Sunshine and Shadow: A Study of the Well-Being of Queensland's Children During the Inter-War Years

Author Nunn, Elizabeth Nunn

Published 2010

Thesis Type Thesis (Masters)

School Shool of Humanities

DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/569

Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.

Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367654

Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au

Sunshine and Shadow: A study of the Well-Being of Queensland’s Children During the Inter-War Years

Elizabeth Juliet Nunn Bachelor of Arts Master of Arts Graduate Diploma in Local & Applied History Graduate Certificate in Public Sector Management Graduate Certificate in Arts (Writing, Editing & Publishing)

School of Humanities Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Griffith University

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Philosophy

November 2009

Statement of Originality

I, Elizabeth Nunn, declare 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.

Elizabeth Nunn November 2009

2 Abstract

This research is about the well-being of Queensland’s white children and young people during the inter-war period. There are three case studies covered in this thesis

– mountain camps, seaside schools and sand garden competitions. Mountain camps were held in the temperate climate mountains of Southeast Queensland to the west of the semi-tropical and tropical coastal plain for urban boys, and subsequently girls.

They were the working-class children of parents who could not afford to send them away from Brisbane’s heat during the enervating summer vacation. Seaside schools, which generally lasted for two weeks, were held at a variety of locations in Southeast

Queensland and Northern New South Wales. Many of the children and young people who attended these schools had not previously moved away from where they lived, let alone visited a beach. Sand garden competitions attracted hundreds of young participants and thousands of spectators, young and old. One of Brisbane’s newspapers promoted them, and the majority of the competitors were from Southeast

Queensland. Most of the successful participants were girls, and they prepared and practised for weeks leading up to each year’s competition.

Although three or four generations have passed since the inter-war years, these aspects of the child movement in Queensland remain important topics to be studied.

Not least, they illustrate how debate about the impact of the semi-tropics on the sickly and unfit urban children living along the Queensland coastal plain was translated into political and social action. Each of the case studies discussed in this thesis represents an attempt by contemporaries to address concerns about the relationship between environment and inheritance, through extending education to the outdoors. In each of

3 the following case studies, progressive and philanthropic individuals and groups who ran these popular camps and competitions achieved their aims despite degrees of indifference from government.

This thesis has set out to draw on a range of sources – ranging from government statements to personal accounts, snippets of film and newspaper reports – in order to better understand a seemingly forgotten chapter in the Queensland history of child health movements. In the process, it has aimed to bring greater recognition to events and programs admittedly often short-lived and sometimes elusive, but which were nonetheless significant to those involved in their promotion, as well as enjoyed by significant numbers of children between the wars.

4 Contents

Statement of Originality...... 2 Abstract...... 3 Acknowledgements ...... 6 1 Introduction...... 7 2 Mountain camps: ‘Days of Healthful, Unalloyed Pleasure’...... 25 Summer Camps in a World Context ...... 26 Queensland, Australia...... 29 The Children’s Welfare Association...... 32 Dr (Sir) David Hardie ...... 34 1919 Mountain Camp ...... 41 1920 Onwards ...... 50 3 Seaside Schools: ‘A Taste of Paradise’...... 57 By the Sea ...... 57 The Hon. H.F. Hardacre...... 61 Seaside Recreative Schools...... 63 Queensland Seaside Schools Emerge ...... 68 Major Seaside Schools...... 72 4 Sand Gardens: ‘This Pleasing Pastime’...... 88 Sand and Organised Play: From Land-Based to Beach-Based...... 89 Town Planning for Playgrounds ...... 90 Land-Based Sand Gardens...... 97 Beach-Based Sand Gardens in Australia ...... 99 Popularity...... 115 5 Conclusion ...... 119 Bibliography ...... 124

5 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my principal supervisor, Dr Fiona Paisley, and my associate supervisors, Professor Paul Turnbull and Associate Professor Regina Ganter, for their patient supervision throughout the research and writing of this thesis.

Thanks also to Dr Jonathan Richards and the students of the Ideas group, particularly

Lee Butterworth and Shane Coghill; Dr Robyn Heales and Dr Bill Metcalf of the

Graduate Research School; Sue Jarvis and Jill Jones of the Centre for Public Culture and Ideas; and Dr David Adair and Janice Mitchell of the School of Humanities and

Social Sciences.

I would also like to acknowledge the assistance provided by staff of the Queensland

State Archives, State Library of Queensland (including the John Oxley Library),

Brisbane City Council Archives, National Archives of Australia, Education History

Services of the Department of Education and Training, University of Queensland

Libraries (including the Fryer Library) and the Griffith University Library Services.

Finally, I would particularly like to thank my husband, Eric, for his encouragement and support.

6 1 Introduction

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the role that notions of health and well-being played in the lives of white children and young people in inter-war Queensland. It will do so by examining in depth the meanings and values ascribed to mountain camps, seaside schools and sand garden competitions in Queensland from 1919 to 1939. The

social reforms that it explores all relate to Queensland education, health and welfare

policies and practices at all levels of government, and the way they influenced the

well-being of Queensland’s children and young people during those years. The thesis

takes the form of a series of select case studies. Mountain camps were held in mid-

summer for Brisbane children, in the mountains of the Great Dividing Range. They

introduced children to what were assumed to be the invigorating qualities of mountain

air and country life. Seaside schools were held at Southeast Queensland beaches for

children who lived to the west of the Great Dividing Range that runs from the north to

the south of Queensland. It was felt that the children living in the west needed a

yearly escape to the coast. Sand gardens were competitions involving children in

structured activities on beaches in Southern Queensland and Northern New South

Wales. Each sand garden that was produced within the competition rules was a two-

dimensional pattern of the competitor’s creation. The events described in these case

studies reflect the growing concern in Queensland by the end of the first decade of the

twentieth century that the state’s children needed to be taught to take responsibility for their physical fitness and moral health. This move was embedded in other earlier ideas – for example, the country life movement and nature knowledge. The Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) considered that education should be a moral and systematic process ‘constantly taking place in nature’. Progressive

7 teaching methods made use of activities, excursions and nature studies, as: ‘From the

beginning, the child was [to be] led into the whole circle of Nature surrounding him.’1

Several themes structure the historical framework for this study. As already noted, the

first is nature study. In 1905, the Queensland Department of Public Instruction

introduced ‘nature knowledge’ into its curriculum. Nature knowledge was a broad- ranging concept that emphasised the need to take advantage of a close study of nature.

As a report of the Queensland Secretary of Public Instruction argued in 1914, the

introduction of nature knowledge was to be ‘properly systematised, with a view to

increasing its usefulness and to making it of practical benefit to the children’.2 Nature

knowledge replaced ‘object lessons’, which generally were attributed to Pestalozzi.

The intention of an object lesson was that pupils would handle an article to explore it

through their different senses with the guidance of their teacher, ‘ascertaining and describing its properties’. Similarly, in New Zealand, ‘nature study’ replaced ‘object lessons’ in 1904 when that country’s syllabus was revamped.3 Dr Charles Mayo had

introduced Pestalozzian object lessons to Britain from Switzerland in the early nineteenth century, and they made their way into the syllabus in the various

Australian states and New Zealand. Nature knowledge, or ‘nature study [involved] connected series of lessons with individual topics followed over time as pupils observed insects through their life cycle, for example, or watched plants germinate and develop’.4

1 Paul Elliott and Stephen Daniels, ‘Pestalozzi, Fellenberg and British nineteenth-century geographical education’, Journal of Historical Geography, 32 (2006): 756. 2 Queensland Parliamentary Papers 1914 Vol. I, 38th Report of the Secretary for Public Instruction for the Year 1914, p. 21. 3 Colin McGeorge, ‘The presentation of the natural world in New Zealand primary schools 1880– 1914’, History of Education Review, 23(2) (1994): 32. 4 McGeorge, ‘The presentation of the natural world’: 41.

8 The second theme important to this thesis is the country life movement. The

movement was an association of related alliances that flourished in the early decades of the twentieth century. It developed as a response to the drift to the cities from the

country, and to the perceived loss of rural values: ‘To people who held … antiurban attitudes, city life was an ugly, competitive struggle for money, whereas farming was a wholesome satisfying way of life.’5 The movement was part of the progressive era,

and it spread across the United States between about 1890 and 1920. After beginning

in America, it moved quickly into Canada and on to Australia and New Zealand

during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In Australia, educators adopted

the ideals and practices of the country life movement ‘in an effort to economically

rejuvenate rural Australia’. Although the motives of country life participants were

complex and varied in Australia, one thing these participants had in common was

their ‘adulation of Nature’.6 Prominent Australian advocates of the movement were

Frank Tate in Victoria, Peter Board in New South Wales, Alfred Williams, the South

Australian Director of Education, and William Lewis Neale, the Tasmanian Director

of Education. In 1904, in his report on primary education in Tasmania, Neale stated

that ‘Nature study was not science, knowledge, nor fact’,7 but that it had an important

overall influence on all aspects of children’s lives. Both movements – nature study

and country life – were anti-urban, and they contained moral and physical aspects that

lead us into the third theme.

5 William L. Bowers, The country life movement in America 1900–1920. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974, p. 35. 6 G.W. Rodwell. ‘The country life movement and Australian state schools’ in R.C. Petersen and G.W. Rodwell (eds). Essays in the history of rural education in Australia and New Zealand. Darwin: William Michael Press, c.1993, p. 75. 7 Rodwell, ‘The country life movement and Australian state schools’: 79.

9 This theme is the ideal of the healthy child or youth, emphasising the significance of

environment to development. The image of the Australian youth had changed by the

second half of the nineteenth century, with those living in urban environments

referred to as ‘stunted city larrikins’. Not only were their bodies seen to be unhealthy,

but their minds were also declared so, because they were perceived to be involved in

unneighbourly activities – activities that became known collectively as the ‘boy

problem’ at the beginning of the twentieth century. These children were the antithesis

of the image of the upright ‘bush warrior’ of the previous era.8 Many inter-war social

reformers thought that rural life was superior to life in town because ‘[t]he rural idyll was a reference point for all that was assumed to be healthy and wholesome’.9

Michael Roe asserts that ‘the country life movement … not only glorified Nature but also sought to provide the rural dweller with skills, aids, and amenities, which might enrich him as economic man and social being’.10 However, while different aspects of the movement assisted both city and rural dwellers by enhancing those working in the country economically as well as socially, when amenities such as railways were

extended into the country to benefit country dwellers, ‘a growing number of country

boys and girls evidently disbelieved [the experts], and were heading in their thousands

down the railway to Sydney and Melbourne’.11 This tension between the child health

movement and the lure of modern life would continue over following decades.

8 ibid.: 77. 9 John Welshman, ‘Child health, national fitness, and physical education in Britain, 1900–1940’, in Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra and Hilary Marland (eds), Cultures of child health in Britain and The Netherlands in the twentieth century, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003, p. 64. 10 Michael Roe, Nine Australian progressives: vitalism in bourgeois social thought 1890–1960. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984, p. 15. 11 Graeme Davison, ‘Country life: the rise and decline of an Australian ideal’, in Graeme Davison and Marc Brodie (eds), Struggle country: the rural ideal in twentieth century Australia. Melbourne: Monash University ePress, 2005, p. 01.3.

10 The concept of ‘the child’ was being reconceptualised at this time. According to historians of child health in Britain and The Netherlands, Hilary Marland and Marijke

Gijswijt-Hofstra, politicians and reformers in various national settings pronounced the twentieth century ‘the century of the child’. This declaration celebrated late nineteenth century reforms that had begun to regulate children’s employment and education; these set the scene for a redefinition of ‘the child’ as being less an object of labour and more an individual to be cared for. Thus there was a movement away from the concept that a child was simply a future worker to one of citizenship, including the child as a student and as a responsibility of the state, entitled to individual health and fulfilment. In the early twentieth century, it became obvious that children were citizens in the making, and that they required care and guidance until the time when they would be ready to contribute to their respective nations.12 This thesis will show that, during the inter-war years, children in Queensland were also considered in this way.

The fourth main historical focus of this study is the place of child health, such as nature study and country life, within educational reform in Queensland. John Douglas

Story, Under Secretary of the Queensland Department of Public Instruction between

1904 and 1920, brought a new agenda to education in the state. Prior to his appointment, two men had dominated the department for 30 years. They were John

Anderson (General Inspector in 1876 and Under Secretary in 1878) and David Ewart

(Senior Inspector in 1876 and General Inspector in 1882).13 Because Story saw

Queensland principally as a primary producer, his agenda was to ‘motivate and

12 Hilary Marland and Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra, ‘Introduction’ in Gijswijt-Hofstra and Marland, Cultures of child health, p. 7. 13 Alan Barcan, A history of Australian education. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 184.

11 support agrarian changes which strengthened the State’s agricultural economy’.14

Story had not been a teacher or an inspector, and Andrew Henry Barlow (Secretary for Public Instruction) was criticised for appointing him to the senior position.

