Significant Mills

Their owners in the Bundaberg area

THE CRANS OF MILLAQUIN

Edward William Knox, the son of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company’s manager Edward Knox, successfully trialled the establishment of central sugar mills in the Clarence River area of northern New South Wales in the early 1870’s and this model was soon to be trialled further north in Queensland. Though some smaller mills continued to operate, an entry in an 1896 sugar journal observed:

The epoch of small mills and large areas of semi-cultivated land is passing away. The small mills are now very few and far between … .

Following disastrous years for the sugar industry generally in 1876-77, particularly in the northern areas of the state, a more prosperous era for the Bundaberg sugar industry was to eventuate when, as was foreshadowed in the Mail of February 22, 1878:

The Messrs. Cran of the firm of Tooth and Cran, of Yengarie [near Maryborough - R. L. C.] are now on a tour of inspection to the various farms and holdings in this locality, and, we are pleased to learn, are more impressed than ever with the great agricultural capabilities of the district. Once the sugar industry is fairly established here, the district will rapidly become, what we have frequently prognosticated for it, one of the most thriving and prosperous districts in Queensland, subsidising and enriching as the industry will be to many minor industries, which, in their turn, will absorb a deal of labor, and thereby help to build up a large, industrious and progressive population. We have it almost for positive that the firm mentioned are, on proper and satisfactory grounds being shown, prepared to erect sugar-mills, on certain conditions, at convenient places along the river and to establish a large refinery here - larger, even than Yengarie, and purchase the cane-juice of all growers and in any quantity … .

In the words of Mr. J. Y. Walker:

The Bundaberg farmers were sufficiently alive to their own interests to move at once in the matter. On March 7 a large meeting convened by Mr. A. C. Walker of Bingera was held in the Commercial Hotel at which the subject was fully discussed, and the following committee was appointed to confer with Messrs. Tooth and Cran with a view to the early realisation of the expectations raised, namely, Messrs. W. Adams, A. Walker, E. Tanner,* A. Dunn, J. Nott and R. Jones .

[NOTE: The same Rev. Edward Tanner who had officiated at the marriage of Walter and Mary in Gayndah in 1854, and who had been the pastor at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Maryborough for the two and a half years to July 1875 - R. L. C.]

A letter received from Mr. Robert Cran in reply to enquiries by the committee secretary Mr. Tanner, gives the state of affairs at this early stage. It states in part:

We are most favorably impressed with your district, and we think there is a good opening for investment of capital which would be profitable to all parties as well as the district in general. The investment of such a large amount of capital, you will understand, requires consideration and encouragement; the matter is under consideration with us, and in reply to your enquiries:

I. Whether it is our intention to establish works in your district? We have every wish to do so, but until our arrangements are complete we are not prepared to give a decided answer.

II. Where? We have no decided place. We think on the South side, so as to take the Woongarra Scrub by one main juice-pipe with branches to each crushing plant, the juice from the riverside to be conveyed by barges.

III. The rates per gallon? Our price per gallon would be the same as at Yengarie. Our price here last season was £21 for 2,240 gallons of juice marking a density of 10 degrees on Beaume’s saccharometer. Price varies according to the market price of sugar in the colony.

IV. The mode of crushing? This is a matter I have been making some inquiries concerning, and I think had better be left until we meet the committee, which I propose to do so soon as our arrangements are so far complete as to be able to speak decidedly what we would be prepared to do.

Protracted negotiations followed with the Crans requesting a guarantee that a sufficient acreage of cane would be planted before committing themselves to so large an undertaking. On receiving satisfactory assurances in this regard the decision to erect a large refinery was made. A desirable site was obtained on the river bank immediately adjoining the Burnett Sawmills; and on June 7, 1878 the Mail reported that,

Mr. John Cran during the week has been making several arrangements in connection with the preliminaries necessary for so extensive an undertaking, and has set a brick maker, Mr. H. Schliemann, at work in order that the bricks required for the boiler foundations, etc., will be in readiness by the time their engineer, Mr. Thomas, can spare the leisure to inspect the place. The firm is rather surprised at the incredulity of some of the farmers, and is determined to go on erecting the machinery as a proof of its intentions at all events.

In August 1880 Mr. R. Cran and the engineer Mr. Thomas arrived to lay out the site of the refinery buildings.

Mr. Cran senior travelled to England to purchase the necessary machinery and, in January 1881, a tender was let for the erection of the buildings. The contract for the supply of 400,000 clay bricks, to be used in the remainder of the construction, was won by Mr. Schliemann, in September 1881. Manufacture of the bricks took place mainly in the twenty acre paddock in which the refinery was to stand.

