Chapter Three
An Alderman of Maryborough
In February 1867 Walter Adams entered into the realms of local politics following a meeting of the South Ward ratepayers, held at the Maryborough Council Chambers, to elect their local alderman. Walter was nominated and there being no other candidate was declared duly elected much to the approval of the agricultural rate payers who were to proclaim, “We are generally rather careless as to the results of Municipal elections among you, but the donning by Mr. Walter Adams of the aldermanic toga has gratified us all without exception. We are sure that, by one member at least of the Town Council, any agricultural request or petition will be seriously entertained and, if the answer be a refusal, there will be some courtesy in the manner of it and some reason for the refusal given.”
Walter was to remain a Maryborough alderman over the five years from February 1867 to February 1872 where, in his later years on the Council, he also held the position of Chairman of the Council’s Works Committee. During Walter's time in Maryborough successive mayors were: - Henry Palmer (1861), John Purser (1861), Henry Palmer (1865), Mr. Nightingale (1866), Mr. Henry Stoward (1869) and Mr. E. Booker (1870).
Walter’s election to the Council was not without its travails and, in a letter to The Editor of the Chronicle shortly after his election, he felt compelled to educate the newspaper’s correspondents Censor and Junius, who had submitted earlier letters to the Chronicle on matters of the Council’s expenditure, in the following manner:
Maryborough, 23rd May 1867
Sir,
I am sorry that my conduct in the Council should have raised the ire of your correspondents Censor and Junius, but whatever may be their views on the matter, I shall still endeavour to do my best for the Ward that I am for the time being the representative whether it includes Ann-street or the Blossoms. Junius credits me with the repudiation of the estimates. I am only one of nine members of the Council, and not having the key of the consciences of the other aldermen, it is absurd to think that eight men of common sense would be led by one man unless they saw that what he proposed was for the benefit of the town. As for the Town Hall, baths, and bridges, if Junius had any sense he would have seen they were not in any way affected by the Council’s decision.
Yours truly,
Walter Adams
In 1867 doubts were raised as to the viability of a proposed real estate development called Bingham (of later reference) situated on the Bay to the east of Maryborough. At the time it was claimed that, with swamps and marshes to the west, Hervey Bay to the east and the rocky point at the Mary River mouth to the south there was little potential for the success of such a development.
The Year of 1868
The Polynesian Labourers’ Act of 1868 was introduced to codify the engagement and employment of Melanesian field labourers and it was also in this year that James Noakes opened his Maryborough store, a business that was to remain profitable over the next twenty years.
In January 1868 the Council held a meeting to compare the Linklater and Thompson tender of £580 with the Beed and Company tender of £375 for the town wharf extension, necessitated by the rapidly expanding needs both of the township and of its rural exporters.
In April the fourth monthly meeting of the newly established Wide Bay Farmers’ and Planters’ Association was held both to advise existing members on recent developments in agriculture and to enrol new members. With the Mayor’s permission it was held in the Council Chambers at 7 p.m. on a Saturday. At the meeting Walter expressed the opinion that: “Sugar production ought to have the first attention of the society as that bides fair to become the staple crop of the district. Already nearly every old corn grower had become more or less a sugar planter yet how few are there amongst us whose management of that crop may not be described as a grope in the dark."
He hoped that someone would be able to furnish the society with fresh, practical ideas on sugar production that would enable growers to avail themselves of any recently acquired knowledge that could then be adopted to enhance the profitability of sugarcane growing.
Walter’s main objective, on this occasion, was to draw attention to the presence of a grey, cane boring grub that he had encountered in his own farm’s cane crop. Walter wondered if it was identical to a borer that had been referred to in a letter to the Maryborough Chronicle some time earlier that had been very destructive to the cane crop in Mauritius. He hoped that it was not the same borer as the one in Mauritius and that ‘his borer’ might prove to be a far less of a danger. He also expressed an opinion that it may be possible to control the borer by maintaining the cane crop area free from weeds. (Presumably to give the borer’s predators a clearer field for their hunting and feeding activities.)
The meeting’s attention was then drawn to a proposition that had been made to the committee regarding the holding of a ploughing competition. The person tendering the proposal had offered the Society the use of land near the town suitable for the competition’s purpose and, in addition, offered to contribute £10 towards the prize list provided that a reasonable number of competitors were to nominate.
At this meeting the following, additional prizes were submitted and approved for presentation at the following month’s meeting, the intent of the prizes being to promote local competition: A first prize of twenty shillings (£1 or $2 in today’s currency), and a second prize of ten shillings ($1), for the first and second best three pounds of butter to be presented in one pound packages - the butter to have been made in the Wide Bay District and exhibited by a society member;
Other prizes that were offered for awards at the following month’s meeting were one, of twenty shillings (£1), for the best bunches of ripe grapes submitted and another, of ten shillings, for the best ripe pineapple, both to be put on display at the meeting.
Mr. Adams proposed, and Mr. Paul seconded, “That the subject for discussion at the February meeting be cotton and its management, from the preparation of the ground for the reception of seed, until being baled for market.” Association members and persons wishing to become members were to receive a public invitation, issued by W. Adams and J. Cheyne, to attend this meeting.
In April 1868 a meeting was held that gave considerable insight into the state of affairs in the south-east of the colony. The question as to the obligation, or otherwise, of giving relief to able-bodied, destitute men came rather unexpectedly upon Maryborough’s Municipal Council when sixty-two “starved out gold-field diggers” presented a petition for relief to the Council. The petition claimed that the petitioners had been “deluded and misguided” by different newspaper reports on the nature of the gold rush and had arrived in Maryborough to earn an honest livelihood on the gold fields but, having exhausted their limited means, they faced no prospects other than starvation.