However, he (Barlow) stood by his selection and Story ‘became one of Queensland’s most outstanding public servants’.15 Even so, the eras of Anderson and Ewart, and then Story, were conservative in focus, and dominated by a world war. In his paper to the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Sydney held in 1914 at the beginning of the war, Story stated:

What a tower of strength the lads will be in the defence of their country! They

can ride well, can shoot straight, are skilled in bush lore, can find their way in

strange country as unerringly as a homing pigeon, and they know not fear.16

That Story described rural boys is no coincidence; as historian Greg Logan notes,

Story ‘placed a much higher value on rural than on urban life’. That same focus on the value of country life also characterised Story’s successor, Bernard Joseph McKenna.

McKenna’s educational philosophy similarly emphasised egalitarianism, utilitarianism and agrarianism; his initiatives included rural schools and the reorganisation of the Gatton Agricultural College. Within the medical services, of special interest to him were ophthalmic services for rural children, which included the

14 Greg Logan, ‘Primary schools or “little state farms”? J.D. Story and the economic role of experimental agriculture in Queensland state schools, 1900–1920’. History of Education Review, 26(1) (1997): 72. 15 Tom Watson, ‘Andrew Barlow: a reforming Minister for Education, 1903–1909’, in Eddie Clarke and Tom Watson (eds), Soldiers of the Service, Vol II: More early Queensland educators and their schools. Brisbane: Church Archivists’ Press, 1999, p. 20. 16 J.D. Story, ‘Educational pioneering in Queensland’, Education Office Gazette, October 1914: 442.

12 appointment of a full-time ophthalmic surgeon (1927) and the opening of the Wilson

Ophthalmic Hostel for bush children (1929).17

While aware that these shifts in educational focus were relatively conservative in

outlook, this thesis focuses instead on three of the more remarkable elements of child

education and leisure in this period. It sets out to consider how certain experiences

were considered necessary to the development of the child (mainly boys, but also

girls). The first of these is the mountain camps, a significant aspect of inter-war

Queensland child movements. Such camps had some equivalents overseas, as I show

below. To date, there has only been limited investigation of inter-war initiatives

aiming to raise the physical and moral capabilities of children. In their study of New

Zealand camps, Robin Kearns and Damian Collins state that the New Zealand

children’s health camps established in 1919 ‘occupied a rather modest niche within

New Zealand’s health and welfare sector … and relatively few studies of them have

been undertaken’.18 Margaret Tennant, in one of her articles about the New Zealand

children’s health camps, provides an overview of those camps in an international context. She discusses the ‘charitable open-air camps held in countries such as the

United States, and aimed at giving poor urban children a simple country or seaside

experience’. Tennant also demonstrates the relationship of the camps to open-air

schools – which had their genesis in Charlottenburg, now a district of Berlin, in 1904

– to New Zealand’s Plunket Society, formed in 1907, and to New Zealand’s school

17 G.N. Logan, ‘McKenna, Bernard (Joseph) (1870–1937)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 10, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1986, pp. 300–01. 18 R.A. Kearns and D.C.A. Collins. ‘New Zealand children’s health camps: therapeutic landscapes meet the contract state’, Social Science & Medicine, 51 (2000): 1050.

13 medical service, commenced in 1912.19 These phenomena were more than local in

their concerns, and deserve further study in Australia as well.

Although New Zealand health camps went through several stages, the first stage is

most relevant to this study, closely resembling the Queensland mountain camps that

also commenced in 1919. Their other parallel can be seen in what Tennant calls ‘the

relationship between state and voluntary effort’ in their formation.20 In Queensland’s

case, that relationship was apparent only in the first mountain camp, as it would fail

during the preparation phase for the second. At the same time, even though solely

volunteers ran subsequent mountain camps, I argue there was still a ‘state’ interest in

them. Similarly, medical and health authorities were involved in Queensland camps

(as they were in New Zealand).

A significant, if obvious, aspect of mountain camps is the emphasis placed on the vale

of the temporary extraction of children from their homes in the city. In the nineteenth

century, people expressed concern that it was important to remove children from the

city. Then, in the early twentieth century, scientific theories such as the germ theory

of disease added an imperative to this awareness. It was the germ theory of disease

that provided the knowledge that urban crowding was a threat to physical health.21

Furthermore, summer camps were ‘an alternative to the stultifying schoolroom and its abstract approach to learning’. The foundation for this thinking had come about in the nineteenth century with the kindergarten movement, and its awareness of the

19 Margaret Tennant, ‘Children’s health camps in New Zealand: the making of a movement, 1919– 1940’, Social History of Medicine, 9.1 (1996): 80. 20 ibid.: 70. 21 Abigail A. Van Slyck, A manufactured wilderness: summer camps and the shaping of American youth, 1890–1960, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c. 2006, p. 8.

14 importance of play in child development – and not just for very young children.22

Drawing on these progressive ideas, I will show Queensland mountain camps in the early twentieth century incorporated play as well as instruction in nature study within a daily routine.

The movement of children in Queensland to attend camps was generally only for between one and two weeks. In contrast, in France, boys and girls spent up to a month at colonies de vacances (holiday camps). Historian David Pomfret, in his article about the modern health movement and the urban young in England and France, uses the term ‘extrication services’ to describe the movement of children from the urban to the rural environment, the mountains or the seaside. He compares the activities of the mass relocation of young people in two locations, Nottingham in England and Saint-

Etienne in France, between 1918 and 1940, to show how the modern urban health movement developed in two different cultural contexts. In addition, Pomfret examines the professionals and volunteers who were involved in such movements, which reinforced the anti-urban and pro-rural feelings that were dominant during those years.23 According to Pomfret, a variety of organisations appeared between the wars

that were dedicated to removing young people from the city and exposing them to the

beneficial influence of nature. He also states that the main form taken by such

exposure was camping.24

Masculinity – and to a lesser extent femininity – is an important theme in the child

health movements described here. In the Australian context, concerns about ensuring

22 ibid., p. 42. 23 David Pomfret, ‘The city of evil and the great outdoors: the modern health movement and the urban young, 1918–40’, Urban History, 28.3 (2001): 405–27. 24 ibid.: 411.

15 bodily and mental fitness became more pronounced in response to the number of

young men who died during World War I and during the Spanish flu epidemic of

1919. It was felt that the next generation should be made strong enough physically

and mentally so that they would be able to take the place of those who had died

during the war. Boys were included in activities that viewed them as citizens in the

making.25 Later, girls also were included in such activities. Unfortunately, we have no

evidence of how the boys who attended the Queensland mountain camps normally

spent their spare time in the city. We do know, however, that several of the schools approached about participating in the first mountain camp were working-class boys’ schools. A rougher male subculture may have developed in sex-segregated schools, a trend that worried middle-class adults such as those represented in the Children’s

Welfare Association (CWA). The association was formed in 1917, with the object of encouraging interest in children’s welfare. Its membership represented child welfare organisations, and its overall outlook was influenced by eugenic ideas. As elsewhere, such adults felt that ‘the purity of nature would protect and preserve the purity of childhood’.26

The first mountain camp in Queensland was organised by the Department of Public

Instruction, in conjunction with the CWA, rather than with the Department of Public

Health. In effect, this loose network can be interpreted as equivalent to a ‘modern

health movement’ because it was concerned about the children’s physical and mental health.27 Moreover (as I have found), even though the dialogue between those two

organisations would remain silent about urban degeneration, they did mirror many

25 Crotty, Martin, ‘Performing military manhood: the wartime Head of the River races in Melbourne, 1915–1918’, JAS, Australia’s Public Intellectual Forum, 89 (2006): 19. 26 Van Slyck, A manufactured wilderness, p. 45. 27 Pomfret, ‘The city of evil and the great outdoors’: 405.

16 more overtly eugenic concerns expressed elsewhere in Australia and other Western

countries. For example, the perceived value of school camps in Britain was declared

to introduce ‘the working-class child to both the pleasures of the countryside and to

increased contact with middle-class mores’.28 In other parts of the world, there was

also a perception that the ‘debilitating effects of urban life’ were hampering national

efficiency.29

As well as mountain camps, this thesis considers two other notable features of the

child health movement in Queensland – seaside schools and sand garden

competitions. Their focus on beaches reminds us that mountains and the seaside were

important locations in which the fit girl and boy child was imagined, and where

‘fitness’ regimes were carried out. Richard White has written extensively about the

significance of the beach in the history of holidays and travel in Australia. He states:

Holidaying in the interests of emotional and spiritual rejuvenation could be

rationalised as a morally necessary undertaking. Like holidaying for the

benefit of physical health, it was a means of contributing to the national

good.30

Leisure and physical activity in specific locations was also important to child health

movements. Even though varying amounts of schoolwork were undertaken during the

seaside schools, they were designed primarily to rejuvenate children from the low-

28 John Welshman, ‘Child health, national fitness, and physical education in Britain, 1900–1940’, in Gijswijt-Hofstra and Marland, Cultures of Child Health, p. 66. 29 ibid., p. 63. 30 Richard White, On holidays: a history of getting away in Australia, Melbourne: Pluto Press, 2005, p. 107. See also, for example, Richard White, ‘The retreat from adventure: popular travel writing in the 1950s’, Australian Historical Studies, 28(109) (1997): 90–105.

17 lying western districts. As Nancy Cushing and Leone Huntsman stress: ‘Eugenicists believed that, through exposure of the body to sun, fresh air and salt water, and physical exercise, Australians made themselves stronger, taller and healthier, and therefore more fit to bear the next generation.’31 Certainly the idea that environment has influence on character formation sits well with Australian eugenicism broadly speaking, and the activities in which the children engaged at their seaside schools certainly fitted the national efficiency model. Stephen Garton, in his response to the work of historians of eugenics in Australia, such as Carol Bacchi, has stated:

The majority of reformers who sought to advance progressivism in Australia

were concerned with public health, infant and maternal welfare and education.

Their aim was to ensure national efficiency by maximising the social potential

of Australian citizens.32

Questioning the dualism of ‘pre-war optimistic environmentalism’ and ‘inter-war pessimistic hereditarianism’, Garton has suggested that there is no evidence to sustain a perceived polarisation between ‘liberal environmentalists’ and ‘conservative eugenicists’.33 This study agrees with Garton’s analysis.

Promoted from the 1930s as ‘the Sunshine State’, Queensland authorities sought to link the ideas of child fitness, the beach and citizenship. By the inter-war period, despite a growing awareness in Australia of the need for public health policies and

31 Nancy Cushing and Leone Huntsman, ‘A national icon: surf lifesaving and Australian society and culture’, in Ed Jaggard (ed.), Between the flags: one hundred summers of Australian surf lifesaving, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2006, p. 7. 32 Stephen Garton, ‘Sir Charles Mackellar: psychiatry, eugenics and child welfare in New South Wales, 1900–1914’, Historical Studies, 22 (1986): 34. 33 Stephen Garton, ‘Sound minds and healthy bodies: reconsidering eugenics in Australia, 1914–1940’, Australian Historical Studies, 103 (1994): 165.

18 town planning requirements, the Queensland government often appears to have been

slow to follow the other states. For example, Sydney held its first Health Week in

1921,34 while the first one in Brisbane was not held until the first week of April in

1933 (although public interest in the subject was strong when it did eventually take

place). When a full report of the Brisbane Health Week was recorded in the 1933

Annual Report of the Commissioner of Public Health,35 newspaper coverage of the

event was extensive, including at least two editorials – a point that was noted in the

Commissioner’s report. The editorials were extremely positive about the inauguration

of a Health Week, and included statements such as: ‘The climate and the sunshine of

Queensland are with its people in this fight [against disease]. The record is good.’36 and ‘… the people of Queensland have a splendid heritage in their sunny land and its health-giving food products’.37

When promoting the week and various related health topics, the Brisbane Courier

published an article about the value of sunlight. It commenced with a quote from an

unnamed ‘notable overseas authority’: ‘Sunlight is an important agent in the

prevention and arrest of disease. It is a vital necessity for all, and more especially for

the growing child …’ It then went on to state: ‘Queensland with her generally equable

climate, with her silver beaches stretching along a thousand and more miles of coast, her mountains clothed with eucalypts – the sunshine State – is the healthiest area in the world.’38 In another article extolling the virtues of Queensland, the paper asserted:

34 Grant Rodwell, ‘The eugenic and political dynamics in the early history of physical education in Australia, 1900–1950’, Melbourne Studies in Education, 40(1) (1999): 101. 35 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Public Health to 30 June 1933, Brisbane: Government Printer, 1933. 36 Editorial, ‘Public health: Queensland’s proud position’, Brisbane Courier, 3 April 1933: 14. 37 Editorial, ‘Bottled sunshine in this healthy state’, Brisbane Courier, 4 April 1933: 12. 38 ‘The value of sunlight. Vital necessity. Many virtues: some dangers’, Brisbane Courier, 3 April 1933: 7.

