Lost Friends, Advertisements and Bizarre Requests The wants and needs of Colonial Queensland come alive in their classified advertisements. Heart-rending tales of separated families sat beside requests for emu skins, and someone to take on their 11-year-old son (state terms to Mr. Doorey). Not to mention miracle hair restorers, moral circuses, and a strange deviceContinue reading “Lost Friends, Advertisements and Bizarre Requests”
Tag Archives: Characters
How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People in Colonial Queensland – Part 3.
Dr. Frederick Cumming in the 1860s. Henceforth, apart from one (disastrous, of course) toe-dip in the politics of West Moreton in 1867, Dr. Cumming would be known for his medical practice. There would be controversy, financial problems and some rather questionable verse. His experience of Brisbane in the 1860s would culminate in his return toContinue reading “How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People in Colonial Queensland – Part 3.”
How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People in Colonial Queensland – Part 2.
Dr. Cumming and Politics Toowoomba and Mr. Groom If there were factions in Ipswich society, they were completely outdone by the shenanigans taking place on the Darling Downs. Toowoomba and Drayton seethed at one another. Skirmishes took place in the correspondence pages of the Darling Downs Gazette, a new A.S. Lyons newspaper, which first issuedContinue reading “How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People in Colonial Queensland – Part 2.”
How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People in Colonial Queensland – Part 1.
Dr. Frederick Cumming, M.D. Ipswich Dr. Frederick Cumming spent sixteen years in Queensland, living and working in Ipswich, Drayton, Brisbane and on the diggings near Gympie. Due to his somewhat combative nature, combined with a perhaps misguided desire to influence local politics, his time in the Colony was a turbulent one. In later years, heContinue reading “How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People in Colonial Queensland – Part 1.”
Twaddle, Nonsense and Scurrilous Doggerel: Social Media Wars in Colonial Queensland.
Rants, scurrilous personal attacks, incoherent fury – colonial Queensland’s social media had it all. The medium was not the billionaire-owned, algorithm-powered app, but the Letters to the Editor column of the newspaper of your choice. One could put fountain pen to paper, pay one’s postage, and sit back in anticipation of one’s Views being broadcastContinue reading “Twaddle, Nonsense and Scurrilous Doggerel: Social Media Wars in Colonial Queensland.”
Waterloo, Trafalgar and Dunwich
Veterans of the Napoleonic Wars must have been a tough breed. A handful of them lived hard lives in Queensland, still working at hard physical labour in their seventies and eighties. There was no aged pension, and injury or illness in a labouring man removed their only means of earning a living. The Dunwich BenevolentContinue reading “Waterloo, Trafalgar and Dunwich”
A Law to Control the Poor
Mug Shots 1875 – Vagrancy Until 2005, Queensland had an antiquated statue on the books called Vagrants, Gaming And Other Offences Act 1931. It was a gloriously haphazard collection of offences, including, but not limited to: The Act’s purpose was “to make better provision for the prevention and punishment of offences by vagrants and disorderlyContinue reading “A Law to Control the Poor”
The Man Who Invented His Life
In December 1865, a man named James Keane recorded his history in the Register of Admissions to Dunwich Benevolent Asylum.[1] It was certainly impressive: “Arrived in Sydney by the Shamrock from Liverpool A.D. 1845. Employed by Messrs. Stenhouse and Hardy Solicitors, Elizabeth Street, Sydney. Was for a considerable time Editor of the “Moreton Bay Courier”Continue reading “The Man Who Invented His Life”
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”
Just Call Him “Lord”
NOTABLE BRISBANE PIONEERS – ARTHUR BULGIN “The emigrants per the Chaseley resemble in character and views those per the Fortitude. They consist, first, of respectable families, going out to settle on small farms, under the auspices of the Company, and to grow cotton and other tropical productions, in addition to those of Europe; second, ofContinue reading “Just Call Him “Lord””
Moreton Bay and More 