The Council suspended its Standing Orders to consider the petition and, having decided that there were no corporate funds available either to find employment for these men or to afford them any relief, they fell back, naturally enough, upon “the Government”. Alderman Milner “believed Mr. W. H. Walsh (the local Member) would be likely to suggest to the Executive how something might be done for the petitioners”. Alderman Cooper said, “It was not wanted to send these men away, but the Government should be requested to employ them on the road to Gympie”, and Alderman Adams “thought that the Government should be asked for a sum of money to make a road from the wharf to the ferry”. This overlooked the salient fact that, whilst a road traversing Maryborough would have been of considerable value to the town itself the expenditure would have held little appeal to a distant Colonial Government, then of limited means.
Whilst the Council believed that none of these men should be left to starve the question of how best to provide a measure of relief, one that the council could afford, to the most necessitous of these unemployed men had no obvious solution. To grant unfettered financial aid to strong, healthy men in the prime of life was considered the worst possible form of relief as it sapped the very foundations of that self-reliance and self-respect considered to be essential qualities of a working man. It was pointed out that the application of the old Poor Law in England had provided abundant proof of the adverse mental, moral and physical consequences that were the result of a system that offered basic forms of charity to able-bodied, unemployed men. Though the labour test had been applied rather harshly in some English workhouses, no one at the meeting would have questioned the need for such a test and it is relevant that many of those attendant at the meeting would have had the experience of dealing with their own hard times either in their country of origin, in the colonies, or in both.
Money previously spent on relief camps in the Maryborough district during the latter part of 1866 and the beginning of 1867 had produced results that were anything but encouraging. If the Government was to employ these men to work on the road then under construction between Maryborough and Gympie, even if they were paid low wages, it was predicted that the portion of the road on which they are engaged would be the costliest of the entire route. Conversely, if the Government was to pay the same rate of wages that it was paying to the men then working on the road construction to sixty-two new workers, it would most likely receive thousands of additional applications from workers each with as valid a claim to the Government’s financial assistance as had the original sixty-two applicants.
It was considered natural enough for these men to say, and perhaps even to think, that they had been deluded by newspaper reports of plentiful quantities of alluvial gold but it was generally considered that they had really deluded themselves. In hearing, or in reading, reports of the success of one or two gold-field diggers they had acquired the idea that they too would be as fortunate but found out to their cost that their expectations were unfounded. It was regrettable that this should be so but it had happened on every diggings ever discovered whether in Queensland, in the other colonies or overseas. No matter how large the gold field there was sure to be more persons flocking to it than those who could find payable gold, and of that unfortunate number there would be a proportion left destitute.
In the Queensland colony it was thought unlikely that men who were able and willing to work would be unemployed for any length of time provided that they did not set too high a price on their labour, and so it was finally decided that their needs could be met by temporary relief.
Statements provided by potential employers of labour in the colony indicated that there should be little trouble in absorbing any surplus labour that may have gravitated to places such as Maryborough. This would apply, most specifically, to the labour of men willing to undertake outdoor work, of which digging for gold was an example, as employers were then paying large sums of money to import South Sea Island labour as they had found it next to impossible to engage reliable white labour that was prepared to work in the fields.
Saturday’s monthly meeting of the Wide Bay Farmers’ and Planters’ Association in August 1868, held in the Council Chambers, provided the association’s committee with a lesson in timing. Due to a then current mania for horse racing and dancing the attendance at the meeting was so small that, on the motion of Mr. Dowser and seconded by Mr. Adams, the meeting was adjourned.
It was reported in the Maryborough Chronicle of Saturday the 8th of August 1868, with reference to a sitting of the Northern District Court in Maryborough, that: “Mr. C. Faulkner begged to be exempt from serving on the jury on the grounds that he had been a resident at Gympie since October last.” (October 1867 - the very start of the gold rush). His Honour then confirmed that “persons living beyond thirty miles from the place where the Court is held were not obliged to attend.” Mr. Faulkner, that old veteran of the earlier Californian and Victorian goldfields, having arrived on the Gympie diggings at a very early stage, had the opportunity to obtain a favourable lease. It is therefore quite possible that this advantageous situation may have providing him with a much more lucrative income than had been produced by his previous Maryborough undertakings.
In September an inquest was held for Pierre Louis formerly of Mauritius with W. Adams, whose occupation was described as grocer, present as a witness. It appears that there was little known of Pierre in the district and Walter, in his deposition and after having been sworn in on oath, stated: “I am a grocer, residing in Maryborough. I knew the deceased, Pierre Louis, whose body I have now seen lying in Mr. Brown’s workshop, for the last eleven years. He was a native of Mauritius, a single man, forty-eight years of age. He was not a man of sober habits. I know nothing whatever of the circumstances attending his death.” It appeared that the Maryborough of the 1860’s had a multi-cultural population some of which, from other European colonies, would have held useful sub-tropical, agricultural experience.
On the 12th of October 1868 the Supreme Court in Brisbane received an application from Mr. Fredrick William Gladwell to enter into an arrangement for the dissolution of his partnership with Mr. Robert Greathead. Mr. Gladwell believed that he had entered into an arrangement with Mr. Greathead whereby he was to assume ownership of the portion of the partnership that included the Union Saw Mill and all town properties and that, in taking ownership of the saw mill business, he should enter into agreement to pay off the overdraft owed to the Joint Stock Bank and all other liabilities incurred prior to the 12th of September 1867 except for certain wages. However, on the 17th of October Mr. Gladwell received a letter from Mr. Greathead indicating his wish to withdraw from that which Mr. Gladwell had assumed was a definite agreement. Following its deliberation, the Court decided in Mr. Gladwell’s favour and the partnership was dissolved. In January 1870 Mr. Gladwell purchased the timber business together with its land, two houses, large quantity of dressed and undressed timber and of its pine, cypress pine and cedar logs - all for the moderate sum of £1,910.
