with the Lavaracks behind, on the steps of Government House, 1954.

Far right: School children at the Brisbane Exhibition ground meet the Queen and Prince Philip, 1954.

Chapter Twelve – life is great in the sunshine state

and what its people were capable of. It would be a time to show those who condescended and sneered what a great place Queensland really was.

There would be plenty to celebrate in 1959, plenty to be proud of. Life was truly great in the Sunshine State and it was getting better every day. The state’s economy was diversifying and it was now much less reliant on the pastoral and agricultural industries, even though those industries were still vitally important. Mining was expanding, especially at Mt Isa and at the Blair Athol coal mines. There had been promising oil discoveries. Manufacturing was burgeoning and was creating employment for the population which was by now growing rapidly. The state government was spending more on schools, hospitals and building programs. Queensland was beginning to harvest the bounty of its natural resources and its pioneering human endeavour.

A systematic program of regional road building meant that it was possible to think realistically of a time in the not too distant future when the state’s major centres might be linked by sealed roads. People were travelling more and motels were starting to appear in cities and towns. Tourism was being talked about as a growth industry and of course the Barrier Reef was just one of the things that made Queensland great. The surf was rising and so were the teenagers. Rock and roll was everywhere and television became a reality from August 1959. The contraceptive pill was introduced from 1961. The reality of the pill’s availability challenged conventional morality. As though it was trying to prove what a sophisticated place it had become, Queensland was considering new laws that would make it possible for wine and food to be on the same tables, at the same time, in a very small number of selected restaurants. However, liquor was still strictly prohibited in proximity to places where dances were being held. This was a legacy of wartime rules designed to protect young Queensland women from the lusts of predatory servicemen.

Queensland cricketers still hadn’t won a Sheffield Shield, but everyone knew that next year it would be their turn, just as everyone knew their state was the nation’s most productive nursery of sporting greats.

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Queensland had long been known as the Labor state, but that changed at the general elections of August 1957. Labor was thrown out of office and did not regain power until 1989. That seemed fair because by 1957 Labor had been in power since 1915, except for a three year interval from 1929. By 1957, Labor had long ceased to be Ryan and Theodore’s radical party. For several years there had been signs of ructions between groups within the party. In early 1957, Premier Gair refused to implement party policy to legislate for three weeks annual leave for workers. In April 1957, Gair was expelled from the party and he took half his parliamentary colleagues with him to the cross benches to create the Queensland Labor Party (QLP). Its central policy, perhaps its only policy objective, was to keep the Australian Labor Party (ALP) out of office. At the August election, the coalition of the Country and Liberal parties won 42 seats while the QLP and the rump ALP between them won only 31 seats. It was a revolution that most people thought would never happen.

The new premier was ‘Honest Frank’ Nicklin, an earnest and avuncular man. He

seemed soft and gentle, but he and his ministers soon showed that they had iron fists inside their velvet gloves. Before long, they had adopted many of the tactics of their opponents and had refined them into art forms. Manipulation of electoral boundaries, declarations of states of emergency and suspension of civil liberties to quell strikes, increased police powers, and confrontation rather than compromise all continued to be fixtures on the state’s political scene.

If Vince Gair had ever wanted to be governor, he had missed his chance. On 12 November 1957, Buckingham Palace announced that Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Abel Smith would succeed Sir John Lavarack as Queensland’s next governor.20 ‘Who?’ was the common first reaction when Queenslanders heard the news. ‘Why not an Australian?’ was the next question.

The questions were at least partially answered on 10 December 1957 when it was reported in London that the Queen had received Sir Henry Abel Smith.

‘Sir Henry and Her Majesty kissed hands upon his appointment as Governor of Queensland.’21 Perhaps there was something special about this new governor, Queenslanders thought when they read this news and when they learned that Sir Henry and the Queen were old friends, indeed they were related. In

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Left: The Lavaracks with their Scotty dogs Monty and Sally.

Centre: Lady Lavarack visiting Braille House.

Right: The Lavaracks at Government House.

Top right: Bidders at a Cloncurry bull sale watch the action, 1956.

Second from top: Rainbow Bay at Coolangatta, 1962.

Third from top: The Forgan Smith building at the University of Queensland, 1963.

Bottom: The Hopevale community, gathered in front of the Lutheran church, 1965.

Chapter Twelve – life is great in the sunshine state

1931 the Queen, then the five year old Princess Elizabeth, had carried the train of her cousin Lady May Cambridge’s wedding gown when Lady May married the then Captain Henry Abel Smith. Not since the days of Lord and Lady Lamington, six decades earlier, had there been such a close connection between the Queen and Queensland, the Queen’s Land.

Sir Henry was born in London on 8 March 1900. His family background was in English provincial banking. Young Henry was sent to Eton but immediately contracted pneumonia and was sent home. He never returned to Eton and instead was taught by private tutors. In Queensland, Sir Henry joked about Eton and claimed that he had learned in two days everything the school could teach him. He entered the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and in 1919 he was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards. In 1928 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Earl of Athlone, then Governor-General of South Africa.

Another joke of Sir Henry’s, probably based in truth, was that the Earl gave him the job on condition that he would stay well away from his daughter, Lady May Helen Emma Cambridge. May was a great great grand daughter of King George the Third, a great grand daughter of Queen Victoria and a niece of both King George the Fifth and Queen Mary. Despite the Earl of Athlone’s injunction, Henry and May did court each other. Eyebrows were raised when the romance became serious because it was poor form in those days for ‘royals’ like May to marry commoners. Sir Henry later regaled Queensland audiences when he told a story about Queen Mary’s reaction ‘When the Duchess of Devonshire called on Queen Mary to apologise for her son marrying the dancer Adele Astaire, the Queen said “don’t worry my dear, I have a niece called Smith.”

The niece made a good marriage with Henry Abel Smith, commoner or not. It lasted more than 61 years, until Sir Henry died in 1993. The Abel Smiths had three children, Anne (born 1932), Richard (1933) and Elizabeth (1936). During the Second World War, Lady May took the children to Canada where her father was then Governor-General.

Henry had gained the rank of major in 1934 and was a temporary lieutenant colonel in 1941 before permanent appointment to that rank in 1944. He had a good war. He fought first in Palestine and Iraq, then took command of the Second Household Cavalry Regiment (HCR) to prepare it for a role in the invasion of Europe. Later, the Corps commander, Sir Brian Horrocks, wrote that Abel Smith transformed the HCR into ‘the finest armoured car regiment in the army. So relentlessly did he train them that any other regiment would have been driven to mutiny.’ The training paid dividends in 1944 when the regiment crossed the English Channel and immediately took on a forward armed reconnaissance role, thrusting deep into enemy held territory to capture vital bridges before the retreating Germans could destroy them. In 1945, Abel Smith was decorated with the award of Companion, Distinguished Service Order, in recognition of this notable war service.

After the war, Abel Smith was promoted to acting colonel of the Corps of Household Cavalry. In that capacity, he worked closely with King George the Sixth to revive the ceremonial life of peacetime London. Today’s involvement of the Household Cavalry in the Trooping of the Colour ceremony was largely the creation of Sir Henry, after the King asked for the cavalry to be given an enhanced role. In 1950, he was invested as Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and in 1961 he was invested as Knight Commander of the

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Order of St Michael and St George. In 1950, Sir Henry said ‘I have had enough of uniforms’ and he retired to the life of a country farmer. Seven years later, he was invited to become Governor of Queensland.22 The good humoured Sir Henry didn’t mind that his wife took precedence over him on royal occasions. She was born a ‘royal,’ he only became one by marrying her. When she was born in January 1906, she was Her Serene Highness Princess May of Teck. Her father was the Prince of Teck who was the brother of Queen Mary, the wife of King George the Fifth. Her mother was Alice Mary Victoria Augusta Pauline Saxe-Cobourg and Gotha, Princess Alice of Albany, grand daughter of Queen Victoria.

In 1917, at the request of King George the Fifth, members of the royal family abandoned their German titles. Princess May became Lady May Cambridge while her father became the Earl of Athlone. Lady May was never far from the centre of royal family life and for more than eighty years she was included in all the weddings and funerals of its members. In 1923 she designed a Girl Guide camping ground display as the royal family’s contribution to the Olympia Exhibition. In the same year, she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Prince Albert and Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon (later King George the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth). When Lady May died in 1994, she was described as ‘the last survivor of the Old Royal Family.’23 Queenslanders felt honoured that people of such position and achievement were coming to their Government House. The lustre of the Abel Smiths was enhanced when it was made known that Sir Henry had been an outstanding polo player and had a keen eye for a racehorse, while Lady May was also a keen horsewoman who was looking forward to travel through Queensland’s farming and pastoral districts.24 Sir Henry and Lady May arrived in Brisbane in March 1958. They soon showed that the appointment had been an inspirational choice. They took Queensland by storm. ‘Sir Henry just swept everyone along with him, he was very much in the Sir Leslie Wilson mould’ recalled Manfred Cross. ‘He arrived and took one look at Government House and said that the place had to be brightened up. He just went ahead an ordered a whole lot of new furniture and renovations and even a swimming pool. He told the government about it later and they had to go along with it. That was his whole approach to his job, lets brighten things up. He was refreshing, inspirational, a wonderful man.’25 Sir Henry was sworn in on 18 March, 1958. He was described as the last of his kind, the Empire’s last ‘quasi-royal imperial notable.’26 Perhaps, but Sir Henry soon showed there was nothing imperious about his personal style.

He expected no deference, only civility. He was infectiously jovial, equally at home in a shearing shed or in the Queen’s drawing room, the life of any party, invariably dapper and a man who looked as though he might have been born wearing a cravat.

Queensland was excited, by its new governor and his wife, by the looming centenary and by the perception that the state was coming of age. The centenary was pre-eminent on the Abel Smiths’ agendas for their first twenty months in their new job. Queenslanders were talking about the centenary, arguing whether it should be pronounced as it was spelt or as ‘cen-teen-ary.’

The question was still a live one on 25 November 1959 when Sir Henry opened

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Above: Coveted invitations to meet Queen Victoria’s direct descendants.

Top, centre: Beatles concert, Festival Hall, 1964.

Lady May Abel Smith attended this concert. She wore a tiara.

Top right: Brisbane, 9 September 1954. Still exuberant as she departs Queensland, Princess Alexandra chats with Sir Henry Abel Smith and Premier Frank Nicklin.

Centre: The Abel Smiths and their dog Benjy prepare to leave on a driving holiday in southern Australia.

Chapter Twelve – life is great in the sunshine state

Brisbane’s Centenary Pool, a swimming complex on Gregory Terrace. It was a bold architectural work that spoke of optimism and a new era, it was symbolic of an emerging new Queensland culture.

People were singing the centenary song, ‘Life is Great in the Sunshine State,’ Clyde Collins’ song, written especially for the centenary. Before long, people were also humming the Alexandra Waltz, written by Queensland’s own velvet voiced radio announcer Russ Tyson and set to music by Collins. It was the theme for the 1959 visit by Queensland’s very own centenary royal princess, Princess Alexandra of Kent. Her visit to Queensland was a triumph for her and for her mentors, the Abel Smiths. Princess Alexandra, 22 years young, tall, attractive and engagingly shy, was mobbed by 200,000 Brisbane people from the moment she stepped out of an aircraft at Eagle Farm at 2.30 pm on 18 August 1959.

It was a welcome that would have flattered the Queen. The welcome and the warmth continued wherever she went, from Brisbane to Warwick, Toowoomba, Charleville, Longreach, Mt Isa, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Bundaberg and, of course, the Barrier Reef. There was a whirlwind of activities until her departure on 9 September, with the emphasis always on the youth of the princess and the youth of Queensland. The princess was unfailingly engaged, interested and charming. For her, the highlights of the tour may have been Gay Kahler’s vocal rendition of the Alexandra Waltz at a Centenary Ball and a cuddle with six friendly koalas at the first state reception.

Commentators noted that the tour proved that Queensland, and all of Australia, had indeed grown up. No longer were visiting ‘royals’ treated with the deference that amounted to a cultural cringe. Now, royal visitors were being taken for what they were, distinguished and interesting people, celebrities with style and substance. Ordinary people met and talked with them and liked them. The visitors liked the local people they met. It was almost as though Alexandra’s tour had been a reunion within a family whose bonds of kinship and love had been allowed to weaken. Now, they were being strengthened and renewed. People surprised themselves when they found how much warmth, even love, was still there.

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There were more royal tours during the Abel Smith years. Princess Alice, Lady May’s mother, came to Queensland several times. She travelled the state with Sir Henry and Lady May, laying foundation stones, receiving debutantes, presenting medals, honouring pioneers, opening new projects and generally acknowledging achievement and effort. On many occasions, the indefatigable Princess Alice went where no royal visitor had ever been before – and where none has been since. She and Lady May even went to a Beatles concert at Festival Hall in Brisbane in 1964. The Queen came to Brisbane in March 1963, the royal yacht Britannia bringing her up the river. Again, the warmth, the informality and the success of the visit owed much to the Abel Smiths who were always on hand as a bridge between their royal relative and local people.

The Abel Smiths travelled tirelessly within Queensland, even when there was no royal visit. Wherever they went, they were accessible to people. They were

often accompanied by their attractive and vivacious daughter, Miss Elizabeth Abel Smith, who built bridges with young people. It was suggested that Miss Elizabeth was rather headstrong and perhaps even wayward. If she was, that simply attached even more humanity to the vice-regal family.

Half a century later, the Abel Smiths are still remembered fondly throughout the state. Historical societies include at least one of their visits as a milestone in local history timelines; sporting clubs, like the Far North Queensland Amateur Turf Club which inaugurated the ‘Cairns Amateurs’ under Sir Henry’s patronage in 1959, say that Sir Henry gave them a boost; while women’s groups and charities gratefully recall Lady May. They were both keenly interested in everything they saw, they were both wonderful ambassadors for Queensland for as long as they lived.

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From left: Sir Henry about to make a television broadcast from Government House.

Crowds gathered in front of shop windows to watch television.

Opposite, from left: Lady May at the Eagle Farm races. She knew a good thing when she saw one.

At the Rockhampton races, Carnival Week, from left, Lady May, Mary Bourke, Sir Henry, Mrs Archer and Mrs Sheehy.

Sir Henry with champion Queensland jockey Russell Maddock.

Chapter Twelve – life is great in the sunshine state

Typical of the fond recollections of the Abel Smiths that are so treasured in Queensland are those of Scott Milson and his family. The Milsons owned Springvale station, between Winton and Boulia, and in about 1961 the Abel Smiths stayed two nights there. There had been previous vice-regal visits, but none to equal this occasion. ‘My father took Sir Henry around the place to show him what a bad drought looked like. My parents thought Sir Henry and Lady May were absolutely charming and faultless guests, considerate, interested in everything and everyone, amusing and wonderful mixers. Before dinner Mum and Dad invited everyone on the station into the homestead for drinks, including the Aboriginal women. It was the first time anything like that had ever happened at Springvale. The Abel Smiths worked the room like troopers, spoke with everyone and showed genuine interest. They were just charming. Years later Mum ran into them at a party in London. They insisted Mum come and stay with them, took her to tea with Princess Alice, had a great old yarn and spoke very fondly of their time in Queensland.’

Queensland would have been happy for the Abel Smiths to stay in its Government House forever but, by 1966, the vice-regal couple had earned retirement. As they drove through the city toward Brisbane airport, thousands waved, many cried, some people clutched at their car as though to hold them back.

Sir Henry and Lady May re-visited Queensland in 1978 and soon found they were still celebrities, still recognised wherever they went, everywhere invited to stop for a cup of tea, a drink or a chat.27 They kept in touch with a network of friends in England who had Queensland connections.

Sir Henry and Lady May settled at Winkfield, near Windsor, in the south east of England. They took an active part in life around Windsor, including race meetings, horse and garden shows, until Sir Henry had to enter a nursing home in 1990.

Sir Henry died on 24 January 1993. Lady May survived until 29 May 1994, in vigorous good health until the end. For eight years, they had personified the spirit of Queensland and they had helped that spirit to rise and ambitions to soar. Somehow, they had proved that life really was great in the Sunshine State. It was said in 1966 that the end of their time in Queensland marked the end of an era. Fifty years later, that must be contradicted. We can see that the Abel Smiths marked the beginning of a new era, an era of confident progress to the present. It was the beginning of Queensland’s age of understanding of itself, of what it had been, what it was and what it might become.

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The calm and then the storm ‘Fernberg was comfortable ... for a while it was marvellous being waited on, but it was like living in a goldfish bowl, there was a lot you couldn’t do’.1 For thirty five years there had been constitutional calm in Queensland, from the abolition of the Legislative Council in 1922 through to 1957. Then, new storms broke and a succession of governors found they had to deal with situations that reminded everyone there were still very real constitutional responsibilities and discretions attached to the vice-regal office. There were reminders that sometimes it was the task of the governor to act as an umpire to resolve political difficulty or deadlock. In those circumstances, the challenge for the governor was to arrive at a course of action that was constitutionally correct and would therefore be accepted by the community.

It was a weighty responsibility. A bad decision could put the whole system under intolerable stress. Inevitably, decisions had to be made in an environment where there was always pressure and tension and where there might also be considerable controversy. There had to be the strictest impartiality and any semblance of departure from that carried a heavy penalty, as Sir Colin Hannah was to learn. There had to be a preparedness to act quickly, decisively and correctly. Government House could be a lonely place when those hard decisions had to be made. The governors might consult the textbooks and they could seek advice but, in the end, the decision was theirs alone.

Queensland’s Chief Justice Alan Mansfield could see that his new role would be no sinecure when he became Administrator to act in place of Sir John Lavarack from January 1957. The Labor government led by premier Vince Gair had been very comfortably re-elected in May 1956. However, almost a quarter of a century of unbroken ALP rule had allowed the seeds of destruction to germinate and flourish within the party itself.

By early 1957, it was apparent that there were ructions within the Queensland government that could easily bring it crashing down. The party was led in the parliament by premier Vince Gair, but there were powerful elements within the party which insisted that Labor’s parliamentary wing, and thus the government, was obliged to implement the policy and strategy directions of the Queensland Central Executive (QCE). The QCE was, in effect, a management committee within the ALP. Its membership comprised trade union and general rank and file party representatives, people who were not responsible to the wider electorate.

Nevertheless, the QCE was to assert in 1957 that it was the ALP’s ruling body in Queensland. In effect, it claimed to govern the state through its puppet, the parliamentary party.

In early 1957, Premier Gair defied the QCE when he refused to introduce three weeks annual leave, which was long standing party policy. Gair announced that the government would not gamble with the welfare of Queensland by granting benefits which the state could not afford. In February and March 1957, the QCE again called on the government to implement the policy Left: Sir Alan Mansfield hadn’t travelled an easy road to Government House.

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and reminded parliamentarians they could be disciplined if they refused to do so. Gair and all but one of his Cabinet rejected the QCE demands. On 24 April 1957, the QCE voted to expel Gair from the party.

Gair immediately announced that he would not resign as premier and would carry on governing Queensland as long as he had a majority in parliament.

However, Gair’s command of a majority could not be tested immediately because parliament was in recess. The Labor party split in two, with parliamentarians loyal to Gair forming the Queensland Labor Party (QLP). It was the largest single bloc in the Legislative Assembly, closely followed by the rump of the ALP, then the official Opposition comprised the coalition of the Country and Liberal parties.

Obviously, Mansfield as Administrator would soon have to decide who should govern Queensland. Who could command a majority on the floor of the Assembly, and how was that to be tested?

Alan Mansfield’s son Jim was then a twenty year old law student. He was living at Government House with his parents. In 2009, Jim recalled ‘Everyone could see that the Gair government was disintegrating. My father knew that he would have to handle the problems that were bound to arise. I am sure that he already had a good grasp of all the law and the conventions, but he thought he should brush up. He asked the Supreme Court Library to lend him Dicey’s book, which was the leading constitutional law authority. The librarian said “I am sorry, we only have one copy and it is out on loan to Vince Gair.” So Dad waited his turn for the book.’2 On 9 April, Gair had asked Mansfield to convene parliament and the Assembly was summoned to meet on 11 June. When the Assembly met, Gair’s government was defeated, 45 to 25, on the crucial vote to renew supply. On 13 June, Gair advised Mansfield that he could not carry on. Gair asked that an election be called.

Mansfield now had a discretion whether to call an election or invite some other political leader to form a government. Quite properly, he decided that every political alternative should be explored. Mansfield separately summoned Frank Nicklin as official Opposition leader and John Duggan, leader of the ALP, to see him. Nicklin and Duggan each told Mansfield that they could not form a government and that an election should be held. Mansfield then dissolved parliament on 13 June and called an election for 3 August.3 The election brought the coalition into office with a comfortable majority. In hindsight, the result seems unsurprising, but there was a great deal of surprise, even astonishment, at the time. Most Queensland voters had only ever known Labor governments and they had never contemplated that there might ever be a change. Finally, change came, not because of any rise in the strength of the opposition but because of dissension and decay within the government.

