Literary Societies and Clubs in Brisbane During the 1880S and 1890S

Civilising the City: Literary Societies and Clubs in Brisbane during the 1880s and 1890s Leanne M. Day, B. A; Grad.Dip. Lib.Sc. School of Arts, Media and Culture, Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2004 Abstract: The central argument of this thesis is that, for all their differences of membership, affiliation, and program, the various literary organisations formed in Brisbane in the 1880s and 1890s variously contributed to the definition, creation and promotion of what we would now call ‘civility’ in a colonial society that was widely perceived, even by its own inhabitants, as raw, rude and ‘un-civil’. Statement of Originality This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Leanne Day In Memory of my father Thomas John W. Day (7/9/1932 – 6/2/2002) Contents: Introduction ...........................................................................................1 Chapter One: Brisbane Literary Circle: the quest for ‘Universal Culture’.....................22 Chapter Two: The Johnsonian Club: ‘Those Ungodly Pressmen’ .................................70 Chapter Three: Scottish Societies ...............................................................................101 - Queensland Scottish Association - Brisbane Burns Club - Brisbane Caledonian Society and Burns Club ...........................123 Chapter Four: Women’s Literary Societies .................................................................127 - Shakespeare Reading Society ....................................................136 - Girls’ Reading Circle..................................................................141 Chapter Five: Young Men’s Christian Investigation and Improvement Society: Empowerment through Writing...........................................................146 Chapter Six: Valley Religious and Literary Association............................................173 Chapter Seven: South Brisbane Literary and Debating Society....................................185 Chapter Eight: Queensland Literary and Debating Societies’ Union ............................195 Chapter Nine: Brisbane Freethought Association: Liberty of Thought and Opinion ....216 Conclusion.........................................................................................240 Bibliography.......................................................................................252 Appendix Newspaper reports of societies and clubs............................................262 Acknowledgements: To my mother, Catherine Day, for being a continuing source of support and care. To my sister, Helen Day, who researched and tracked the life of Johnsonian Club member William Senior through British records. To my brother who regularly came to my rescue to transport cumbersome study paraphernalia (microfilm reader, desks, etc) to my house. To Judy Murphy, Wayne McNaught and Hilda Nolan for helping me decipher James Brunton Stephens’s handwriting. To Gareth Evans for enabling me to determine authorship of newspaper editorials by providing me with advice on standard practices in newspaper protocol during the 1880s-90s. To Jorn Harbeck for his assistance with finding information at the Queensland State Archives. To Heather Boreham, who has managed to remain a dear friend despite my frequently declaring weekends ‘People-Free’. To the State Library of Queensland for allowing me three weeks paid leave and for supporting my applications for leave to present conference papers. To Carolyn Nolan for giving me access to her family records. To Dr Jock Macleod for suggesting some life-saving references. And of course to my supervisor and mentor, Assoc/Prof Patrick Buckridge, for being so helpful, encouraging and patient throughout this project. Introduction In 1885, a visitor to Brisbane, a Melbourne travel writer Lachlan Beaton, published his impressions of the northern city in a ten-page article in the Melbourne Review, the third in a series on ‘Our Sister Cities’. The initial impressions are, to say the least, ambivalent. He notes ‘a curious air of newness about the whole town’, causing, at first, ‘a feeling almost of embarrassment, as a guest might experience upon arriving at an entertainment before the preparations were quite completed’.1 It reeks of prosperity, but is ‘a parvenu amongst cities’, and the approach up the Brisbane River – twenty-five miles of ‘melancholy swamp, with mangroves waist-deep in water’, which ‘set the traveller a-wondering how on earth he could ever reach terra firma, should he have the misfortune to be cast on these slimy shores’ – hint at a recent and as yet only partial emergence from the primeval ooze itself. First