In November a strong cyclonic wind damaged a portion of the partially erected building causing a loss of £2,000 and a delay in the construction. The first cargo of machinery was landed from the barque Scottish Prince in January 1882; and in October of that year Millaquin, the largest sugar refinery in the Southern Hemisphere, started active operations, “the enormous mass of complicated machinery” erected under the supervision of Engineer Mr. Thomas worked smoothly.

The season of 1883, turned out to be a long and prosperous one and it was a testimonial to the tact and business talents of the managing director Mr. John Cran that no friction of competing claims arose among the numerous affiliated crushing mills attached. Sommerville Plantation provided one of these crushing-mills, the machinery for the Sommerville mill having landed in August 1882.

The separation of the growing of the sugar from the manufacturing was so satisfactory that the system was extended; and it became apparent that, for the Woongarra area alone, either Millaquin would need to double its receptive capacity or another refinery would be required to process the proposed output.

The meaning of this, as an indication of local development, is more fully realized when considering the capacity and connections of the refinery. The mill had a daily delivery, from the dozen or so crushing mills with which it was connected, of 95,000 gallons, the daily manufactured produce from which amounted to 50 to 60 tons during a season varying from six to eight months. The steam-power required was generated by seven large furnaces with a gross seasonal consumption of about 14,000 tons of coal. This was initially conveyed by sea, but was later carried by rail from Howard. About 5,000 tons of limestone was imported from Rockhampton to be burnt at Millaquin for mixing in the juice tanks of the crushing mills.

Church of England House of Worship on Moa Island – Torres Strait

Subsequently, and following density measurement, the juice was conveyed from these tanks, by means of force pumps, to a large sunken storage tank located in the refinery and capable of containing 100,000 gallons. The pumping was maintained for twenty-four hours a day, throughout the crushing season. The final process in the long mechanical refining chain resulted in the discharge of a continuous stream of sugar crystals onto the third floor of the sugar-house.

Church of England Mission – the Moa Island Church

The refinery manufactured its own gas for illumination purposes and the large amount of animal and vegetable charcoal required for filtering and other processes enabled an additional local processing industry to be set up. The pipes which conveyed the juice were laid underground, and formed a network of about twenty miles total length, the most remote juice mill being about eight miles from Millaquin.

The initial cost of this refinery was about £160,000; with significant later additions for appliance improvements. The cost of a mill overhaul was about £3,000, the annual wages varied according to the length of the crushing season from £10,000 to £15,000 and the annual working expenses varied from £45,000 to £60,000.

THE YOUNG FAMILY OF FAIRYMEAD

The Young family relocated from New Zealand and took up 3,200 acres of land on the northern side of the Burnett River, downstream from Bundaberg at Tantitha in 1880. The property, which consisted mainly of virgin land, was named Fairymead and was acquired from the original owners, A. H. and A. Brown. The Browns in turn relocated to the Maryborough area. Arthur, Horace and Earnest Young’s previous farming experience appears to have been in the grazing of sheep, a far call from the culture of sugarcane.

While Arthur and Horace consolidated the position at Fairymead, Earnest together with his father and his sister Florence, went to England to order the machinery for a mill which was to cost over £40,000 with extensive additional machinery to be acquired at a later date. Unfortunately the Young’s father, who was a party to the commercial venture, died whilst in England.

Fairymead’s first commercial crop was harvested in 1883. Fairymead juice was initially delivered to the Millaquin treatment facilities on the opposite side of the Burnett River by river transport. However by 1884 the Fairymead mill, which provided both heavy maceration and double crushing, was operational.

Florence Young was later to become very active in missionary works for the Church of England (Anglican Church) and was quite successful in this endeavour, particularly in her ministries to the Kanakas as head of the Queensland Kanaka Mission. Walter Adams was to comment favourably on Florence’s missionary work in the context of a speech which is recorded in Hansard and which contained comment on the presence of seven hundred Islanders at a function to mark her departure for China. Florence spent her later years as a missionary in the China and Pacific Island areas and was instrumental in the establishment of an Anglican mission on Moa Island in the Torres Strait, as described later in this work.

THE GIBSON AND HOWES FAMILIES OF BINGERA

William Gibson together with his sons Angus, William, James and John commenced sugar growing and milling on a selection at Hemmant in the vicinity of Brisbane in the early 1860’s. The name that they ascribed to their holding, Clydesdale, could well be an indication of their place of origin. In the early 1880’s William’s eldest son Angus extended the family holdings to additional areas including some – mostly virgin – red-soil scrub land at Bingera, approximately one-quarter of which was heavily timbered. The land of some 2,300 to 2,600 acres was acquired for £1,200 from its previous owner Morten Jensen who had been growing maize on the property for the Mount Perry miners. Mr. Jensen, originally from Denmark, then returned to his old trade and took up carpentry work with the Railway Department before again returning to the land.

