Lecture Series
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Selected lectures on North Queensland History from the CityLibraries Sir Robert Philp Lecture Series 9 June 2008 – 11 May 2009 Sir Robert Philp Lecture S eries Townsville City Council Published by Townsville City Council, PO Box 1268, Townsville. Queensland. 4810 Published November 2009 Copyright Townsville City Council and the respective authors of each lecture. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publisher. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-9807305-2-4 Editor: Trisha Fielding Cover image: View of Flinders Street, featuring the Burns Philp building, c. 1913, courtesy John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Contents Acknowledgements iii Foreward iv Introduction vi Why is Robert Philp worth remembering? 8 Professor Geoffrey Bolton A History of North Queensland in Black and White: a personal retrospective 20 Dr Noel Loos Ellis Rowan: Flower Hunting in the Tropics 30 Dr Judith McKay William Lennon (1849-1938): a North Queenslander of ‘perpetual contradictions’ 38 Dr Rodney Sullivan The White Man in the Tropics 58 Dr Russell McGregor The World’s Great Age… the Golden Years: Queensland’s Miners, Poets and 68 Story-Tellers Dr Cheryl Taylor Industrial Treasure: North Queensland’s Mining Heritage 84 Dr Janice Wegner Livestock and Landscape: A history of the settlement of Queensland by cattle 92 Dr Claire Brennan Townsville’s Neglected Founder: The Mysterious Mr Black 104 Dr Dorothy M. Gibson-Wilde About the contributors in this series 116 ii Acknowledgements CityLibraries is grateful for the generous contribution of a Q150 Community Funding Grant, which assisted in the delivery of this lecture series. The following people have contributed to the success of the series, and CityLibraries would like to sincerely thank all of them for their efforts: Geoffrey Bolton, Noel Loos, Judith McKay, Rodney Sullivan, Russell McGregor, Cheryl Taylor, Janice Wegner, Claire Brennan, Nigel Chang, Shelley Greer, Dorothy Gibson- Wilde, Janet Greeley, Ron Store, Peter McLeod, Greg Manning, Rosita Henry, Jenny Lane, Ian Frazer, Michael Clarke, Prue Dargusch, Nola Kuilboer, Crista Harrison, Judith Jensen, Kieran Rosser, Shan Boller, Susan Coker, Jodie Salisbury, Dawn Bopf, and Library Circulation staff. Particular thanks go to Alicia Bolam for her unwavering support and assistance throughout the series. Thanks also to all those people who attended the lectures month after month. Your support of the series was extremely encouraging. Trisha Fielding Lifelong Learning Officer CityLibraries iii Foreword To quote from Dr Janice Wegner, one of the lecturers in the Sir Robert Philp Lecture series, ‘we tend to value heritage when we understand the history behind it’. This lecture series, hosted by CityLibraries Townsville, provided an opportunity for us to understand the history and heritage of the north and our place in the history of Queensland. We thank the Queensland Government for a Q150 Community Funding Grant which made the lectures possible. The series was launched in June 2008 by Professor Janet Greeley, then Pro Vice Chancellor of Arts, Education and Social Sciences at James Cook University, and was named for Sir Robert Philp who was the Premier of Queensland twice in the early 1900s. Philp was a partner in the successful shipping agents and merchants, Burns, Philp and Co. which was founded in Townsville in the late nineteenth century and which became well known throughout the Pacific region. The series of ten historical lectures ran from June 2008 to May 2009 and covered a wide array of topics that focused on the north’s important role in the political, economic and social history of the state. I congratulate CityLibraries staff on their choice of participants and I thank the presenters for their enthusiasm. The series attracted notable academics including Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Bolton. His 1963 publication A Thousand Miles Away: a History of North Queensland until 1920 remains the definitive history of European settlement of North Queensland to 1920. The lecturers who participated in this series have provided a unique window into the past and this booklet will ensure that future generations also have the opportunity to learn from their insights. I believe that this lecture series has renewed awareness of the rich history and heritage of our region and I commend CityLibraries for its vision in hosting the series. It seems fitting that the library was awarded a Silver Governor’s Heritage Award for excellence in heritage conservation works or action at the National Trust of Queensland Bendigo Bank Heritage Awards this year. Councillor Les Tyrell Mayor of the city of Townsville November 2009 iv v Introduction This introduction was delivered by Professor Janet Greeley at the inaugural lecture on 9th June 2008. This series is part of the Townsville celebration