It started out as a bank hold-up in a small western Queensland town. There was a shot fired, and an injury sustained. The robber’s getaway attempt descended into farce as a racehorse and a sheepdog became involved in a chase that ended up with the fugitive surrendering in a tree. In just two months, theContinue reading “The Cunnamulla Bank Job.”
The Further Hazards of Old Brisbane
More threats to public safety and happiness from the early days of European settlement in Brisbane. Termagants The Victoria Hall seemed to be the only part of Brisbane that welcomed termagants, and that was for theatrical purposes only. The idea that women might get drunk and/or fight was simply too much for the Courier. InContinue reading “The Further Hazards of Old Brisbane”
18 June 1815 – the Battle of Waterloo
And the Veterans who helped create Brisbane “I say, Carruthers, don’t trip over that dead French chappie”. Waterloo. As any schoolchild knows, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo in 1815. Well, actually, if the curriculum they study today is anything like the one I passed through, largely unscathed, schoolchildren todayContinue reading “18 June 1815 – the Battle of Waterloo”
The Hazards of Life in Old Brisbane
It’s quite comforting to look back on old Brisbane and find that many of the hazards of life these days also troubled our forebears. The river still has its surprises for the unwary. Pet ownership attracts all manner of official scrutiny, not to mention revenue-raising. Traffic is still appalling and drunks still populate our watchhouses.Continue reading “The Hazards of Life in Old Brisbane”
The Health of the Colony – Free Settlement
FROM CONVICT HOSPITAL TO GENERAL HOSPITAL Sick people – please advise The years 1841and 1842 saw settlers, servants, merchants and labourers moving into or through the township. It seems to have escaped the notice of the Government that these people might need services and infrastructure in order to carve out their existence in Moreton Bay.Continue reading “The Health of the Colony – Free Settlement”
The Health of the Colony – the Convict Era
The Convict Hospital When the Moreton Bay penal colony closed for business in 1842 and became a town, the official records dispersed, mainly to Sydney. Many were lost, some fetched up in unusual places, but a remarkable number of documents survived the ensuing 200 years. The records of the Moreton Bay Hospital have largely survivedContinue reading “The Health of the Colony – the Convict Era”
A Sack of Ghosts, Desiccated Canaries, Kilts v Trousers
THE STRANGE WORLD OF THE EARLY 1870s, AS SEEN IN THE CLASSIFIEDS The School of the Arts, hitherto a rather stodgy institution, offered the most peculiar entertainments in the early 1870s. Not since the outbreak of wizardry in the 1850s had Brisbane flocked to anything like Chapman’s Wonders: Legerdemain effects involve sleight of hand, presumablyContinue reading “A Sack of Ghosts, Desiccated Canaries, Kilts v Trousers”
The Trials of Annie Clarke
Annie Clarke saw a great deal of courtrooms during her colourful career in Northern Queensland. Some extracts from the reports of her hearings at Millchester gathered here show the times she lived in – times when women who had sex with men they were not married to were not entitled to be believed as witnesses.Continue reading “The Trials of Annie Clarke”
The Marrying Kind
Bigamy in Colonial Queensland – PART TWO Annie Clarke must have been quite a gal. She scandalised three colonies, underwent at least six marriage ceremonies, and created news wherever she went. Who she actually was is hard to pin down, probably because of the number of husbands and surnames she racked up in a hecticContinue reading “The Marrying Kind”
“A Double Fraud, Double Treachery and Double Infamy.”
Judge Innes, Rockhampton District Court, 17 June 1867, sentencing a bigamist. Bigamy in Colonial Queensland – PART ONE Moreton Bay Courier, 1859 Whoever W.H.G. of Nanango was, he or she would have done well to take note of Brown’s Billy’s warning in the Courier’s classifieds in October,1859. Bigamy attracted stiff sentences of penal servitude, notContinue reading ““A Double Fraud, Double Treachery and Double Infamy.””
Moreton Bay and More 