19 ‘For the child Queensland is the safest and the healthiest State of Australia.’ It

recorded the Registrar-General’s statistics about infantile mortality in Queensland – in

1931, the rate was down to 36.6 for every 1,000 births, ‘the lowest infantile mortality recorded for any one year for any Australian State’. The article then promoted the work of the Crèche and Kindergarten Association of Queensland and the baby clinics of the state child welfare system, and suggested that the excellent statistical result could not have been achieved without those two agencies.39

Drawing on fine-grained primary research, this thesis presents mountain camps,

seaside schools, and sand garden competitions via available archival documents,

newspaper reports and memoirs of the period. It refers, where appropriate, to similar

activities in other Australian states as well as elsewhere during the 1920s and 1930s.

While camps appear not to have been replicated in other states, seaside schools were provided for children from the western districts of New South Wales, Coolgardie in

Western Australia, and perhaps for children in other states. Of the three, sand garden competitions may have been entirely unique to Queensland. Mountain camps, seaside schools and sand garden competitions were intended to shape the well-being of

Queensland’s children during the inter-war years.

Chapter 2 will examine the development of the mountain camps in the temperate climate hills of the Great Dividing Range. The first mountain camp was a joint venture between the Department of Public Instruction and the CWA, and was held in

1919 at Picnic Point on the edge of Toowoomba. Further camps were held there and at the other location of the Mount Alford State School. Only boys attended the first

39 ‘Healthiest state for child. A fine achievement. Crèche and Kindergarten influence’, Brisbane Courier, 3 April 1933: 7.

20 camps. Then, a few years later, both boys and girls participated. Camps varied in

length from ten to fourteen days. The age range of the children and young people was generally pre-teen to early teen. The camps had particular features that made them unique, but the idea of camps for urban children was not unique. In New South Wales and New Zealand, health camps were held in various locations for urban children.

What was unique about the mountain camps in Queensland, however, was that – apart from the first one – they were run independently of government departments. They relied entirely on the volunteers who ran them and on members of the public for their financial generosity.

Mountain camps also reflected the influence during the inter-war period of the CWA of Queensland. Unfortunately, the records of the association have not survived in any public repositories, so most of the information about the CWA’s activities has been gleaned from newspaper articles. An additional source is provided by many of the papers delivered during the 1918 Welfare Week, which were focused on young children. For example, when Dr (Sir) David Hardie, whose medical practice

specialised in the diseases of women and children – particularly those caused by the

climate40 – delivered a paper about the need to give city children a change to

mountain air and country life (discussed in a later chapter), he was clearly expressing

a widely held concern that city children tended to be sickly and unfit, particularly

those living in the ‘unhealthy’ climate along the Queensland coastal plain, and that an

intervention must occur for the good of the white ‘race’, and hence of the nation itself.

As Warwick Anderson has shown, the impact of the semi-tropics on whiteness had

40 J.C.H. Gill, ‘Hardie, Sir David (1856–1945)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 9, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983, pp. 191–92.

21 been a matter of considerable debate in previous decades,41 and these concerns also

would be apparent in Hardie’s paper.

Chapter 3 will be devoted to investigating how southeast Queensland beaches became

locations for providing ‘a physical bridge between the city (culture) and the sea

(nature)’.42 One important beach activity was the scheme to develop seaside schools that was first published in 1916 by the Hon H.F. Hardacre, Minister for Education.

His idea was to build seaside schools in a number of locations along the Queensland

coast, but it appears that there were never sufficient funds in his portfolio for his

vision to become reality. Nevertheless, children from a number of different western

districts were able to participate in several seaside schools during the 1920s and

1930s, using rented accommodation. The schools ranged in length from one to two

weeks. While approval to hold the schools was obtained from the Department of

Public Instruction, all arrangements were undertaken locally. This chapter considers

the development of structured leisure, learning and health in relation to those seaside

schools.

Chapter 4 is concerned with sand garden competitions held on the beaches of

Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales. It investigates the

development of structured leisure and learning in relation to those competitions. The

sand garden competitions were held from the summer of 1921/22 until World War II

restricted coastal activities. The competitions were held mainly on bay or estuary

beaches, but also at some ocean beaches. They ran according to strictly enforced

41 Warwick Anderson, The cultivation of whiteness: science, health and racial destiny in Australia, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005. 42 J. Fiske, B. Hodge and G. Turner, Myths of Oz: reading Australian popular culture, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987, p. 59.

22 rules, but the children were richly rewarded for their skills in producing the two- dimensional masterpieces of sand and whatever else they could find on the beach.

Historian Leone Huntsman could well have been describing a sand garden competition in Queensland when describing sandcastles:

Children build and decorate elaborate and extensive sandworks with an energy

and singlemindedness of purpose worthy of an engineer, builder or architect

absorbed in a favourite project. As the tide comes in and washes away

constructions that may have taken hours to build, other lessons are learned: of

the fragility and ephemerality of human achievement; and of how to relinquish

gracefully the products of one’s labours when these have been superseded or

destroyed.43

Contemporary newspaper articles reporting the sand garden competitions may not

have compared the children with engineers or builders, but sometimes they did

compare them with architects and town planners. While reports never mentioned sand

gardens being inevitably washed away with the incoming tide, there were accounts of

children recovering their shells to reuse at other competitions. They must have been

well aware that their creations would be destroyed within a few hours. In her

recollections of those days, Lana Wells recalls a different type of beachside

competition, but with undoubtedly similar delight:

Sandcastle building competitions were a big feature of regatta day at the turn

of the century. These were hotly contested by children dressed as if for a

43 Leone Huntsman, Sand in our souls: the beach in Australian history, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004, p. 204.

23 Sunday school picnic and innocent of television and computer games. Adults

even had time to watch and encourage them as they built the lovely castles of

their dreams, perhaps forever to remain real only in sand.44

Even though castles were three-dimensional and, as we will see, sand gardens were

two-dimensional, the fragility and transitory nature were common to both. Another

writer who has captured children’s activities on the beach, historian Geoffrey Dutton,

has written: ‘The sand is an endless challenge to invention: calligraphy, castles,

channels, waterworks, tunnels. It can provide total rest, or hours of business.’45

Although Dutton was not describing the sand garden competitions discussed here, he did recognise that some activities were pleasurable, while others more serious, for children at play on the beach. Sand garden competitions took this childhood

‘business’ and made it the subject of instruction and public attention.

In conclusion, this thesis sets out to increase awareness and understanding of important children’s activities in Queensland during the inter-war years. It will examine the nature of children and youth’s health and education in Queensland by analysing these three case studies – mountain camps, seaside schools and sand garden competitions. While some aspects of these case studies are unique to Queensland, each with their respective champions, as I have suggested in this introduction they were also part of a larger movement concerned about the health and well-being of the child in modern Western societies following World War I.

44 Lana Wells, Sunny memories: Australians at the seaside, Melbourne: Greenhouse Publications, 1982, pp. 34–41. 45 Geoffrey Dutton, Sun, sea, surf and sand – the myth of the beach, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 66.

24 2

Mountain camps: ‘Days of Healthful,

Unalloyed Pleasure’

This chapter is an investigation of the development of mountain camps for urban children and youth. Even though there are precedents of camps for urban children in other countries, mountain camps were unusual in an Australian context. It seems the semi-tropical to tropical climatic conditions along Queensland’s coastline played an important part in their adoption in this state. Mountain camps were held in Queensland for ten years from 1919. The first took place at Picnic Point, Toowoomba and the second at Mount Alford, near Boonah. Both are located in the mountains of Southeast

Queensland. Picnic Point camps were held for the ten years, but Mount Alford camps were only held from 1920 to 1922. Only boys attended the first camps, although from the 1923 camp onwards, girls were included. These camps varied in length from ten to fourteen days. The age range of the children and young people was generally pre-teen to early teen. While the Queensland Department of Public Instruction ran the first mountain camp in collaboration with the CWA, any expectation that the department would continue to be involved with the camps soon dissolved. During preparation for the second camp, the department advised of its inability to participate any further

(apparently because of lack of funding). The association continued with preparations and sought funding from the public, as it would each year that subsequent camps were held. What makes Queensland’s story unique is that these camps were run entirely by volunteers, independently of government departments and government funding.

25 Summer Camps in a World Context

The first Ferien-Kolonie (holiday camp) was held in Switzerland in 1876 when a pastor,

Wilhelm Bion, ‘took a group of poor children from Zurich to the nearby mountains for a three-week holiday’. Inspired by that camp, another pastor, Theodore Lorriaux, and his wife organised the first French colonies de vacances (holiday camps) in 1880 ‘to bring poor and sickly children away from industrial suburbs’.1 At the third International

Congress on School Hygiene held in Paris in August 1910, Captain Polvliet delivered a paper about military-style camps de vacances (holiday camps) in Holland. The first one was held in 1890: ‘The state provided the staff (officers, enlisted men, cooks, an army doctor), tents and other equipment.’2

Summer camps, as detailed by Abigail A. Van Slyck, were introduced to the North

American landscape in the 1880s and ‘were part of a back-to-nature trend that had been developing on both sides of the Atlantic since the middle of the nineteenth century’.

They were like other North American institutions – urban parks, residential suburbs and national parks – that had come into being to supply relief from the dreadful moral and physical conditions of urban life to which women and children were ‘particularly prone’.3 One North American camp director, Henry W. Gibson, characterised the decades before World War I as ‘a period of moral deterioration with most boys … who have heretofore wasted the glorious summer time loafing on the city streets …’4 It was during those decades that there were several attempts to address the problem of modern

1 Roberta J. Park, ‘“Boys’ clubs are better than policemen’s clubs”: endeavours by philanthropists, social reformers, and others to prevent juvenile crime, the late 1800s to 1917’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 24(6) (2007): 752. 2 Roberta J. Park, ‘Sharing, arguing, and seeking recognition: international congresses, meetings, and physical education, 1867–1915’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 25(5) (2008): 537. 3 Van Slyck, A manufactured wilderness, p. xix. 4 H.W. Gibson, Camping for boys, New York: Association Press, 1911, pp. 7, 9, as quoted in Van Slyck, A manufactured wilderness, p. xxiii.

26 childhood in North America. Those attempts included the building and supervising of urban playgrounds and the establishment of such organisations as the Boy Scouts. The people connected with the playgrounds and the Boy Scouts were associated with summer camps which, because of their natural settings, were ‘inherently healthy’, and helped to ‘fill the long summer vacation’.5 In 1905, camping advocate Dr Winthrop

Tisdale Talbot made the following statement about the moral benefit of being in the outdoors:

In cultivating general morality and kindly behaviour, the camps are helped

chiefly through their usefulness in making boys strong vitally, in improving their

power of digestion, in increasing their lung capacity, in letting the sunshine pour

upon every portion of their bared bodies.6

The early North American summer camps were exclusively for boys (just as the earliest

Queensland mountain camps were). According to Abigail Van Slyck, World War I intensified the military practices at boys’ camps across the world, ‘while also providing a powerful rationale for extending the summer camp experience to girls’, to prepare them, in a general way, for their own patriotic duties.7 Van Slyck argues that summer camps were more than a North American occurrence, noting the existence of health camps for disadvantaged children in New Zealand; the colonies de vacances (holiday camps) established by Communist-governed municipalities in France; and the colonie

(camp) in Fascist Italy. In addition, she states: ‘In the period following the First World

5 Van Slyck, A manufactured wilderness, p. xxiii. 6 W. Talbot, ‘Summer camps for boys’, The world’s work, 10(1) (1905): 6171, as quoted in Christopher Thurber and Jon Malinowski, ‘Summer camp as a therapeutic landscape’, in Allison Williams (ed.), Therapeutic landscapes: the dynamic between place and wellness, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999, p. 56. 7 Van Slyck, A manufactured wilderness, p. xxiv.

27 War there was a strong interest in countries such as Britain and New Zealand in national fitness and improving the white race through eugenics. Camp life was strictly regimented, mirroring military life.’8 But while Van Slyck suggests that North

American summer camps have become part of the fabric of the nation, the Queensland mountain camps do not appear to have survived in public memory, nor in practice into the Depression years. In contrast, in the United States for example, ‘during the

Depression, summer camps were considered so essential to the production of good citizens that the federal government used New Deal programs to sponsor the construction of state-of-the-art campgrounds earmarked for the use of charitable agencies serving poor children’.9 This difference in adoption relates to the specific histories of the Depression in Australia and the United States, and is beyond the parameters of this thesis. But one element of commonality appears to be the role of philanthropy.

In North America, there were three different types of summer camps: private camps for campers from well-to-do families; organisational camps aimed at middle-class children; and agency camps provided camping excursions for the urban poor. The agency camps were sponsored by social service agencies, and chose their campers from institutions such as welfare associations and church-based charities. ‘[T]hey were typically overseen by boards of white, middle-class volunteers who established policies and raised the funds to subsidise campers’ fees …’10 The camp director was often without extensive camping experience. There are close parallels between such agency camps and the Queensland mountain camps. Apart from the involvement of the Department of

Public Instruction with the first mountain camp, that and subsequent mountain camps

8 Wilbert M. Gesler and Robin A. Kearns, Culture/place/health, London: Routledge, 2002, p. 133. 9 Van Slyck, A manufactured wilderness, p. xxv. 10 ibid., p. xxix.