The details of the newspaper article that is reproduced below, and that was published in the Maryborough Chronicle of Thursday the 26th of November 1868, are included as they describe a public meeting of Maryborough citizens the objective of which was related to the politics of an argument that was destined to carry on in the colony over the following three decades. On one side of the debate there was an element, consisting mainly of labourers but also of tradesman, city dwellers and squatters from west of the Great Dividing Range whose industry’s economics enabled them to employ family members and/or to engage stockmen, mainly of European origin, if and when required. This group either feared the effects that cheaper labour would have on their own employment or wished to reserve Australia for the ‘white-man’, usually a mixture of both.
Middle of the road groups were represented by persons who were more relaxed about the employment of Southwest Pacific Island labour in specific areas, and who held out for them to be given a ‘fair go’, a viewpoint subsequently codified under the Queensland Parliament’s Pacific Islanders Laborers Acts, 1880 - 1892. (See Appendix 6) In this debate the public outrage at an apparent and, under the circumstances as described here, probably real injustice visited upon a locally employed group of Melanesian labourers, became entangled with a debate about the employment of Southwest Pacific Island labour in general.
Well before the mechanization of the sugar industry representative wages on the sugar plantations were about 6 shillings and 6½ pence per week (and rising) for Pacific Islanders versus about 15 shillings per week for Europeans. However, one needs to be careful of comparisons here as work on the plantations was very intense during planting and harvesting but involved minimal work for the remainder of the year. Pacific Island workers would still be paid, housed and provisioned in the lay periods whereas European labour, unless it fulfilled an ongoing and critical role such as plantation manager or bailiff, was normally expected to be self-supportive and to obtain other work during the lay period - whether or not such work was available.
The public meeting was held on Tuesday evening the 24th of November in the Maryborough Courthouse and was so crowded that many of the attendees were obliged to remain on the veranda. A description of this meeting by the Chronicle now follows:
Mr. W. S. Walsh (Probably William Sarsfield Walsh), in the absence of the Mayor, was voted to the chair. Having read the advertisement that had proclaimed the meeting, the Chairman then read a letter from Mr. Southerden regretting his inability to attend the evening’s meeting on the Polynesian Question Note 1, and concluding with the following sentiment: “I regret it the more as I wished to bear testimony with others, more especially to the circumstances attendant on those recently employed on the Sugar Company’s estate, now without food or covering, and those also of their number who were sent by the last steamer to Brisbane Gaol a matter, I conceive, which demands immediate attention on the part of the Executive.”
Mr. Spence here informed the Chairman that the Rev. Mr. Wiles was prevented by illness from attending but that his sympathies were with the objects for which the meeting had been convened and Mr. J. W. Todd then moved the first resolution: “That this meeting memorialise the Government to inquire into the alleged illegal conviction of the twenty Polynesians who were lately sentenced to seven days imprisonment by the Bench in this town for breach of agreement, and also with regard to the two Polynesians now undergoing sentence in Brisbane Goal.” And he added: “It was the prevailing opinion of a vast number of people that the recent conviction of the twenty-two Polynesians for breach of agreement by the Bench was both unjust and illegal, the men having, been denied the common justice due to all living under the British constitution. The South Sea Islanders had been forced away from their homes, in many instances kidnapped, in others engaged under false pretences, and then brought over to Queensland. These twenty-two men had been engaged, as they believed, for twelve months by the Maryborough Sugar Company. When their time was up these men refused to work any longer, and the company then charged them with an alleged breach of agreement. Unfortunately the agreement was never produced in Court, it was lost - accidentally it was said - and although such an important document as an agreement between contracting parties is not usually lost or mislaid yet, as in this case, ‘accidents will occur even in the best regulated families’. This agreement, so much in favour of the Maryborough Sugar Company it was said, was not forthcoming.
The 25th clause of the Polynesian Act expressly provides that all Polynesian labourers already in this colony, or to arrive, are expressly declared to be subject to the provisions of the Act, 25th Vict., No. 11, or, in other words, the Masters and Servants Act. Now this Act provides that the defendant in all civil cases is at liberty to give evidence for himself. In this case the men were not heard although they all tell the same tale, without any discrepancy, that they were engaged for twelve moons and not three years.
They were convicted on secondary evidence, or I believe so, while the principal person who could have cleared up the matter, Captain Rodd, was absent. Again, no interpreter was provided for them. When a German is tried, and cannot understand our language, Justice provides him with an interpreter. So with the Chinese. Here, however, we have a conviction where the men do not understand our laws, our habits or our speech and when they have never had any copy or copies of the missing agreement themselves.
We have been taunted by the advocates of this kind of labour with being narrow-minded and jealous while they themselves have denied the poor fellows the rights and privileges of men such as ourselves. Should we gain a case if we took one of our employees into Court and could not produce an agreement? No! The farce of issuing twenty warrants was gone through before these men were committed and they were without food for twenty-nine hours.
