Preface

In the mid to late 1860’s, and into the 1870’s, an energetic and far-sighted group of people came together on the banks of the Lower Burnett River and, over the next twenty years, they were to establish a prosperous, permanent settlement that, in 1868, had acquired the name of Bundaberg. The diverse and complementary nature of these settlers’ expertise, as derived from their earlier experiences in their countries of origin as well as in other locations in the colonies, and especially Maryborough, was to serve the infant Bundaberg well.

It is beyond both my ability and my ambition to describe the multiple paths by which the great majority of these people, often with their families, were to converge on the Lower Mary and, at later dates, the Lower Burnett settlements. I will therefore confine my description firstly to the experiences of one such immigrant family and then to the mention of a significant number of other highly competent settlers, including those like-minded pioneers who were to relocate, as did this family, from the then established township of Maryborough on the lower Mary River, to an appealing new location on the lower Burnett River with its rich volcanic soils.

The following work is comprised of material that had, in the main, not been included in the earlier work by my brother John and myself on BUNDABERG’S BEGINNINGS. It is hoped that the material included in this publication will give a clear picture of the atmosphere prevailing in the early days of Wide Bay’s development and, in particular, that of the Maryborough and Bundaberg settlements as well as a description of the successes and hardships experienced generally in the expansion of the Wide Bay district and, in some regards, of the Queensland colony in general. A study of the archival records makes it obvious that the establishment of liveable, permanent settlements does not provide material for a continuous narrative; instead we find that we have on our hands descriptions of a multitude of fragmented decisions, happenings and achievements - perhaps a mirror of life itself on a larger scale.

It is an uncomfortable feeling to realize that, with the passing of my generation, much of the knowledge of that which was to us the ‘not so old days’ and of our understanding of the activities and lifestyles of those days will be lost. Just as, with the wisdom of hindsight, we should have asked many more questions than we did of the generations that preceded us, the answers that we could have provided to many similar questions will probably, in turn, take their departure with us. It was my generation that had the opportunity to view the prototype of the first commercially successful mechanical harvester of unfired sugarcane, as designed and displayed by the Toft Brothers in the Bundaberg area, and to associate with the well paid but hard-working manual sugarcane cutters whose seasonal jobs the harvester was designed to replace. In this regard I still retain my own (now well-worn) cane-knife, a gardening tool of considerable adaptability.

In describing the events that resulted in the creation of the civic landmarks of Bundaberg that were so prominent in the nineteen-forties and fifties, many of which were in existence as far back as the late 1880’s, is to detail a chain of events in the exercise of patient co-operation. However, as pedestrian as some of these events now may appear, their consequent achievements were far from being unremarkable, unrewarding or pedestrian. To this end I have documented many of the activities generated by these events in the hope that there will be readers, in some future time, who will find their recording to be both of interest and of some relevance to their specific areas of expertise.

When describing the nature of past civic decision making, and of its consequent results, this work describes the genesis of many of the landmarks that were so familiar to myself and to my contemporaries, the schoolchildren of the 1940’s and 50’s. Anyone living in Bundaberg in the late 1940’s would have readily recognized the town's streetscapes and the drystone walls of the cane fields that had existed as early as the late l880’s. In those days the Mount Perry railway line was still in operation and, in the 1940’s, the Woongarra line, the construction of which had commenced in 1894, was still to bask in its once a year day of glory by transporting enthusiastic revellers to the Railway Picnic that was held at Bargara in November of each year. Of course, over the period from 1890 to 1950, the Boer War, the First World War, the Great Depression and the Second World War had all intervened to inhibit significant change.

It could well be that a listing of the town’s streetscape changes that had occurred over the sixty-year period from 1890 to 1950 would be shorter than a listing of the earlier town features, constructed prior to 1890 and still existent in 1950. In this context some later changes such as the construction of the imposing Church of England (Anglican) and Presbyterian Churches, the now relocated show grounds and the town’s water towers come readily to mind, as does the extension of the paving of the district’s streets and the loss of the old China Town, but it is difficult to think of many more significant changes to Bundaberg’s prominent features that had been added over this later period. A consequence of this continuity is that a person of my generation has little difficulty in relating to the photographs and atmosphere of the town as it would have presented itself in the early 1890’s but, since the 1950’s, there have been very great changes to Bundaberg’s streetscapes.

In one sense my generation can serve as a bridge between the earlier and the current generations, having had contact both with our grandparents and now with our grandchildren, the more so in that our childhood environment was, in many ways, not dissimilar to the environment of seventy-five or more years earlier. Though living in a semi-urban environment we had poultry to manage for domestic use, dogs and cats having a run of the under-house and garden areas, horses used to round up the odd, recalcitrant milking cow, to assist friends in pulling their cattle from the scrub and to be shod by the Targo Street smithy, Mr. Blackburn, various toxic weeds to control and flood damaged fences to restore. We used axes, as against the now ubiquitous chainsaw, to control re-growth and to clear unwanted timber. In our childhood days telephones needed cranking to charge their capacitors, iceboxes were in use rather than refrigerators, woodburning kitchen stoves were the norm, radio circuitry was a work in progress and the viewing of television in our homes we had not then imagined.

My areas of experience and expertise, accumulated over a considerable period, were in the areas of engineering investigation, surveying and design in urban, rural and remote environments particularly with regards to water-supply, sewerage, irrigation and flood mitigation works. To the above experiences can be added involvement in the execution of both local and state government undertakings and in the area of state government administration. This experience, expertise and involvement is of considerable relevance to urban and rural development such as that which occurred in the early development of the Wide Bay district.

Investigations and surveys could sometimes involve extended periods of time in bush environments living under far from luxurious conditions. Additive to this bush experience were the many months spent prospecting with my brother John in remote areas of Queensland and in the Northern Territory, though the currency of my Miners Rights have been in a lapsed condition for decades and my old gold pans, no producers of great wealth, are rusty.

Consideration of the above, when viewed in conjunction with a large amount of unused material that had been accumulated in the preparation of the first book, and which described situations that were, in some ways, compatible with my own past experiences, lead me - after some serious consideration - to contemplate the publication of one more modest, limited edition book containing material which may be of use to future researchers.

Whilst carrying out investigations and surveys into water resource potential for the Queensland Government on the tip of Cape York, and in Torres Strait, I had the opportunity both to associate and to work, in a professional capacity, with the Melanesian population some of whom, now residents of Moa Island, have descended from Bundaberg’s original Pacific Islander labour force. This activity proved to be both productive and pleasant leaving behind many happy recollections of these days and an appreciation of the cheerful, friendly and co-operative nature common to these people. The experiences gained whilst on Moa Island gave me an insight into the nature of the people who were so vital to the favourable economics of Queensland’s sugar industry prior to the introduction of central mills, smaller cane farms, and the mechanization powered, either directly or indirectly, by the steam and internal combustion engines.

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time .

T. S. Eliot