28 were sponsored by the CWA. Some of the mountain campers were from church-based charities. The executive of the CWA could be described as ‘white, middle-class volunteers’, with the Honorary President in 1918 being Lady Goold-Adams, the wife of the then Queensland Governor.11 In addition, there is no evidence that any of the mountain camp directors had extensive camping experience.

Queensland, Australia

Even though Julia Horne is referring to the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, what she chronicles has universal relevance to this study: ‘Whereas previously, physical exertion had been seen as part of an excursion to the mountains, now the opportunities for peace, quiet and physical well-being were also being promoted.’ By the end of the nineteenth century, she explains, ‘particular regions were presented as valued for their pure air and cool climate during summer months, a retreat from the hot and tiring life of the city’.12 That city could just as easily have been Brisbane. ‘And if a child’s vision of nature can already be loaded with complicating memories, myths, and meanings, how much more elaborately wrought is the frame through which our adult eyes survey the landscape,’ challenges Simon Schama in his book about landscape and memory.13

It is not surprising, then, that Toowoomba on the Darling Downs was chosen as the first location for a mountain camp for urban children in Queensland. After all, at the end of the nineteenth century, Toowoomba – with its temperate climate – became the preferred spot to which affluent families could escape for at least some of Brisbane’s hot, humid

11 Brisbane Courier, 13 June 1918: 4. 12 Julia Horne, The pursuit of wonder: how Australia’s landscape was explored, nature discovered and tourism unleashed, Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, 2005, p. 136. 13 Simon Schama, Landscape and memory, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995, p. 6.

29 summer on the coastal plain.14 A tourist guidebook about Toowoomba was published at approximately the same time as the first Queensland mountain camp for boys was taking place at Picnic Point (in Toowoomba) in 1919. Without realising it, the guidebook identified the perfect location for a mountain camp:

With an elevation of 2000 feet (610 metres) above sea level, Toowoomba

enjoys a climate considered as the best possible to assist the healthy

development of growing boys. In summer, there is an absence of the extreme

heat common in Queensland, while the high altitude is free from the enervative

atmosphere of the sea coast and provides cool restful nights.

Highlighting the link between children and the environment, the guidebook then went on to quote Dr Graham Drew, Deputy Commissioner of Public Health: ‘I greatly admire

Toowoomba as a health resort. It is just the place to bring children in the summer months to give them a taste of the tonic air. The city of Toowoomba has a most remarkably invigorating climate …’15

A number of authors have depicted both Toowoomba and Tamborine Mountain as ‘hill stations’. The hill station concept was established in the former European colonies in

Asia during the nineteenth century, by British and Dutch colonists:

Originally conceived by the military for recuperative effects, then as a

preventative measure, the higher elevated … sites of these mountainous

locations, characterised by cooler climates, were perceived as offering

14 Andrea Inglis, Summer in the hills: the nineteenth-century mountain resort in Australia, Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2007, p. xv. 15 Tourist Guide to Toowoomba, Toowoomba: RACQ, c.1920, p. 24.

30 healthier and more comfortable conditions than the low lying, hot and humid

coastal plains.16

Describing what he calls recreational hill station development in Australia, historian

Darryl Low Choy notes that, between 1890 and 1930, people in the city and coastal plains began to travel to the mountains to ‘enjoy the proclaimed health benefits of

“fresh, crisp, clear mountain air’’. Hotels, hostels and guesthouses were established at that time to accommodate all these visitors.17 Andrea Inglis, in her book about

Australia’s hill stations or mountain resorts, reveals that a street and summer house in

Toowoomba were both named after Simla, India’s principal hill station.18 In addition, in the late nineteenth century, many private schools were founded in Toowoomba, because

‘in the tropical heat of Queensland, Toowoomba appeared as a cool oasis where children could best thrive and grow’.19 In that same period, two plant nurseries became popular places for people to go to enjoy the scenery and walk in the gardens. Carl

Hartmann’s nursery was at Picnic Point, where the mountain camps would be held just a few decades later.20 Moreover, it was much easier to travel to Toowoomba than it was to Tamborine Mountain: the railway linking Toowoomba with Brisbane had been completed in 1867, and establishments such as ‘Harlaxton House’ even had private railway sidings.21 While many visitors went for the health benefits of Tamborine

Mountain, others who went to explore the ‘rich and varied natural environment’ were

16 Darryl Low Choy, ‘Tamborine Mountain – an Australian “hill station’”’, in Iraphne R.W. Childs and Brian J. Hudson (eds), Queensland: geographical perspectives, Brisbane: Royal Geographical Society of Queensland, 2006, p. 113. 17 ibid., p. 120. 18 Inglis, Summer in the hills, p. 60. 19 ibid., p. 64. 20 ibid., p. 126. 21 ibid., p. 153.

31 botanists and zoologists.22 Natural history experts such as those were also involved with the mountain camps in Toowoomba and at Mount Alford.

The Children’s Welfare Association

The CWA of Queensland was formally established at a meeting held at the Brisbane

Town Hall on 20 September 1917. Its principal rules identified its categories of membership as:

(a) two representatives from each institution, society, or kindred body interested in

the welfare of children; and

(b) individual members.

The object of the association was to stimulate interest in child welfare work. The newspaper article about the meeting described that the ‘excellent reports of their observations in the South’, provided by Mrs Edgar B. (Flora) Harris (president of the

National Council of Women) and Mr S. Carey Carter, were the ‘chief incentives to the formation of a CWA in Queensland’. At the meeting, Mrs Harris, who was elected as one of the vice-presidents, also gave ‘an interesting account of the formation of similar organisations in the old country, and in the Southern States’.23 A similar organisation had been established in 1909 in North America. It was called the Child Welfare League

22 Low Choy, ‘Tamborine Mountain’, p. 131. 23 ‘Woman’s world. Children’s Welfare Association’, Brisbane Courier, 21 September 1917: 9. No evidence has been located in either the Queensland Post Office Directory or Pugh’s Almanac of how long the CWA existed as an organisation. With a search commencing in the 1918 editions, no entries for the association were located in either the directory or the almanac.

32 of America, and was a national voluntary organisation that complemented the

Children’s Bureau, a federal agency established the same year.24

The Queensland CWA was founded with two main aims. The first was to become a peak body for organisations concerned with children’s welfare. The second was to deliver lectures and produce literature about children’s welfare. During the 1918

Welfare Week, for example, Dr David Hardie delivered a paper about the need to give city children a change to mountain air and country life ‘if we hope to maintain a virile race in this semi-tropical climate’. Dr Hardie’s eugenically inspired sentiments were also reported in the small booklet which the association self-published in 1920, after it had run the second year’s mountain camps.25 There is no way of knowing how many of the booklets were published or how widely they were distributed. However, it is interesting to read also the slogan on the back cover:

Every Shilling Helps!

Send your Donation to The Secretary or Treasurer

To provide a Mountain Holiday for some child.26

Obviously, the booklet was produced with the intention of soliciting more funds from the public. In the introduction to the booklet, Reginald H. Roe, president of the association, anticipated that the mountain camps would be developed in the future ‘in the hands of municipal authorities or Government’.27 Unfortunately for the association’s

24 Paul Weindling, International health organisations and movements, 1918–1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 177. 25 Children’s Welfare Association of Queensland, Mountain camps at Toowoomba and Mount Alford, Brisbane: Children’s Welfare Association of Queensland, 1920, p. 1. 26 ibid., back cover. 27 ibid., p. 2.

33 members, that did not occur – and maybe, given their fundraising efforts, they were already aware of its unlikelihood.

Dr (Sir) David Hardie

It was Dr Hardie who suggested the scheme for mountain camps. He introduced the scheme in June 1918 in the Brisbane Courier by making a brief proposal that the CWA should direct its energies to children’s summer holidays. According to the newspaper, he ‘suggest[ed] supervised camp groups in the mountains, the expenses to be borne by the Government’.28 Dr Hardie followed his brief proposal by amplifying his remarks to the association, proposing four reasons for his proposal and nine suggestions for discussion about the scheme.

His reasons included a concern for the future of the white race:

(1) On account of the high temperature and humidity along the seaboard of

Queensland and more especially that part of it that lies in the tropical part of

Central and Northern Queensland, continuous residence therein is enervating

to members of the white race during the summer months and not conducive to

the development of a robust constitution.

(2) Apart from the enervating influence of these atmospheric and climatic

conditions along the coastal area of Queensland during the summer months,

the climate of Queensland generally is one of the best in the world on the dry

western plateau and range of mountains that extend pretty well along the entire

length of the State.

28 Brisbane Courier, 13 June 1918: 4.

34 (3) The white race has not been sufficiently long settled in the coastal area of

Queensland for us to determine whether it can become acclimatised and grow

up into a vigorous and virile race, but there is already some evidence that this

is not probable and that therefore, as time goes on and one generation succeeds

another, the race will deteriorate in physique and not maintain the high

standard of robust health and virility possessed by the stock from which it

springs.

(4) In order to counteract this tendency it will in my opinion be necessary:-

(a) That immigrants from the Old Country and allied European countries be

introduced for the infusion of fresh blood into Queensland, and

(b) That the rising generation along the sea-coast be encouraged to spend part

of the year in the bracing higher altitudes that are well distributed over the

State. The summer holiday season would be a most appropriate time for doing

this.29

His suggestions turned to the rising generation and government intervention:

(1) That a camp for school boys be established on the Lamington plateau and

another for girls in the Stanthorpe district during the summer holidays.

(2) That the Government be asked to supply the equipment such as tents and

cooking utensils free of cost, one superintendent, two cooks and a workman

for sanitary and other purposes.

29 Queensland State Archives (QSA) – ID 997091 – letter – 15 July 1918.

35 (3) That the Superintendent be responsible for the discipline and welfare and

good management of each camp, and shall decide daily which work must be

done by the children in the kitchen or otherwise.

(4) That school teachers be asked if they will volunteer to join the camp in

order to regulate and help in the sports of the children, it being pointed out to

them that an opportunity would then be given them of having a thoroughly

enjoyable holiday in a cool bracing climate free of cost.

(5) That parents of school children be asked if they are willing to send their

children to such a camp, it being pointed out to them that they would be well

cared for and that a charge of, say, five (5) [shillings] a week would be made

for each child for maintenance.

(6) That the Government be asked to subsidise this charge in equal proportion.

(7) That for the first year the age limit be ten years and upwards.

(8) That for the first year only two camps be established – one for boys and

one for girls.

(9) That the numbers in each camp be limited to 100 and the ratio of school

teachers to children be at least 1 to 20.30

In relation to the first of Dr Hardie’s nine suggestions, it would have been difficult for a large number of schoolboys to get to the Lamington plateau in the years before motor transport was possible. In addition, even though Stanthorpe was easier to access, it was considered a long way from Brisbane. His second suggestion may have related to the fact that the government did supply tents and cooking utensils for the first mountain camp. However, the CWA had to supply such necessities in subsequent years. Even

30 ibid.

36 though each camp had a superintendent and a cook (paid at the first camp), none ever had the luxury of a workman specifically for sanitary or other purposes. His third point about the superintendent’s responsibilities in relation to the camp and to the children was accurate for each camp. Schoolteachers (point 4) were engaged for the first Picnic

Point mountain camp and as superintendent of the Mount Alford mountain camps.

Because of their responsibilities, it is unlikely that the teachers who undertook the work considered that they had had ‘a thoroughly enjoyable holiday’. With regard to the fifth point about the parents’ commitment to the camps, with the first Picnic Point camp, parents were asked to make a financial contribution. However, there is insufficient documentation about subsequent camps to know whether parents made a similar contribution. In relation to the sixth point, although the government certainly did not subsidise camps beyond the first one, the Department of Public Instruction did allow the

Mount Alford State School premises to be utilised for later camps. Point 7 regarding the lower age limit would be observed for all mountain camps. The ambition to have camps for boys and girls in the first year (point 8) was not fulfilled. In addition, even when girls did participate in mountain camps, they were not accommodated at separate camps.

The first camp only attracted 21 boys. However, subsequent camps attracted more than the number Dr Hardie had envisaged.

In response, the association sent a deputation31 to Hon H.F. Hardacre, Minister for

Education, hoping to convince him that it was necessary to provide mountain holidays for all schoolchildren. In the deputation, Dr Hardie said that it was the first time in the history of the world that an attempt had been made to ‘settle a white race in a semi- tropical country’. He argued that, as Queensland had two climates – coastal and western

31 ibid.