The events of 1957 that preceded the change, particularly disunity within the governing party, were to be replicated in coming years. Future governors, Ramsay and Campbell in particular, were to find as Mansfield had done that their job was about much more than ceremony and garden parties.

In January 1958, Mansfield was knighted in the first Queensland honours list to be issued for 32 years as a consequence of the Labor government’s hostility to the award of imperial honours.4 The knighthood came in recognition of

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Top left: Sir Alan Mansfield governed through an era of development – there were many bridges to open.

Middle left: Rachel Mansfield (left), Lady Mansfield and Sir Alan at Government House.

Bottom left: Sir Alan and Lady Mansfield.

Above: Sir Alan inspects soldiers.

Above right: Lady Mansfield with daughter Rachel and her pony at Government House.

his services to the law, to the University of Queensland and as the state’s Administrator. Sir Alan continued to act as Administrator until March 1958, when Sir Henry Abel Smith arrived. He again acted as Administrator for several quite lengthy periods during Sir Henry’s absences from Queensland. Then, in January 1966, Mansfield was appointed governor in his own right, to take up the office in March 1966 following Abel Smith’s departure.

Sir Alan hadn’t travelled an easy road to Government House. He was born in Brisbane in 1902, the third son of English migrant Edward Mansfield and his locally born wife, Margaret neé Bird. Although Edward Mansfield was a district court judge, that was not a well paid office in those days. He died in May 1905, and young Alan later had to rely on scholarships to gain a private school and university education in Sydney. He graduated in law in 1924 and was admitted to the Queensland Bar on 22 July 1924.

For years he lived perilously close to the breadline. His son Jim recalled, ‘My father was scarred by his early experiences, I think that everyone of his era had to live with dreadful anxiety and insecurity. He told me that in his first years at the Bar he often didn’t know when his next brief might arrive and he regularly had to pawn his watch while he waited for a cheque.

‘He used to have lunch at the Souris brothers Greek cafe in George Street. Years later, that connection was renewed when he was a frequent racegoer and recreational punter. The Souris brothers were then very prominent owners and they tipped him a lot of winners. That was typical of his incredible range of friends from all walks of life.

‘He told me he seriously considered giving the Bar away before he got a brief to appear in the Mungana case, which involved allegations of official corruption against the prominent politicians Ted Theodore and William McCormack. Dad represented two of the other parties and won a good result in what was a sensational and much publicised case. After that, more and better briefs came his way. In 1940 he was appointed a Supreme Court judge. Then, from 1946, he was in Japan for two years while he worked as the Chief Prosecutor before the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Far East.’

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Throughout his legal career, Mansfield earned the reputation of being diligent and incisive, quick to get to the point at issue. He was not flamboyant but he was even tempered, painstaking and reliable, versatile and unfailingly courteous. He was a good choice as Chief Justice to preside over a court that included several more mercurial and reputedly difficult personalities.

In 1933, Mansfield married Beryl Pain, who was a member of the Barnes pastoral family of north Queensland. Beryl had one child from a previous marriage that had ended in divorce, while the Mansfields were to have two children of their own, James (Jim) and Rachel.5 Jim recalled the life at Government House. ‘I lived there for much of 1957, while I was at university, supposedly studying. We had many distinguished visitors come to stay at Government House while I was there, including Sir William and Lady Slim and Lord Morton, who was a real live Law Lord. The Queen Mother came, she oozed charm and after two minutes anywhere near her even the most rabid republican became a raging royalist.’

Sir Alan had a flying start as governor. He was well and favourably known and he knew the state well because of his work as a circuit court judge. He had taken a special interest in pastoral and agricultural matters as a chairman of the Land Appeal Court and the Sugar Cane Prices Board.

The Mansfields travelled extensively through a state that was then enjoying growth and prosperity. There had been a severe drought for several years from 1965 and a collapse in wool prices. However, by then there was far less dependence on wool. The population was surging, from 1.518 million in 1961, to 1.663 million in 1966, then to 1.851 million in 1971 and then over two million in 1974. A greater proportion of that population was being attracted to settle in the cities and in coastal areas, where there were increasing numbers of jobs in secondary and tertiary industries. Queensland also began to attract migrants from interstate, people who sought sunshine, a better lifestyle and

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Top left: A tour by Springbok footballers provoked anti-apartheid demonstrations and a vigorous police response.

Top, centre: Police outnumber protestors during a ‘right to march’ demonstration in Brisbane, 1977.

Top right: Sir Colin and Lady Hannah in their Canberra home, before their move to Queensland’s Government House.

Right: The Hannahs depart Government House for a function.

Chapter Thirteen – the calm and then the storm

the exemption from death duties that the Queensland government promised to introduce from 1976.

Sir Alan’s original term expired in March 1971, but a two year extension was offered and accepted. In January 1972, Sir Alan announced his intention to retire slightly earlier than the end of the extended term. A troublesome leg ailment had made it increasingly difficult for him to carry out official duties and this encouraged him to bring the date forward. In March 1972, the Mansfields retired to their home on the Gold Coast. From there, Sir Alan enjoyed yachting, fishing and the company of his wide circle of friends. He continued to act as Chancellor of the University of Queensland as he had done since 1966. However, in 1976, ill-health forced his resignation from that role.

He had been far more than a figurehead at the University, chairing many committees and always keeping very well informed about university affairs.

Sir Alan died on 17 July 1980. A few weeks later, Lady Mansfield also died. They were survived by their children, Jim and Rachel.

During Sir Alan’s term as governor, a long serving but relatively unknown Country Party member of the Legislative Assembly became premier. On 8 August 1968, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen ascended to the job more or less by accident. Frank Nicklin had retired in January 1968 and was succeeded

by Jack Pizzey. However, Pizzey died suddenly in July 1968. The coalition was ill-prepared to find another leader quite so soon and it seemed that Bjelke-Petersen was selected as a caretaker to create a breathing space while longer term arrangements were sorted out.

The idiosyncratic Bjelke-Petersen stayed in the premier’s job through 19 of the most tempestuous and controversial years in Queensland’s history.

After a hesitant start and narrowly surviving a 1970 attempt to oust him, Bjelke-Petersen learned to consolidate his grip on power by confronting and demolishing everything and everybody that stood in his way. It was a turbulent era, a time of industrial disputes and protests about such issues as nature conservation, heritage protection in the cities, involvement in the Vietnam war, Aboriginal affairs and visits by South African footballers. Every demonstration, every breach of law and order and every deviation from accepted norms was grasped as an opportunity to increase police powers and diminish personal freedoms. It was all part of the Bjelke-Petersen strategy to prove that Queensland was being managed by decisive, no-nonsense leaders.

Bjelke-Petersen seized with special relish any opportunity to confront or frustrate the Whitlam led Labor government that had been elected to power in Canberra in December 1972. One of these opportunities centrally involved Queensland’s new governor, Sir Colin Hannah.

Hannah’s appointment to succeed Sir Alan Mansfield was announced on 14 January 1971, on the same day that Sir Alan made public his retirement plans.6 Air Marshal Sir Colin Hannah was then Chief of the Air Staff and thus Australia’s most senior Air Force officer. Born in Western Australia in 1914, he had joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1935. In 1939 he married Patricia Gordon, and was then sent to Britain for armaments training. He saw active service in New Guinea from October 1943. After the war, he had a series of progressively more senior postings, including command of Amberley air base in southern

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Queensland in 1949. He was appointed an aide-de-camp to Queen Elizabeth for the 1954 royal tour, then he saw more active service during the Malayan Emergency. From 1960, he was appointed to increasingly senior air force staff positions in Australia until he was promoted to the rank of air marshal and appointed Chief of the Air Staff for three years from 1 January 1970. He was knighted in 1971.

On 15 January 1972, it was announced simultaneously in London and in Brisbane that Sir Colin would be Queensland’s new governor. He was to be the state’s nineteenth governor, the third Australian to hold the office. The Courier-Mail thought he was ‘a splendid choice ... a young-thinking man of action, and an experienced administrator with a no-nonsense reputation in Australia and overseas. His record is a fine one, demonstrating the flexibility of mind and ability to mix with people which are such necessary qualities for a modern governor. He is a man’s man, at home in any company.’7 There was a subdued welcome for the Hannahs when they arrived in Brisbane on 21 March 1972. The Courier-Mail reported that ‘there was little evidence that people had turned out to see him. A few shoppers paused to watch the red, open car bring the Hannahs to Parliament House. Some clapped as the car drove by. Despite the Premier’s appeal for a gay Brisbane, there were few flags flying.’8 Governors now had to compete with pop stars and sporting heroes for celebrity status. The modern governors had to earn adulation: it no longer came to them automatically with their appointments.

Everything Sir Colin did as governor was overshadowed by the consequences of remarks he made at a Brisbane Chamber of Commerce luncheon on 15 October 1975. At the time, the Whitlam government in Canberra was struggling for survival. There had been a series of economic crises, there was much evidence of government bungling and revelations were emerging concerning attempts to raise huge loans without parliamentary approval so as to be able to carry on government even if supply was denied. The parliamentary opposition was using its majority in the Senate to defer the granting of supply until Whitlam agreed to call an election. The government appeared to be paralysed. At the very least, a constitutional crisis was looming.

At the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, the Chamber’s president, Charles Mortensen, said ‘The sooner Mr Fraser presses the button and starts the count down for an election, ignoring the bleats of academic lawyers, the sooner business confidence will be restored. I am of the opinion that there could never be any long term trust by business in the present Labor government, irrespective of what economic measures were taken to get the private sector back into gear.’ Sir Colin, the Chamber’s luncheon guest, then rose to say ‘Although my office is above party politics, I deplore the fumbling ineptitude which has put the country in its present position. When I compare our overall history with the last two years I am forced to say I would be guilty of denying my heritage and failing in my regard for the people of Queensland and I would be sheltering behind convention if I did not say I agreed wholeheartedly with the earlier speech by Mr Mortensen.’ 9 They were probably the most overtly politically partisan public remarks any Queensland governor had ever made. However, it might have been possible in other circumstances for the indiscreet words to be quietly forgotten. That

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was certainly never going to be allowed to happen in October 1975. It was Hannah’s misfortune that his words were eagerly seized and exploited by both sides as potent new weapons in the war between Bjelke-Petersen and Whitlam, between Canberra and Queensland. The loser in the war was Sir Colin Hannah.

Sir Colin’s remarks were immediately publicised and caused a furore throughout Australia. There was widespread condemnation of the governor, not only in Labor circles but well beyond, among those who felt that Hannah had wrongly trespassed on the political arena. The Courier-Mail newspaper, a stern critic of the Whitlam government, called the governor’s speech ‘a misuse of his office.’10 The events that followed are outlined by the constitutional scholar Anne Twomey in her 2006 work, The Chameleon Crown. In summary, on 16 October 1975 Queensland’s Leader of the Opposition, Tom Burns, sent a petition to the Queen calling on her to remove Sir Colin as governor. Burns said there was concern that the governor’s personal political feelings might influence his actions when dealing with sensitive matters. Burns’ petition was referred by the Queen to the Foreign Secretary, whose departmental officers thought there were three possible courses of action. The governor could be removed, he could be reprimanded, or the Queen could simply do nothing. It was thought that some decisive action was necessary to uphold the principle of vice-regal impartiality and the British officials obviously felt that dismissal of Sir Colin was the appropriate step. However, that course carried the risk of bringing the Queen into direct conflict with the Queensland premier, who was unlikely to accept any dismissal and would very likely use it as further ammunition for his war against Canberra.

Top: Drought in western Queensland, 1967.

Centre: Flooding at St Lucia, Brisbane, January 1974.

Bottom: The flooded Bremer River at Ipswich, January 1974.

Right: Flooding in the Charlotte, Albert and Mary streets area of Brisbane city, January 1974.

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At the same time, the Whitlam government had advised the Queen to remove Sir Colin from the list of state governors who held dormant commissions to act as Administrator of the Commonwealth in the absence of the Governor-General. On 24 October 1975, the Queen did revoke Sir Colin’s dormant commission. That provoked the Queensland premier to embark on a strenuous defence of Sir Colin, by means of a ministerial statement to the Queensland parliament on 28 October 1975. In his statement, Bjelke-Petersen said that, while recommendations about the dormant commissions held to act as Commonwealth Administrator were matters for the Commonwealth government, ‘appointments to the position of Governor of Queensland are made

by Her Majesty on the recommendation of the Government of Queensland.’ On that point, the premier was wrong, as Twomey makes very clear. Appointments to the position of Governor of Queensland were still made by the Queen on the advice of her United Kingdom government, not the Queensland government.

If Queensland had any role in the making of appointments it was purely informal and the state certainly had no right of direct access to the Queen on the matter.

The premier went on to escalate the tension by saying ‘I indicate now that such is my government’s confidence in Sir Colin that we intend initiating the relevant action to have the question of an extension of his term submitted to the Queen for Her Majesty’s approval.’ The premier’s office was soon advised by London that no extension of Sir Colin’s term would be acceptable.

Notwithstanding that advice, on 10 November 1975 the premier wrote to Sir Colin saying that the government was inviting him, Sir Colin, to accept another term of office. Sir Colin said he would be honoured to accept an extension of three years, subject to the Queen’s approval.

This provoked further disapproval in London. Sir Colin was asked to explain his conduct. The governor was unrepentant when, on 19 November, he wrote to the Foreign Secretary. Hannah admitted that, while he had made the remarks complained of, they were justified on several grounds. The relevant British officials regarded Sir Colin’s response as being defiant and unapologetic.

London was clearly tempted to take a hard line, but on 11 November 1975 the Australian Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, had dismissed the Whitlam government. That action led to bitter argument and divisions in the Australian community. Many commentators contended that Kerr had acted unconstitutionally. London felt it could hardly discipline Hannah while much more serious allegations of constitutional impropriety were being made against the Governor-General. In the end, Sir Colin was rebuked and the request to extend his term for three years was rejected. On 16 January 1975, the Foreign Secretary wrote to Hannah ‘your remarks of 15 October were not in keeping with the convention of regal and vice-regal impartiality which her Majesty and Her representatives traditionally observe. In these circumstances, I have not submitted to Her Majesty the Queen the request ... that the term of your office be extended for a further period of three years from March 1977.’

Undeterred by this, the premier on several occasions in 1976 again raised with London the matter of an extension of Sir Colin’s term. On each occasion there was a flat refusal by London to countenance the proposed extension. London similarly rejected requests from the Commonwealth government that Sir Colin’s dormant commission to act in place of the Governor-General should be restored.

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Top: Early apartment blocks at Burleigh Heads.

Below left: Sir Colin Hannah speaking his mind.

Below, centre: The Hannahs were a diligent and popular couple, but they were overtaken by controversy.

Below, right: Sir Colin Hannah had been Australia’s highest ranking air force officer.

Chapter Thirteen – the calm and then the storm

Finally, the issue was resolved when the premier advised London that Sir Colin would definitely retire in March 1977 and that Queensland would suggest the name of a new governor.11 The central point in contention during the whole affair was whether the Queen should take advice directly from Queensland, and whether British officials were bound to rubber-stamp Queensland’s advice about the appointment of the state’s governors. Bjelke-Petersen seemed to believe that he, as premier of Queensland, furnished the only advice to the Queen on the matter. He was mistaken. It was the responsibility of British ministers, not the Queensland premier, to advise the Crown on the appointment of state governors.

Queensland could make informal submissions to the British authorities, but the responsibility of formulating the advice that went forward to the monarch rested entirely and exclusively with the British government. The Foreign Office noted this and stated ‘Ministers here take very seriously the duty to protect the Crown from embarrassment; and that they do not just rubber-stamp whatever proposals State governments, for their own selfish reasons, may choose to put forward, but exercise independent judgment in performing their constitutional duty to advise the Crown.’12 Sir Colin’s indiscretion and its consequences created a background for significant constitutional changes that were to be made in Queensland in 1977 and later by the passage of the 1986 Australia Acts. In the meantime, Sir Colin retired in March 1977 and went to live on the Gold Coast, where he died in 1980.

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Chapter Fourteen – urbane and capable

Urbane and Capable ‘In all my forty years in politics, the Governor had always accepted the Premier’s advice.’

The Hannah affair had been blown up and exploited for political advantage for as long as Queensland’s Bjelke-Petersen government was locked in mortal combat with the Whitlam government in Canberra. Then the heat went out of the controversy. The Whitlam government was dismissed in November 1975 and was soundly defeated at the subsequent general election. As 1976 went by, the prospect of the Queen’s silver jubilee royal tour in March 1977 influenced even the invariably combative Bjelke-Petersen to allow the Hannah matter to be quietly forgotten.

Besides, a state election was looming. The premier might have been convinced that there was still political mileage in his accusations that a conspiracy between socialist governments in Canberra and London had denied Hannah an extension of his term. However, he also knew that many people, even those who supported Queensland’s conservative government, had been offended

by Sir Colin’s indiscretion. It was time to move on, time to avoid further controversy, at least until after the election.

It was therefore time to accept that even if Sir Colin wanted an extension (which he did not2), his term would not be renewed by the Queen. It was time to find a new governor, a man (there is no evidence that a woman was considered, even momentarily) who would be ‘sound’ and ‘safe.’ He would have to be a man whose appointment could not be criticised, ideally a man from outside Queensland who owed no favours to anyone within the state.

Well informed political commentator Hugh Lunn wrote that he had been told by his sources ‘Many people in official State circles were very embarrassed by Sir Colin’s remarks. So the people at the top in Queensland, including Joh, wanted to make sure there was no risk of this happening again. They wanted a bloke who was tried and trusted, conservative and established. A pure white skin who is not going to rock the boat at all.’3 If that was true, they found the right man in Sir James Maxwell Ramsay.

His appointment as Queensland’s twentieth governor was announced on 4 February 1977. Significantly, the announcement came a month ahead of the Queen’s visit. That removed any tension that would have persisted as long as there was any possibility of Bjelke-Petersen persevering with his attempts to have Sir Colin re-appointed. The announcement of the new appointment obviously closed off that possibility.

Left: Sir Walter Campbell, a man of truly heroic proportions, ideally equipped to be a governor.

Sir James immediately began to pour oil on the troubled waters. In his first media interviews as governor-designate he made it clear that he was ‘unashamedly conventional and traditionalist.’4 He said politics was not part of his job. ‘I do not think that politics should be involved in the post of governor, and as far as I am concerned, it is not. You have got to keep politics out of any such appointment.’5 Ramsay was as good as his word. He did his best to keep politics out of his job, although events were to prove that even if governors were strictly impartial they could not always avoid becoming enmeshed in constitutional issues. After all, that was still the core business

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of the governors. The idiosyncratic Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen regarded the governors as pawns that he could manipulate to best political advantage and that inevitably drew the governors into controversies that went to the heart of Queensland’s governance.

In every other respect, Sir James succeeded in keeping the office of governor out of the arena of controversy and in putting it back into the affections of Queenslanders. Sir James was the healing successor to Sir Colin. He was affable and urbane, old fashioned perhaps, but a man nobody could dislike. As an old naval man, he would have been happy to think that in his eight year term he put the office of Governor of Queensland back on an even keel.

He had been a naval man for a long time. Born in Hobart in 1916, he was just 13 years old when he joined the Royal Australian Navy as a Cadet Midshipman.

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Left: Sir James and Lady Ramsay.

Above, right: Sir James Ramsay with Sallyanne Atkinson, Lord Mayor of Brisbane.

Below, right: The jovial Sir James, at the theatre.

Chapter Fourteen – urbane and capable

He did well at the naval college at Jervis Bay and passed out in 1933 with first class honours and several prizes. A distinguished naval career followed. During World War Two he was involved in the battle that ended with the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. He was in Singapore shortly before it fell, then in the Java Sea just before the Japanese sank the HMAS Perth. Later in the war, he served in the Middle East and Pacific. He was in action again during the Korean War, winning the Distinguished Service Cross and appointment to the American Legion of Merit for his command of the Australian destroyer Warramunga, which rescued two American minesweepers that were under heavy enemy fire.

In peacetime, he undertook training in Britain and the United States; he was Australian Naval Representative in Britain and he was honorary aide to both the Queen and the Governor-General Sir William Slim. In November 1945, Ramsay married Janet Burley, daughter of Fred Burley who had established the very successful Berlei women’s underwear manufacturing business. The couple had four children – David, Susan, Judith and Virginia.

Ramsay’s last posting was Naval Officer Commanding, Western Australia based in Fremantle where he commenced duty in 1968. In 1972, he retired from the navy and settled in Perth. In June 1974, he was appointed LieutenantGovernor of Western Australia and acted as Administrator for more than a year in 1974 and again in 1976 during the illness of the governor of the state. His work in that role was widely applauded in Western Australia and in 1976 he was knighted for those services.6 His experience in the position of acting governor was said to have been a significant factor in the Queensland government’s decision to put Ramsay’s name forward for consideration by the Queen for appointment as its state governor.

Sir James and Lady Ramsay arrived in Brisbane by air on 22 April 1977 and, later that day, Sir James was sworn in by Chief Justice Sir Mostyn Hanger, who had been acting as governor since Sir Colin Hannah’s retirement a month before.