To the honour of our police force be it said that the (police) men made a private subscription to relieve these men from the pangs of hunger; and it was at the 27th hour that the Police Magistrate ordered them rations. They were afterwards locked up - twenty men in two cells, each cell 11 feet by 9. Because they had exercise on the subsequent morning, and for giving them rations at the 27th hour, the worthy Police Magistrate was reported to the Colonial Secretary, I am told by a gentleman in commercial circles, as keeping them from the plantation. (Groans) Thus a mere act of common humanity was said to be a desire to make these men dissatisfied and keep them from going back to the company. Seeing that these men would not go back to the company’s plantation, and that the company could not compel them, and knowing that they are existing in a state of semi-starvation upon the sympathies of the townspeople for support, this resolution calls upon the Government to step in and enquire into this abuse. The only thing to be done with them now seemingly is to commit them as vagrants; but was this community to pay the penalty of cheap forced labour? Were they to pay heavy taxes to help to keep these men and send them back to their homes? (A voice – ‘No’) And he said “No!” Let the employers of such labour bear the mischief of loose doings and lost agreements.” (Loud and prolonged cheers)
Mr. Rowland then seconded the resolution and said: “Although I am a comparative stranger in this town and district, I consider that I ought to come here and give this movement my support, in the absence of our leading men, who have left the question to the working man because they are afraid of the responsibility. I should like to see the question debated upon its broadest grounds. Meetings had been held in Brisbane upon this subject, and a memorial had been sent to the Home Government, who have, very wisely I think, decided to let the question be settled by the colonists themselves. Much has been said on the manner of bringing Polynesians here. The master of a schooner goes coasting off the Islands and gets a few Islanders here and there to come aboard his nice little vessel, and he completes his live cargo in much the same manner as any other cargo.” (Loud cheers)
Mr. Spence next addressed the meeting in support of the resolution. He said: “Is it to be said that we, who come from a land of freedom, we who rejoice under a glorious Constitution, which recognises all men as free and as equals — is it to be said that we shall allow slavery to get a hold amongst us in this our adopted country? (Cheers) Is it because we may be called agitators, stump orators, screamers, and demagogues that we are to sit quietly and hold our peace upon this subject? No! It is slavery when labour is coerced, either with the whip or the pistol, which has been done in this country. It is said that we are to be benefitted by these Polynesian labourers — that we cannot stand the heat. We shall not be benefitted by them, but driven out of the country; and as for standing the heat, why, I am not a dried-up or baked-up mummy, or mere skin and parchment, and yet I have worked for seventeen years with the chisel as a stonemason. (A voice – ‘Where are your acquaintances?’) It was the rum which shortened life; not the heat of the sun, but the rum which the sugar companies were making from their molasses. This question of Polynesian labour is a most serious one, because the Government have legalised it. It has been urged that wealth is against us, and we have no leading men here, tonight. Well, if the heads of the people are not here tonight, the people’s heads are here (Cheers) and it remains for you to put a stop to this infamous traffic for it is the thin end of the wedge, it is incipient slavery, and you have the power to put a stop to it. Let but the slave element come in at 2s. 6d. Note 2 per week, and down comes every other kind of labour. You will always find plenty of poverty with a low wage and a high price of provisions. Why, who can compete with the Polynesian labourer? There is no competition at all. What is to become of our children, and future generations if our labour is to be given over to men who are compelled to work for 2s. 6d. per week? This is the finest country in the world, with a climate unequalled, and all labour can be done by the white man. Let us have a good argument for the employment of Polynesian labour, not the namby-pamby stuff that goes through the press, that good men are engaged in the traffic. Half the mischief done in the world is done by good, bad men. If it was left to bad men, it would cease and die out. As we would resist the invasion of a foreign army, let us resist the insidious increase of Polynesian slavery.”
The speaker then detailed how the proprietor of Townsville, was always trying to cheapen labour, and had employed coolies of every country without success. He had finally engaged Polynesian labour, as it was handy to obtain and cheap to keep. Mr. Spence then resumed his seat amidst vociferous applause. The resolution was then put to the meeting and was carried unanimously.
Mr. P. Higgens then made a few remarks upon the squatters and the low price of wages in the bush and suggested that the memorial be forwarded to the Colonial Secretary.
Mr. Wilkins moved, and Mr. Crane seconded, that this meeting forms a permanent committee to watch over the matter on behalf of the Polynesians, and to recall the meeting if it became necessary. Volunteers for this committee were: Messrs. W. Southerden, Pietzker, Spence, W. S. Walsh, J. W. Todd, R. Wilkins, Phillips, and Crane. The meeting delegated to the committee the power to add to its number if required. The motion as moved by Mr. Wilkins was carried unanimously.
When Mr. Wilkins suggested a defence fund several gentlemen in the meeting put down their names for differing amounts, and this money was collected by volunteers at the meeting.
Mr. Kenny next urged the meeting to consider the question in all its bearings and aspects. To think of it as one that was closely connected with their best interests.
Alderman W. Adams moved, and Mr. R. Wilkins seconded: “That the Memorial be sent to the Government through our local Member.” On being put to the meeting the Chairman declared the motion carried.
A vote of thanks to the Chairman was moved by Mr. Todd and seconded by Mr. Annear Note 3 who, in his remarks, alluded to the local employment of Polynesian labourers and denounced the system as being productive of the evil that was coming to light every day.
The vote being unanimous the Chairman, Mr. W. S. Walsh, said that he esteemed it an honour to have been placed in such a position and thanked them for their orderly proceedings. He then indicated that he should only be too happy to countenance any other meeting upon the same subject.
Note1: The miss-usage of the word Polynesian possibly derived from its North American usage concerning the engagement of Eastern Pacific (i.e. Polynesian) labour in American industries. The word “Kanaka” often used in the nineteenth century in this connection was a then frequently adopted, but apparently out of context, usage of that which appears to have been a Polynesian, and not a Melanesian, word for man. The word most often used by the Queensland colonial government in its official and legislative documents was “Polynesian” a very inaccurate categorization of peoples from the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands. Whilst it will be necessary to retain this word when describing government acts or pronouncements it is of little use as a guide to meaningful general usage. The blanket use of the word ‘Melanesian’ would inappropriately cover peoples from the Torres Strait and New Guinea and the use of the words ‘South Pacific Islanders’ would be more accurate, if we exclude the Maoris, but is rather wordy. “Kanaka” is the word almost exclusively used by the colony’s reporters of the 1800’s and, though misplaced and inappropriate, may be retained here when reproducing the wording of reports by nineteenth century newspaper men, or by reproducing the actual words of leading colonial identities, where this is necessary to retain historical integrity. Where the source material has referred to both ‘kanaka’ and ‘islander’ in the one article the word ‘islander’ has been used throughout that article. In choosing an appropriate word outside of this context, that does not contain some misleading element, the word ‘Islander" has been chosen for use in this work as shorthand for ‘on field labour from the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands’.