37 – the temperature along the coast was high with extreme humidity, and thus more

‘enervating’ and potentially taxing of vitality. In contrast, Dr Hardie considered that the western climate was ‘probably one of the finest climates on the face of the earth’ because it was never humid, always dry, and it was extremely cold during winter. The deputation sought to emphasise that ‘the people along the coast should be encouraged as much as possible to spend part of the time along the splendid western plains and highlands that exist all over Queensland from north to south’. Hardie added that the scheme was for health more than it was for recreation.32

Others who formed part of the deputation added their argument in favour of mountain camps. Mr Roe said that his experience as a schoolmaster led him to believe that the boys who spent their summer holidays ‘knocking about the streets of Brisbane for six weeks always looked tired and jaded’. He went on to discuss how good camp life would be for such boys, because it was ‘exhilarating’. Dr Mathewson stated that the association had been offered the use of a two-roomed house on 14 acres of land at

Thulimbah,33 near Stanthorpe. Mrs Mason-Beatty spoke on behalf of mothers, particularly mothers of Boy Scouts. She thought that camping taught boys self-reliance:

‘[I]t took away a mother’s little baby and brought home a little man.’ Mr Leigh strongly supported a camp under the control of Boy Scout leadership, but Mr Roe thought that a combination of schoolteacher and scoutmaster ‘was the ideal control’. Mr Hardacre discussed the difficulties of arranging both seaside schools and mountain schools.

Noting that, two years previously, he had put forward a scheme to bring western children to the seaside for the fresh cool air and the ‘pleasures of the seaside generally’, he thought that it was almost as difficult to obtain sites for seaside schools as it was for

32 QSA – ID 997091 – deputation – 15 November 1918. 33 Thulimbah is in southeast Queensland, near the town of Stanthorpe, on a high plateau on the Great Dividing Range.

38 mountain schools. He then discussed what other states were doing for their children. In

Western Australia, he pointed out, they were taking children from Coolgardie to the seaside at Perth and Fremantle. In New South Wales before World War I, they had taken children from the city into the country – not necessarily to the mountains.34

Following the deputation, several editorials about mountain camps and associated topics were published in the press. In December 1918, for example, the Daily Mail published on the need to open up the mountains around Brisbane. It stated that Mr Holman (the

New South Wales Premier) was delighted with the scenic beauty of Tambourine

Mountain,35 but was surprised by the roughness of the access road. The editorial then referred to a number of locations around Brisbane that could be developed as mountain resorts, and compared them with Sydney and the Blue Mountains in New South

Wales.36

In 1918, Dr Hardie wrote to the Daily Mail editor about mountain holidays generally and the Toowoomba mountain camp specifically.37 (An identical letter written by him to the Telegraph editor was published on the same day.)38 First, in eugenic mode, he posed a question about the Anglo-Saxon race moving from a temperate climate to a semi- tropical climate and, given its effect, how the ‘race’ would achieve robust health and virility after a few generations. He then set out factors that could be controlled, one of which was that summer holidays should be spent in the highlands and that Queensland highlands should be therefore made more accessible and attractive – although he acknowledged that children were attracted to the seaside. His contention was that, from

34 QSA – ID 997091 – deputation – 15 November 1918. 35 Tambourine was changed to Tamborine in the Queensland Government Gazette of 12 January 1939. 36 ‘Opening up the mountains’, Daily Mail, 16 December 1918: 6. 37 ‘Mountain holidays’, Daily Mail, 16 December 1918: 7. 38 ibid.: 3.

39 a health point of view, society should look to the future well-being of the race through considering both nature and nurture.

In response, ‘Hilltop’ of Brisbane wrote to the Telegraph editor, stating that he preferred to spend his annual holidays in the hills, and contrasting the Queensland government with the governments of New South Wales and Tasmania, ‘where the mountains are opened up for the seeker after health and pleasure’.39 J.J. Kidner of

Harrisville wrote to the editor of the Daily Mail about opening up the mountains, supporting what ‘medical men’ had been promoting the benefits of mountain holidays for everyone in the community. Mr Kidner even suggested a location for a mountain city at Cunningham’s Gap, to be called (patriotically) ‘Anzac’. He envisaged a city with the ‘most up-to-date town planning scheme’ to make it ‘one of the most beautiful cities in the world’. Kidner also referred to the large tourist trade at the New South Wales government-owned guesthouse at the Jenolan Caves as something that could be replicated at his envisaged mountain city.40 In ‘Educational Notes’ of the Daily Mail, the columnist rather more modestly linked mountain holiday camps with playgrounds.

This writer referred to Dr Hardie’s ‘plan of taking the children out of the sweltering cities and giving them the benefits of mountain air and a change of scene’, listing the advantage of health as well as educational activity, and stating that the camp ‘is really an extension of the modern idea of the playground’.41 The author pointed out that

American experts had realised that education went on in the playground as well as in the schoolroom, and that directed playground education was more valuable than that of the schoolroom. Interestingly, the correspondent then stated that the Department of Public

39 ‘Mountain holidays’, Telegraph, 17 December 1918: 2. 40 ‘Open up the mountains!’, Daily Mail, 23 December 1918: 4. 41 ‘Educational notes. Holiday camps and playgrounds’, Daily Mail, 18 December 1918: 6.

40 Instruction had devised a curriculum for the camp, which included nature study. It has not been possible to verify this claim.

1919 Mountain Camp

The first mountain camp in Queensland was held at Picnic Point, Toowoomba for two weeks during the 1918/19 midsummer vacation from 2 to 16 January 1919. The site was on the crest of the hill at Picnic Point. The Department of Public Instruction made all of the arrangements with the CWA, as well as with the Redlands Boy Scout Troup, the

Railway Department, and the Mayor and Town Clerk of Toowoomba City Council. As mentioned previously, 21 boys attended that first camp.42 The Daily Mail reported via its Special Representative that the first mountain camp for Brisbane schoolboys was an experiment in child welfare, and that it was probably unique because nothing as comprehensive had been attempted before in Australia. To prove the point, it gave examples from Western Australia (trips to the wild flower gardens of the inland areas) and South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales (day-long nature study outings), arguing that Queensland should lead in these matters because (in comparison to other states) it most needed to get children from the sub-tropical coast to a more bracing mountain climate for a week or two during summer.43

On the following day, again via its Special Representative the Daily Mail reported more critically that as the first mountain camp was hurriedly arranged, with health being the primary consideration, insufficient thought had been given to outdoor study.

Nonetheless, Messrs A.H. Chisholm (secretary, Queensland Ornithologists’ Union) and

42 The Week, 10 January 1919: 15. 43 ‘Schoolboys’ camp. A mountain holiday. Notes and impressions’, Daily Mail, 13 January 1919: 8.

41 C.T. White (government botanist) of Brisbane were the two naturalists chosen to assist the boys to understand their surroundings.

Figure 2.1: The camp band at Picnic Point mountain camp. The instruments comprised combs and tissue paper, a triangle, an electroplate tray, a china plate, and a cornet. Source: Sydney Mail, 1 February 1922: 7.

The report continued by pointing out that securing the services of natural history experts for a school camp was already practised in Victoria at the coastal summer schools for inland teachers. One Queensland ramble was to Three Mile Scrub, with the two naturalists and Messrs Robinson and Bell (teachers in charge) accompanying the boys.

The birds and plants that they saw were considered to provide good examples for lessons in caring for their natural surroundings. The boys were reminded of the ‘wisdom of providing drinking and bathing facilities for the little creatures whenever opportunity offers in this hot climate’. On the evening of the ramble, the mayoral residence of Dr and Mrs Price was opened to the campers and associated adult visitors to allow the

42 naturalists to extend their lessons into night-time lantern-slide lectures. Many of Mr

Chisholm’s slides were familiar to the boys, the Daily Mail reported, because they had appeared as illustrations in ‘Bird Day’ issues of the Queensland School Paper. Dr Price took the opportunity to remind the boys that they should think of birds as their friends and that they should not go about with a stone or a shanghai to harm birds or their nests.44

Despite this apparent focus on nature, more routine and masculine pastimes – including military-style training – were encouraged. The boys learnt some practical geography on their excursions. They also occupied some of their time with writing letters to their relatives. Much of the rest of the time was taken up with cricket and swimming in

Toowoomba, rifle shooting on the mountains with Mr Robinson, some scout work and some practice in the use of telescopes with Dr Price. The Department of Public

Instruction bore the entire cost of the camp, but the Daily Mail reporter suggested that the boys might value it more if they had contributed something to the cost of it. The reporter concluded that the mountain camp movement should be extended to teachers because, unlike a camp for children, a camp for teachers ‘would spread its results throughout a large percentage of the child life of the State’.45

The Queensland State Archives hold the list of schoolboys who attended the first mountain camp.46 While unremarkable in many ways, it appears to confirm that while, in general, working-class boys were the target group, some degree of fitness was a prerequisite. One of the boys failed to pass his medical test because Dr Hardie considered him unfit when he examined him. He was given an opportunity to improve

44 ‘Living lessons. At the summer camp. Schoolboys as naturalists’, Daily Mail, 14 January 1919: 8. 45 ibid. 46 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 24 December 1918.

43 his health, which he neglected to do, so he was removed from the list. ‘Sir David Hardie refused to allow him to go, as he did not get his throat attended to.’47

Two teachers were in charge of the first camp in 1919. Mr Herbert Arthur Robinson, assistant teacher, State School, Rocklea was appointed as supervisor, and Mr Moreton

Oliver Bell, assistant teacher, State School for Boys, South Brisbane, was appointed as

Mr Robinson’s teaching assistant. Prior to the camp itself, Mr Robinson visited seventeen of the largest metropolitan schools to advise head teachers about its benefits.

By 11 December 1918, however, only a few nominations had been received. There were two possible reasons for this apparent lack of initial enthusiasm: first, the short notice of the proposed camp; and second, that the £2 ($4) deposit per head was prohibitive for some. After the department and the association decided to let certain boys attend the camp without payment, many more nominations were received.48 Two Boy Scout leaders were appointed as Mr Robinson’s scouting assistants: Scoutmaster

P.H. Outridge and Patrol Leader B. Moore. Rather than allowing the boys to prepare their own meals, as they would in a Boy Scout camp, a ‘first-class’ local cook,

Mr E. Shears, was employed to provide them with their meals.49 Dr Price provided practical assistance with the setting up of the camp, which was adjacent to his property.

He reportedly ‘recognised that there is health and sweetness in the mountain air’. Water for the camp was from the bore on his property, and included a shower by way of a garden hose.50

47 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 29 Dec 1918. 48 QSA – ID 997091 – Report on mountain camp for school boys at Toowoomba. 49 The Week, 10 January 1919: 15. 50 ‘Schoolboys’ camp. A mountain holiday’: 8.

44 During the two weeks of the 1919 camp, the boys walked through the hills with Mr

Robinson, who instructed them in botany, mineralogy and geology, as well as nature study and insect life. There was a sports meeting, a picture evening at one of the local theatres (Strand Pictures), and trips to places of scientific interest on the Range and various local beauty spots, including Table Top Mountain, some miles from Picnic

Point.51 The boys were also transported to places around Toowoomba by the

Toowoomba City Council so that they could learn something about the district.52 Dr

Price was so enthusiastic about the idea of the camp, and the welfare of the boys, that he camped each night with his two young sons in a small tent close to the other tents. He also gave a lantern lecture on the mosquito for the boys.53

Officials who visited the camp included those from the Department of Public Instruction and the CWA. Another important visitor was Mr J.A. Lunn (photographer, Lithography

Branch, Survey Office), the government photographer. He took a series of photographs of the camp. One set of sixteen photographs, in the format of a postcard album, was presented to Mrs Price.54 A set of the photographs was also presented to each of the boys as a souvenir of their participation in the first mountain camp in Queensland.55 On the last Saturday night, a scouts’ ‘pow-wow’ was held at the camp. When the concert ended, Scoutmaster Outridge presented a gold scout badge of thanks to Dr Price, ‘for the kindness which he had shown to the scouts whilst in Toowoomba’.56

51 The Week, 10 January 1919: 15. 52 Brisbane Courier, 24 December 1918, p. 6. 53 One of Dr Price’s many achievements was his mosquito eradication program, which he implemented after he was elected to the Toowoomba City Council. 54 QSA – ID 997091 – Report on mountain Camp for School Boys at Toowoomba. 55 QSA – ID 997091 – memorandum – 15 January 1919 – Folio 01239 56 The Week, 17 January 1919: 16.

45 Routine and domestic regimen were integral elements of camp life. The tents were not only to be kept clean and tidy, but were also decorated with items such as gum leaves and orchids located on scrub rambles.57 Every three days, the boys were judged in a tent competition that was arranged to ‘stimulate a feeling of rivalry, general order, cleanliness and good behaviour’.58 The boys in one tent made a small garden and planted a few ferns in it, obviously influenced by their school garden activities.