The Ramsays quickly won popularity in Queensland. Sir James set a goal of visiting every one of the state’s local government areas during his term. He and Lady Ramsay actually achieved that within three years. They also managed to visit each of Queensland’s lighthouses, which were still staffed by people who were doing some of the loneliest jobs in the state.

The highlight of Sir James’ public and ceremonial activities while governor came in September and October 1982, with the holding of the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. The governor hosted a visit by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh during the Games and to a considerable extent Sir James was the face of Queensland during the highly successful activity. Many Queenslanders claim that the Games marked the beginning of the state’s modern era. The international sporting festival projected Queensland, particularly Brisbane, to a world audience. Achievements like the opening of the Queen Street pedestrian mall, the opening of the Queensland Art Gallery and the construction of the Southbank cultural centre were visible evidence of the capital city’s maturity and sophistication. The Games marked the beginning of sustained population growth in the state, from 2.424 million people in 1982 to over three million in 1992. With that increased population came jobs growth and a strong dividend flow from the resources sector as the long-standing promise of Queensland’s

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mineral wealth started to come true. Queenslanders were feeling good about themselves and about their state and their governor, the jovial Sir Jim Ramsay.

There was only one blot on the governor’s copybook. As had happened before in Queensland, constitutional difficulties arose because of the internal decay and disunity of a government that had been in office for a long time. The Country (later National) and Liberal parties coalition had been in power since 1957. By 1983, there were clear signs that the coalition was disintegrating. The development was welcomed by the National Party leader, Premier Joh BjelkePetersen, who saw a chance for his party to govern in its own right, free of any partnership with the irksome Liberal Party.

In August 1983, a motion from a Liberal back bench member of parliament paved the way for debate about the establishment of a Public Accounts Committee – a proposal that was anathema to the premier. The motion was supported by Liberal minister Terry White, who was then dismissed from the ministry by the governor on the premier’s advice. In a show of defiance of the premier, the Liberal parliamentarians then voted to replace their own leader, Dr Llew Edwards, who had sided with the premier. White was elected Liberal leader. At the same time, parliament was adjourned indefinitely.

Bjelke-Petersen had thrived on confrontation, now he confronted the Liberal Party. He refused to accept White back into cabinet and said that the Liberals had breached the coalition agreement by electing White as their leader. The Liberal Party state executive then declared that the premier’s actions had ended the coalition and it called on all Liberal ministers to resign their portfolios.

Bjelke-Petersen saw a chance to destroy the coalition and to eventually entice enough of the Liberals to join the National Party, which would give the Nationals the numbers to govern in their own right. On 15 August, six of the seven former Liberal ministers met with the premier to deliver their resignations. However, the premier claimed that ‘when (they) came into my office ... I knew quite well that most of them did not want to resign. I said to them “Would you be interested if I could get the Governor to refuse to accept your resignations?” Obviously, the premier’s strategy was to create an impression that the governor, not the premier, had refused the resignations and this would justify the former ministers in carrying on, contrary to the directions of their own party. The premier was going to hide behind the governor’s skirts, even if he dragged those skirts through political mud.

Bjelke-Petersen claimed that for the former Liberals it was an attractive proposition. He wrote in his memoirs: ‘A few of them spoke up at once and said “That would be fantastic Joh.” ... So that is what I did. In the morning I sent a couple of my people up to sound out the governor, Sir James Ramsay, on what I had in mind and I went up to see him myself in the afternoon. We sat and talked about the matter at length ... He said he did not want to be dragged into a political wrangle by refusing to accept the resignations, but I replied “Well, Your Excellency, I can tell you for sure you will get dragged into one of you do accept the resignations.” ... I reasoned that the Governor had to take my advice. ... (at first) I could not get him to agree with me. He asked me to allow him an hour to consider the matter. As agreed, I phoned him ... he told me he had decided to go along with my advice after all, and would refuse the Liberal ministers’ resignations.’7

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Above, top: Lady Ramsay planting a tree at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, in memory of school lives lost in a bus accident.

Below: The Ramsays admire a teapot that was presented to them at an exhibition in the re-opened Brisbane School of Arts.

Opposite, top left: Lady Ramsay sets an example with a blood pressure check.

Below: Sir James with a Girl Guide guard of honour.

Far right: Sir James as Queensland’s Chief Scout, at the Landsborough camp, Easter 1978.

Chapter Fourteen – urbane and capable

It was not a wise decision on the governor’s part. Ministers have a right to resign and their resignations cannot be refused if they insist upon them.

The governor ought to have told the premier that he, the premier, should have either accepted or rejected the resignations and should have taken the responsibility for that decision himself. It is well established that the composition of the cabinet is a political matter for the premier and it is entirely up to the premier to decide whether to accept a resignation or not.

It was quite wrong to try to create the impression that the decision was taken in the exercise of the governor’s own discretion. The governor should not have allowed that situation to arise. In the words of constitutional authority D.J. Markwell, ‘The premier’s involvement of the Governor left the Governor, rather than the Premier or the resigning ministers, being presented and seen as making the decision that the ministers must stay – a decision about the internal composition of the government, which was a political matter for the Premier himself to settle.’8 The immediate aftermath was that the governor was drawn into a political maelstrom he should have avoided. Several of the former ministers claimed their resignations had been declined by the governor, that they were therefore still ministers and could not resign again, no matter what direction they might have from their party. In the end, the political coalition that had been created in 1957 was terminated. The governor agreed to the formation of a minority National Party government and this held office until elections were eventually held on 22 October. The election did not give the National Party an outright majority in the new parliament. However, two of the former Liberal ministers

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soon defected from the Liberal Party and joined the National Party. This delivered government to the National Party in its own right.

Sir James Ramsay was sternly criticised by some commentators for his unquestioning compliance with the premier’s advice. That compliance delivered considerable political advantage to the premier. Clearly, the governor’s agreement not to accept the Liberal resignations was inappropriate because he should have insisted on that issue being settled in the political arena. Similarly, it was not appropriate for the governor to agree to the formation of a minority government without insisting that the arrangement of the political numbers should be tested in the parliament. Sir James also ought not to have agreed to a nine week interval between the adjournment of parliament and the holding of an election, particularly as the interval spanned the time when the state budget should have been brought down.

The governor’s acquiescence in such a long interval favoured the new National Party government. It allowed that government to establish its own legitimacy and to maximise the advantages of incumbency.9 Governor Ramsay had stumbled through the constitutional obstacle race.

Sir James served as governor until July 1985. He and Lady Ramsay retired to the Gold Coast, where Sir James died following a heart attack on 1 May 1986.

Lady Ramsay remained very active within a number of Queensland community organisations until 1993, when she returned to Perth to live closer to two of her children. She died there in 2003.

Governors Hannah and Ramsay had both made errors of judgement and they had both allowed themselves to be exploited by the wily Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

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Above, left: The Ramsays with guests Prince Phillip and Her Majesty the Queen.

Above, right: The Ramsays with the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Right: Sir Walter Campbell inspects the Hay Point coal loading facility, near Mackay.

Chapter Fourteen – urbane and capable

The former premier wrote in his memoirs ‘In all my forty years in politics, the Governor had always accepted the Premier’s advice.’10 Bjelke-Petersen clearly believed that the governors were always obliged to do his bidding, especially if they were governors he thought owed their appointments to him. His experiences with the compliant Governors Hannah and Ramsay confirmed his belief. However, Ramsay’s successor, Sir Walter Campbell, was a very different man. He was to refuse to allow himself to be manipulated or bullied. He was to show a disbelieving Bjelke-Petersen that governors did not always have to take the premier’s advice, especially if that advice was unconstitutional.

When Campbell died in 2004, he was described by one of his successors as Chief Justice of Queensland, Paul de Jersey, as a man of ‘truly heroic proportion ... admirably equipped for life by remarkable personal qualities, especially intellect, courage and urbanity ... he was extremely well read, a compelling public speaker, a congenial, effervescent, stylish man, irresistibly drawing others warmly towards him; full of encouragement and reassurance for those with aspirations, especially the young ... public service was this man’s passion.’11 The words were spoken during a eulogy, but they were irrefutable. It is beyond argument that Campbell was one of the most brilliant figures in the public life of post war Queensland.

Born in northern New South Wales in 1921, Campbell’s father, Archie, was one of the most highly decorated Australian Light Horsemen of World War One. The family moved to Toowoomba in 1925, but the death of Walter’s mother Leila disrupted the boy’s education and family life. However, in 1937 he was a student at Downlands College in Toowoomba and it was there that his mercurial all-round abilities were revealed to the world. For three consecutive years he played in the school’s First Fifteen; he was twice Dux of the School, he topped the state in Senior Latin, he was an Open Scholar, head prefect and a powerful debater. It was noted in the 1938 school magazine that ‘W. Campbell would have stirred the very stones of Rome to rise and mutiny ... his almost unrivalled power of impassioned oratory constantly kept audiences applauding his efforts.’12 It was perhaps obvious that his future was in the law. In 1940 he enrolled for an Arts-Law degree at the University of Queensland, but his studies were interrupted in 1941 when he joined the Royal Australian Air Force. He passed his pilot’s examination on 7 December 1941, on the day that Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbour and the war in the Pacific began. On 18 June 1942 he married Georgina Pearce, also of Toowoomba. Campbell was then sent to Tasmania to become a Flight Instructor but was badly injured in a plane crash.

While recuperating, he was able to finish his Arts degree. Toward the very end of the war he commanded a Liberator bomber squadron, but he never flew combat missions. He returned to the university, played A grade football, edited the student newspaper Semper Floreat, led the university’s debating team and topped the last two years of the law course, graduating in 1948 with first class honours. Along the way, he won a Master of Arts degree. He became a part-time lecturer in law while still an undergraduate and was to continue in that role for 19 years. Later, he was appointed to the university’s Senate and finally was Chancellor of the university for nine years.

Campbell was admitted as a barrister in 1948 and was immediately successful, despite a paucity of work for barristers at the time and the competition of

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many colleagues who were also men of notable ability. ‘Solicitors found Campbell a delight to work with, clients found him charming, courteous and brilliant. He appeared in many important cases before the High Court and the Privy Council.’13 He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1960, and was then appointed a judge of the Queensland Supreme Court in 1967. In 1979, he was knighted for distinguished service to the law, government and education.14 In 1982, Campbell became Chief Justice in controversial circumstances which revealed the chasm which was then opening between the governing coalition parties. The Liberal Party, juniors in the coalition but in possession of the portfolio of Attorney-General, sought to appoint Justice James Douglas as the state’s new Chief Justice to replace Charles Wanstall. Douglas was the next most senior judge after Wanstall and was generally thought to be his logical successor. However, Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen favoured a junior judge, Dormer (Bob) Andrews, who had not long before been elevated from the District Court bench. The issue provoked a bitter dispute between the coalition partners. Bjelke-Petersen claimed to have evidence that Douglas had once voted Labor, a fatal disqualification in the mind of the premier. Eventually, Campbell was chosen as a compromise candidate and Bjelke-Petersen pushed through Campbell’s appointment, against Liberal opposition. Bjelke-Petersen probably had in mind that Campbell would only hold the high office until Andrews could be appointed.

Despite the controversial circumstances of his appointment, Campbell was an entirely suitable choice for the role and he quickly became an outstanding leader of the Supreme Court. However, in 1985 Campbell was appointed Governor of Queensland and Andrews became Chief Justice in his place.

Sir Walter soon proved himself to be the ideal governor. As Sir Harry Gibbs, Campbell’s former colleague at the Queensland bar and then Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, said: ‘He’s intelligent. He’s got an easy going nature,

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Above, left: Downlands school First Fifteen, 1939, Wally Campbell in centre at front.

Above, centre: Correct weight! Sir Walter, with Queensland Turf Club chairman Sir Edward Williams, at the opening of the QTC Racing museum.

Above, right: Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen used Governors Ramsay and Hannah as pawns in his political game, but he met his match in Sir Walter Campbell.

Right, below: Sir Walter Campbell in the navigator’s seat of an F111 fighter plane at Amberley air base.

Military aviation had come a long way since young Wally Campbell trained as a pilot in 1941.

Chapter Fourteen – urbane and capable

he’s not naturally abrasive. He’s very good in company. He’s an easy mixer. He’s almost the ideal choice for governor. He’s a good speaker. Comports himself well in public and at the same time mixes easily with the public. What more could you have?’15 As governor, Campbell travelled widely, he spoke readily and always with wit and style. He engaged warmly with people from all walks of life and he was well supported by Lady Campbell, who carried out her role with particular dedication. She took seriously her obligation to the many organisations that came under her patronage and wherever she went she took care to deliver a speech that was carefully crafted for the occasion. If there was criticism of the Campbells, it was that they insisted on strict compliance with protocol. In Sir Walter’s view, protocol upheld the office of governor, just as formality and protocol was a necessary part of the legal system.

By 1987, it was apparent that Queensland’s National Party government was in its death throes. Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (knighted in 1984) had launched a ‘Joh for Canberra’ campaign that began in fantasy and ended in humiliation.

Sir Joh’s judgment and his value as party leader were increasingly questioned.

Tensions heightened between the premier and the organisational wing of the party, and between the premier and some of his own parliamentarians who were pressing for the adoption of more progressive social policies. It appeared that the premier could not even command a secure majority within his own cabinet. Bjelke-Petersen was clearly losing his grip on his party and was probably also losing his grip on reality. Instead of voluntarily resigning before he was forced to do so, he devised desperate schemes to cling to power.

On 23 November 1987, Bjelke-Petersen delivered a letter to the governor proposing that he would resign as premier and that all the members of the existing ministry should be dismissed. ‘At the same time I seek a further commission from Your Excellency to form a new administration.’ Bjelke-Petersen was seeking a way of creating a new ministry from which five previously troublesome ministers would be omitted. His scheme would enable him to get rid of the unwanted ministers without having to personally dismiss them.

Campbell refused to agree to the premier’s proposal. The governor expressed the opinion that the proper course was for the premier to discuss the proposed reorganisation of his government with his cabinet and then to request the resignation of the ministers he did not want. Campbell’s reaction was that a democratically elected leader had to both gain and retain his majority. He regarded Sir Joh’s strategy as an improper use of constitutional procedures to manipulate power. The governor obtained comment from other National Party politicians and that advice confirmed that Sir Joh no longer had the support of his parliamentary party.

Then Sir Walter warned the premier that if he resigned, he (Campbell) would need to be satisfied that Sir Joh and his new ministry had the confidence of parliament before he as governor would re-commission Sir Joh. The frustrated premier left Government House in high dudgeon. Next day, he returned with advice that three ministers who had refused to resign voluntarily should be dismissed. Sir Walter eventually agreed to this request, on the basis that constitutional convention required that a minister should resign when a premier demanded that resignation.

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In the meantime, there were moves to convene a meeting of the parliamentary wing of the National Party at which all positions would be declared vacant. It was clear that if the party meeting elected a new leader, Sir Joh would retain his commission as premier until the governor took action, either to force the premier to prove his majority in parliament or to appoint a caretaker premier.

To forestall any such action by the governor, Sir Joh endeavoured to contact the Queen, probably to ask for the governor’s removal. British authorities refused to allow the Queen to be involved and expressed their confidence in the governor.

On 26 November, the parliamentary party met and quickly elected a new leader, Mike Ahern. Sir Walter then came under pressure to dismiss Sir Joh, but he declined to do so before the parliament met again in the following week. Sir Walter’s view was that parliament was the proper place for settling the matter, if Sir Joh could not be persuaded to resign gracefully. The governor made clear that before he would commission anyone as premier he would need to be satisfied that person could command a majority in parliament and the floor of parliament was the only place where that could be determined.

Queensland was now in the position of having ‘a Premier who is not leader’ and ‘a Leader who is not Premier.’16 Sections of the media condemned the governor for ‘leaving Queensland in chaos’ and refusing to intervene to restore effective government. However, constitutional authorities were strongly of the view that the governor was acting perfectly correctly in saying that the matter should be resolved by the parliament. Finally, the saga ended at 4.00 pm on 1 December when Sir Joh delivered his resignation to Sir Walter, effective immediately.17 Sir Walter accepted the resignation and wished the retiring premier the best of luck for the future. Sir Joh was not so gracious. According to his autobiography, Bjelke-Petersen handed Campbell his resignation letter. ‘After he had read it, I said to him “Well, Wally, old fella, you ought to be proud of yourself. You have done a mighty job and I want to congratulate you. In the years to come I hope you have many proud, happy memories of what you have done. Good on you old fella. Cheerio.” With that, I turned my back on Campbell and as I was walking out of the room I said to his secretary “I’ll never darken these doors again,” I won’t either, so long as the present incumbent remains in Government House.’18 Bjelke-Petersen’s autobiography betrays the truth that the long serving premier had little understanding of constitutional niceties and even less respect for them. He thought that because he had appointed Campbell he was owed a favour. He also thought that the governor was obliged to act on whatever advice the premier gave. When Campbell drew a distinction between constitutionally proper advice and advice that was designed to manipulate the system, ‘it left a very sour taste’ in Sir Joh’s mouth. ‘If there was one decision I made as premier which I later regretted it was the appointment of Wally Campbell ...’19 Campbell for his part had acted entirely correctly. He had shown that the governor was not a mere cipher or a pawn in the political game. His actions were courageous because his decision to insist that the problem be resolved by political processes put him under sustained pressure from the premier and some sections of the media. ‘His intellectual command of the powers and requirements of his office and his personal skills enabled the State decently to manage the relinquishing of power by one of the most wilful leaders of the time.’20

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Below: Lady Campbell at a children’s centre.

Right, above: The Campbells at Government House.

Lady Campbell enjoyed gardening and established a camellia garden at Fernberg.

Centre: The Campbells with Her Majesty the Queen.

Below: The Campbells. Lady Campbell often related that when she first saw her future husband with his dark hair, well-trimmed moustache and stylish trenchcoat ‘she thought he looked like Clark Gable.’

Chapter Fourteen – urbane and capable

Sir Walter’s term expired on 28 July 1992. He and Lady Campbell retired to suburban Brisbane where Sir Walter died in 2004. Lady Campbell died in 2006. She had taken a particular interest in the enhancement of Government House and was responsible for the erection of a new eastern verandah, to the original design of architect Benjamin Backhouse. They were survived by their children Deborah and Wallace. Their son Peter predeceased them.

There had been several very significant constitutional changes during the Ramsay and Campbell years. The Hannah affair had made a number of points of constitutional law clearer in Queensland than they had been before. The state’s leaders did not welcome all the implications of the clarification. In particular, it became apparent that the Queen appointed Queensland’s governors on the advice of the British government. There was a concern that a British government might be persuaded by a government in Canberra to give advice that could be contrary to the wishes of the Queensland government.

There was also concern that the British government could be persuaded to change the method of appointment of state governors so that they could in future be appointed by the Governor-General acting on the advice of the Commonwealth government. There was a related anxiety that the British government might amend some of Queensland’s fundamental constitutional provisions. In 1977, in response to these concerns, the Queensland constitution was amended. The amendments entrenched the Queen and her governors into the state’s law making processes. They also provided that the office of governor could not be altered or abolished without a referendum and that the governors should not be limited in their sources of advice on questions of appointment or dismissal of ministers. The whole scheme was devised to prevent the Commonwealth government from repealing or varying any British laws relating to the state.21 It was perhaps paradoxical that these changes confirmed a situation whereunder the monarch appointed Queensland’s governors on the advice of British, not Queensland, ministers. However, the Queensland government of the time thought continuing British involvement was to be preferred to any possibility of a hostile Commonwealth government having a role in these processes.

It was not until the Australia Acts (complementary legislation of both the British and Australian parliaments) were passed in 1986 that Queensland and the other states gained decisive and unequivocal rights to directly and exclusively advise the monarch on the appointment of their own state governors. Although state premiers like Bjelke-Petersen might have previously thought that they advised the monarch on these matters, the Hannah case demonstrated that they had been mistaken. The 1986 laws provided that state governors should be appointed by Her Majesty acting only on the advice of the relevant state premier. It was confirmed that there would be no role for any Commonwealth or British government in advising on the appointment or termination of state governors.22 Sir Walter Campbell had been the last Queensland governor to be appointed by the Queen on the advice of the British government. His successor, Leneen Forde, was to be first governor to be appointed by the Queen on the direct advice of the Queensland government.

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Friends of Queensland ‘Life invariably has a way of directing one along paths not always chosen and sometimes not even imagined, and presenting many opportunities and challenges along the way.’1 Things have changed a lot in Queensland’s vice-regal circles in recent years.

Until 1992, there had never been a female governor, but three of the four governors appointed since then have been women. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, from 1992 there was a distinct shift in the way that the governors have done their work. The great achievement of the governors through those years has been to create a new style of accessibility and informality while enriching the dignity and status of the office of governor.

If there were ever any fears that the new style would diminish the respect and affection Queenslanders have for their governors, they were unfounded.

Today’s warmth of feeling for the governors personally, and the community regard for the office they hold, indicates that the state’s highest and oldest office has made a very successful transition to the twenty first century.