Note 2: A rhetorical flourish, refer to the earlier comment on wages.
Note 3: John Thomas Annear was born at Budock, two miles (three kilometres) west of Falmouth, Cornwall, on the 3rd of June 1842. He arrived in Queensland in 1863 and travelled to Ipswich where he resided till 1867. He later relocated to Maryborough where he commenced work as a manual labourer. Here he obtained recognition as a successful businessman, largely due to the energy that he applied to his endeavours and also to his honest dealings. He constructed many of the public buildings in Maryborough, notably the Commercial Bank, Hanley's Stores, the Immigration Barracks, Hockley's Stores, Lands Office, Court House and State School. He was elected to Parliament as the M.L.A., for Maryborough.
In 1868 plans were laid for the construction of Tooth and Cran’s sugar mill at Yengarie to service the Graham Creek’s farmers (See Appendix 2) and by mid-1869 work was underway on construction. Unfortunately, a punt carrying mill machinery sank and settled down to the Mary River’s hard clay bed. A diver named Henry Fisher was then engaged to reclaim the equipment with the strength of the river’s current posing a problem for the diver. However, this event did not adversely influence the mill’s availability for the oncoming season’s crushing.
The mill site was about nine miles by road from Maryborough with access gained by taking a left-hand turn onto a bush-track that left the Gayndah road about four miles from the town. It then passed through bands of open scrub between flats and forest land before reaching the Yengarie estate’s gate. The works had the appearance of a large establishment with a tall factory in its midst that was surrounded by workshops, ancillary buildings and a small schoolhouse. The adjacent village was of a significant size and extended along the bank of the creek. The residence of the managing partner, Mr. Cran, was on an eminence closer to the river than to the mill and the residence’s location offered views of the creek’s windings and of the plantations on the opposite river bank. The lower reaches of the creek were navigable to small craft for the transportation of cane up to the mill’s wharf. The riverbank opposite the creek’s mouth then accommodated about 100 acres of cane and it was intended that this planting would be augmented by further plantings on the more recently acquired lands.
The Year of 1869
The first Annual Report of the Wide Bay Farmers’ and Planters’ Association was submitted to the January 1869 Annual General Meeting of its members in the Court House on a Monday afternoon. Mr. J. Dowser was nominated as the meeting’s chairman. The matters raised at this meeting give a good indication as to the progress of the agricultural industries in the district and details of the meeting’s proceedings have therefore been outlined in some detail below.
The Chairman reviewed the objectives of the association and referred to its growing importance. He then called upon the honorary secretary to read the report on the horticultural achievements of the district and “to beg most cordially to congratulate and thank the members and friends by whose generous support and sympathy they are this day enabled to proclaim the association a success.”
The financial report as presented to the members of the society had exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the committee which offered its firm opinion that the opportunities afforded by the members’ discussions at the association’s monthly meetings had been extremely beneficial in providing for the successful interchange of ideas on agricultural and other rural issues. During the year twelve public meetings were held in which original papers on the following topics had been read and debated:
On Cotton Cultivation, by Mr. H. Fox;
Cultivation of the English Potato, by Mr. George Richards;
Cotton Cultivation on the Mary River, by Mr. W. G. Bailey;
Sugar Cultivation on the Mary River, by Mr. F. Hill;
The Labor Question, by Mr. W. G. Bailey; and
The Labor Question, in reply to strictures of the Brisbane Courier, by Mr. W. G. Bailey.
However, the committee’s disappointment regarding the attendance at its public meeting prompted the Chairman to say that: “Various important subjects, such as dairy management and the culture and uses of maize, had also been discussed and much useful information elicited. In connection with these meetings several competitive exhibitions of fruit, cotton, butter, &c. were held and prizes awarded. Notwithstanding all this, the interest evinced by those for whose advantage the meetings were designed had not been such as would justify the committee to recommending their continuance.” Consequently, the committee proposed that quarterly public meetings should be trialed in lieu of the then current monthly meetings, and that these meetings should not proceed beyond 4 p.m. The committee was convinced that this alteration would benefit all concerned and that additional benefits would result if the current meeting could decide upon future meeting dates and topics.
The Association’s committee had staged Maryborough’s inaugural Agricultural Show as a New Year’s Day event and the success of the resultant exhibition was considered by the meeting to have exceeded expectations, especially when taking into account its impromptu character and the poor growing season that had adversely affected many of its potential exhibits. The variety, and the general excellence, of the products on exhibit were declared a credit to the individual contributors and their quality also spoke volumes of the district’s favorable soil and climate. The show’s records indicate that forty-nine contributors entered articles for exhibition and that their combined entries numbered one hundred and fifty. The exhibits were separated into seventy-two classes which included raw and manufactured produce, livestock, implements and other items.
The Association’s balance sheet showed that the receipts for the year amounted to £79 17s. 0d. with expenses of £64 1s. 0d. giving the Association a financial balance of £15 16s. 0d. which, when combined with an amount in excess of £10 for outstanding subscriptions, was considered to be a very satisfactory result. Expenditure on advertising and printing at first appeared to be somewhat disproportionately large but this had resulted from the considerable outlay of capital needed to advertise the establishment of the society. The treasurer expected additional capital to accrue due to a Government subsidy entitlement related to the amount received from members’ subscriptions. In closing the meeting thanks were heartily accorded to the Mayor for the meeting’s use of the Council Chambers during the year, to those who officiated as judges at the agricultural show, to Messrs. Cooper and Jones, of the Union Saw Mill for the supply of free timber for tabling and to Mr. Horsburgh for the use of his trestles.
The committee then resigned and, in accordance with the association’s rules, the meeting was called upon to elect a new president, vice president and committee. William Henry Walsh, M.L.A. Note 1 was then appointed as the incoming president; John Meiklejohn was appointed vice-president and the following members were elected to the incoming management committee: Messrs. W. Adams, R. Murdoch, J. Simpson, H. Fox, J. Ingham, J. Cheyne, P. Dickenson, F. Hill, G. Richards, E. Watson, P. O’Kelly, and R. Ferguson, with the elected committee having the power to add to its number.