Competition between and within the tents was encouraged, but cooperation was also valued. Patriotism featured in rewards: the tent that gained the most points was entitled to fly an Australian flag – designated the ‘honour flag’ – for the next three days.59 The honour was reinforced with treats like fruit and sweets.60

Time in the mountains was to make the boys ‘feel fitter for their school tasks in the New

Year’.61 Masculinity was part of this fitness. In his report on the camp, Mr Robinson asserted that the boys conducted their games ‘in a manly and fair spirit’ as they benefited from being at the camp. He also noted that the appetites of several of the boys had improved, and that ‘they looked … and felt well’. While a fortnight was a sufficient length of time for such a camp, he suggested that in future there should be two months’ notice of a proposed camp, and that the cost of the camp should be split evenly between the boy, the department and the association.62

In a comment printed in the Daily Mail within days of Robinson’s positive report, the

Minister for Education (Mr Hardacre) advised that the location of the camp at Picnic

57 ‘Schoolboys’ camp. A mountain holiday’: 8. 58 QSA – ID 997091 – Report on mountain camp for school boys at Toowoomba. 59 The Week, 17 January 1919: 16. 60 QSA – ID 997091 – Report on mountain camp for school boys at Toowoomba. 61 The Week, 10 January 1919: 15. 62 QSA – ID 997091 – Report on mountain camp for school boys at Toowoomba.

46 Point had proven to be most suitable, as had the choice of Mr Robinson as the leader of the project. The minister anticipated that the project would be quite inexpensive in comparison with the success achieved. He agreed with the suggestion to extend the summer schools to teachers, as had been done successfully in Victoria. Overall, he supported the value of the movement, especially as any benefit to a teacher would be reflected in the children they taught.63 In his address at the opening of the Teachers’

Conference in January 1919, Mr Hardacre also spoke in glowing terms about the recently concluded mountain camp, which was ‘educative and recreative as well as enjoyable to all who have participated’.64

In May 1919, the Department of Public Instruction advised Mr F. Leigh, honorary secretary of the CWA, that the Hon H.F. Hardacre, Minister for Education, had approved a summer camp for boys at Toowoomba during the 1919/20 midsummer vacation. Funding would be considered later. The minister also approved a winter camp for girls at Redcliffe, with a summer camp for girls to await the experience of the winter camp.65 In September, the Brisbane Courier reported that the Mayoress of Brisbane

(Mrs Buchanan) had presided over a meeting of workers in connection with Children’s

Welfare Association Day, which was to be held on 3 October 1919. Mr Reginald H. Roe

(president of the association) explained that summer camps for boys and girls would be run in conjunction with the Department of Public Instruction. He advised the meeting of the success of the boys’ camp at Toowoomba in January 1919, and drew attention to the

‘beneficial effect the mountain air and a properly-ordered camp would have on the

63 ‘Summer school. Successful experiment. Question of extension’, Daily Mail, 15 January 1919: 8. 64 Queensland. Department of Public Instruction. Education Office Gazette, Feb 1919 – Address by the Hon H.F. Hardacre, Secretary for Public Instruction, to the Queensland Teachers’ Conference on Monday, 20 January 1919, p. 66. 65 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 6 May 1919.

47 physical and moral well-being of the child’. Mr Leigh also promoted the desirability of establishing ‘camps both inland and at the seaside’.66

In October, Mr Roe wrote to the editor of the Telegraph to announce the street collection for the summer camp work of the association, and to advise that the moneys collected by the volunteers would be used wisely, consistent with the health and reasonable enjoyment of as many children as possible. Mr Roe explained that the summer camp movement had commenced in the previous year, after Dr Hardie’s address to the association about the necessity for coastal children to have a change to the mountains for their holidays. Furthermore, he explained that the camps were necessary not just for the stimulant of a holiday, but also for the development of character. He then went on to list the noble characteristics of the soldiers of World

War I, and how these qualities, along with the qualities necessary for good citizenship, could be developed in camp life in the country. He stated that these qualities were desirable in both city children and ‘our noble breed of men on the land’. He then asserted that the association should run the summer camps because its ‘leaders [were] accustomed to handling children, to organise their amusements and share their pleasures’.67 These views were reiterated by Dr Hardie in the Telegraph in the same month.68

In October 1919, representatives of the CWA met with Hon J.S. Huxham, Minister for

Education, in anticipation of holding mountain camps for children during the 1919/20 mid-summer vacation. The Minister for Education had received a letter from Mr Leigh later in October that year concerning estimates for camps based on existing

66 ‘Summer camps for boys and girls’, Brisbane Courier, 29 September 1919: n.p. 67 ‘Children’s welfare’, Telegraph, 2 October 1919: 5. 68 ‘Mountain camp holiday. Sir David Hardie’s plea’, Telegraph, 2 October 1919: 5.

48 arrangements for Christmas and Easter.69 The first estimate set out the arrangements and costs of the annual Christmas camp for Brisbane newsboys at Tweed Heads at a daily cost of 1s 6d (15 cents) per boy.70 The second similar estimate set out the arrangements and costs of a Boy Scouts’ Easter camp at Stradbroke Island.71 The question of cost was central to their discussion. Dr Hardie stated that, although it was the desire of the association to send children from the coastal districts to the Western mountains, the association would not be able to fund such activities without support. The parents of such children could not afford to send them. The matter of funds was not resolved, however, because Mr Huxham stated that he would have to lay the matter before the government. He nonetheless promised to do what he could for the movement.72

The second annual general meeting of the CWA, held on 29 October 1919, was reported on in the Brisbane Courier. Those attending the meeting were made aware of the preparations for the next mountain camp. Dr Hardie spoke again about the value of mountain camps. The honorary president, Lady Goold-Adams, expressed her thought that mountain camps made ‘children stronger in after life [which] gave the movement a claim upon the support of the community, and was well worth the doing’.73 Following the meeting, and obviously hoping to encourage a government subsidy,

Mr H.A. Robinson, who had been the teacher in charge of the mountain camp at

Toowoomba in January 1919, wrote to the editor of the Brisbane Courier to refute statements the paper had made about ‘ridiculous costs and extravagance’ at the camp.

Challenging the statements of Dr Hardie and Mr Leigh when they suggested that the camp could be run, respectively, for 10s ($1) and 10s 6d ($1.05) per boy per week, he

69 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 24 October 1919 – Folio 45673. 70 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 20 October 1919. 71 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 29 September 1919. 72 QSA – ID 997091 – deputation – 27 October 1919. 73 ‘Children’s Welfare Association’, Brisbane Courier, 30 October 1919: 9.

49 suggested that as there would be ‘no organising expenses, no staff to be paid, no cook to be hired, and every boy carries his own equipment’, the cost per person would be much cheaper.74 Dr Hardie wrote a letter of clarification in reply. He stated that the deputation that met with the Minister for Education had agreed that there was a ‘need for greater economy in future’. He then went on to praise the success of the camp, and particularly the work of the previous Minister for Education, Mr Robinson, and Dr Price.75 Finally, the Department of Public Instruction wrote to Dr Hardie in November 1919 advising that the government was not able to comply with the association’s request, ‘owing to the very many calls upon the State at the present time which are of even greater importance than mountain camps’.76 When Mr Miles, honorary secretary of the CWA replied a few days later, he claimed that, as a result, there would be a great curtailment of the camp, and that the association would have to limit the number of boys to 70 or 80 ‘gathered from parents whose circumstances will not allow of their making any contribution’.77

1920 Onwards

The Toowoomba Chronicle of 8 January 1920 reported that on the previous Tuesday 46 boys and seven voluntary attendants struck camp on the slope of Picnic Point, south-east of the kiosk, and near Dr Price’s residence. Mr W.P.B. Miles of the CWA was in charge of the camp. The report stated: ‘The camp is really the continuation of the summer mountain camps for boys whom the metropolitan teachers considered should have a change from the city to the mountains.’ In just one year, it seemed to have been

74 ‘Mountain camp expenses’, Brisbane Courier, 30 October 1919: 9. 75 ‘Mountain camps’, Brisbane Courier, 31 October 1919: 6. 76 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 18 November 1919. 77 QSA – ID 997091 – letter – 24 November 1919 – Folio 51547.

50 forgotten that the originator of the idea of mountain camps was Dr David Hardie.78 One week later, in the Toowoomba Chronicle, there was a very long article about the Picnic

Point mountain camp, including a long account about the beauty of Picnic Point: ‘In such beauty, permeated by such a glorious climate, health will come to [the boys] almost unknowingly.’ During an official visit by the Toowoomba mayor (Alderman

T.S. Burstow) and a number of aldermen and others, the mayor addressed the boys and, among other things, stated that ‘the life such as they were living that day would make them fit in body and in mind, and it was in these two essential things that they needed to be most efficient’. Mr Miles advised very diplomatically that ‘last year the camp had been conducted by the Department of Public Instruction but, unfortunately, they could not see their way clear to conduct the camp this year’. Because of the lack of government support, the CWA held a collection day. For the 49 boys at Picnic Point and

48 boys at Mount Alford, the association received £190 ($380) in donations, and both camps were running at a cost per boy per day of 1s 6d (15 cents). Mr Miles ran the newsboys’ camp at Tweed Heads for the same cost.79

Despite this, according to The Week, there was an ‘abundance of excellent food’ at the camp.80 The Queensland Times stated of the 1920 Mount Alford mountain camp that boys ‘in batches visited various farms in the district’ and many Mount Alford residents participated in the activities with the boys. For example, there was a bonfire, and fireworks provided by the Bell family of Coochin Coochin Station, at the campsite for

78 ‘Range camp for metropolitan boys. Beneficial summer training’, Toowoomba Chronicle, 8 January 1920: 6. 79 ‘Picnic Point Camp. The glories of nature. Happy boys under canvas. Mayoral visit yesterday’, Toowoomba Chronicle, 15 January 1920: 6. 80 ‘Schoolboys at Toowoomba’, The Week, 16 January 1920: 20.

51 the boys. Nature study rambles and lectures were common to both camps. Apparently:

‘The lads were greatly impressed with country life.’81

Figure 2.2: A nature talk at Mount Alford mountain camp. Mr A.H. Chisholm (president of the Queensland Naturalists’ Society) explaining the wonders of a bird’s nest. Source: Sydney Mail, 8 February 1922: 17.

Mountain camps were also a subject for Queensland parliamentary debate. In 1920, Mr

E.T. Bell, Member for Fassifern, advised:

Quite recently there has been a camp organised by the Children’s Welfare

Association, who collect funds to send boys who live in the cities out to the

country districts. Quite recently, we have had a camp in our district [Mount

Alford] of city boys, many of whom had never been in the country before. It is a

very good idea and one which I should like to see extended.82

81 ‘Mt. Alford camp. Boys return home’, Queensland Times, 21 January 1920: 4. 82 Queensland. Legislative Assembly. Official record of the debates of the Legislative Assembly 1919– 1920, Vol. 134, p. 2399.

52

In 1921, the CWA conducted two camps, as it had the previous year – one at Picnic

Point, Toowoomba and the other at Mount Alford, Boonah. With regard to the latter, Mr

Herbert William Watson (head teacher of the Mount Alford State school) had applied to the Department of Public Instruction for permission to act as camp manager for upwards of 50 Brisbane boys. He advised that the camp would run from 6 to 20 January 1921, and that it ‘will be my endeavour to bring the boys in close contact with active Rural

Life’.83 The department granted him approval.84 In the attached file note, a departmental official noted the ‘very gratifying result … that many of the boys who attended have acquired a taste for rural life’ and that ‘[t]he practice of holding camp schools in agricultural districts appears to me to be well worthy of extension’.85 (As we know, this was not to eventuate.) In his three-page report, Watson provided a comprehensive overview of the mountain camp. He referred to the health of the boys and especially the

‘general toning up and vitalising that mountain air alone gives’. Given how much

‘country life appealed to [the boys]’, he wondered whether city boys could be encouraged to choose employment in the country, which would stimulate production and see ‘the wealth of the State increased’.86

A special report in the Daily Mail described the delight of the boys at the Mount Alford camp, particularly the younger ones, who were aged between just eight and ten years of age, when they visited Coochin Coochin station. It declared ‘[fourteen] days of healthful, unalloyed pleasure’ at the Mount Alford school site, located at the head of a fertile valley, with a railway line, in the junction between two ranges. Unlike the

83 QSA – ID 15485 – memorandum – 29 November 1920 – Folio 59237. 84 QSA – ID 15485 – letter – 9 December 1920 – Folio 20/59237. 85 QSA – ID 15485 – memorandum – 15 February 1921 – Folio 6585. 86 QSA – ID 15485 – Mount Alford Summer Mountain Camp 1921.

53 Toowoomba site of Picnic Point, Mount Alford offered mountain and open country, as well as being near a stream. The report stated that an objective of the mountain camp movement of the CWA was to give the city children ‘a fill of fresh air from the hills’, with an educational side – particularly when the boys were taken to visit the local farms.