Leneen Forde made history in 1992 when she became the first woman to become Governor of Queensland and, after Dame Roma Mitchell in South Australia from 1991, only the second female governor of any Australian state.

She was also the first Queensland governor to be appointed after the passage of the Australia Acts, which provided that governors would be appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Queensland government, not the British government. Thus, although the Queensland government might have had an informal role in the selection and appointment of earlier governors, Leneen Forde’s appointment was the first instance of a governor being selected within Queensland and appointed on the advice of the Queensland government.

Leneen’s path to Queensland’s Government House was certainly not imagined in 1948 when, as a teenager in Ottawa, Canada, she first met the young Australian boy, Gerry Forde. Gerry was a son of Frank Forde, who had been a very prominent state and federal Labor parliamentarian ever since 1917 and was briefly Prime Minister in 1945. In 1947, Forde had been appointed Australia’s High Commissioner to Canada.

‘Gerry and I were both 13 when we met on a ski-slope. We were a bit young for romance but we were friendly until Gerry finished his schooling in Canada and came home to Australia in 1953. In November 1954 I flew out to Australia to see him and we were married in May 1955. He was my Prince Charming. We settled in Brisbane where Gerry was at law school at the University of Queensland. I had been a medical laboratory technician in Canada and I got a similar job in Brisbane to help pay the bills. Our first child, Michael, was born when I was just 21 years old. Through the next eight years, I did a little bit of part time work in between having four more children.

‘Gerry graduated and then in 1961 he started his own law firm. It was a tough time, there was a credit squeeze and business was depressed. We had no money but we were happy and we loved the children. Gerry’s practice soon started to become very successful. Then, right out of the blue, in January 1966 he was Left: Leneen Forde – Queensland’s first female governor.

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diagnosed with cancer and given two weeks to live. He did better than that, but he died on Christmas Eve 1966,’ Leneen recalled.

The story of Leneen’s life through the next 25 years is truly inspirational. At first it seemed she might be adequately provided for financially, but very soon she found she had very little money at all, due to poor decisions by advisers.

She decided to study for a qualification that would give her a secure and continuing basis to provide for the family. Leneen remembers, ‘I wanted to do medicine but the timetable was too full to allow me to look after the children.

So I chose law, where there was a lighter load of lectures and more flexibility. I could go to Uni in the mornings, look after the children in the afternoons, then study at night. One of the hardest parts was the prevailing attitude in those days that mothers shouldn’t work; if you had children you should stay home and look after them. It opened my eyes and I started to see there were problems for women I hadn’t thought about before. However, one good thing in those days was that you could get a tertiary education without it costing a lot of money, and I was lucky that I lived near the University.

‘I learned how to concentrate. I remember once all the students were complaining about noise from a construction site that was stopping them studying in the law library. The Dean of Law, Professor Ryan, came into the library to investigate.

There I was, by myself with jackhammers going all round and Professor Ryan was amazed that I was still working. I said, “I’ve got five young children. I don’t notice noise.”

‘I did try to get involved in student activities but it was a bit hard. I was in one of the really big protest marches in the late 1960s but when the march was about half way along Coronation Drive I suddenly remembered that my daughter had a dental appointment and so I had to drop out. I was on the edge of the demonstrations about the Springbok footballers and also about Aboriginal matters. I have been actively involved in civil liberties issues ever since.

‘I graduated in 1970 and then joined the long established law firm Cannan and Peterson. I started to specialise in doing estate work and I later became a partner in the firm. I thought there needed to be an organisation for female lawyers. I helped start the Queensland Women Lawyers Association and was its foundation

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president. Then I was asked to join Zonta, an organisation for professional women. I was later International President of Zonta, in 1990-1992.

‘I was getting more experience all the time within groups and organisations.

I learned how to handle meetings where very difficult and divisive issues like abortion were discussed, I learned how to make sure that everyone had the chance to put their point of view, how to listen, how to get consensus. I guess I was becoming a soft-gloved feminist, I wanted to change things for women, but I wanted to do it calmly and effectively.

‘I started to get involved with all sorts of things, boards and committees of all kinds. However, by 1991 I was really thinking that it would be nice to retire with Angus to our beach house on the Gold Coast.’

Gerry Forde had been Leneen’s Prince Charming, now Angus McDonald was her Rock of Gibraltar. They had met in extraordinary circumstances in 1975, when Angus was a detective in the New South Wales police force. He was investigating the murder of a girl who had been Leneen’s niece. He interviewed family members, met Leneen and the couple were married in 1983. ‘He was God’s bonus,’ says Leneen. ‘He was fiercely proud of his Scottish heritage. But it was a commuting marriage at first because he lived and worked in Sydney and I was in Brisbane.’

From left: Governor Leneen Forde and Angus McDonald with Prince Charles at Government House with the Prince’s staff and local staff.

Angus McDonald and Governor Leneen Forde with George, their German Shepherd in the Government House gardens.

Brisbane Girls Grammar School speech day, 1993.

Principal Mrs Judith Hancock at left, Governor Forde in centre, chairman of the school board of the trustees, Dr McCrae Grassie, at right.

Governor Forde and Angus McDonald at Government House.

In 1991, Leneen was named Queenslander of the Year, in recognition of her leading role in advancing the social and economic welfare of Queensland and for her special contributions to enhancing the status and interests of women. Then, in January 1992, Leneen had a call from Queensland Premier Wayne Goss. ‘He asked me to come and see him and I thought it would be about my work with the Queensland Women’s Consultative Council. I went to his office with an armful of files but he didn’t seem interested in any of that.

‘After a bit of small talk the premier said, “Would you be interested in becoming Queensland’s next governor?” I was overwhelmed and I just said, “I will have to ask Angus.” He said, “That’s all right, I have got to ask the Queen.”

‘Of course I could see that it was a wonderful opportunity for me, it was a chance to contribute to Queensland in a very special way and also to nourish some of the things I was particularly interested in.

‘Angus and I moved in to Government House, it was the first time that we had actually lived together for more than two or three weeks at a time. I was strongly committed to getting out and about and I also felt keenly that Government House should be opened to the public and that people should be invited to come and meet us. We tried to have a reception or a dinner every week and we always had new people, not just the same people who had been going to Government House for years. Of course, some people didn’t like the change but that didn’t deter me. I invited groups that hadn’t been invited before, homeless people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups. We stopped having garden parties and sometimes the activity might be a picnic in the grounds. We had Christmas candlelight parties and McDonald’s Scottish games became a fixture, we used to have haggis and tossing the caber and anybody could come.

‘I tried to take some of the formality out of it all, but I always maintained the protocol. I felt that it was necessary to recognise and emphasise the significance

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of the office. And I found that people were glad of the protocol, they respect it and they welcome it as a guide to how they should behave. It makes things much easier and more comfortable.

‘We travelled a lot and I got to some very remote places. I couldn’t help noticing that women living in isolation, at places like homesteads on outback cattle stations and Aboriginal communities, often had very real problems. I tried to get something done about that, I tried to encourage people whenever and wherever I could.

‘Another initiative that I think has borne fruit was to have regular gatherings of state governors. I noticed at Sir Paul Hasluck’s funeral in Perth in 1993 that all the state governors were present, perhaps for the first time ever. I got the idea of inviting them all to come to Government House in Brisbane so that we could get together and talk about matters of common interest. I sent out invitations and at first there was a cautious response and some declined but eventually the idea was picked up and we started sharing ideas and experiences and we all got a lot out of that. The governors continue to meet annually, so far as I am aware.

‘I had a wonderful relationship with Government House staff, they were very efficient. The aides were worth their weight in gold, they made sure everything ran like clockwork. Thanks to them, we were always on time and things always went smoothly.’

Leneen retired from the job as governor in July 1997, but she didn’t stop working. She was immediately invited to head a major inquiry into abuse, mistreatment and neglect of children in Queensland institutions since 1911. She continued her association with many organisations and enlarged her commitment to Queensland when she became Chancellor of Griffith University in 2000. Her immense contribution to the whole community had been recognised in 1993 when she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia.

In 1999, Leneen had to again face deep personal loss when Angus died. She was devastated, but she knew that there were many, many people who had to bear similar and even worse loss and grief, with fewer resources. She has always worked for those people and she still does.2 Leneen Forde’s successor as Governor of Queensland was Major-General Peter Arnison. When he was sworn in on 29 July 1997, Peter was well able to reflect that life had taken him along unforeseen and unimagined paths.

It certainly didn’t seem likely when he was born in Lismore in October 1940 that his path through life would take him to very senior army command and then into Government House. ‘I had a modest upbringing. My father’s family had come from the north of England and they set up a tailoring business in Lismore in the 1930s. The business continued until the 1980s when my father died. Happily, my mother survived to see me sworn in as Governor.’

‘When I was young my father said that tailoring was on the way out and I should look beyond the family business and beyond my home town for my future. I went to school in Lismore, joined the army and in 1959 I went to the Royal Military College, Duntroon. I went into the infantry and did two tours of duty in Vietnam, in 1965-66 and again in 1971. Later, I had a variety of command postings, at

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Canungra, Brisbane, Townsville and Sydney. When I retired from the army in 1996 I was Land Commander for Australia,’ General Arnison recalls.

In 1963, Peter and Barbara (nee Smith) met in Sydney soon after Peter’s graduation from Duntroon and Barbara’s graduation from Sydney University.

They were married in 1964 in the Presbyterian Church in Drummoyne and the couple had two children, Tracy born in Hawaii in 1967 where Peter was serving with the US Army on an exchange posting, and Andrew born in Sydney in 1970.

Peter says, ‘We were used to moving around to live in all sorts of different places but Queensland was where we wanted to settle down and we went to live in Brisbane when I retired from the army. Not long after that I had a call from the premier, Rob Borbidge, who asked me if I would be interested in being the state’s governor.

‘I thought that I had at least one good qualification for the job. As an army officer, I was imbued with the notion that you served the Crown and the government, whatever political complexion that government might be. I had been at the

Left: Barbara and Peter Arnison meet the Queen.

Centre: Peter Arnison, at left and wearing his ceremonial blues uniform, takes some invaluable advice from former governor Sir Walter Campbell.

Right: Peter Arnison embraces his mother after his swearing in, with some of Barbara Arnison’s family looking on.

Enoggera army base when Leneen Forde was governor and I greatly admired the dignity, style and sense of humour she brought to the job. She helped change attitudes and I thought that was very worthwhile. I was inspired by her example and so I took the job on. I must say it was as challenging and rewarding as almost anything else I had ever done.’

Just how challenging became clear less than a year after Arnison was sworn in as governor. State elections held on 13 June 1998 resulted in a hung parliament, with no party or grouping having a clear majority. The previous governing coalition parties won only 32 seats in the 89 member Legislative Assembly, the ALP won 44 seats, the new One Nation party won 11 seats and two Independents were elected.

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‘The question for me to decide was who to invite to form a government’ Peter Arnison recalled. ‘The constitution allowed me to seek advice from a range of sources and I did talk to a retired Supreme Court judge. We analysed some possible scenarios and when the time came I was equipped with a pretty good framework for decision making.

‘My own instinct was to allow the political process to work itself out. It became a matter of what the two Independents would do and eventually they decided they would support the Labor Party. The premier, Rob Borbidge, called on Friday 26 June 1998 to formally advise me that he could not form a government, that he wished to resign that afternoon and suggesting I should summon the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Beattie, to invite him to form government. I did that, and during our discussions Beattie indicated that he could form a Government with the support of the two Independent members. He requested that the swearing in be delayed until Monday as the labour Caucus had not finalised its ministerial selections. I told him I could not agree to his request for a delay, given Borbidge’s resignation. Delay would have left the state without a government.

‘I subsequently swore in Peter Beattie and his Deputy, Jim Elder, as Ministers for the eighteen portfolio positions (they shared nine each) that afternoon, in much the same way that Whitlam and Barnard were sworn in to all the Commonwealth portfolio positions for a short period in December 1972. Thus, Beattie formed an interim ministry to get through the weekend and on the following Monday I was able to swear in the full ministry. An interesting aside was that prior to swearing in the full ministry Beattie and I agreed that it would be preferable for him and Elder to resign to enable them to be formally and publicly sworn in with the full ministry. So the issue was resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned, but of course because the numbers were so finely balanced in the Parliament I had to be ready for the possibility that the government could lose its majority at any time. I must say that throughout this period both Borbidge and Beattie treated me with the utmost courtesy and respect.’

Not every governor has to deal with such a close election result, but presiding over the Executive Council is part of every governor’s core business. In the processes of modern government, ministers who come together in Cabinet make decisions about the management of affairs of the state. However, Cabinet has no formal constitutional status. By contrast, the Executive Council does have formal status and it is the role of that body to advise the Governorin-Council to sign off on whatever documentation is necessary to give effect to many Cabinet decisions. The Executive Council is comprised of the Governor, who presides over Executive Council meetings, and all ministers. However, by convention usually only two or three ministers attend, generally including the ministers responsible for any particularly important item of business.

‘The Executive Council gives legal effect to the significant decisions of Cabinet,’ Peter Arnison explains. ‘Cabinet normally met on a Monday and then the Executive Council would normally meet on the following Thursday. Papers for the meeting would come to me a day or so beforehand and I would read them thoroughly and take the whole process very seriously. Since 1922 Queensland has not had an upper house in its parliamentary system so there is no house of review, nor, until recent times, has there been a well developed committee system.

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‘Therefore, I was not hesitant in asking for clarification of matters we were dealing with which were unclear to me, or for suggesting that further consideration might be given to the occasional submission. I did this whenever I thought it necessary and I think Queensland got better government as a result.

‘People sometimes say that the governor’s job is all trivia, but it isn’t. There is much substantial and important work, and even the trivia isn’t trivial to the people who are at the centre of the particular activity.

‘When I took the job on I had pledged that I would be governor for all Queensland, not just Brisbane, and that meant getting around the state. I think that my early years in Lismore had given me a sympathy for regional and remote areas. I found that the office of governor was highly respected everywhere and generally the further we were from Brisbane the warmer was the welcome. People in remoter places didn’t take us for granted; they realised we had made a special effort to come to see them.

‘There was a keen desire by people everywhere to show the governor their part of the world, to tell him their concerns and to lobby about their needs. I used to say “Look, I don’t have a cheque book,” but sometimes when I saw something which was an obvious problem I would send the premier an informal note and generally matters would be fixed. But I didn’t overdo it.

‘During our many travels and visits we were never made to feel uncomfortable.

However, one occasion did start out a bit awkwardly. We arrived at a community and the Mayor was difficult to locate. He had heard me called General Arnison and he got me confused with the Auditor-General, whom he definitely did not want to see at that time! Nonetheless the Deputy Mayor and the community were very welcoming and hospitable. The Mayor and I caught up subsequently when he apologised profusely and explained his difficulty.

‘We were in Camooweal once, not long after the Goods and Services Tax was introduced. To make conversation, I enquired of a business person in the town “How are you getting on with the GST out here?” He said emphatically “There’s no GST in Camooweal mate, never has been and never will be.” Very Queensland.

‘Perhaps our most amusing welcome was at Birdsville. Our plane landed and stopped outside the pub. It was raining fairly steadily and when we got our cases over to the pub, mine host said, “Well, I suppose we better do the flood drill.

Come with me.” So he took us out to the beer garden and said “When the water starts to rise, come out here, bring your ports, and stand up on top of one of these tables. Just wait there until we come and tell you what to do next.” I am sure he was pulling our legs!

Top left: Peter and Barbara Arnison during a trade mission to Japan.

Centre left: The Arnisons are welcomed to Coconut Island, Torres Strait, in July 1999.

Bottom left: Peter and Barbara Arnison with members of the McKinlay QCWA branch.

‘Barbara and I decided to try to visit every Queensland Local Government Authority during my term. I think by and large we achieved this, with a few exceptions. Local shows and conferences were also good opportunities to meet people. We would usually leave Brisbane on a Sunday and get back on Wednesday, in time for Executive Council meetings. Sometimes if I needed to be away longer I would ask the Chief Justice to deputise for me at Executive Council.

‘It was obvious to me that vice-regal visits were very important to many communities. We would often be told about previous governors who had been in the area. At Murray Island, in the Torres Strait, about as remote as you can get

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and still be in Queensland, they had a vice-regal visitor’s book. It was amazing that the signature of just about every governor was in the book. At another centre there was a picture of Sir Henry Abel Smith in pride of place, with a picture of the Queen along side Sir Henry.

‘I also had an interest in the development of Queensland’s overseas trade, and we travelled to China, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam in support of Queensland’s Sister State trade and cultural relationships.’

The Arnisons accepted the large number of patronage requests from across Queensland. This involvement gave Barbara particular satisfaction. ‘Some of the organisations had been under vice-regal patronage for a long time, all the way back to Countess Diamantina Roma, wife of the first governor, in some cases,’ Barbara says. ‘Being patron of an organisation created the requirement for me to research and understand its purpose. Of course, I already knew a fair bit about groups like the CWA and Red Cross, as I had been brought up in country New South Wales. I was always very pleased to go to meetings, big or small.

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Below: The Arnisons and their Government House staff – ‘their culture was if Government House can’t get it right, who can. We always knew we could count on them.’

Right, above: An Executive council meeting, 1997 – from left, front, Denver Beanland, Governor Peter Arnison, and Bob Quinn. Standing, from left, Howard Hobbs, Mick Veivers, Santo Santoro and David Watson.

Right, below: Barbara Arnison tried to maintain the continuity of support for organisations that had been under the patronage of earlier governor’s wives like Lady Lamington (picture behind).

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‘I enjoyed the travelling and there was always a very positive response; people felt flattered that there was vice-regal interest in them and the welcomes were very spontaneous and enthusiastic.’

Army life had accustomed the Arnisons to moving from house to house every few years and therefore the move to Government House may have been less difficult for them than for other vice-regal couples who had been used to living in one house for a long time. Barbara says that she and Peter brought their own furniture and a few favourite works of art to the private apartment in which they lived, on the top floor of Government House. ‘That helped to make everything a bit more personal and it made us feel more at home,’ she says.

‘It was a bit like living above the shop, really. The apartment was small and a bit claustrophobic,’ said Peter. ‘Government House had been a bit run down and a lot of things needed to be done. Leneen Forde had seen to it that the place was upgraded to modern fire standards and she set in place other necessary improvements. One of my contributions was to build a pavilion, in the grounds.

The gardeners didn’t have any change rooms and there wasn’t enough storage space for their tools. When a facility for them was being planned, I suggested that we put the gardeners’ facilities on the bottom and a pavilion above. It is now a really well used building. Another large project involved redoing all the water and sewage reticulation systems, parts of which were first installed in the nineteenth century.’

‘I have to acknowledge the fantastic contribution made by the staff – the Official Secretary, supported by a small and dedicated team comprising the executive and office staff, the house staff, the security staff and drivers, and the maintenance and gardening staff. Their culture was “if Government House can’t get it right, who can?” We always knew we could count on them to get it right.

‘Government House also benefited from the work of two special groups of volunteers; the wonderful flower ladies who weekly transformed and brought life to the formal rooms with the sight and scent of flowers, and the Government House guides who supported the open days and conducted the many informative tours around the house. Their research was very good and we were pleased to tag along occasionally. When we did that we learned a lot.

Peter and Barbara retired to their own home in Ascot, Brisbane, in July 2003.

‘In the old days they said that a good reason to have British governors was that they went home at the end of their term. But Queensland is big enough now to be able to soak up a few former governors without them falling over the present governor and each other. And there is always the opportunity for the former governors to go on making a contribution to the state in one way or another.’

Peter and Barbara certainly do that. Among many other roles, Peter is Chancellor of Queensland University of Technology. Barbara continues to take an interest in many of the organisations with which she was involved at Government House. Barbara added, ‘Two organisations that I continue to be involved with are the Scribbler’s Club for women writers, which had been encouraged by Lady MacGregor, and the Lady Musgrave Trust which provides housing for young women and children in need.’3 They do it because they are friends of Queensland and have become Queenslanders.

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Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place1 ‘There’s something different about country people. There’s a degree of hospitality, generosity of spirit, self-effacement, very fine values and principles. That’s what shaped my life, through my parents.’2 Quentin Bryce grew up in the country, the bush, in real Australia. That central fact did indeed shape her life and it has influenced everything she has done since then. One of her first and proudest activities following her appointment as Queensland’s twenty fourth governor was to return to the place where she was made, Ilfracombe, a tiny town in the centre of Queensland.

She is not going to forget where she came from. ‘So many Australians now living in the cities have their roots in the bush, as I do. So many of us who now live comfortable and prosperous lives in the cities got our start in life because of the things we gained from the bush, personal qualities more than anything financial. I think it is really important that all Australians should remember and acknowledge the contribution that the bush has made to this nation’s human capital. I think modern Australians should honour an obligation to learn about and reconnect with whatever part of this land it was that gave them their start, their impetus in life. For me, it was Ilfracombe.’ 3

Left: Governor Quentin Bryce – 'A lot of the things I do best I do quietly.'

Below: View to the town of Ilfracombe from the roof of the woolscour – an almost horizontal landscape.

