Karen B

Mug shots – Julius Goeldner’s Turbulent Life.

The heroically named Julius Caesar Alexander Goeldner loved a drink. He also had a furious temper. An enthusiastic indulgence in the former weakness gave free rein to the latter characteristic, which brought Julius Goeldner to the attention of the Brisbane Police for thirty years. Julius Caesar Alexander Goeldner was born in Brisbane in 1862, oneContinue reading “Mug shots – Julius Goeldner’s Turbulent Life.”

Foot Races, Amateur Theatrics and an Influx of Wizards: Pre-Separation Entertainment in Moreton Bay.

How did we entertain ourselves in those first days of free settlement? In the rough and ready early years, sawyers, blacksmiths and stockmen from out of town congregated in places with names like the Sawyer’s Arms and the Bush Commercial Inn. Apart from hard-working men getting really quite drunk together, organized public entertainments took aContinue reading “Foot Races, Amateur Theatrics and an Influx of Wizards: Pre-Separation Entertainment in Moreton Bay.”

Thomas Ellison Brown, “Jack the Sponger.”

Thomas Ellison Brown was better off when people left him alone. The trouble was, they wouldn’t. People hounded him all his life, and it always went badly when they did. Born in Hull, Yorkshire in 1845 to Samuel and Hannah Brown, Thomas emigrated to Australia in 1862. He wanted to make his way in theContinue reading “Thomas Ellison Brown, “Jack the Sponger.””

School Days

Mrs Esther Roberts was Queensland’s first schoolteacher, brought up to the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement in 1826 to instruct the children of the 57th Regiment under Captain Logan’s command. The curriculum is lost to time, but it is safe to assume the children (8 boys and 8 girls) were taught reading and writing, some mathematics,Continue reading “School Days”

James Duffy – Crime and Misfortune

Inmate No. 3 of the Proserpine. The Proserpine Reformatory couldn’t reform James Duffy. Unfortunately, nothing could. The son of a colourful ticket of leave man, young James led a life of petty crime and misadventure. James was born in Brisbane on 22 July at 1856, the third son of Timothy Duffy and Catherine Fahey. HisContinue reading “James Duffy – Crime and Misfortune”

The Brisbane Hospital 1885

If the early 1880s had been trying for the Brisbane Hospital, 1885 was a nightmare. Staff went missing, patients went missing and money went missing. The Hospital was the subject of a daring undercover story in the Courier, and an unfavourable Auditor-General’s Department report – the first conducted, apparently, in eighteen years. The year beganContinue reading “The Brisbane Hospital 1885”

The Queen of the Artemisia

1848 was a year of unrest and revolution in Europe. The world seemed to be in uproar. And uproar would find its way to Brisbane Town that year, not in the form of an uprising, but in the form of the Queen of the Artemisia. Before Dr Lang rounded up industrious protestants to populate “Cooksland,”Continue reading “The Queen of the Artemisia”

The Brisbane Hospital 1884

Hands-on ministrations, ‘horrors’ and vice-regal tours. By 1884, the turbulent administration of Dr Kesteven was a memory, but the Hospital still faced public criticism, largely due to its inability to make inroads into the typhoid problem. The causes of infectious disease were imperfectly known, but the appalling state of public hygiene in Brisbane in theContinue reading “The Brisbane Hospital 1884”

The Brisbane Hospital 1882-1883

Few institutions have undergone an ordeal the like of the troubles of the Brisbane Hospital in the 1880s. Accused of medical, financial and managerial incompetence, the hospital battled its way through catastrophic outbreaks of typhoid and emerged at the end of the decade being lavishly praised by the same press that had vilified it earlier.Continue reading “The Brisbane Hospital 1882-1883”

The Last Moreton Bay Murderer

The 10th prisoner is a shadowy figure in the history of Moreton Bay. He arrived in 1825, sentenced to life by the Sydney Bench for an offence not recorded in the Chronological Register of Prisoners. His record goes on to state that he was 40-year-old cook, of average height and swarthy, born in Naples. HeContinue reading “The Last Moreton Bay Murderer”