The arrangement of the timing of the ordinary meetings of the association, and the subjects to be discussed then received attention. Mr. Ingham proposed, Mr. Fox seconded, and the motion was carried that ‘quarterly meetings’ be substituted ‘for monthly meetings’ and that they be programmed as follows with the: -
First meeting on the 29th March, subject for discussion, “Poultry”;
Second meeting of 21st June’s subject, “Orchard Management”;
Third meeting of 20th September’s subject, “Pigs”; and the
Fourth meeting of 13th December’s subject, “The Arrangement and Management of a Fifty- acre Farm”.
Mr. Dickenson then proposed that the association’s next public exhibition be held towards the end of July, or in early in August, at the discretion of the committee. The motion was seconded by Mr. Watson and carried. A vote of thanks was made to the retiring committee and the chairman expressed the committee’s appreciation of the services of the honorary secretary, Mr. Cheyne, Note 2 who had, in conjunction with Mr. Adams, done so much to secure the efficiency and success of the association. A vote of thanks was extended to the chairman by those attending and this concluded the meeting.
Note 1: William Henry Walsh (1823-1888), squatter and politician, was born at Milton, Berkshire, England. He arrived in Sydney on the 11th of June 1844 and acquired colonial experience while in the employ of David Perrier of Bathurst during which time, in 1847, he opened a sheep station for Mr. Perrier on the Macintyre River. He later drove a Perrier flock through floods to open another station on the Burnett River. Following this he acquired Degilbo, near Gayndah, for Griffiths, Fanning & Co. of Sydney, a property that he was later to acquire for himself and was also to acquire Monduran station a few years later. Mr. Walsh married Nugent Wade Brown’s sister Elizabeth on the 20th of February 1857 and became a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1859. He later won and held the elected position of Member for Maryborough in the Queensland colonial government from 1865 to 1873. Mr. Walsh was elected as the representative for Warrego in the first Queensland Parliament and was subsequently elected M.L.A. for Maryborough in the early sixties where he assumed the position of Speaker in the Legislative Assembly in 1874. He exercised his considerable talents in support of movements that promoted the progress of the Wide Bay and Burnett districts as well as contributing well received articles to the Press under the non de plume of the "Ghost of Ban Ban". Mr. Walsh was president of the Wide Bay Farmers and Planters' Association in January 1872 and had an interest in the Burrum coal mines together with other mineral and pastoral ventures.
Note 2: John Cheyne was born and was educated in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He was a practical gardener who had contributed several valuable papers on floriculture to the Press both in the old country and in Australia. He arrived in Maryborough in 1864 and was a very active member of the establishment of the Wide Bay Planters’ and Farmers’ Association of which he became a leading member. He initially rented land at Baddow from Mr. Aldridge which he developed as a market garden and later purchased his own land on which he erected substantial shade-houses and planted choice shrubs and trees, but the venture was to run at a loss. He eventually moved to Tinana where he founded “Cheyne’s Gardens,” of 40 acres, and planted 1,600 different varieties of orange trees together with a very large assortment of tropical plants.
The subject of the importance of hoe selection as applied to surface soil stirring and weed eradication was also raised at about this time. The Queenslander, when commenting on the then current farming technology, particularly as applied to the smaller selector with his hand operated tools, maintained:
“Next to vigor-inspiring manure, there is nothing like surface stirring of the soil for bringing on crops during the summer months. To effect the desired object, two inches of stirring are as good as six, better in fact because, while the shallow working kills grass and weeds, the roots of the crop are left untouched. The flat Dutch Hoe when hand labour is employed or the light, one-horse Queenslander Horse Hoe, are excellent in achieving this aim.”
Susanna, the Adams family’s fifth daughter, was born on the 30th August 1867 but was to die eighteen months later, on the 6th of March 1869. The era was one, relative to that of the present, of a high birth rate combined with a high rate of infant mortality. The main agents responsible for this tragic situation were bacterial diseases such as diphtheria, cholera and typhoid whilst viral diseases such as yellow fever, measles and influenza also took their toll. The results of advances in hygiene such as the design and construction of effective water supply purification and distribution schemes and waste-water collection and treatment installations, together with advances in medication and vaccinations over the last century, are highlighted by the comparison of the rather grim mortality rates of our ancestors with those of the present day. It is significant that the death rate of women and children fell progressively over the full period of the industrial revolution. Of Mary and Walter’s forty-five grandchildren nine were to die before they were three years old. The Adams family’s last child, Ellen Elizabeth, was born on St Patrick’s Day, the 17th of March 1869. It was also in the year of 1869 that Walter launched his Maryborough contracting business, an undertaking that he conducted almost up to the time of his family’s departure for Bundaberg.
At the June meeting of the Wide Bay Farmers’ and Planters’ Association the chairman, Walter Adams, introduced ‘maize’ as the subject for discussion. He maintained that, if the nutritious, wholesome and economic qualities of this noble grain were more generally known, it would receive a much better recognition than being regarded as only fit for pig and horse food. He had regularly used maize meal as an article of diet in his family over several years and, so far as his own experience and taste went, would regard it as a calamity to be deprived of it. Of greater importance still, his children were very fond of it and it agreed remarkably well with them. Various modes of preparing and cooking the grain were discussed and it was noted that, unless the corn had previously been dried in a kiln, only enough should be ground to meet current needs.