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The Ilfracombe district sits astride the Tropic of Capricorn, about 650 kilometres west of the central Queensland coast. It’s a very Australian locality where an almost horizontal landscape slopes gently toward the continent’s far interior. One hundred million years ago the land surface was the bed of an inland sea. Since then, watercourses have eroded and sculpted the land to leave grey brown soils on which grow a mantle of grasses and trees lining the ephemeral watercourses that flow seldom and slowly toward Lake Eyre. Far below the land surface lies the Great Artesian Basin.

From the 1860s, ambitious sheepmen claimed these grasslands and a little later they tapped the artesian basin. In 1891, the Central Queensland Railway from Rockhampton reached the district, on its way to an eventual terminus at Longreach. The town of Ilfracombe sprang into life with all the alacrity of a gold rush settlement. For many years, a small community of people had been moving west with the new railway line, from each new railhead to the next as the line progressed. They were looking for places to settle down, places that might offer opportunities. Ilfracombe was a place that promised chances for teamsters. The new town was strategically placed as the railhead for the vast and productive sheep stations to the north and south of the new town. There would be work for the teamster’s wagons, bringing wool from the stations to the railhead and carrying stores and supplies on their outward journeys.

Some of the teamsters chose to settle at Ilfracombe and so did business people who thought that the place showed signs of having a future. In 1898, a far-sighted bush entrepreneur, Colin Bertram, opened a wool scour on the edge of the town. Bertram knew that Ilfracombe was at the centre of one of Australia’s most productive wool-growing regions and he thought that the local artesian water had chemical qualities ideal for scouring wool. He was right. Before long ‘Ilfracombe scoureds’ were regularly topping wool sales in Australia and Britain.

In 1922 or thereabouts, Norman Strachan came to manage the Ilfracombe scour. Norman was born at Austinmer, near Wollongong, in 1899. He was one of six children of Cornelius (Neil) Strachan and his wife Sophie, née McCauley. Cornelius was a master mine carpenter who had come out from Scotland in 1887 to make framing and other timber works for the mines around Wollongong. The Strachan family had originally lived near the town

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Above left: Established in 1898, the Ilfracombe scour processed wool that often topped the sales in Australia and Britain.

Above centre: Its a long way to Yarralumla – Ilfracombe's main street in 1949, about the time the Strachan family left the district.

Above right: Norman and Naida Strachan at the races in western Queensland.

Below right: Quentin Strachan as a child.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

of Strachan, near Aberdeen in Scotland’s north-east. Sophie was from a family that had arrived in New South Wales in 1837.

Norman went to school locally and then, briefly, to the Wollongong high school. A career in one of the local coal mines seemed inevitable, but his parents were desperately keen for him to avoid that. That he did not become a miner was due to an amazing stroke of luck. Norman was a keen surfer and captain of the Austinmer surf club. One day he rescued a child from the surf. The child’s grateful family, the Whiddons, offered Norman a job in their Botany Woollen Mills and promised to train him in wool technology and the management of wool processing operations.4 At the Botany Woollen Mills in Sydney, Norman gained the knowledge and experience that equipped him to manage the Ilfracombe scour. It was a responsible and demanding job. The scour employed about 40 men and often worked three shifts. Local workers looked to the scour for job security while graziers expected that the scour would process their wool so it could be presented on markets to the very best advantage. Norman did well at Ilfracombe in the 1920s and he was then transferred to north west Queensland to manage other wool scours owned by the same company.5 In 1935, Norman was in Winton when he met Naida Wetzel. Naida was from Brisbane but she was working as a schoolteacher in Winton. Her father, Edward Wetzel, had migrated from Germany and had become curator of the Spring Hill swimming baths in Brisbane in about 1913. By an amazing coincidence, Edward Wetzel and his son William (Naida’s brother) were both keen lifesavers, as was Norman. On Easter Sunday 1934, William was hailed as a hero when he rescued three people from dangerous surf at Burleigh Heads.6 Naida’s mother Alice, née Francis, was from an English family that had migrated to Rockhampton.

Naida attended All Hallows school and then went to Teachers Training College before going out to Winton. She was a slender and graceful woman, always elegant, always determined. Norman and Naida were married in 1936 and lived first at the Carrar wool scour in north-west Queensland. In 1940 they moved to Ilfracombe, where Norman was again to take over as manager of the wool scour. By then, its wool was a strategic war material and so was the lanolin by-product of the scouring process. The Ilfracombe scour was busier than ever and its employees were reserved from war service because of the national importance of their work.

Norman and Naida came to Ilfracombe with their small daughter Diane, who was born in 1937. They had lost a son, Neil, when he was four months old but they were compensated when daughters Quentin (1942), Revelyn (1944) and Helene (1947) were born in years to come.7 For almost ten years, the Strachan family lived in the manager’s house near the wool scour and on the outskirts of Ilfracombe. Norman made a strong contribution to the local community, as manager of the town’s biggest employer and as a citizen. He was a councillor of the Ilfracombe Shire and in that capacity he began moves to secure modern amenities for townspeople, including reticulated water and electricity. Naida taught her children herself and created a home that became a focus for many people living in more outlying parts of the district.

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‘We lived in a lovely house at the scour,’ Diane Craddock, Quentin's sister, recalls. ‘It had a beautiful garden and there was an ant bed tennis court and a lily pond that we all stood in when it was really hot, which was quite often.

Quentin had a knee problem as a child and she had to wear quite heavy leg braces but they seem to have solved the problem because there is no trace of it now. But I do think that the experience left Quentin with a particular sympathy for people who have disabilities.’

David Dawes was born in 1941 and grew up near Ilfracombe at the same time as Quentin Strachan. He recalled,8 ‘As a child I lived on a small sheep station outside the town. I do remember that my parents and other people on stations in the district used to make the Strachan’s home something of a social headquarters. Being on the edge of the town it was central for the whole district.

The Strachans were very hospitable and people used to gather at their place.

Everyone would bring food and people would hop in to help with the work that the hospitality required. There were a lot of children about our age and the young ones used to play games and amuse themselves while the older people played tennis.

‘I can recall that during the war years and for a few years afterwards the entertainment wasn’t very lavish, everything was home made and there was very little alcohol served, if there was any it was kept out of sight of the children.

However, everyone managed to have a wonderful time. There were so many common interests. A woollen thread bound everyone together, the people from the stations round about were woolgrowers and Norman Strachan managed the wool scour which was a very important local institution, it was the biggest employer in the town by far and without it Ilfracombe would have been just a whistle stop for the railway. There was the feeling that everyone was engaged in a great and vital enterprise, the wool industry, the industry that carried Australia on its back.

‘The other great talking point was schooling. The geography meant that almost all the children in the group were being taught by their parents, invariably by their mothers, with the aid of lessons by correspondence. Some mothers were

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From left: Sheep in Ilfracombe's railway trucking yards – Australia rode on their backs.

Ilfracombe scoured wool was soft and lustrous because of the special qualities of the local bore water.

Raw wool arrived in bales, it was scoured to remove dirt, grease and vegetable mater, and then it was pressed into bales for transport to market.

Right, above: Final year students at Moreton Bay College prepare for a school play – Quentin Strachan in centre, front.

Right, below: Newly admitted barrister Quentin Bryce in 1965.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

teaching two, three or even more children, and trying to run a household as well. It was a stern challenge and when the mothers got together they used to share their experiences and talk about how they handled the school work.

Mrs Strachan, Quentin’s mother, was a big help with all that because she had been a professional teacher.

‘The other common interest for the women was home making, trying to make homesteads as cool and comfortable as possible and trying to introduce colour and beauty into everyday lives. So often it was a stark, hot, dry and dusty environment outside. Everyone worked hard to get gardens started, even if there was only bore water at many places. They wanted an oasis around the homestead, they were keen to prove that just because they were living in the outback it didn’t mean that standards would slip. They wanted to live civilised and cultured lives.

‘It really was a wide brown land and I think it gave people broad mental horizons, the habit of thinking in an expansive way. Although Ilfracombe was isolated, there was keen interest in world affairs and people tried not to miss the

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ABC news and News Review wireless programs. They were well aware that there was a world beyond Ilfracombe, a big world full of chances for their children, chances that they themselves had not had.

‘The people of our parents' generation had been through two world wars and a great depression, as well as countless droughts and other disasters. They were people for all seasons, they knew how to live through good times and bad and their experience had been that there were more bad years than good ones. That didn’t dampen their optimism or tenacity. And the bad times sharpened the sense of social obligation, the sense that they had to be ready to help someone along if they weren’t travelling so well.

‘In the late 1940s things started to get a little bit better but the next drought or collapse in wool prices was always just around the corner. The thing that kept those people going was their hope for the next generation. They lived for their children, not for themselves. I remember them all being very patient and tolerant with children and, above all, encouraging. They all said “You can do whatever you want to do. Just work hard and don’t waste your time,” was their advice.

‘They were all committed to making whatever sacrifice was necessary for their children to have better chances in life than they had. They saw that a good education was the best gift they could give to the next generation, they felt strongly that education would give their children the personal capacity to take the best possible advantage of whatever chances came their way in life.

‘There was confidence that if the children got a good foundation for life, if they were properly brought up and if they were well enough educated, they could succeed at whatever they might want to do. Had they lived to see Quentin installed as Governor of Queensland, then Governor-General of Australia, they would have been delighted but they would not have been astonished. They would have simply taken it as proof they were right all those years ago when they said that their children had it in them to do anything if they put their minds to it.

‘Today, I feel that Quentin being down there at Yarralumla is a testament to her parents and the people like them from around Ilfracombe. They were very special people, living in a special place at a very special time.’

Ilfracombe was good country for growing and scouring wool and it was good country for growing people, as Quentin Strachan was to show.

By 1949, the Ilfracombe wool scour was in decline. Prices for raw wool were improving and buyers no longer paid a premium for scoured wool. At the same time, Norman and Naida were considering how they could make it possible for their children to have secondary educations. The family left Ilfracombe and moved first to Belmont in Brisbane, where Norman worked with Morris Woollen Mills. There were further migrations in years to come, to Launceston, back to Belmont, to a farm near Tenterfield and then to suburban St Lucia in Brisbane.

While her daughters were at school and university, Naida went back to teaching, this time as a remedial teacher at the Brisbane spastic centre. Quentin frequently accompanied her mother when she took handicapped people on outings to the theatre and other places. 'It left me with a profound sympathy for their differences,' the Governor-General said. In their later years, Norman

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Above: Quentin Bryce in 1978, on the day of her appointment to the Women's Advisory Council.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

Above: Quentin Strachan first met Michael Bryce at school, then renewed the acquaintance at university. The couple were married in 1964, after Sir Henry Abel Smith had given some fatherly advice.

and Naida lived on a farm at Cooroy before they settled on Mount Tamborine, where Norman died in 1985. Naida lived to enjoy the great thrill and personal satisfaction of seeing Quentin sworn in as Governor of Queensland, a year before she died in 2004.

During the family’s time at Belmont, Quentin went to the Camp Hill state school, then became a boarder at the small and excellent Moreton Bay College in 1956. ‘I loved those years,’ she says. ‘Our headmistress was an equable, well educated, professional woman, highly and warmly regarded. Widowed with two children, she ran a home and a school ... she got on with whatever needed to be done, assiduously and without fuss. Her forthright example assured us of our capacity to do anything we chose while teaching the attendant duty to share its rewards well and beyond our fortunate selves.’9 That forthright example has been influential ever since.

‘My education was the greatest advantage of my life. I know how hard my parents worked to give it to me. My chance discovery that Dad had continued to pay off my school fees long after I had left Moreton Bay College profoundly affected me. It disclosed my parents’ quiet resolve, their commitment to my lifelong advancement and well-being and their tacit anticipation that I would make something decent of their investment. ... I had a clear sense of my duty to deliver and to do what I could to secure the same for others less advantaged, particularly women.

‘Feminism was for me a natural and necessary consequence of those nascent days. What girl who was told she could do anything wouldn’t assume that she was entitled to participate fully in life and society? Why wouldn’t that girl then be resolute for change when she discovered that her assumption didn’t apply to the majority of other women?’10

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Quentin studied hard at school and at the University of Queensland, where she first embarked on an Arts degree with a major in social work. Later, she switched to an Arts and Law combination. ‘I was imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place and I thought that Law was the best foundation to equip me to strive for the changes that I thought were necessary to make life better for people, especially for women and children,’ she explained.

She graduated in Arts in 1962, then in Law in 1965. In that year she was admitted to the Queensland Bar, where she was one of the first women to trespass into that male dominated domain. It didn’t help that at the time of her admission she was obviously pregnant with her first child.

Quentin had married architect Michael Bryce in 1964. They had first met at Camp Hill state school, then renewed the friendship at university. Some of their courtship was conducted in and around Government House in Brisbane.

Michael recalls ‘I was in the University Squadron and I was honorary air force aide to Sir Henry Abel Smith for two years. Sir Henry was a remarkable man of course, when he was appointed people said “Oh, dear, another snooty English Horse Guards Colonel,” but it wasn’t long before Queensland fell in love with him.

‘I would accompany the Abel Smiths to functions and as an aide it was my duty to dance with everyone, not only Quentin. After I had taken the Abel Smiths home, I could change out of my uniform and then return to the party to dance with Quentin as much as I liked!’

Quentin remembers that ‘The Abel Smiths put on a celebration for us when Michael and I became engaged. Then Sir Henry took me aside and said he wanted to give me a few pointers about how to look after my husband. He took me into his dressing room and explained in great detail how I should look after his clothes, how I should hang everything up so his clothes weren’t creased and how

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I should make sure his garters didn’t cause varicose veins. They were marvellous people and we kept in touch later.’

Left: A gathering at Bamaga – front row from left: Daisy Tamwoy, Bethena McDonnell, Kales Pablo, Fanny Bowie, Dinah Tamwoy, Diai Bagiri, Rene Hobson, Governor Bryce, Merian Crowe, Magdelene Cottis; back row, from left: Lydia Toby, Seriba McDonnell, Sarah Pablo, Celia Ropeyarn, Richard Tamwoy, Emily Salle, George Williams (Rusty), Francis Brisbane and Gina Nona.

Centre: Governor Bryce with baby Macy Motton and Lydia Toby.

Right: Governor Bryce and Rusty Williams share some stories at Bamaga.

In 1966, the newlywed Bryces went to England for two years. ‘Michael was indentured to an English architect while I threw myself into motherhood. Before long I was pregnant with our second child. It was the swinging sixties ... and I found girl power, Twiggy, Cilla Black, Marianne Faithful ...’ While the children slept, Quentin hungrily consumed ‘the most astute commentaries on social change. I was revelling in a new era and pondering my own renaissance upon our homecoming in 1968.’

Her renaissance was at first to be a working mother, when she became a tutor at the University of Queensland School of Law. In 1969, she became a lecturer and she continued to teach in the law school until 1983. Along the way, there were more children. Michael (known as Jack) had been born in Brisbane in 1966, Revelyn was born in London in 1967, then Rupert in 1969, Clothilde (known as Chloe) in 1971 and Tom in 1973 were born after the Bryces returned to Brisbane.

Quentin Bryce was appointed to the National Women's Advisory Council in 1978, then shot to national prominence in women's affairs when she became convenor of that body in 1983. In 1984 she was appointed the founding director of the Women’s Information Service in the Office of the Status of Women, in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. In 1988, she was appointed Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner within the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. A host of other jobs and postings came during these years, including the appointment as foundation chair of the National Childcare Accreditation Council. In that role she demonstrated that she was not afraid to confront powerful vested interests.

When she turned 50 at the end of 1992, Quentin Bryce’s life was already replete with the achievement of so many of the things that she had committed herself to as a young woman. Her success did not please everyone and it puzzled some. Her unshakeable commitment to the removal of the barriers to female advancement made some politicians nervous, while her impeccable grooming and tailoring made some of the more strident feminists wonder if she was really one of them. She achieved so much because, in the end, she was able to win the respect and confidence of all sides. She was not a radical feminist, and that reassured the cautious, yet she was an achiever and that pleased the radical feminists and the countless other groups and individuals who benefited from her achievements. ‘A lot of the things I do best I do quietly,’ she reflected later. Her contributions were acknowledged by her appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia (OA) in 1988. In 2003, she became a Companion of the Order (AC).

Many people were astonished when, in 1997, she accepted appointment as Principal and Chief Executive Officer of Women’s College within Sydney University. There were fears that she would be taking her hands off the levers that actuated positive change. However, she had always accepted the responsibility to mentor women who came to her for help and guidance. The Women’s College job gave her the opportunity to do that intensively, among young women whom she thought represented the future.

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On her sixtieth birthday, 23 December 2002, she took a phone call from Queensland’s premier, Peter Beattie. He wasn’t ringing to say ‘Happy Birthday.’

Instead, he asked, ‘How would you like to be Queensland’s new Governor?’

Beattie went on ‘Would you like time to think about it?’ She didn’t need time. She said that she would accept the appointment.

On 29 July 2003, Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Queensland’s twenty fourth governor. She said on that occasion ‘I see in the role of governor a unique opportunity to serve the community in which I was nurtured, educated, my values and principles shaped and where I was encouraged to participate in our democracy.’11 A renewal and redefinition of the vice-regal role had begun with Governors Forde and Arnison. That renewal was now to be accelerated and intensified.

‘Queensland was achieving its destiny. It had become a confident place that no longer felt the need to apologise for itself. That growing confidence had started with the Commonwealth Games in 1982, continued with World Expo in 1988, then accelerated with the flowering of the economy and the arts, with more and better schools and other educational facilities. But, by comparison with earlier times, the business of government had become much more hectic. The government was doing much more because people expected it.

‘Just how big the business of government had become soon became obvious to me when I had to deal with an enormous volume of Executive Council work.

A big box of papers would be delivered to me on Tuesdays, for the Executive Council meetings on Thursdays. I took it very seriously because it was serious business. I wasn’t going to sign anything unless I knew what it was about, so I made a point of reading all the papers to be well prepared for the meeting and so that I would be well informed about everything that was going on. The papers were extremely well put together by highly professional people and I got a lot out of reading them but sometimes I had to stay up all night to do it.

‘I also thought a lot about the governor’s ceremonial roles, the openings of parliament, the swearings-in and so on. I have a strong feeling about the importance of ritual and ceremony in reinforcing long standing democratic traditions and processes and I believed it was important that it should all be done properly. I wanted to carry out these duties impeccably, but with friendliness. I was always grateful for my legal background, it was a big advantage when I was doing that sort of thing.

‘It was democracy at work. I gained great respect for people who contribute to democracy by taking on public office. The community has much higher expectations of its politicians these days. Once, politicians were lofty and inaccessible. Now, they are expected to be available and responsive to every representation, every demand. I also gained a lot of respect for the military, and made many friends among people in the armed services community.

I was a bit nervous about uniforms at first, but they quickly welcomed me and embraced me.

‘One of the other duties, a very pleasant one and an enormous privilege, was to go to Britain to meet the Queen. She likes to meet her governors and to have personal knowledge of who her representatives are. She has a much more relaxed and personal relationship with them than she might have with, say, an

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Left: Guide Dog graduation at Government House, 2008.

Right: Wheelchair dancing at Government House.

ambassador. The Queen is extraordinarily well informed about Australia and very keenly interested in everything that happens here.

‘Otherwise, we hardly ever left the state. Queensland is a big and far flung place and it takes all a governor’s time to get around it. You have really got to take your hat off to those early governors who did so much travelling despite the difficulties of their times.

‘Wherever we went we found that people were pleased to see us and we were certainly enriched by the people we met. Every day, everywhere, we found examples of courage, inspiration and support in the generous contributions made to our cultural, economic, political and intellectual life by quite remarkable people. They were people who cared, people who gave of themselves, bringing talent, hard work and commitment to enhancing the well being of our society.

‘I invited a wide range of people to stay at Government House, especially country people who had extended hospitality to us. At dinners I would try to bring city and country people together. I thought about the guests and the seating arrangements very carefully and I put people together where I thought there might be an opportunity for them to make connections. Sometimes achieving change can be a matter of putting two people together. I always tried to have someone from regional or remote parts of the state at dinner and of course I would invite them to stay because they might have come such a long way.

‘I wanted to share Government House. I tried to open it up, to make it accessible to people who had never been there before. I wanted to honour people who were

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doing good things, I wanted the house to be a centre for Queenslanders, I wanted people to be able to see something of what the role of the governor was. One way we did this was to start with the 200 or so organisations I was patron of, to have them come to the house and possibly have their annual meetings there or put on special activities in the house.’

Miranda Mason was civilian aide for the governor from mid 2004 until 2007.

She recalled that ‘The governor would arrange for special groups of people to come to Government House for some of their activities. We had a really magical performance by a group of wheelchair dancers, we had Guide Dog graduation ceremonies and art shows for the children’s hospital school. She actually visited the children’s hospital very regularly, about once a month. There were activities for the Scouts and Guides and organisations like the Children’s Book Council.

People would say to me, “this makes us feel very special.”