of Queensland’s 150 th birthday. Through these ten lectures the new Townsville city is bringing the history of north Queensland to the north Queensland community. They were aided in this worthwhile enterprise through the generous support of the Q150 Community Funding program. The Sir Robert Philp Lecture Series is the brainchild of CityLibraries - Thuringowa Central. The team at CityLibraries: Judith Jensen and Trisha Fielding, has put together an outstanding series of lectures, covering a wide range of important local developments and key individuals. The lecture series focuses on north Queensland’s important role in the political, economic and social history of the state and the nation. It has been named in the honour of an influential politician and business figure, Sir Robert Philp. Sir Robert was a rather controversial figure and a man of strong convictions and it is wonderful to have such an eminent historian as Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Bolton to deliver the inaugural lecture of the series. I am sure Professor Bolton will give us a unique insight into the intriguing figure that was Sir Robert Philp. It is particularly pleasing for me to see the significant contributions being made to this lecture series by James Cook University’s historians, archaeologists and literary experts, past and present. JCU has a long and proud history of producing top-class regional history. This lecture series is an opportunity to showcase to Townsville and the north Queensland community what we have done. The following lecture (after tonight’s) will be presented by Dr Noel Loos who will expound upon black-white relations and the settlement of the north and in so doing reflect on how he came to be one of Keith Windschuttle’s targets in the recent History Wars. Drs Nigel Chang and Shelley Greer will explore aspects of the archaeological history of the north. In his lecture The White Man in the Tropics , Dr Russell McGregor tells of the early medical research and political forces which influenced the pace and direction of development in north Queensland. Dr Jan Wegner from our Cairns campus will tell of the vital influence of the mining industry and of the outstanding mining heritage places that survive today. Dr Claire Brennan, our newest staff member and a special import from New Zealand will tell us of the trials and tribulations of establishing a livestock industry in the tropical landscape. The arts in north Queensland will be portrayed through an exploration of its writers by Dr Cheryl Taylor, adjunct Associate Professor in literature at JCU, and by Dr Judith McKay of the Queensland Museum, who will focus on artistic representations of north Queensland through the work of Ellis Rowan, an impressive woman and one of the most celebrated flower painters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The life of businessman and politician William Lennon is investigated by Dr Rodney Sullivan and finally Dr Dorothy Gibson-Wilde, local historian and JCU alumnus ends the series with a challenge. Who was the true discoverer of Townsville? Robert Towns or was it John Melton Black? I hope you’ve made a monthly booking in your calendar for the next nine months so you can witness the re-birth of north Queensland through its history being brought to life right here, in this new Townsville city. On behalf of the Townsville community, I would like to thank the CityLibraries –Thuringowa Central team for their foresight and imagination in putting together this outstanding array of speakers and it is my great pleasure to officially launch the Sir Robert Philp Lecture Series. Professor Janet Greeley vi vii Why is Robert Philp worth remembering? Professor Geoffrey Bolton Lecture presented by Professor Bolton at Riverway 9 June 2008 SIR ROBERT PHILP LECTURE SERIES Number 1 9 June 2008 8 I warmly welcome the opportunity to deliver this first Sir Robert Philp lecture, not least because Philp has been crossing my path for nearly fifty years. I first encountered him in 1959 when I was researching for a history of North Queensland, and a few years later as a by-product wrote an article about the rise of the firm of Burns, Philp. This led to a chapter on Philp in Dennis Murphy and Roger Joyce’s anthology Queensland Political Portraits (1978). Later I read the two-volume history of Burns, Philp and Company by Ken Buckley and Kris Klugman, as well as Lyn Megarrity’s research on his role in the Queensland mining industry. Now that I’ve reached years of maturity, if not discretion, it is time to see whether I need to change my judgments of a man whom I’ve described as “the capitalist as politician”. Maybe I do. Robert Philp was born at Glasgow on 28 December 1851, the year of the mighty gold discoveries in New South Wales and Victoria. At the age of ten, in 1862, he emigrated with his parents to Queensland, there to embark on a success story to delight any nineteenth-century Scot.