A Man, A Time
and A Place

This is a story of the evolution from riverbank sites of native bush land into vigorous and rapidly expanding townships over a short period of time and of the development of the region within which they were enclosed. It is also of a pioneer, together with his family, a group of his early associates from the lower Mary River area, and other competent settlers from varying locations, whose dedicated involvement and co-operation in civic matters helped to solve the problems that occurred in the development of lower Burnett River district, in an environment of widely varying colonial government policies, whilst establishing thriving agricultural communities on the subtropical east coast of Australia.

It is also the story of the development of agricultural industries, of an early pioneer’s numerous agricultural experiments, and of the physical, commercial and rational contributions that he and many others made towards the introduction and promotion of the prosperous industries required for the rapid development of thriving communities in the Wide Bay region .

And it is of that pioneer’s consequent representation of his community by participation in the colonial governance, and of that governance itself, which had such dramatic effects upon the fortunes of the evolving settlements and agricultural industries of that which has become the sovereign State of Queensland and which was, in those days, the British Colony of Queensland.