‘In 2006 we met some women from Lockhart River Aboriginal community at a conference. Later, we went up there and stayed two days in the women’s centre while the governor got to see at first hand their problems and needs. Then we had some women from Lockhart River come down to stay at Government House.

‘Governor Bryce was an incredibly hard worker, she would often go to six or seven events in a day, from breakfast time until late at night. She was in great demand to attend all sorts of activities everywhere because people quickly got to know that she was warm, friendly, interested and approachable. The governor was always interested and she had a remarkable ability to engage with people from all walks of life. She went out of her way to be supportive of people who had some sort of disability. At any function, if there was someone in a wheelchair or someone with some sort of handicap you could be certain that Governor Bryce would seek that person out and would spend time with him or her. She knew how important some personal expression of understanding and support would be for that person.

‘As well as all the official business, the governor kept up with a wide range of personal contacts, especially with the many people with whom she had a mentoring relationship. These people included former pupils at university and residents at Sydney Women's Women’s College. She was always encouraging people and helping them to keep on the road when things got tough.’

Through the Bryce years at Government House, Michael McDonald was employed as House Manager. He recalled, ‘my role was to ensure the smooth running of the household. The governor was a tireless worker and we all found it difficult to keep up with her. But it was exciting and challenging. She created more opportunities for access to Government House and we really enjoyed showing the house to people who had never been there before and had never thought they might ever go there. They were very interested in the place.

‘The daily program varied enormously, but an ordinary day for the house staff might involve the governor having a breakfast meeting with a few people, then callers coming to see the governor in the morning, then a luncheon, more callers in the afternoon, then perhaps a dinner or a reception for up to 200 or so people, but up to about 600 if the reception was held outside. Sometimes we might handle more than 2000 in a week at Government House.' Government House was certainly being shared.

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Below, left: Governor Bryce at the tip of Cape York – with Possession Island behind. On the island, on 22 August 1770, Captain James Cook formally took possession of the east coast of Australia and named it New South Wales.

Centre: Ilfracombe, 2003 – Governor Bryce presents the Willowie Cup trophy to the winner of the feature race at the town's annual race meeting.

Right: At Windorah, in Queensland's far west – from left: Barcoo Shire Mayor Bruce Scott, Sandy Kidd, Governor Bryce and George Hammond. Bruce, Sandy and George are descendants of district pioneers who escorted earlier governors through their district using horse and buggy transport. ‘You have got to take your hat off to them,' says Governor Bryce.

Chapter Sixteen – Imbued with altruistic notions of making the world a better place

For Michael Bryce ‘it was a challenging role but it never troubled me, being the husband of a governor. For six years, I had been the husband of the Principal of Women’s College. I was delighted when Quentin was asked to be Governor of Queensland because I felt she was well suited to the job. She has integrity, she applies herself and works very hard, and she has a strong sense of what is right.

It seemed to me that they were the qualities a governor needed. The governor represents the foundation stone of Queensland identity and I think Quentin did that very well, I was proud of her. I continued to work in my profession but at the same time I supported Quentin as much as I could.’

Her staff might have found it difficult to keep up, but for Quentin Bryce her five year term as governor was exhilarating. ‘I felt I was right at the heart of Queensland and Michael and I certainly saw the best of the state. You saw the best of the wonderful people who were doing things for others, you saw all the things that were happening. I was never ashamed of being a passionate, parochial Queenslander. I was just so proud to be able to acknowledge the wealth of human life and achievement that we saw everywhere in Queensland.

It was the most marvellous honour to be able to serve in that role.

‘Early in 2008 I was appointed for a two year extension to my original five year term. I was looking forward to seeing out the extended term because it would have taken me through the sesqui-centenary year and it would have given me the chance to see through some of the things I had started. But the opportunity to become Australia’s first female Governor-General was not something I could refuse.’12 On 5 September 2008, Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Australia’s twenty fifth Governor-General. It had been a long journey from Ilfracombe to Yarralumla, a journey through real Australia.

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An ambassador for Queensland A key role of the Governor is to raise awareness of the State’s distinctive assets and of Queensland’s excellence and to promote that excellence within the state and nationally and internationally.1 Queensland’s twenty fifth and current governor, Ms Penelope Wensley AO, is a woman for all seasons, a governor who suits the times. Born in Toowoomba in 1946, she has come home to Queensland after a forty year career in the Australian diplomatic service where her job was to represent and promote her country to the world. Now, she has a similar special task as governor, to help modern Queensland engage with the world and to represent the state’s contemporary identity and achievements, at home and abroad.

‘I was drawn back to Queensland by all those things that are attracting so many people to come to settle here’ Governor Wensley says. ‘It is obvious that Queensland has emerged in a most spectacular way in recent years. It has always been the second largest state geographically, is now the fastest growing in terms of population and, along with Western Australia, has been the strongest economic performer among the states. Its growth has been powerful and sustained to the point where the state is now a powerful driver of the Australian economy and one of the keys to Australia being strong and competitive on the world stage.

Queensland has been a central part of the modern Australian story because of the success of its export oriented industries such as resources, minerals and energy, agriculture and animal production and tourism.

‘All of that is tremendously exciting, but there is even more to it than that.

Queensland’s society and economy has matured and diversified over the past four decades. There are new impressive capacities and achievements in industries like

Left: Governor Penelope Wensley AO – proud to be representing Queensland’s identity and achievements to the world.

Right: Governor Wensley and Stuart McCosker at the pearl farm on Friday Island, Torres Strait.

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biotechnology, science and medical research and information technology. People are flocking to Queensland to be part of it and as a result we are developing centres of world leadership and excellence in sectors like tropical medicine and marine science. We are showing the way in many areas like agribusiness, forestry, food security, organic farming and extensive agricultural and pastoral production. Global problems present many challenges in these areas but Queensland is showing how research and good practical management can help resolve those problems, how we can achieve sustainable development and meet our obligations to the environment. Queensland has a lot to contribute to the world.

‘Along with all this has come a cultural renaissance. Queensland is now expressing itself vigorously through the arts, across the whole spectrum of the visual and performing arts – art and architecture, design, dance, music, theatre and film. There is a freshness and creativity in the arts that is accelerating the transformation of our state and is helping us all to recognise and feel good about who we are and what we have achieved. I think it would be acknowledged that the wonderful cultural institutions and facilities that have been created on Brisbane’s Southbank have attracted many people to live and work in Queensland. What isn’t quite so widely acknowledged, but should be, is that there are Southbanks all over the state, places in regional and remote centres that bring into focus our burgeoning talent and enthusiasm for artistic expression. Everywhere I go within the state I see creativity and artistic achievement that we can all be proud of. It is a mark of our mature society that we are now giving greater recognition and more support to the arts, we are embracing the arts to give full expression to the character, personality and diversity of our state.

‘My commitment as Governor of Queensland is to draw attention to the way our state has evolved and continues to evolve. The governor has a unique platform for advocacy and thus I have a special opportunity and a responsibility to raise awareness everywhere of just what strengths and capabilities we have

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in Queensland. Those opportunities arise in all sorts of ways. I am constantly receiving delegations, welcoming visitors, opening or speaking at international, national and state conferences and events being held in Queensland. My message is that Queensland is world class, it is an exciting and dynamic state.

The challenge for me is to introduce people to the reality of modern Queensland and to get them excited by that reality.’

Governor Penny Wensley is particularly well equipped to fulfil the commitment she has made to Queensland. Although until 2008 she had not lived in the state for a long time, it was always her home, the place where she was from and the place she would come back to. Her maternal ancestry reaches back to the McCulloch and Evans families who were among the early settlers of the Ipswich area. A maternal grandfather, Will McCulloch, worked throughout Queensland with the Bank of New South Wales before he finally settled in Toowoomba. The governor’s paternal grandfather, Tom Wensley, came from Northern Ireland to the Charters Towers goldfield and subsequently became a settler and pioneer of the timber industry on the Atherton Tableland.

Top left: Penny Wensley and her older brother Robert, already bound for the University of Queensland.

Centre, above: Courtship – Stuart McCosker and Penny Wensley take time off from their studies at the University of Queensland.

Centre, below: Penny Wensley with her parents Doris and Neil, on her wedding day.

Below right: Penny Wensley with her daughters Sarah, at left, and Jane.

Penny Wensley’s father, Neil, worked in the mines at Mt Isa during the hungry 1930s, then put himself through the University of Queensland from where he graduated as a chemical engineer. There he met Doris McCulloch, a brilliant student who was one of the university’s first women tutors. Neil and Doris were married; Neil went to war in places like Borneo with the Royal Australian Engineers. After the war he became a munitions specialist within the Commonwealth Department of Supply, later Defence Production.

That job took Neil and Doris to various locations in Australia and Britain.

Along the way, daughter Penny was educated at schools in Melbourne, Penrith and London. University was always the assumed destination for Penny and her brothers, with the University of Queensland and the residential colleges at St Lucia firmly in the family’s sights. It was a heavy burden for Neil, to meet the college fees for his two older children at once and it was sad for Doris to see those children head north, but the parent’s love of Queensland and their belief in the benefits of a college education was strong. In 1964, Penny joined her brother in Brisbane, she at the Women’s College and he at King’s. Both became Student Presidents of their colleges in 1967 and, in that same year, Penny graduated with first class honours in English and a major in French.

She hadn’t been distracted from study or her long-held goal of joining the foreign service by a lively romance with veterinary science student and Emmanuel College man, Stuart McCosker. Stuart, who is from a Sunshine Coast hinterland pioneering farming family, recalls ‘We met at a Women’s College social. We went out together and had a lot of fun but we hadn’t made any commitment when we both graduated and went on to do other things in other places.’

Penny achieved her ambition to be selected as a diplomatic cadet, joining the foreign service immediately after graduation in 1968, the sole woman among an intake of 19 recruits in that year. She was posted to Paris in 1969, while Stuart McCosker found himself working in London from 1971. Stuart remembers ‘I went over to see her and we soon found ourselves crossing the channel to meet one another every second weekend or so. We were married in 1974, just before Penny was to take up her second posting to Mexico, having decided we did not want to be apart again.’

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While in Mexico, Penny became the first woman Australian diplomat to have a baby while serving overseas. That baby, now Dr Sarah McCosker, is today a lawyer specialising in human rights and humanitarian law. A second daughter, Jane, born in Canberra during one of the family’s home postings, is also an accomplished lawyer. Both daughters gained first class honours in combined Arts / Law degrees, Sarah from the University of Queensland and Jane from the University of Sydney. Penny resumed her work as Deputy Head of Mission in the Australian Embassy in Mexico when Sarah was 6 weeks old. Stuart was Sarah’s principal carer for their remaining 6 months in Mexico, while also studying economics externally from the University of Queensland.

A series of promotions and a series of firsts came for Penny Wensley through the next 30 years. Her first nomination to represent Australia as head of a diplomatic mission came in 1986, when, after three years in New Zealand as Deputy High Commissioner, she was appointed as Consul General to Hong Kong and Macau. Interspersed with periods in Canberra, she then served in a series of prestigious Head of Mission appointments as Australia’s Ambassador for the Environment, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, High Commissioner to India and Ambassador to France. In each of these postings she was the first woman to be appointed to represent Australia.

Another first was her 1994 appointment as the University of Queensland’s first woman alumnus of the year, recognising her achievements in international relations. ‘I’m quietly proud of those firsts. I have long been a feminist and active in championing women’s rights, but not in a strident way. That’s not my style. My working life, after all, has been devoted to diplomacy and achieving results through strategic positioning and negotiation and I’ve always believed we can gain more for women by showing in practical ways and by example what is possible for women to do and achieve.

‘I am finding a good deal of my experience as a diplomat is useful in my new role and relevant to the issues of interest and concern to Queenslanders. My experience as Ambassador for the Environment, for example, negotiating international treaties on climate change, biodiversity and drought and dealing with the international sustainable development agenda, have helped greatly in understanding and discussing community concerns about landcare, conservation, the protection of our coral reefs and rain forests’ the governor says.

Now Stuart and Penny are home in Queensland again and have moved into Fernberg. It was an easy transition in many ways. They are used to official residences, to adapting to each new place and making a home wherever they live. Stuart recalls ‘Moving in to Government House felt like something we had often done before. Living there has many of the same rhythms and patterns of behaviour that we had become very used to.’

‘Its wonderful to be back in Queensland and Brisbane’ the governor says. ‘The air is sparkling, the river is as beautiful as ever, the trees and the flowers look and smell the same and the landscape, though changed is also marvellously familiar.

It was a great honour to be asked to be Queensland’s new governor. When I was asked to consider the position, and thought about whether and how I might do it and if I could bring value to the role, I felt that that my global perspective and background would be a plus. I felt that I would be able to help the state be even more engaged with the rest of the world and that is something which is especially

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Left, above: With President Bill Clinton at the Metropolitan Museum in New York during the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000.

Below, above: Penny Wensley saying goodbye to Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the end of her term as Ambassador to the United Nations, 2001.

Centre: In New York with United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Below: Penny Wensley at the Elysee Palace with French President Jacques Chirac, during the formal ceremony for the presentation of her credentials as Australia’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of France.

important and relevant to Queensland’s growth and development at this time. I therefore have a splendid opportunity to contribute to what is happening in my home state.

‘Obviously, I hadn’t previously contemplated becoming Governor of Queensland, but the role of a state governor wasn’t entirely strange to me. I had seen it in other countries with federal systems. After I became a Head of Mission I had considerable contact with governors from all the Australian states, including Queensland. I frequently called on the various governors to enable me to get a better appreciation of state perspectives, interests and concerns, as part of my job of representing Australia effectively overseas. On visits to Queensland, I enjoyed meeting the Governors and remember being very pleased to meet Queensland’s first woman governor, Leneen Forde. And when I discovered that Queensland’s second governor, Sir Samuel Wensley Blackall, shared my family name I became keenly interested in him. I did some research and found out that he had been one of the most popular of all our Governors. It was a good omen I thought!

‘The position of governor is unique and the constitutional aspect of the role of Head of State is something I approach with particular respect. The constitution is of obvious significance as the powers and duties of the governor are derived from the Commission of Appointment, from the provisions of various pieces of constitutional legislation and other Acts of Parliament, as well as the conventions and practice that underlie everything. However, there is another aspect of the Governor’s role which seems to have built up steadily over time and which I believe merits greater recognition. It is what I would call the ‘non-constitutional’ dimension, of engagement with and support for community groups.

‘It has seemed to me, and this book confirms my impression, that my 24 predecessors, while possessing very different characters, backgrounds and emphasis, did nonetheless invest significant time and effort in the cultivation of what might loosely be called ‘civil society’ – the community groups and volunteer organisations which have been so critical to our state’s development.

Their values and ideals are part of the framework of our society. I believe it is an important part of my responsibility to uphold and promote those values, just as it is to acknowledge the contribution of these groups to Queensland.

‘I have been fascinated to learn more about the lives of my predecessors and, as I move around the State, especially in this sesquicentenary year, to trace the paths they followed. In the years to come, I will be proud to walk in their footsteps, serving our State and its people, but I am mindful that not only must each Governor deal with different times and tides in the life of our State, but that the Office of Governor must continue to evolve and be responsive to new circumstances. Governors must be prepared to make new tracks.

‘There will be debate, I expect, at some point in the future, as to whether Queensland will continue to have Governors within a system of constitutional monarchy. That is for all the people to decide. Until such time as the people may consider the question, however, we have institutions to uphold and systems that need to be kept strong and healthy, so that Queensland will continue to grow and prosper. As Queensland’s 25th Governor, I am resolved to do my best to meet my responsibilities in this respect and to serve the community and people of Queensland to the very best of my ability.’

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Allen, James G-G Must Stick to Cutting Ribbons. in The Australian 18 March 2009 Anderson, Duncan Sir George Bowen and the Problems of Queensland’s Defence 1859-1868. in Queensland Heritage, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 32-38, November 1970 anon. Walter Campbell. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Sir_Walter_Campbell.

Bita, Natasha Model of Style and Substance. in The Australian, 30 August 2008 Bjelke-Petersen, J. Don’t You Worry About That: The Joh Bjelke-Petersen Memoirs. Angus & Robertson, North Ryde, 1990 Blainey, Geoffrey The Rush That Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining. Melbourne University Press, Parkville, 1964 Bond, George The Genesis of the Queensland Railways. in JRHSQ Vol, 7, No. 3, 1964-1965, from p. 521

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Barcoo Shire Council Governor’s Visits to Windorah and District. Scrapbook held by the Council Barlow, G. & Corkery, J.F. Sir Walter Campbell: Queensland Governor and his Role in Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Resignation, 1987. http://www.bond. edu.au/prod_ext/groups/public/@pub-lawgen/ documents/genericwebdocument/bd3_005192.pdf Barnard, Alan The Simple Fleece: Studies in the Australian Wool Industry. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 1962 Bence-Jones, M. The Viceroys of India. Constable, London, 1982 Bernays, C.A. Queensland Politics During Sixty Years.

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Maritime Museum of Townsville, Townsville, 1993 Cazalar, Lorraine Diamantina Lady Bowen: Lady Bowen’s Brisbane Sojourn 1859-1868. The Queensland Women’s Historical Association, 2003 Charlton, Peter Former governor no stranger to disputes. in The Courier-Mail, 7 September 2004

Bernays, C.A. Our Seventh Political Decade. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1931.

Chisholm, Alec Some Queensland Personalities at Close Range. Clem Lack Oration, RHSQ 22 March 1973.

Bernays, C.A. The Governors of Queensland. A collection of articles published in the Brisbane Courier, November & December 1922 and January 1923, held by JOL, SLQ

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Clarke, E. Correspondence related to a Conflict between Governor MacGregor and A. Barlow. in Queensland Heritage, Vol. 3, No. 1, Nov. 1974 Coaldrake, P. Queensland Political Chronicle, July December 1987 in Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 36, No. 1, from p. 238 Coaldrake, P. Queensland Political Chronicle July December 1983. in Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 31, No. 1 Cochrane, A. Nathan, Sir Matthew. in Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, London, 1949 Cochrane-Baillie of Lamington Cochrane Baillie of Lamington papers, miscellaneous family correspondence. Materials held by Glasgow City Archives, Mitchell Library TD 1029/48/5

Evatt, H.V. The King and His Dominion Governors.

Cheshire, London, 1967 Feeken, E. & G., & Spate, O.K.H. The Discovery and Exploration of Australia. Melbourne, Nelson, 1970 Fitzgerald, R. Megarrity, L. & Symons, D. Made In Queensland: A New History. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 2009 Fitzgerald, R. A History of Queensland from 1915 to the 1980s. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1984 Forde, Leneen Wives of former Governors of Queensland. Janet Irwin Lecture, 13 August 1994.

Typescript held by JOL, SLQ Fraser, D.W. Settlement in Queensland in the ‘Logan’ Period. in JRHSQ Vol. 7, No. 3, 1964-65, from p. 437

Cochrane-Baillie of Lamington Lady Lamington Memoirs. Held by Glasgow City Archives, TD 1029/46/10; copy held by JOL, SLQ

Gill, J.C.H. Governor Bowen and the Aborigines. in Queensland Heritage, vol 2, no 7, November 1972, pp. 3-29

Cochrane-Baillie of Lamington Lady Lamington Scrapbook 1896-7. held by Glasgow City Archives; copy held by JOL, SLQ

Greenwood, G. (ed.) Australia: a Social and Political History. Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1960

Cohen, K., & Wiltshire, K. (eds) People, Places and Policies. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1995.

Colville, Beres Hoddle Robert Hoddle Pioneer Surveyor 1794-1881. Research Publications, Melbourne, 2004 Condon, Matthew Lady in Waiting: Quentin Bryce, the real story. in Courier-Mail QWeekend, 10-11 May 2008 Corris, Peter (ed.) William T. Wawn The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade.

Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1973 Coulthard-Clark, C. The Encyclopaedia of Australia’s Battles. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1998 Cowen, Zelman The Office of Governor-General. in Australia: The Deadalus Symposium. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1985 Craig, W.W. Moreton Bay Settlement or Queensland Before Separation Together With A Brief Account of the Rise of the Colonies of Australasia. Watson Ferguson, Brisbane, 1925 Davis, S.R. (ed.) The Government of the Australian States. London, Longmans, 1960 de Jersey, P. In Memory of the Late the Hon. Sir Walter Campbell. Panegyric, 13 September 2004.

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Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 1999 Hacker, D., & Spinaze, M. Lilies in the Field: First Ladies of Queensland 1824-1914. privately published, Brisbane 2006 Hadwen, Ian; Hogan, Janet & Nolan, Carolyn Brisbane’s Historic North Shore 1825-2005. RHSQ, Brisbane, 2005 Harris, Owen Countess Diamantina Roma, Lady Bowen. Paper for Diamantina Health Care Association, n.d.

Hasluck, Paul The Office of Governor General.

Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1979 Hasluck, Paul The Government and the People 1939-1941. (Series 4, Vol. 1, Australia in the War of 1939-1945) Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1952 Haydon, A.P. Sir Matthew Nathan: British Colonial Governor and Civil Servant. UQP, St. Lucia, 1976 Herbert, R.G.W. Letters of R.G.W. Herbert to his Family, written from Queensland 1865-1866. held by JOL, SLQ, TR 1846 Acc 1492, Box 5164 Horner, D. Defence Supremo. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2000 Houghton, Des. Radical who dared to rebuff Joh Bjelke. in The Australian 22 September 2004

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Mackenzie-Smith, John A Doctor, A Governor, And A Dozen Deans The Residents of Adelaide House, Brisbane 1855-2005. The Corporation of the Lesser Chapter of the Cathedral Brisbane, Church of Brisbane, 2007 McInnes, Mark Lady Ramsay Obituary. Typescript, held by JOL, SLQ McPherson, Bruce Sir George Bowen: First Governor of Queensland. Paper delivered at Q150 Conference, 29 May 2009 Maher, J.T. Abram Orpen Moriarty – Colonial Administrator. Paper RHSQ 23 February 1961

Kelly, Patricia Sir George Bowen, Governor of Queensland 1859-1868. thesis (BA) University of Queensland, 1952

Maher, J.T. Maurice Charles O’Connell: A Biographical Sketch. in JRHSQ Vol. 7, No. 2, 1963-64, from p. 245

Kelly, Pat Governor Bowen and the Working Man in Queensland. symposium paper, HSQ, 25 October 1951.

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Knox, B.A. The Queensland Years of Robert Herbert, Premier. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1977

Nathan, M.Collected speeches of Sir Matthew Nathan. Typescripts held by JOL, SLQ

Lack, Clem Colonial Representation in the Nineteenth Century. JRHSQ Vol. 7, No. 3, 1964 - 65, from p. 456 Lane-Poole, Stanley (ed.) Thirty Years of Colonial Government: A Selection from the Dispatches and Letters of The Right Hon. Sir George Bowen.

London, Longmans, Green and Co, 1889

Nathan, Estelle In Retrospect. Privately published, copy held by RHSQ

Nathan, M. Speech by Sir Matthew Nathan to Rotary Club of Brisbane. Reprinted by Great Barrier Reef Committee 1972, pamphlet held by JOL, SLQ Normanby, Marquis of The Cruise of the Government Steamer Kate. Brisbane, 1873.

Normanby, Marquis of Correspondence, 1871-1874.

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Lavarack, Sybil Cutting books re the governorship of Sir John Lavarack. held by Dr Bill Lavarack, Buderim

O’Broin, Leon Dublin Castle and the 1916 Rising.

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Image acknowledgments Preface Pvii: Governor Wensley’s investiture. All images courtesy Protocol Unit, Department of the Premier and Cabinet. Photographer Tony Phillips. Pviii: Badu Island. Both images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. Pix, on left: Badu Island. Centre: Government House Open Day. On right: Governor Wensley. All images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland.

Authors’ Introduction Px and xi: Governor Bryce. All images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. Pxii: Peter and Sheila Forrest. Courtesy Iain Forrest.

Chapter One Chapter heading, Pxvi: Queen Victoria, 1841, oil painting by Maurice Felton. Call no ML 992. Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

P1: Brisbane, N.S.W., 1853. Kangaroo Point Ferry, July 9 18??, sketch by Henry John Douglas-ScottMontagu ( Lord Henry Scott). Accession number 3751.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P2, on left: Group of visitors with the Lamingtons at Government House, c1898. Image number APO-035-0001-0014. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Right: The Mansfields. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P4: Sir William MacGregor. Album GL51.Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P5, at left, top: Lord and Lady Jellicoe with the Goold – Adams family and staff.

Image number 184809. Centre: Visit of Sir Anthony and Lady Musgrave to the North Phoenix mine, Gympie. 1888. Image number39220. Below: Staff at Government House during Governor Blackall’s term.

Image number 196710. Right: Governor Normanby.

Image number API-001-0001-014. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P6: Cane gang at Childers, c1918. Image number 102463. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P7, top: Travelling outfitters. Image number 71966. Centre: Mrs Taylor at Isis Downs. Negative number 79260. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below: Mollie with Colin and Betty Milson. Courtesy Scott Milson. P8: Governor Quentin Bryce. Image courtesy Protocol Unit, Department of the Premier and Cabinet. Photographer Tony Phillips.

P9: On left: Governor Leneen Forde. On right: Governor Penelope Wensley. Both images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland.

Chapter Two Chapter heading, P10: Portrait of General Sir Thomas Mackdougall Brisbane, 1845, pastel drawing by Jules Nogues. PIC R8851 LOC PIC OPD 44, nla.pic-an7749600.

P11: Moreton Bay Settlement, New South Wales, 1835. Pencil drawing attributed to Henry Boucher Bowerman. Image number 3943-1v000r001. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P12, on left: William Landsborough. Image number 15201. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Centre: Ludwig Leichhardt. Forrest Collection. On right: Edmund B. Kennedy, 1848, lithograph by William Kellett Baker.

Image number nla.pic-an8152963. Courtesy National Library of Australia. P13: John McKinlay. Image number 196796. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P14: Durandur or Durundur, 1843. Watercolour by Charles Archer.

Accession number 4624. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P17: Confluence of Brisbane River and Breakfast Creek.

286

Image number APE-015-01-0002. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P18: King Sandy, 1899. Oil on board by Carl Magnus Oscar Fristrom. Accession number 4491. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P19: Timber cutting. Image number 93831.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P21: Map of Brisbane, 1844, by C.F.Gerler. Image number 111196. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P22, on left: The Sophia Jane. P51541. Courtesy RHSQ. On right: River views across to the Brisbane Museum and Government Printing Office. Image number APO-045-0001-0004. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P23, on left: Moreton Bay Settlement, drawn from South Brisbane c1835. Pencil sketch attributed to Henry W. Boucher Bowerman. Image was probably meant to be inverted. Image number 151957. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Captain Patrick Logan, 57th Regiment, Commandant at Moreton Bay, 1826-1830.

Call Number ML 13. Courtesy Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. P25, on left: Wool on the road to port. Image number 171629. Top right: Flock of sheep in Central Queensland. Image number 129845. Centre right: Jim Morris, shearer. Tara district.

Negative number 32312. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below right: Shearers at Vindex. Courtesy Winton and District Historical Society. P26, on left: Dr Lang addressing the New South Wales Legislative Council, 1844. Watercolour by Jacob Janssen. Image number nla.pic.- an5600152. Courtesy National Library of Australia. On right: Benjamin Cribb. Image number 60837. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P27: Robert Cribb. Image number 194997. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P28: Newstead House from O’Reilly’s Hill. Image number 108929.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P29: Patrick Leslie. Image number 45525. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P31: The Squatter Taking His Ease, Woroongundi c1845-47. Water colour by Charles Archer. Accession number 4624. Courtesy JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Three Chapter heading, P32: Sir George Bowen, 1882.

Pastel portrait by Henry Fanner. Accession number 4593. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P34: Sir Augustus Charles Gregory. PIC Album 277a, nla.pic-an10791281-2.

Courtesy National Library of Australia. P35: Letter from Sir George Bowen to A. C. Gregory first SurveyorGeneral of Queensland. Undated. Augustus Charles Gregory Papers ACC 3648. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P37: Diamantina, Lady Bowen, 1867. Pastel portrait by unknown artist. Courtesy of All Hallows School, Brisbane. P38, top: View toward Kangaroo Point.

Image number 143606. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Bottom: The Petrie family home. Courtesy RHSQ. P39, on left: Dr Hobb’s residence. P4186. RHSQ. On right: John Petrie, Courtesy RHSQ. P40, On left: Chinese gardener at Beaconsfield. Murray images, Forrest collection.

Centre: Chinese labourers loading bananas onto a boat at Geraldton. Image number 147328. On right: Chinese workers on banana punts, Innisfail district.

Image number 60933. Last two images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P41, above: Image number 10146-0001-0001 and below: image number 10146-0001-0002. Both images – Accession number 10146. Cartes de visite by Thomas Mathewson. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Check P43: View of Ipswich from Limestone Hill, 1861/2. Oil on canvas, by William Francis Emery. Courtesy Ipswich Art Gallery Collection. P44, on left: Ratcliffe Pring.

Image number 62382. Centre: Abram Orpen Moriarty.

Image number 76998. On right: Robert Ramsay Mackenzie. Image number 80435. All images courtesy

JOL, SLQ. P45: Sir Robert George Wyndham Herbert.

Image number15693. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P47, on left: Street scene in Gympie. Image number APE-0720001-0023. On right: Rockhampton. From Missing Friends, Being the Adventures of a Danish Migrant in Queensland by Thorvald Weitemeyer. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P48: Somerset c1874. Lithograph

by Maclure and Macdonald, London. From Short Sea Route to Australia; Descriptive Illustrated Handbook of the Singapore Route to Australia. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P49, at top: Ships moored at Gladstone. Image number API-001-0001-002. Centre: Paddle steamer at the main jetty, Cairns. Image number 176911. Below: Concrete pylons being erected for the first permanent Victoria Bridge, Brisbane. Image number 191099.

All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P50: Mary Ann Jane Lutwyche. Image number126566. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P51: His Honour, Mr Justice Lutwyche. Album PA21, no 9, p1240B. Courtesy RHSQ. P52, on left: Dancing between decks. Negative number 33794. On right: The quarter deck of an immigrant ship – the roll call. Negative number 33795. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P53: The landing of emigrants. Illustration in Missing Friends, Being the Adventures of a Danish Migrant in Queensland by Thorvald Weitemeyer.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P54, top left: Jimbour House.

Image number APE-014-01-0015. Second from top; Drawing room at The Hollow, outside Mackay. Image number 00070. Third from top: Shearing with blade shears. Pictures Collection Shearing. Below: Library at Westbrook station. Image number 177012. On right: Hand coloured woodcut of a village on the Darling Downs. Image number 7807-0001-0002. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P56, on left: Encampment of blacks at Rockingham Bay, Queensland. Image number 146270. On right: Mackay 1865. Brandon album Accession number 6298. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P57: The Wills Tragedy: The Arrival of the Neighbouring Squatters and Men Collecting and Burying the Dead, After the Attack by blacks on H.R. Wills Esq Station Leichhardt District, Queensland October 19th 1861. Watercolour by T.G. Moyle. Accession number 8085. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P58: Government House, 1867. Image number APE-072-0001-0002. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P59: Mrs Rosina Palmer and Miss Carandini.

Image number 195959. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P60: Lady Bowen with her children. Image number 67834.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P61, on left: Brisbane, 1862.

Image number AP1-011-01-0001. On right: Town of Geraldton, now Innisfail. Image number API-0710001-0009. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P62, on left: Stanthorpe’s first school. Image number 69660.

On right: Bush school in the Logan/Beenleigh area.

Image number20254. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P63: Early slab dwelling in the Gympie area. Image number 36294. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P65: Queensland’s first train passes over Pot Gully. Image number 88352.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Four Chapter Heading, P66: Samuel Wensley Blackall.

Image number 147063. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P67, on left: Sir Maurice O’Connell. In The Australian Sketcher 19 February 1876. Middle; George Augustus Constantine, Marquis of Normanby and Governor of Queensland. In The Graphic 29 July 1871. On right: Sir William Wellington Cairns. In The Australasian Sketcher 23 July 1875. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ.

image acknowledgments

P69, top left: Street celebrations for a royal visit.

Image number API – 001-0001-0022. Bottom left: Lady O’Connell. Image number 64484. At right: Contemplative study of H.R.H. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Image number 108321. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P70: German immigrant family on their farm. Image number 190855. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P71, at top: Queen Street, Brisbane, 1868. Image number 36322. Second from top: Albion Street, Warwick, c1886. Image number 2321. Third from top: Bullock team on the road outside Whitman’s store in Tambo. Image number APO-026-0001-0037.

Bottom: First Brisbane Grammar School, c1874.

Image number 162685. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P73, on left: Interior of the Red chamber, Parliament House. Image number 66934. On right: Parliament House, c1870. Image number 189114. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P74: His Excellency, Governor Blackall with Mrs Verney and Mrs Terry. Image number165859. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P75, at top: The bridge of the QG Steamer Kate in 1869. Album PA 12.

Courtesy RHSQ. Bottom: Governor Blackall with G.H. Verney and F.Terry. Image number 7600. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P76, on left: Wedding at Stanthorpe’s Presbyterian Church, 1872. Image number 20215.

Centre: Brighton family boarding house, 1871. Image number 20278. On right: Thomas Hanlon’s Ferry Hotel at Yatala, 1872. Image number 190861. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P77, on left: Marchioness of Normanby. Image number 64706. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Governor Normanby. Album PA 66, No 3.

Courtesy RHSQ. P78, top left: Maryborough in 1874, lithograph by Maclure and Macdonald in Short Sea Route to Australia: Descriptive Illustrated Handbook of the Singapore Route to Australia, including time tables of the Eastern and Australian Mail Steam Co. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Top right: Port Hinchinbrook, the new settlement at Rockingham Bay. Forrest Collection.

Middle: Gladstone c1874, lithograph by Maclure and Macdonald in Short Sea Route to Australia. Below: Haystacks at Canning Downs station. Image number APO-029-0001-0003. Maclure and Macdonald images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P79: Warwick c1874, lithograph

by Maclure and Macdonald in Short Sea Route to Australia. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P80: Early view of Gympie, c1870. Image number 21463. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P81, on left: Prospectors with a portable steam engine on the Stanthorpe tin field, c1872.

Image number 20185. On right: Mary Street, Gympie 1868. Image number 36312. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P82: Sugar labourers at the River Estate outside Mackay c1880. Image number 6298-00010020. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P83, top: Mackay about 1883 looking north east from the Australian Joint Stock Bank. Image number 6298-0001-0034. Centre: Ormiston sugar mill, Cleveland district c1871. Image number20279. Below: Cooktown. Image number 119660. Courtesy SLQ. P85, on left: Pacific Islander quarters at The Cedars plantation, Mackay, c1883.

Image number 6298-0001-0062. On right: Pioneer House on the sugar plantation outside Mackay, c 1880. Image number 6298-0001-0030. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P86, on left: Governor Cairns.

Album PA 66, No 4. Courtesy RHSQ. On right: Children in traditional Chinese costume, Cooktown. Image number 78904. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P87: Cradling for gold, outside Charters Towers. Image number raw00138. Courtesy JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Five Chapter heading, P88: Governor Kennedy. P7865.

Courtesy RHSQ. P89, on left: Miners working on the opencut section of the Mount Morgan mine. Image

number APO-049-0001-0012. On right: Miners at Mount Morgan mine, c1890. Image number APO-0290001-0058. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P90, on left: Georgina Kennedy. Image number 19489. On right: The sons of Sir Anthony and Lady Musgrave.

Album APU-49. Qld Views Acc 6882, Box 11462 O/S Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P92, on left: View of Ravenswood, 1873. Image number 164744. On right: The landing of Sir Arthur Kennedy at Brisbane.

Image number 57807. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P93: Photograph of a drawing of the first landing at Cairns, 1876. Image number 24477. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P95, on left: Huston’s ferry on the Logan River at Waterford, 1871. Image number 6161. Centre: Sketch of Gracemere station, near Rockhampton. Image number APE-072-0001-0021. On right: Shipping on the Fitzroy River, at Rockhampton wharves. Image number APO-049-0001-0005. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P96, on left: Prince Albert and Prince George of Wales with Sir Arthur Kennedy and guests. Image number 157359. On right: Prince Albert and Prince George. Both images from Visit of the Detached Squadron with their Royal Highnesses Prince Edward and Prince George of Wales to Brisbane from 16th to 20th August 1881, by L Byrne. P97: Sketch of Sir Joshua Peter Bell. Image number 146243. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P98, above: School of Arts. Image number APU-0490001-0016. Centre Lands and Works Department, Image number APU-049-0001-0007. Below, Supreme Court. Image number APU-049-0001-0007. All images from Album APU-49 QLD VIEWS ACC 6882 Box 11462 O/S Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P99: Townsville, 1886. Oil on canvas by Edward Bevan. Accession number 4592. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P100: Lucinda Painted in watercolour (gouache) and blank ink over canvas by unknown artist. Image number 161185. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P101, on left: Lady Musgrave. Image number 121139. Image courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Governor Musgrave. Album PA 66, No 6. Courtesy RHSQ. P102: Sir Thomas McIlwraith. Image number 7013. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P103, on left: Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer.

Image number 68306. On right: Archibald Meston.

Image number 17065. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P104, on left: On the beach, Sandgate, 1871. Drawing

by I.L. Forbes. Image number 20731. Top right: Lady Musgrave Sanatorium for children at Sandgate. Image number 188326. Bottom right: Staff and patients from Lady Musgrave Sanatorium at Shorncliffe. Image number 52732. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P105, at top: Immigration Depot. Image number 67634.

Centre: Stores near Town Reach wharves. Image number 185471. Below: Eagle Street wharves. Image number 185472. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P106: Funeral of Sir Anthony Musgrave. Gouache on card, unknown artist. Accession number 6938. Courtesy JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Six Chapter heading, P108: Sir Henry Wylie Norman.

Hand coloured and overpainted photograph by Carl Magnus Oscar Fristrom. Accession number 4475. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P109, on left: boats ply the Brisbane River. Image number 6418-0001-0005.

On right: Early view of the Brisbane River. Image number 6418-0001-0004. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P110, on left: tunnel construction. P11992. On right: Log dam. P9161V. Both images courtesy RHSQ. P111: Sir Henry Blake. Album PA 66 No 7. Courtesy RHSQ. P112, on left: Fairymead House, Bundaberg.

Image number APA-030-01-0005. Centre: School of Arts, Bundaberg. Image number APA-030-01-0002.

On right: Bundaberg Hospital. Image number APA030-01-0001. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P113:

Lady Alice Norman. Image number 13683. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P114: Shearers at Vindex station. Negative number 50634. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P115: Plantation owners and South Sea Islander workers at Hambledon Sugar Plantation, Cairns, c1889. Image number 171012. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P117: Banquet to Governor Norman on Stoney Creek Bridge. P11991. Courtesy RHSQ. P118: Governor Norman ropeway, Irvinebank.

P9088. Courtesy RHSQ. P119: Charters Towers, 1895.

Oil on board by William Jamieson Allom. Accession number 4606.Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P120, on left: Town Hall. Image number 6418—0001-0001. On right: Queen Street. Image number 6418-0001-0003. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P121: Eagle Street. Image number 6418-0001-0002. Courtesy JOL, State Library of Queensland. P122: 1893 floods. Brisbane. Image number 69128. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P123, at top: Hughenden bore. Forrest Collection. Centre : artesian water at Springvale. Courtesy Scott Milson. Below: bore at Leichhardt Farms. Courtesy John Power.

Chapter Seven Chapter heading, P124: Governor Lamington. Album PA28,p3. Courtesy RHSQ. P127: Lady Lamington. TD 1029.58.1d, Cochrane-Baillie of Lamington Family Papers, courtesy Archives and Special Collections, The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. P129, on left: Lord Lamington arrives at Cooktown. TD 1029.46(2), and at right: Lord Lamington addressing Cooktown residents.

TD 1029.46 (1). Both images from the Cochrane Baillie of Lamington Family Papers, courtesy Archives and Special Collections, The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. P130, above and below: Aboriginal guard of honour. In The Queenslander, 25 April 1895. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P131: Crowds welcoming the Lamingtons.

Image number neg 166643. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P132, on left: Lady Lamington at Longreach station. Image number neg 46701. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Lady Lamington in a Cobb and Co coach at Longreach. TD 1029.58.2 (8), Cochrane-Baillie of Lamington Family Papers, courtesy Archives and Special Collections, The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. P133: Winton, 1896.

Courtesy Winton and District Historical Society.

P135, top left: Victor and baby Gem. TD 1029.58.2 (1), Cochrane-Baillie of Lamington Family Papers, courtesy Archives and Special Collections, The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Centre: Lady Lamington with baby Gem. Image number 108976. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below: Lady Lamington and baby Victor in the Botanic Gardens. TD 1029.58.2 (8), Cochrane-Baillie of Lamington Family Papers, courtesy Archives and Special Collections, The Mitchell Library, Glasgow.

On right: Government House. Image number 66732.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P137, on left: “The last of the native huts.” Murray Island. At right, above: Yarrabah mission, Mr Gribble’s residence. Centre: Presenting photographs of Lord and Lady Lamington. Below: Mapoon mission station. All photographs taken

by H.W. Mobsby during the tour by the Home Secy J.F.G. Foxton, Dr Roth and W.E. Parry Okeden through the Torres Strait Islands, 1899. APA – 50, Box 10213.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P138: Proclamation of Federation.

Image number 185846. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P139: Lamington National Park. Courtesy Steve Wilson.

Chapter Eight Chapter heading, P142: Lord Chelmsford. P7828.

Courtesy RHSQ. P143: National Show of Queensland, 1907. Image number 185228. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P145, on left: Lady Chelmsford. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. On right, above: Government

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House, the dining room, image number APO-028-010005, centre: the drawing room, image number APO028-01-0008, below: the hallway, image number APO012801-0006. All image courtesy JOL, SLQ. P146: Lord Chelmsford. Image number 202562. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P147, on left: Lady Chermside. Negative number 165858. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Sir Herbert Chermside. Album PA66, No 10. Courtesy RHSQ. P148: Governor Chelmsford and the Automobile Club.