impressions give way to a genuine admiration for the force, vitality and beauty of the place, evident especially in the number and scale of the churches and public buildings, such as the just- completed Queensland National Bank, and the Colonial Mutual Assurance Company ‘looking [significantly] rather like a section of an ecclesiastical building in the wrong place’ – and in the delightful prospects of Domain and river.2 But the most striking feature of the city, Beaton felt – ‘the real glory of Queen Street’ – was its luxury shops: ‘music shops, milliners, confectioners, art furniture dealers, booksellers, highly-coloured chemists and fashionable tobacconists’.3 He was also impressed with the recreational and sporting facilities, catering for cricket, football, lawn-tennis, sailing or rowing, as well as fishing and walking; ‘in every direction there are inducements for 1 L.Beaton, ‘Our Sister Cities, No.3 – Brisbane’, Melbourne Review, Vol X (Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane & Auckland: George Robertson & Co., 1885), p. 32. 2 Beaton, p. 34. 3 Beaton, pp. 34-5. 1 healthy and manly competition in athletic’, as well as opportunities (‘though not much frequented’) for gentler, more contemplative retreat in the Botanical Gardens, Bowen Park and elsewhere.4 But there were reservations to be entered about Brisbane – serious ones. ‘In considering what the fathers of the city have done for the intellectual diversion of the people the result is hardly so satisfactory.’5 Musical performances, though numerous, well- attended and worthy, fall short of reputed standards; and he is surprised and somewhat scandalised to find a city as wealthy and important as Brisbane with no ‘picture gallery’, Beaton was also disturbed to find that the largest bookshop in Brisbane did not cater to the more cultivated reader. To his inquiry after a copy of Pepys’s Diary the attendant responded by confusing it with a Letts’ personal diary. The situation goes from bad to worse: Not being able to get Pepys, we asked the young lady if she had “Boswell’s Life of Johnson”- Dr. Johnson. “Doctor Johnson?” she said. “Isn’t he dead?” “Yes,” we replied, “he has been dead for some time.” “I thought so; well, we don’t take much interest in him in Brisbane now,” and they had no such book she said. Finally, in despair, we asked if they had any French novels. “No! and you can’t get such a thing in Brisbane!! This remark, uttered by the young person with undisguised impatience at the unusual demands of her eccentric customer, closed the negotiations (38). Ignorance was bad enough. What concerned Beaton even more was the attitude and manners of the shop assistants. The Brisbane community by the mid-1880s was an unusual mix of ‘old lags’, recent immigrants, ‘currency’, and Aborigines; given the diversity of ethnic identities and legal statuses, little wonder if a certain ‘flattening’ of the norms of social deference had occurred among the working population, especially the younger people. Beaton attributes the perceived incivility or ‘bad manners’ of Brisbane shop workers not to the heterogeneity of the population but rather to the spread of colonial ideas of democracy: 4 Beaton, pp. 36-7. 5 Beaton, p. 37. 2 Far from being obsequious . they are hardly even respectful. Being a democratic country, Jack is as good as his employer (the word master is banished entirely from the vocabulary, as being an incongruous and unnecessary impertinence in a free land), and certainly on a level with his customer.6 His own attitude seems, on the whole, to have been one of cheerful, if slightly rueful tolerance; but the concern he registers is real nonetheless: While agreeable to impart information, he prefers giving advice, and he gives it. And, by main strength as it were, the shopman establishes himself on a friendly and even familiar footing with his employer’s client; and the best plan for the latter, if he wishes to be attended to, is to humbly accept the position, and make the best of it.7 Beaton’s remarks about a lack of civility and cultivation in the Brisbane community expressed concerns that were shared and echo- ed by many prominent residents. As discussed in chapter One, for example, members of the [North] Brisbane School of Arts committee and various newspaper editors were very vocal about their concerns in print, and three years after Beaton’s visit, many of them rallied together to establish Brisbane’s first reading union, the Brisbane Literary Circle. It was not the only, or indeed the first, such response to the problem. In 1878, at a time of recovery from a severe drought and an economic depression, the Johnsonian Club

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