One of the boys was quoted as saying: ‘I like this sort of farm better than New Farm

[inner suburb of Brisbane]!’ Reflecting the role of religious training in all youth organisations and schools, Mr and Mrs Watson led an hour of hymn singing on Sunday nights. The report concluded that ‘Queensland is to be congratulated on showing the way to Australia in this introduction of city boys to life in the country’. It declared the movement should be supported and extended because it was a way of addressing the problem of congestion in the cities.87 In January 1921, an editorial in the Daily Mail added that the positive influence of the country on the city boys ‘will tend to create a desire to live in the country and assist in combating the craze for dwelling in the city’.

City boys ‘now haunted by dreary surroundings [will have] enthusiasm for the country’.88 An editorial about mountain camps in the Toowoomba Chronicle the following year asserted that the annual mountain camp was ‘bringing [children] into the right atmosphere at the beginning of their lives’.89

However, Mount Alford was short-lived. The Queensland Times reported in January

1923 on only the Picnic Point mountain camp.90 There could be several reasons why this was the case. First, according to the Report of the Secretary for Public Instruction in

87 ‘Living lessons. City boys in camp. On farm and station. Joy rides at Mount Alford. (By our special representative.)’, Daily Mail, 20 January 1921: 7. 88 ‘Camp life for boys’, Daily Mail, Jan 23, 1921: 6. 89 ‘Camps for ‘“scamps”’, Toowoomba Chronicle, 23 January 1922: 4. 90 ‘Happy children. The mountain camp. Mayoral inspection’, Queensland Times, 19 January 1923: 6.

54 the 1923 Queensland Parliamentary Papers, Mr Watson was on leave on 30 June 1923.91

In that same report, Mr Alexander Edwin Stewart was listed as the Head Teacher II.3 at

Mount Alford State School, so Mr Watson may not have been available to host the metropolitan boys for a mountain camp at Mount Alford that January in 1923. Further, the Education Office Gazette of 3 February 1924 advised that Mr Watson had resigned from his role as Head Teacher III.1 at Mount Alford State School.92 Then, more than eighteen months later, the Education Office Gazette of 3 September 1925 advised that

Mr Victor Henry Dow had been transferred as head teacher to Mount Alford State

School.93 Neither Mr Stewart nor Mr Dow may have wanted to take on the task of looking after 50 metropolitan children for a fortnight, particularly when there had been a gap since the last time a mountain camp had been held at Mount Alford. Second, because girls were included in the camps from 1923, it is possible that Mr Watson did not consider that the Mount Alford mountain camp was suitable for girls as well as boys. That is a strong possibility, particularly when one considers the rural focus of the previous Mount Alford camps. Third, the association may not have collected enough donations to hold two camps, and decided to concentrate on the one camp at Picnic

Point, Toowoomba.

Lastly, it seems possible that city children were sometimes difficult to manage. For its

1925 camp, the association drew up a set of general rules that were to be observed by those in the camp. The first rule was ‘that implicit obedience must be given to the officials’. The remaining rules were based on all the times that different activities would

91 Queensland Parliamentary Papers 1923 Vol. I, 47th Report of the Secretary for Public Instruction for the Year 1922, p. 701. 92 Queensland. Department of Public Instruction. Education Office Gazette, 3 February 1924. 93 Queensland. Department of Public Instruction. Education Office Gazette, 3 September 1925.

55 take place throughout the day and evening, ending with lights out.94 There was no explanation of why these rules were drawn up, but it may have been because there were some problems with discipline in the previous camp. Under these new conditions, mountain camps continued into the late 1920s, remaining relatively unchanged until

1928.

* * *

This chapter began with an examination of the Southeast Queensland sites that were considered as possible locations for mountain camps, particularly those within the

Border Ranges of the Great Dividing Range. It then looked at summer camps, under various names, in a number of sites around the world. Next, it studied the (Queensland)

CWA and its role in relation to the development of mountain camps, including a discussion of Dr (Sir) David Hardie, who was the originator of the idea of Queensland mountain camps. These camps were created for the educational, health and welfare needs of the child. Mountain camps were held in two locations in Southeast

Queensland, and they ran from the mid-summer vacation of 1918/19 to that of 1927/28.

The Queensland mountain camp program, with its emphasis on escape from the supposedly deleterious effects of the sub-tropics, was unique. The character of that uniqueness related to the Queensland environment, but also to how the camps were managed – largely without government financial assistance.

94 ‘Mountain camp. At Picnic Point. The daily routine. Welfare Association’s work’, Toowoomba Chronicle, 9 January 1925: 4.

56 3

Seaside Schools: ‘A Taste of Paradise’

There was nothing terribly new about seaside schools for outback children, but the idea of building permanent seaside schools was developed by Hon H.F. Hardacre, Minister for Education. There were precedents for similar schools at the seaside for outback children. However, the intention to build permanent seaside schools at a number of locations along the coast of the state was unique. Temporary seaside schools were held predominantly at Southeast Queensland beaches during the 1920s and 1930s. The children who participated were from the southwest districts of Queensland and the seaside schools were held in rented accommodation at locations from Redcliffe in the north to Coolangatta in the south. The seaside schools varied in length from one to two weeks, and they mostly catered for pre-teens and early teens. In at least one case, the entire student body of a school vacated to the coast together.

By the Sea

As early as the 1820s in England, bathing in the sea was deemed to promote health.

However, in Australia at that time, it was ‘considered not only unlawful and improper but dangerous’.1 It took another three decades before the therapeutic qualities of the sea were praised in Australia. By the second half of the nineteenth century in Australia, ‘the sea and its air were believed to be therapeutic’.2

1 Lana Wells, Sunny memories: Australians at the seaside, Melbourne: Greenhouse Publications, 1982, p. 16. 2 ibid., p. 44.

57 Following the fashion in Europe, seaside communities across Australia gradually set up sanatoria, with Brisbane’s establishments created at Cleveland and Sandgate. Brisbane’s upper classes also built houses at these two locations, where they spent the hot summer months. According to McKinnon, Cleveland remained Brisbane’s chief watering place, or fashionable resort, for twenty or 30 years, until the beginning of the twentieth century

– particularly at Easter time.3 ‘The Australian colonies differed from England because their capital cities were on or very near the coast, so that for many the seaside was accessible from the beginning of settlement.’4 Sandgate became particularly desirable as a leisure location after Queensland’s first Governor, Sir George Ferguson Bowen (in the position from 1859 until 1868), took a summer residence there in the mid-1860s. When

Governor Sir Anthony Musgrave (1883–88) took a summer residence at Southport two decades later, the upper classes followed his example. Later in the century, a series of

Queensland governors took summer houses in Toowoomba, drawing the holiday fashion into the mountains as well.5

Around the time that Governor Musgrave took up summer residence at Southport, a railway line was being built between Brisbane and Coolangatta, which allowed working-class people to travel more easily to the watering places of Southport,

Coolangatta and Tweed Heads.6 Then the Queensland Factories and Shops Act 1900 freed workers from Saturday afternoon work and from working for two weeks at

Christmas. As a result, working-class families were able to travel by train from Brisbane to the south coast to have a cheap holiday in a tent for a weekend or for a Christmas

3 Firmin McKinnon, ‘The halcyon days of Cleveland’, Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal, IV(1) (1948): 112. 4 Lesley Abell, ‘Holidays and health in nineteenth and early twentieth century South Australia’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 22 (1994): 86. 5 Inglis, Summer in the hills, p. 141. 6 Abell, ‘Holidays and health’: 90.

58 holiday.7 In the late 1930s, Brammall wrote that Brisbane residents went to the beach in winter as well as in summer: ‘Every holiday finds an empty city; but it is at Christmas and Easter that the real trek to the sea begins, and a canvas town springs up which is almost unbroken for 100 miles [161 kilometres] north from the Twin Towns

[Coolangatta/Tweed Heads] on the border of New South Wales.’8 During the 1920s in

Queensland, both mixed bathing and Sunday bathing were permitted because of the

State’s ‘elastic’ beach regulations that had been in place since 1914. The one place in

Queensland that took much longer to alter its beach laws was Coolangatta, because

Catholic Archbishop Duhig chose to holiday there; the laws were not altered until 1937, because of faltering tourism.9 Many local authorities banned bathing in waters exposed to public view during daylight hours. Bathing costumes and mixed bathing offended moralists, personified as Mrs Grundies.10 With the dawning of the twentieth century, however, new by-laws were drafted that responded to the widespread practice of daylight bathing, and local authorities built separate men and women’s swimming enclosures.11 Not only were men and women separated, but they were also required to use the enclosures at different times. The State Library of Queensland holds several images of the Sandgate Jetty, for example, showing very clearly the separate swimming enclosures. ‘The middle-classes believed that the display of flesh in public was sinful and they confined public bathing to segregated and enclosed baths.’12 However, all of the resistance to mixed bathing was dispelled during World War I because society had developed a fresh set of priorities.13 A.W. Relph, a foundation member of the Manly

7 Wells, Sunny memories, p. 131. 8 C.C.D. Brammall, ‘Brisbane. The city of go-as-you-please’, Walkabout, 3(9) (1937): 28. 9 Wells, Sunny memories, p. 26. 10 Douglas Booth, ‘Nudes in the sand and perverts in the dunes’, Journal of Australian Studies, 53 (1997): 172. 11 Dutton, Sun, sea, surf and sand, p. 50. 12 Douglas Booth. ‘Nudes in the sand’: 170. 13 Douglas Booth, Australian beach cultures: the history of sun, sand, and surf, Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2001, p. 35.

59 Surf Club in Sydney, stated that surf bathing created ‘a fine healthy race of men, quite equal to their brothers who live outback in the bush and open air of the country’.14 The new Canadian bathing costume – a one-piece suit with a modesty skirt – became very fashionable for men and women. At the same time, it was acceptable for children to wear simple one-piece bathing suits.15 However, all of those costumes – whether short- sleeved or sleeveless – covered the chest, and extended halfway to the knee; hence the descriptive expression ‘neck to knee’. ‘Before the Great War, [male and female] surf bathers covered their chests, the exposure of which symbolized indecency and ill- discipline.’16

In the decade leading up to the 1920s, two people – apparently quite independently of each other – suggested complementary schemes for children: Dr (Sir) David Hardie, as we saw in the previous chapter, advocated mountain camps for urban children, and the

Hon. H.F. Hardacre promoted the idea of seaside schools for rural children.

The rural children were those who lived to the west of the Great Dividing Range that runs from the north to the south of the state. It was considered that the western districts were healthier than the coastal regions, particularly the urban locations. It was still thought, however, that the children living inland (in the west) needed a yearly escape to the coast away from the restrictive, monotonous lives they lived. As Dutton put it: ‘For millions of Australians holidays have meant the beach. Holidays have done something to cross-fertilize the two traditions of bush and beach.’17 In the early twentieth century, concludes historian Douglas Booth, surf bathing was promoted as a healthy tonic ‘amid

14 Relph, quoted in Douglas Booth. ‘War off water: the Australian Surf Life Saving Association and the beach’, Sporting Traditions, 7(2) (1991): 139. 15 Wells, Sunny memories, p. 98. 16 Booth, Australian beach cultures, p. 5. 17 Dutton, Sun, sea, surf and sand, p. 53.

60 the growing awareness of germ theory, urban squalor and bubonic plague’.18 Children were also to be saved from such dangers.

The Hon. H.F. Hardacre

Hardacre was Queensland Minister for Education during the years 1915 to 1919. In his report for the year 1915, tabled in the Queensland Parliament on 6 September 1916,

Hardacre announced the need for seaside schools. The Labor member for the western

Queensland electorate of Leichhardt from 189319 until his resignation from parliament in 1919, he stated in the Queensland parliament that when he moved around the western parts of the state, he imagined the children of those districts being taken for a fortnight each year to the seaside: ‘Many of them have never seen the sea; their environment is confined; educative influences are few; and the refinements of life do not come freely within their reach.’ Such an escape to the seaside would be more than ‘healthful’: it would be a break and a fresh experience, and the children could concentrate on nature study and other similar subjects. He hoped to establish one or more of those ‘seaside recreative schools’, but was hampered by a lack of funding.20 In an address to the teachers’ conference in January 1918, Hardacre again spoke briefly about seaside schools, explaining that the idea had been devised and their establishment provided for.

However, delays had occurred in their establishing because it was difficult to obtain suitable sites.21 Historian Denis Murphy has suggested that ‘Hardacre had no real interest in education beyond its providing rudimentary knowledge necessary to obtain a

18 Booth. ‘War off water’: 138. 19 D.J. Murphy, T.J. Ryan: a political biography, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1990, p. 35. 20 Queensland Parliamentary Papers 1916–17, Vol. II, 40th Report of the Secretary for Public Instruction for the Year 1915, p. 34. 21 Queensland. Department of Public Instruction. Education Office Gazette, February 1918, Address by the Hon H.F. Hardacre, Minister for Public Instruction, at the Opening of the Teachers’ Conference, 21 January 1918, p. 27.