Image number APO-028-01-0025. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P149: Team of horses with a fully laden wagon ready to start the Governor’s road trip to Inverleigh station.

Image number APO-028-01-0037. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P151, on left: Sir Hugh Nelson. Image number 62031.

Centre: Sir Robert Philp. Image number 198002. On right: Sir Arthur Morgan. Image number 3811. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P152, on left: Lord and Lady Chelmsford at Mackay. Image number neg 33157. On right; Maryborough Boys’ Grammar School speech day. Image number neg 139896. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P153: Lord Chelmsford. Album PA 66, No 11. Courtesy RHSQ. P154, above: Lord and Lady Chelmsford’s children. Image number APO-02801-0018. Below: Interior, Brisbane Institute of Social Service. Image number36669. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P155: Children and staff on the rooftop of the Brisbane Institute of Social Service. Image number 36632. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P156: Reception committee outside Cloncurry. Image number 8112.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P157: Goat escort at Georgetown.

Image number 5482. Courtesy JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Nine Chapter heading, p158: Governor MacGregor. Image number 3772. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P159, on left: Lady MacGregor. Image number 165834. On right: Sir Samuel Griffith. Image number 202540. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P160, top: SLQ, image number APU-049-00010010, second from top: Queensland National Bank, image number APU-049-0001-0022 third from top: Holy Trinity Church of England, Fortitude Valley, image number APU-049-0001-0018. All from APU49, QLD VIEWS, ACC 6882, Box 11462 O/S. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below: John Stevenson and his son Graham outside the Queensland Club. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P161, at left: The GooldAdams leaving the Bombala. At right: The GooldAdams outside Government House. Both images Acc 3183 in Box 7011. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P162: Governor MacGregor at a settlers’ home at Tambourine.

Negative number 63818. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P163, at top: Governor MacGregor and party crossing Guanaba Creek. Negative number 130629. Below: Tambourine mountain. Image number APU-049-0001-0041. APU49 QLD VIEWS ACC 6882, Box 11462 O/S. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P165, right: Design for Fernberg House, c1864. Proposed design by architect Benjamin Backhouse. Accession number 5678. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. At left, top: Fernberg 1885. Image number neg 46922. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Centre and below: Fernberg.

Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P166, on left: Sir William and Lady MacGregor on board a Japanese merchant ship. Image number 195768.

Right above: Executive council meeting. Image number 202560. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. Right below: Mapleton. 1912. Forrest collection.

P167: Japanese cane cutters at Hambledon sugar plantation, c1890. Image number APU-025-00010011. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P168: 1912 strike. On right: strike breakers. Image number 10113-0001-0023.

Left above: Onlookers. Image number 10113-00010013. Centre: Men with rifles. Image number 101130001-0014. Below: At old Government House. Image number 10113-0001-0013. All images courtesy JOL,

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SLQ. P170, on left: Lady Goold-Adams drawing a ballot at Beerburrum. Image number neg 65591. On right: Governor Goold-Adams talking to soldiers about how they won their medals. Image number 68010002-0007. Both images courtesy John O xley Library, SLQ. P171, on left: Governor Goold-Adams. Negative number 184810. On right: The Goold Adams family with aviators, Government house, December 1919.

Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P172: Anzac Day, Brisbane, 1916. Negative number 60190. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P173 on left: Anzac procession, Brisbane 1917. Negative number 23163. On right: Anzac Day, 1916. Image number D9-2-83g 39805. Both images courtesy JOL, State Library of Queensland. P174, on left: Kangaroo Point hospital, Brisbane 1916. Series 6801. On right; Kangaroo Point hospital. Image number 6801-0002-0009. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P175: Kangaroo Point hospital, Brisbane, 1916.

Series 6801. Courtesy JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Ten Chapter heading, P176: Governor Nathan Album PA 66 No 14. Courtesy RHSQ. P178, on left: Industrial School for Boys at Indooropilly. Image number neg 156192. On right: pulling water from a soakage at Birdsville, 1926. Image number 182482. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P179, on left: filling the water cask. Forrest Collection. On right: School children at Windorah. The Queenslander, 31 December 1931.

Forrest Collection. P180, on left: Brisbane street scene. Image number 10113-0001-0017. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Wellshot station store. Forrest collection. P181, on left: Comino’s café, Longreach.

Courtesy Angelo Cominos. On right: Harry Corones ( extreme right, back row) and the aerial survey party at Charleville. Image number 85-7-7. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P182, on left: Expedition to the Great Barrier Reef, October 1923. Image number 195781. On right: Inspecting the tobacco crop at Mareeba, 1929. Image number 6670-0001-0052. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P183, at left: Jacaranda trees in the garden of Government House. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. On right: Governor Nathan unveiling the Beaudesert War Memorial, 1921. Image number 644. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P184, above: Edward Granville Theodore. Image number 67744. Centre: The Prince of Wales with Hon. J.A. Fihelly and Lieutenant-Governor William Lennon at Eagle Farm races. Image number 65199. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below: The weigh- in at Birdsville races.

Image number 63003. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P185: Civic reception at Tambo for T.J. Ryan, 1917.

Image number 170709. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P186, above: Near Chinchilla, 1920s. Image number 2044.

Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame. Centre: Crossing the Cooper. Courtesy Ron and Ailsa McGlinchey.

Below : One Mile crossing at Lerida. Courtesy Jenny Mace. P187: Governor Nathan leaving Hammond Downs. Courtesy Barcoo Shire Council. P189: Mount Morgan. Left above: Spillway. Image number APU048-0001-0014. Below: train. APU-048-0001-0009.

Right above: town and mine. APU-048-0001-0017. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P190, on left: fireplough track. Forrest Collection. Right above: Mt Isa, 1929.

Below: Mt Isa miners, 1929. Both images Accession number 6865. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P191: Honeymoon flight. Courtesy Winton and District Historical Society.

Chapter Eleven Chapter heading, P192: Governor Wilson. P7837.

Courtesy RHSQ. P193: The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York leave Government House.

Negative number 9653. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P194: Anzac Square under construction, 1931. Oil painting

by Frances Vida Lahey. Accession number 4494.

Courtesy JOL, SLQ and Queensland Art Gallery, the copyright holder. P197, on left: Sir John Goodwin.

Image number 3779. On right: Lady Goodwin. Image number 165867. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P198 and 199: All images from an album presented to His Excellency Lieut General Sir John Goodwin and Lady Goodwin from The President and Members of the Executive and Branch Committees of the Creche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland. 21 November 1931. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P200, on left: Governor Goodwin and party walking across the Grey Street bridge after its opening. Image number APU016-0001-0036. On right: Governor Goodwin. Image number 193968. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P201: Sir John Goodwin at the Enoggera Army Camp, 1927. Image number APU-017-0001-0010. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P202, on left: Miss Marjorie Wilson. Image number 165978. On right: Lady Wilson and Sir Leslie Wilson. Image number 28191. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P203, above: Sir Leslie Wilson and Miss Marjorie Wilson on a pearling lugger. Image number 42747. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below: Sir Leslie Wilson at the Ascot races, May 1937. Image number 103736.

Courtesy Queensland Newspapers JOL, SLQ. P205, left above: Communists outside the Premier’s office, 1936. Image number 106400. Centre above: Wash day, 1938. Image number 129145. Right above: Display home made from asbestos cement sheeting.

1937. Image number 103741. All images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. Left centre: Story bridge fitters. Image number APE-075-00010015. Left below: Story bridge crew on the last day of construction. Image number APE-075-0001-0023.

Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P206, on left: Queues for clothing ration tickets, June 1942. Image number 112043. Centre: Women with visiting American soldiers, 1941. Image number 104176. On right: Last drink at South Brisbane station, 1940. Image number 195096. All images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P207: Preparing for the worst.

Men in gasmasks. Rosalie-Torwood, 1942. Image number195096. Courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Twelve Chapter heading, P209: Sir Henry Abel Smith.

Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P210, top: Broadbeach development. Image number 63790001-0015. Second from top: The Spit, Southport.

Image number 6379-0001-0009. Third from top: auction for Brigalow blocks. Image number 63790001-0008. Below: On the Bruce Highway. Image number 6668-0001-0022. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P211, on left: Sir John Lavarack. Lavarack Family Album, reference code 7571. Box 14827 0/S. On right: Lady Lavarack. Negative number 167528.

Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P212: South Molle Island. From South Molle Island- The Heart of the Great Barrier Reef Tourist Resorts. Undated leaflet printed by Simpson Halligan, Brisbane. Held in Tourism Ephemera, JOL Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P213: All images from Ansett Travel Service leaflet – The Finest Resort South of the Equator. Royal Hayman Hotel Whitsunday Passage. 1950? JOL RBJ 919.436 ROY Above: the pool, image number 840224-0001-0008.

Centre: the dining room. Image number 8402240001-0004. Below: the bar. Image number 8402240001-0005. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P214, on left: Casa Mara coffee lounge. Image number 185412. On right: The Blue Room. Image number 53790. Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ.

image acknowledgments

P215: All images from The Courier Mail Queensland Annual, 1956. Top: Mount Tibrogargan. Image number 193534. Centre: Sun soaked fruit. Image number 193535. Below: Picking pineapples. Image number 193536. All images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P216, above: Royal cakes.

Image number 147621. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below: Webster’s Chocolate Royal biscuits. Image number 71818. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P217, on left: The Queen and Prince Philip with Lord and Lady Lavarack.

Lavarack Family Album, reference code 7571. Box 14827 O/S. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: The Queen and Prince Philip welcomed by school children. Courtesy Queensland Newspapers and Dr Bill Lavarack. P218, on left: Lord and Lady Lavarack with Monty and Sally.

Negative number 167486. Centre: Lady Lavarack at Braille House. Image number 165861. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Lord and Lady Lavarack at Government House. Courtesy Dr Bill Lavarack.

P219, at top: Bull sale at Cloncurry. Image number lbp00232. Second from top: Rainbow Bay. Image number lbp 00196. Third from top: University of Queensland. Image number lbp 00185. Below: Hope Vale. Image number 7676-0001-0916. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P220: Invitations. Both images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P221, on left: Beatles fans. Image number 46645. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: Princess Alexandra with Mr Nicklin and Sir Henry Abel Smith. P12728. Courtesy RHSQ. Below: The Abel Smiths with Benjy. Image number 167531. Courtesy Queenland Newspapers and JOL, State Library of Queenland. P222, on left: The Abel Smiths prepare to be filmed. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. At right, top: Crowds watching television. Image number 102827. Below: 202544.

Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P223, on left: Lady May at the races. Image number 167518. Courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. Centre: the Rockhampton Races.

Courtesy Mary Bourke. On right: Sir Henry Abel Smith with jockey Maddock. Image number 202553.

Courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Thirteen Chapter heading, P224: Sir Alan Mansfield.

Image number 3794. Courtesy JOL, State Library of Queensland. P226, at top: Sir Alan Mansfield opening the Gold Coast Bridge. Image number 202552. Centre: Rachel with Lady Mansfield and Sir Alan . Negative number 167506. Below: Sir Alan and Lady Mansfield. Negative number 167510. All images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P227, on left: Sir Alan inspects troops. Image number 195708. On right: Lady Mansfield and Rachel with Tess, the horse. Negative number 167526.

Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P228, on left: Springbok demonstrators and police, 1971. Image number 1342c. On right: Right to March demonstrators and police, 1977.

Image number PM 233a. Both images courtesy Queensland Police Museum. P229, top: Sir Colin and Lady Hannah in their Canberra home. Negative number 167507. Below: Sir Colin and Lady Hannah leave Government House. Image number 165855.

Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P231, at left top: drought feeding, 1967.

Forrest collection. Centre: St Lucia, Brisbane, January 1974. Image number 177179.Below: Ipswich and the flooded Bremer River. Image number API – 0840001-0009. On right: Flooding in Mary Street. Image number lbp00076. Last three images courtesy JOL, SLQ. P232, above: Burleigh Heads. Image number 193538. Image courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. Below: Sir Colin Hannah. Image number

195295. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. P233, on left: Sir Colin and Lady Hannah. Image number 73481. On right: Sir Colin Hannah. Image number 3765. Both images courtesy JOL, SLQ.

Chapter Fourteen P234, chapter heading: Governor Campbell. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P236, at left: Sir James and Lady Ramsay. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. At right, above: The Governor with Sally Anne Atkinson, Lord Mayor of Brisbane.

Image number 202546. Below: at the theatre. Image number 202547. Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P238, above: Lady Ramsay at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. Image number 201346. Below: at the School of Arts. Image number 165862. Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P239, left above: Lady Ramsay has blood pressure test. Image number 165989. Below: Girl Guides and Sir James Ramsay.

Image number 202551. Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. At right: Scouts with Sir James. API-053-0003-0001. Courtesy Scout Association of Australia and JOL,SLQ. P240, on left: Sir James and Lady Ramsay with the Queen and Prince Phillip. On right: Sir James and Lady Ramsay with the Prince and Princess of Wales. Both images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland P241: Governor Campbell. Image number 35AA4736 15.

Courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL,SLQ. P242, on left: rugby team. Image number 112916 D10-9-95. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. On right: at the opening of Queensland Turf Club Racing Museum. Image number 200315. Courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P243: Above: Sir Joh Bejlke Petersen.

Image number 51996. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Below: Sir Walter Campbell in the navigator’s position.

Image number 35K 5312 10. Both images courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL, SLQ. P244: Lady Campbell at the opening of Braille House library.

Image number 35e 6639 1. Courtesy Queensland Newspapers and JOL,SLQ. P245, above: Sir Wallace and Lady Campbell. Centre: Sir Wallace and Lady Cambpell with the Queen. Below. Sir Wallace and Lady Campbell. All images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland.

Chapter Fifteen Chapter heading, P246: Leneen Forde. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P248, on left: Angus McDonald, Prince Charles and Governor Leneen Forde. Centre: Angus McDonald and Leneen Forde with George. Both images courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. On right: Governor Forde at Brisbane Girls Grammar School prizegiving.

Image courtesy Brisbane Girls Grammar School.

P249: Leneen Forde and Angus McDonald. Courtesy, Office of the Governor, Queensland. P250: Barbara and Peter Arnison meet the Queen. Courtesy MajorGeneral Peter Arnison and Mrs Barbara Arnison.

P251: Governor Arnison’s investiture. On left: Governor Arnison with Sir Wallace Campbell. Courtesy Major-General Peter Arnison and Mrs Barbara Arnison. On right: Governor Arnison with his mother.

Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P252, at top: Trade mission to Japan. Centre: Visit to Coconut Island. Below: Mackinlay CWA. All images courtesy Major-General Peter Arnison and Mrs Barbara Arnison. P254: The Arnisons with Government House staff. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland.

P255, at top: Executive Council. Below: Barbara Arnison. Both images courtesy Major-General Peter Arnison and Mrs Barbara Arnison.

Chapter Sixteen Chapter heading, P256: Governor Bryce. Courtesy Marcus Bell and Adam Finch, Studio Impressions, Brisbane. P257: Ilfracombe from the scour. Courtesy Doug Wilson images, Forrest Collection. P258, on left: Ilfracombe scour. On right: The main street, Ilfracombe. Both photographs courtesy Doug Wilson images, Forrest Collection. P259, above: Norman and Naida Strachan. Courtesy Dianne Craddock.

Below: Quentin Strachan. Courtesy Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce. P260, on left: sheep at Ilfracombe railway yards. On right: Scoured wool in bales.

Both photographs courtesy Doug Wilson images, Forrest Collection. P261, above: Quentin Strachan at Moreton Bay Girls’ High School. Below: Quentin Bryce. Both images courtesy Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce. P262: Quentin Bryce. Courtesy Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce. P263, at left: Governor Bryce and Mr Michael Bryce. Courtesy Marcus Bell and Adam Finch, Studio Impressions. At right: His Excellency Mr Michael Bryce and Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce. Courtesy Steve Strike. P264, at left: a gathering at Bamaga. At right: Governor Bryce with baby Macy Motton and Lydia Toby. Forrest Collection P265: Governor Bryce and Rusty Williams. Forrest Collection. P267, on left: Guide dog graduation.

Forrest collection. On right: Wheelchair ballroom dancing. Courtesy Marcus Bell and Adam Finch, Studio Impressions. P268: Governor Bryce at Cape York. Forrest Collection. P269, on left: at the races.

Forrest collection. On right: At Windorah. Courtesy Bruce Scott.

Chapter Seventeen P270, Chapter heading: Governor Wensley. Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P271: Friday Island Pearl Farm: Courtesy Office of the Governor, Queensland. P272, on left: Penny and Robert Wensley. Above right: Stuart McCosker and Penny Wensley. Below: Penny Wensley with her parents on her wedding day. All images courtesy Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley. P273: Penny Wensley with her daughters Sarah and Jane. Courtesy Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley. P274, above: With President Bill Clinton. Below: With the President of Algeria. Both images courtesy Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley.

P275, above: With United Nations Secretary-General, Annan. With Madelaine Albright, US Secretary of State. Below: With French President Jacques Chirac.

All images courtesy Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley.

With Thanks P290, on left: Governor Musgrave. Image number APU-049-0001-0002. Courtesy JOL, SLQ. Centre: Governor Lamington. Album PA 66 No 7. Governor MacGregor. Album PA 66 No 12. Both images courtesy RHSQ. P291, on left: Governor Kennedy.

Image number 114888. Centre: Governor Lavarack.

Accession number 7720. On right Governor Blackall with Mrs Creagh, Mrs Terry and Mrs Verney. Image number 165866. All images courtesy JOL, SLQ. Abbreviations John Oxley Library – JOL State Library of Queensland – SLQ Royal Historical Society of Queensland – RHSQ

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With thanks Many people helped to make this book possible. We would like to most sincerely thank them all.

In our Authors’ Introduction we mentioned a number of people and organisations whose support was crucial to this work. In addition, we say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to the following individuals and organisations who shared their memories, documents or helped in a variety of ways – All Hallows school; Peter and Barbara Arnison; Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame; Barcoo Shire Council; Michael Beckmann of Ipswich Art Gallery; Marcus Bell and Adam Finch of Studio Impressions, for generously and promptly making photographs available; Hilary Blanford and the Nathan family; Mary Bourke; Stephen Brady; His Excellency Mr Michael Bryce; Wallace Campbell; Jen Davis, archivist, Brisbane Girls Grammar School; Diane Craddock; David Dawes; Jock Douglas; Doug Drummond QC; Helene Fawcett; Donald Finlay; Leneen Forde; Iain Forrest; Beatrice Gibson; David Gibson; Government House staff including Donna Rideout, Lesley Clarke and Libby Collett; Janet Hogan; John Jackson; Ian Jempson; Lisa Jones of Queensland Police Museum, with special thanks for her prompt and generous responses to our inquiries; Justice Stanley Jones; John Knott; Lanark Library, Scotland; Bill and Jim Lavarack; Left: Sir Anthony Musgrave, Queensland’s sixth governor, 1883-1889.

Centre: Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie, Baron Lamington, eighth governor 1896-1901.

Right: Sir William MacGregor, eleventh governor, 1909-1914.

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Left: Sir Arthur Kennedy, fifth governor, 1877-1883.

Centre: Sir John Lavarack, sixteenth governor and the first Australian born, 1946-1957.

Right: Colonel Samuel Wensley Blackall, second governor, 1868-1871, with Mrs Creagh, Mrs Terry and Mrs Verney.

William Long, Longshots Photography; Norma Lovelace of QCWA; Jenny Mace; James Mansfield; Miranda Mason; Katie McConnell, Old Government House; Stuart McCosker; Michael McDonald; Ron and Ailsa McGlinchey; Dr Bruce McPherson QC; Scott Milson, for making photographs and stories available; Ken Minogue and Suzy Young, Northern Territory Library; John Mulford; staff at National Library of Australia, ever helpful and efficient; Colin Neville; Carolyn Nolan; Tony Phillips; John Power; Protocol Unit, Department of Premier and Cabinet; Queensland Art Gallery; Queensland Newspapers (David Fagan and Lyn Wilcock); Queensland Supreme Court Library; Rev. Roennfeldt; Rural Press; Bruce and Maureen Scott; Alex Scrimgeour; Jan Shaw; State Library of New South Wales; State Library of Queensland staff who have all been very helpful, in particular Gavin Bannerman, Serena Coates, Angelo Comino, Leif Elkstrom, Naomi Elliott, Reina Irmer, Patricia Parr, Tania Schafer and Louise Denoon; Michael Stephenson; Jean Stewart and the Royal Historical Society of Queensland; Steve Strike; Pat Vidgen; Justice Margaret White; Michael White QC; Doug Wilson; Lesley Wilson; Steve Wilson; Winton and District Historical Society; Auriel Woolley and Berenice Wright who very generously supplied extensive materials about the Mackay region.

Many people and organisations responded to inquiries and provided materials that in the end could not be directly used in this publication. However, the materials and information so provided did inform us and better equip us to create the book. We are grateful.

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Index

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