Mr. Bromley sent some very fine sample cobs of a yellow maize variety which he described as being an average sample from an area of about one third of an acre which had produced forty bushels of the grain. Another cob, shown by Mr. E Watson, weighed over 2 lbs. Several specimens of the tuscarora (a fine white variety) were exhibited and this variety was pronounced to be by far the best for meal making. Unfortunately, from the information presented to the meeting, it also appeared to be not very productive and very susceptible to weevil attack. The following discussion elicited the information that January and September were the best maize planting seasons for the Maryborough district, that fifty bushels per acre was the yield for a good average crop, and that three crop plantings in two years were the most that could be undertaken with safety.
Mr. Ingham submitted some splendid specimens of the Poor Man’s Orange Note 1 obtained from the garden of J. E. Brown, Esq. that was perfectly free from the cocus pest. Two specimens of the fruit were displayed, the samples weighing two pounds and one and one quarter pounds respectively. The success of this crop demonstrated the potential mango Note 2 growing capability of the Mary River banks. On the motion of Mr. Adams, seconded by Mr. Shaw, it was decided that ‘Sugar Cultivation’ should form the subject of discussion at the July meeting. Ten new members were then enrolled in the association.
Note 1: In this context a mango; nowadays this description probably refers to a hardy form of citrus with a bitter rind and a caramel/vanilla taste resembling a grapefruit. This fruit may be the result of tangerine/polemo hybridization.
Note 2: John Carne Bidwell, former Government Botanist, Sydney, and later Commissioner for Crown Lands, Police Magistrate, and Harbour Master at Wide Bay, was the first man to introduce the mango - a plant native to India - into Australia.
An account of a river excursion on the August half-day holiday, as described in a report to the Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser of Saturday the 28th August 1869, gives a vivid description of the Mary River bank’s environment at that time. The following is an abridged description of this excursion:
“Affording a convenient opportunity to escape from the cares of business, we walked on board the little steamer Mary Ann Eaton with a determination to enjoy ourselves and to spend the day happily. The day was just such a one as we would choose for a trip - fine, but cloudy – and, as we trip along the smooth waters, we have the benefit of a fine breeze. In a short time we pass on our left the noble residence of Mr. John Eaton, the enterprising owner of the steamer which conveys us and the owner of a new sugar mill and plantation a little further up the river.
Carrying on, and on our right-hand side, we pass the beautiful garden of Mr. John Cheyne, laid out in terraces of orange and other fruit trees, betokening a vast amount of labour and persevering industry. Next we come Mr. John Eaton’s sugar mill and plantation, where the acres of cane stand ready for the mill which, unfortunately, is not yet in operation.
Next we come to the plantation of Messrs. Dunn and Parker, who have a portable engine and mill, and intend itinerating their machinery from farm to farm, after crushing their own cane. Further on, on our right, we pass the residence and plantation of Mr. Stedman, with heaps of cane ready for crushing. The mill and plantation of Mr. Meiklejohn is adjoining and, now that we are before it, we observe that it is in full operation. Down a tramway, sloping from the works to the river, is a wagon on which is drawn the cane from the punts in the river up to the mill, a rope being attached from the wagon to a steam-winch in the shed. Away on our left is Mr. Matheson’s farm, a braw Scotchman probably, and there he is just laying down his hoe to look at us, with his wee ones beside him in single file, one of the elder ones waving, on a pole, a three-bushel bag as a flag.
We now pass Graham’s Creek, on which is situated the celebrated, and now world-renowned Yengarie meat-preserving, boiling-down, manure works, and sugar mill, which employs a large number of men. It is, in fact, quite a village in itself. Jamieson’s mill and plantation we now pass on our left, and there he is himself, busy among his men, in that deep cutting for a tramway leading from the river up to the mill. On our left we have the Adams’s farm and opposite is Canny’s sugar plantation. We now pass several punts, each loaded with sugar cane, going down to the Central Mill. Christy and Miller’s farm is on our right with Scott and Clarke’s farm and plantation right in front of us at a bend of the river and there, beside the mass of growing cane, perched on a stump, is a South Sea Islander, having a good look at us.
Now Mr. Hill’s farm, Scarva, comes in view with its acres of sugar cane. Some distance further on, on our left, is Peter O’Reilly’s farm and on our right the fine estate of Captain Jeffrey while here and there, between these cultivated sections, the scrub is being felled and burned off by the stalwart settler surrounded by his helpers, islander and white, who look like so many dots amongst the giant fig-trees of the scrub and the great, burning heaps around them.
Our little steamer having now taken us some twenty miles up the river, we are landed at a place called the Pioneers’ Rest - being a spot on which have settled a number of immigrants from Lancashire, some four or five years ago. The banks here are very precipitous being some forty or fifty feet above the water. The ascent to the chapel, however, is made by an easy slope cut into the bank up which we walk, and before us stands the settlement’s chapel, the opening of which we that day came to celebrate. The building is constructed of pine weather boards, lined and ceiled, well lighted by windows, and has Venetian ventilators in each gable to secure the exit of the heated air and the interior possesses a light, lofty, cheerful, and comfortable appearance. The chapel is entirely unsectarian, being open to any minister of the Gospel. It is capable of seating 120 persons and is to be used both as a Sunday and as a day-school, as well as a place for public worship. The ground was given by Mr. Carruthers, and occupies a very fine position on the banks of the river amidst groves of mulberry trees and masses of growing cane. Mr. Case has been conducting public worship a little higher up the river in a private house for a long time past and Mr. M’Donnell has for the last three years conducted a Sunday school in the neighbourhood. -------- .
The logs from which the chapel timber was sawn were donated by timber-getters working in the neighbourhood, and were milled at a considerable reduction on the usual charge by Messrs. Wilson, Bartholomew and Company. The lamps and fittings were also sold by Messrs. Powell and Co. at a considerable reduction when they learned the purpose for which they were intended. We also learnt that the use of the steamer was generously donated by Mr. Walter Hay, and this was no small item in this successful undertaking. The building was constructed by Messrs. Brown and Coutts, for the very low sum of £40. The beams and other parts of the building were tastefully hung with evergreens and flowers and the mottoes which decorated the walls were very appropriate for a building intended to be used by various Protestant sects. So good was the attendance from the locality and from Maryborough, that the tables had to be re-laid three times. About 300 persons were present. The proceedings were opened with singing and prayer. Mr. Case announced that the funds already subscribed and promised would suffice to liquidate the expenses incurred, with a slight balance left over. ----------.