Under difficult economic circumstances William formed a partnership with the brothers Nathaniel, John and Harold Howes and the 1882-84 period saw land clearing and planting of sugar cane, together with major infrastructure construction. Over 800 acres of land were cleared of forest and much of this timber became the construction material for the buildings and fences. The construction work included the sugar and saw mills, agricultural buildings, fencing, irrigation pump with its pipeline from the nearby Burnett River and a three mile long spur line to the Bundaberg to Mount Perry railway line which, fortuitously, had been completed in 1884.

Previously coal considered to be of high quality had been discovered on Alex Walker’s Bingera property. This had become a major factor in Bundaberg’s earlier promotion of its bid for the Bundaberg to Mt Perry railway line and was the same coal measure that Walter Adams and his associates had pursued with very limited success on the other side of the Burnett River. However Bingera did not follow Millaquin Mill’s example and burn coal to provide its energy. Instead it purchased and burned the wood that had been accumulated by its neighbours in clearing their own lands, a win-win situation for both the mill and for its surrounding properties.

The mill commenced work in 1885 under the management of William Gibson who was able to apply the knowledge gained from his Brisbane experience. The total capital invested in the estate was £73,000, of which machinery and buildings cost £40,000, and tramways, wagons and implements £5,000. By 1887 Gibson and Howes had 1,000 acres under cane. The total wages for 1888 was over £12,000 of which over £9,000 was for white labour. The plantation in that year employed 98 Europeans 8 Chinese and 200 Kanakas. By about 1890 Gibson and Howes’ Bingera mill was purchasing the cane from about twenty-four small farms. Using machinery patented by Faucher and Clark, first quality sugar production was achieved with no molasses residue and on a relatively large scale for this time.

Privately owned mills such as Bingera and Fairymead soon evolved into central mills, processing the sugarcane of neighbouring growers, as had always been part of William’s business plan for Bingera. Their infrastructure was to help serve as a bulwark for the Bundaberg industry over the difficult years experienced by all plantation owners in the 1880’s. Over this period their milling operations evolved into operations that, in many ways, paralleled those of the Millaquin Mill.

AUGUSTUS PURLING BARTON OF MON REPOS

Duncraggan plantation was the selection made by Richard Jones in March 1871. By 1884 it had incorporated the Woodbine Mill which had been assembled in1882 by Buss and Jones.

Augustus Purling Barton had taken up land for a sugar plantation, named Mon Repos, in the Woongarra area somewhere prior to 1886. He had previously established Moolboolaman cattle station on Gin Gin Creek in the early 1860’s, having arrived in the Wide Bay district from England in 1851. Mr. Barton also acquired the neighbouring property of Duncraggan from Richard Jones, and in 1888 imported milling plant from Glasgow.

Over the period 1887-1888 the Mon Repos mill, together with mills at Windemere (the Notts), Springhill (the Noakes) and Waterview (Samuel Johnston), was reclassified from, “juice mill” to “complete sugar manufacturing”. Mon Repos and its mill was later taken over by the Queensland National Bank and renamed Qunaba (Qu-Na-Ba). However Mr. Barton retained his interest in Duncraggin

A side issue for the Mon Repos area was its choice as the land base for the laying of the New Caledonia trans-oceanic cable. This was a combined effort between the joint Queensland and New South Wales Colonies and the Paris based Societe Francaise Telegraphes Sous-Marine. The laying of the first section of this cable was commenced in August 1893 by the cable laying steamer Francois Arago . There is little evidence of the cable station remaining today (2009), and Mon Repos beach is now more famous for the annual nesting of its loggerhead turtles.

A QUESTION OF QUALITY

The following article from the Tribune of August 3, 1889 comments upon the quality of the 1888 season’s sugar, in this case from one of the smaller producers (the Windsor Mill) owned by John Gaylard of Woongarra. The article gives some insight into the prevailing ‘state of the art’ and of the then current perceptions of sugar as a commercial product. It said in part:

Windsor Plantation is high up in the hall of fame in connection with exhibition prize taking; and these specimens show the old prestige is in a fair way of being maintained.

• The first white is a clear, dry beautifully grained sugar;

• The second white, though not so clear, is quite dry and would rate well in its class;

• The first yellow is bright, well grained and apparently as perfect as such sugar is made; while

• The second yellow is a very excellent sugar for domestic use - far removed from ration and what would have been considered luxurious a few years ago .