Our departure was delayed as the little steamer had not sufficient water to float her, so we had to perambulate to a parade on the banks, which was quite gay with the lighted up cottages, the dancing and music, and the passing to-and-fro of visitors from the town and district. It now became time for our embarkation, and though it was somewhat foggy, the steamer landed her passengers at the ferry safely by 5 a.m. on Friday where, after three cheers for the captain, they repaired to their homes.”
On a Saturday morning in August his Excellency the Governor, Samuel Wensley Blackall, attended by Mr. Nicholson the acting private Secretary and Captain Heath held a levee in the Court House where the following dignitaries were accorded private converse with his Excellency the Governor: the Police Magistrate, Mr. G. Faircloth; the Water Police Magistrate, Mr. R. B. Sheridan; the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr. B. G. Sheridan; Mr. See; the Medical Officer to the Government, Dr. Brown and the Mayor, Mr. H. Stoward. His Worship, the Mayor, then introduced to his Excellency the following Aldermen of the Maryborough Municipal Council: - Walter Adams, H. Bonarius, John Cheyne, T. Hutchins, T. N. Milner, Mr. Murray, M. S. Walsh, and the Town Clerk T. Woodward.
In September 1869, frustrated by the lack of a response to his activities in connection with the acquisition of funding for a road bridge crossing the Mary River at Maryborough to replace the existing ferry, Walter Adams’s patience was finally exhausted and, as a consequence, he prepared and dispatched the following letter to the Maryborough Chronicle:
Fellow Townsmen,
You have shown by your every act that you can give honour where honour is due. You have shown your loyalty to your Queen and your respect for her gracious Majesty’s representative, whom we all believe to be both good and true and will do all that he can for the welfare of the colony. But while we have been doing honour to his Excellency, what has been doing in Parliament? Why, they put your member in durance for uttering that naughty word ‘bloke’ and, because he had the pluck to tell them, I bet he would not apologise for uttering a word that is spoken in almost all classes of society. Is not this insulting? Perhaps not! Have you not held public meetings, and signed petitions, and sent them to the Parliament? Has the Government taken any notice of all this? The answer is, “Yes”, they have seen the petitions for a bridge across the Mary, but “No” you are not to get it but instead a steam ferry. So, in the face of all your protests and in the face of receiving from this port, and in Brisbane for goods shipped to this port, something like £100,000 per annum they are going to give you most likely something worse than you have now. After trying to close the mouth of our member, they will give us £2,000 for a steam punt seasoned with this little bit of savoury, as was given by one of the Ministers on the vote. If the Government provides the punt, of course they take the toll. Is not this rich, ye men of Maryborough? The Government is not fleecing you enough, but they will give you something like what you have, or perhaps worse, take the tolls and leave you the honour of taking the tolls for it out of your own funds.
Arise, then, I say! Sleep no longer but meet together again. Call upon your Town Council to apply for some of the town reserves to be given them to dispose of for bridge purposes, and we will soon have one. We want nothing ornamental but something useful. Can the Government refuse to give us lands when they have given them to Brisbane? I believe not, because it would be injustice without a cloak.
I am, fellow townsmen, humbly yours,
Walter Adams,
Maryborough, September 9, 1869.
In October 1869 the Chronicle, perhaps desperate for material to publish in that week’s edition, included the following article.
“Monster cabbages are generally held to be a proof of famine in the realms of journalistic reporting. If the assertion holds good our literary larder must be very slenderly stocked indeed, for we feel it incumbent on us to do justice with pen and ink, as we hope to do with knife and fork, to a splendid specimen, a very patriarch, of the brassica tribe, which was yesterday submitted for our inspection and acceptance by Mr. Walter Adams. It weighs 17 pounds and though perhaps inferior, in point of weight, to many of those produced on the Darling Downs, it vindicates in a very creditable manner the capabilities of our warmer coast climate and soil, as well as the horticultural skill of the producer in so dry a season as in the recent past.” Clearly Walter was maintaining his agricultural experimentation at a time when growers had to make decisions between the cultivation of known, predictable crops or of crops having an unknown local adaptability but that may have had the potential to produce significantly greater profits.
Copper was discovered in 1869 in the vicinity of the future Mount Perry, approximately 100 kilometres west of the site of the future Bundaberg Township, by Henry Dingle a local squatter whilst grazing sheep. Mr. Ebenezer Vickery formed a company in Sydney with a subscribed capital of £10,000 and the company commenced mining operations at Mount Perry in 1871. A Mount Perry township was quickly established and its population expanded rapidly. Over the four years following 1871 two thousand tons of copper were produced for a realised value of £160,000. A network of mines was soon operating in the district including the Normanby, Wolca, Ellendale, Edina, Moolboolaman, Boolboonda and New Monta workings.
Over the period 1871 to 1872 the population of Mount Perry (then called Tenningering) increased from 10 to 800 persons with a further increase to 1,000 by 1875. In the early 1870’s, twenty hotels sprang up in the town to cater for the high proportion of men without families on the mining field. At the time of discovery, the location of the site that was to accommodate the future Mount Perry was known by its aboriginal name of “Gnoorgnoor”, which meant ‘the burial-ground’, according to George E. Loyau. The township was named after Samuel Augustus Perry the Deputy Surveyor General who accompanied Assistant-Surveyor J. C. Burnett, on their expedition to Gladstone. Mount Perry’s heyday was to occur in 1907 when its population reached 3,675 persons which gave it a population then equivalent to that of Cairns or Mackay. Following the example of many other old mining towns its population has since suffered a major reduction.