61 job’.22 But perhaps Hardacre’s efforts over a number of years to establish seaside recreative schools indicate that he was thinking beyond the basic requirements of his portfolio, at least in his concern for the health and welfare of the children in the western districts of Queensland. Contradicting Murphy, a newspaper article published in 1917 commented on ‘the detailed knowledge and studious nature of Mr Hardacre [that] make him a decided success as a Minister for Education’. Moreover, the article concluded enthusiastically that: ‘He now proposes a seaside school for country children.’23

Certainly, physical education was important to Hardacre. At the abovementioned teachers’ conference, Hardacre had called for greater attention to the physical development of schoolchildren and suggested that, ‘there should … be specially organised and encouraged games and sports’.24 In his opening address at the following year’s teachers’ conference, he stated that, during the previous three years, he had been left with a pleasant impression about the role of nature study more generally in

Queensland’s schools:

The sympathetic understanding which is so frequently established between the

teacher and the taught, the greater interest taken by teachers in the outdoor

occupations and sports of the children, all evidence a better understanding of

child nature, which has contributed to a higher standard of physical health and

happiness among the children in our schools.25

22 T.J. Ryan, p. 104. 23 ‘Political personalities. McCormack for the ministry. Huxham. Hunter. Hardacre. Harry Coyne and the railways’. Truth, 25 February 1917: 4. 24 Herbert F. Hardacre, Addresses on matters educational/delivered by the Hon H.F. Hardacre, Minister for Public Instruction, during his term of office, June, 1915–September, 1919, Brisbane: [s.n.], 1920, p. 91. 25 Hardacre, Addresses on matters educational, p. 105.

62 In his history of education in Queensland, Ezra Wyeth covers the period during which

Hardacre was the Minister for Education, yet he does not mention seaside schools or mountain camps, or include anything about the department’s focus on physical health for schoolchildren.26 The history of state education in Queensland prepared by the

Department of Public Instruction (by then under the direction of Minister, Hon T.

Wilson) and published in 1928 is also silent on mountain camps and seaside schools. It does state, however, that ‘by developing the physical, intellectual, social, and moral capacities of our boys and girls we enable them to lead fuller and more useful lives’. It appears that such development was to be achieved, initially, through the primary school curriculum. This absence is all the more surprising, as while many of the seaside schools were held in the early 1920s, the two Ministers for Education who oversaw the introduction of the temporary seaside schools were Hardacre and Huxham, and these schools were still taking place following the date of Wilson’s publication into the early

1930s.27

Seaside Recreative Schools

By 1916, Yeppoon, which is 26 miles (42 kilometres) east of Rockhampton in Central

Queensland, had been selected for the ‘seaside recreative schools’. Yeppoon and Emu

Park had been popular ‘watering places’ for Rockhampton residents since the 1880s.28 It was Hardacre’s intention that children from western Queensland could attend such schools ‘for a few months of the year’.29 During that year, six acres of land were

26 E.R. Wyeth, Education in Queensland: a history of education in Queensland and in the Moreton Bay District of New South Wales, Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research, [1955], p. 178. 27 Department of Public Instruction, State education in Queensland, Brisbane: Government Printer, [1928], p. 14. 28 Regina J. Ganter, The history and development of the Keppel Islands, Brisbane: School of Humanities, Griffith University, 1985, p. 17. 29 ‘Seaside schools. For children from west’, Telegraph, 13 April 1916: n.p.

63 purchased on the esplanade at Yeppoon from Mr William Kerr. After inspecting the land, Hardacre decided that it was unsuitable, so he arranged with Kerr to exchange it for another block. Hardacre inspected the site of the seaside school again in January

1917. In his report to the government, he advised that the second block was

‘exceptionally suited in every respect, being … close to the beach, and … [having] good agricultural soil … and is almost perfectly level in contour, being nice and elevated giving a splendid view. It is also in a very healthy position’. As the Daily Mail reported,

Hardacre considered that at least a week each year at the seaside school would not only benefit the western children’s health but would also broaden ‘the outlook of the children’. The location of Yeppoon was justified again because it was the ‘nearest resort to the great central-west railway system’.30 In August 1917, Hardacre was still intending to establish a seaside school at Yeppoon ‘in the current financial year’. He considered that the children of the western plains were being reared in isolation and dreariness: ‘A few weeks at the seaside … will be like a taste of Paradise to the children of the backblocks.’31 Unfortunately, soon after the acquisition of the Yeppoon land, the financial stringency that followed World War I caused the plans for seaside schools for western children to be temporarily stalled.32

In September 1917, ‘One Mother’ from Charleville in southwest Queensland wrote to the editor of the Daily Mail asking whether the government would supply a railway pass and a tent at the seaside so parents could take their children to the coast: ‘What I would like to know is whether the Government is prepared to help us in any way to help the

30 ‘Yeppoon by the sea. Mr Hardacre’s visit. Proposed seaside school’, Daily Mail, 15 January 1917: 6. 31 ‘Seaside school scheme. Experiment at Yeppoon’, Telegraph, 2 August 1917: 2. 32 J Fee (ed.), Centenary 1885–1985: Yeppoon State School, Yeppoon, Qld: Yeppoon State School Centenary Committee, 1985, p. 32.

64 children, both mentally and physically.’33 The next week, a small article appeared in the

Daily Mail in response, stating that the government had already considered the idea raised in the letter and that ‘it is not improbable that something may be done to give the children of the West a deserved holiday’.34 The article would seem to imply that the government was backing away from establishing seaside schools at locations such as

Yeppoon. The following year, ‘Strewth Once’ wrote to the editor of the Daily Mail with a series of questions for Mr Hardacre. He praised Sir David Hardie for the scheme to take coastal children to the mountains, and vice versa. He then quoted Hardacre as being in favour of sending children from the west to the coast for two weeks a year. However, he followed that by stating: ‘Mr Hardacre seems in favour of anything which he thinks likely to bring in a little popular feeling, but it ends there.’35 If Hardacre was financially constrained because of Queensland’s economic circumstances after World War I, the opinion expressed in that letter was unfair. At the same time, though, it must have become obvious that the Yeppoon seaside school, at least, was not going to go ahead. In fact, Hardacre stated as much at the teachers’ conference held in January 1919:

The difficulty of procuring a site together with financial considerations [has]

postponed the inauguration of my ideal of a seaside school to which I have

referred on previous occasions … Now by the completion of a new school

building enabling the previously existing building to be used for the purpose of

sleeping accommodation at this place, I hope to see the initiation of my scheme

33 ‘For the children. Letter from the west. (To the editor)’, Daily Mail, 14 September 1917: 4. 34 ‘Western children and the sea’, Daily Mail, 18 September 1917: 4. 35 ‘Questions for Mr Hardacre. (To the editor)’, Daily Mail, 7 November 1918: 4.

65 for temporarily transferring groups of children from inland localities to a

properly equipped recreation school at the seaside.36

It did not take long for a number of communities to start organising seaside schools in rented accommodation, particularly at a number of locations in Southeast Queensland.

The idea of such a school had struck a chord, however. Richard White, in his history of holidays in Australia, explains that ‘by 1914 a culture of the beach had emerged – earlier and more elaborately in Australia than anywhere. And throughout the period, the health-giving merits of the outdoor life were being extolled to an increasingly urbanised society.’37 Professionals such as Dr (Sir) David Hardie and voluntary organisations such as the CWA, along with community members, were expressions of this trend. As historian Douglas Booth states, ‘the Australian beach reflected the health, fitness and youth of the nation’.38 Leone Huntsman, in her history of the beach in Australia, explores the issues of ‘the race’ and ‘the survival of the fittest’. Those issues are relevant to seaside schools because they were designed to develop mental and physical fitness in the nation’s children: ‘Fatalistic acceptance of high mortality rates gave way to an expectation that good health could be achieved and sustained by encouraging the population to engage in health-giving practices and pastimes – like surf-bathing.’39

After this false start, New South Wales became a leader in the seaside camp. From the mid-1920s to the early 1940s, three men with the surname of Drummond were involved

36 ‘Teachers. Conference. Mr Hardacre’s review. Seaside schools and mountain camps’, Daily Mail, 21 January 1919: 8. 37 White, On holidays, p. 55. 38 Booth, ‘Nudes in the sand’: 173. 39 Leone Huntsman, Sand in our souls: the beach in Australian history, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001, p. 71.

66 in promoting the value of the seaside in the education and welfare of children from the far western districts of New South Wales. Two were brothers: Reverend Stanley

Drummond, a Methodist clergyman who founded the Far West Children’s Scheme at seaside Manly in Sydney, and Norman Drummond, a teacher and educational administrator. David Drummond, who was not related, was a politician. Reverend

Stanley Drummond commenced modestly with a ‘seaside school holiday camp’ for outback children.40 He designed the scheme for children who had never seen the sea, and it was to provide them with medical and dental care while they had their seaside holiday. ‘Stanley Drummond was a simple man with a simple idea: he believed in the curative powers of the sea and the sun along with a balanced diet, exercise and good medical treatment.’41 The medical and dental aspects were absent from the Queensland seaside school model. Godfrey and Ramsland describe Drummond’s ‘almost obsessive focus … on the physical health needs of outback children who were stranded in isolated, difficult places with heat and glare, dust and flies’.42 The three Drummonds were working towards ‘providing better education and health facilities and opportunities for bush, marginalised and outback children’.43 Reverend Stanley Drummond’s work for the far western children quickly progressed from the ‘holiday camp’ to the Far West

Home in Wentworth Street, Manly.44 Because the children were from such remote western locations in New South Wales, Drummond became known as ‘Drummond of the Far West’.45 The home at Manly was built with public subscriptions and some

40 John R. Godfrey and John Ramsland, ‘David, Stanley and Norman Drummond: a “fair deal” for the New South Wales country child in schooling and welfare, 1924–1983’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 90(1) (2004): 28. 41 John Ramsland. ‘The Far West Scheme and the myth of Stanley Drummond and the outback child’, Childhood citizenship culture: proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society 26th annual conference, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 10-14 July 1996, Brisbane: ANZHES, 1996, p. 572. 42 Godfrey and Ramsland, ‘David, Stanley and Norman Drummond’: 28. 43 ibid., p. 23. 44 Ramsland. ‘The Far West Scheme’, p. 575. 45 Godfrey and Ramsland, ‘David, Stanley and Norman Drummond’: 29.

67 government funding, which Hon H.F. Hardacre in Queensland was not able to achieve.

In addition, just as we saw in the previous chapter that medical practitioners were involved in Queensland mountain camps, so too medical practitioners supported the Far

West Home. Before World War II, an average of 90 children was brought to Manly each year. The scheme would be much larger than the Queensland seaside schools.

According to the historian John Ramsland: ‘[Stanley Drummond] brought child life in the outback into dramatic juxtaposition with the seaside resort and its curative culture.’46

Queensland Seaside Schools Emerge

During the 1930s, the Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme was inaugurated.

Just as the Far West Children’s Health Scheme of New South Wales had become a health scheme in place of a holiday scheme, so too the Queensland Bush Children’s

Health Scheme was initially a health rather than merely a holiday scheme.47 In

Queensland, the first children to benefit from the movement were from the far west and the northwest, and they were taken to Townsville for treatment in 1932. From 1935, children from the central west were taken to Maryborough and Rockhampton for treatment. The Queensland Governor, Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, became interested in the movement and in 1935 called together a committee of leading citizens representing interested associations to discuss the possibilities of starting a statewide movement.48

46 Ramsland. ‘The Far West Scheme’, p. 576. 47 The history of the Royal Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme, Brisbane: Royal Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme, 1974, p. 3. 48 Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme, First Annual Report of Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme (Incorporated Association) for the year 1936, Brisbane: The Scheme, p. 1.

68 Sir Leslie Wilson suggested calling it the Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme.

‘Though many Queenslanders claim to have started the movement, perhaps the initial inspiration came from the Reverend Stanley Drummond [in] New South Wales.’ Mr

Drummond called on Sir Leslie while he (Drummond) was in Queensland, to discuss the possibility of forming a statewide Queensland movement. At a public meeting called by Sir Leslie, a Brisbane philanthropist, Mr A.S. Huybers, presented the scheme with his holiday home, ‘Tasma’, at Redcliffe. Shortly after that, homes were purchased in

Maryborough and Emu Park (Rockhampton).49 The first Council of the scheme included several doctors, and was chaired by Sir Raphael Cilento, the Director-General of Health and Medical Services. Among its ten objects were fundraising to acquire land and buildings and ‘[t]o seek out and investigate cases of children resident in the far west or elsewhere in Queensland who are in need of medical or surgical treatment or … are in need of some treatment in the coastal areas, or elsewhere in Queensland’.50

The Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme received financial and in-kind assistance from the government and many voluntary associations.51 Newspaper and radio station appeals also assisted the scheme; newspapers included the Courier-Mail,

Telegraph, Truth and Smith’s Weekly. Each radio station had its own way of obtaining funds. ‘4BC by their picnics, 4BK through their “Good Yarners Club”, 4QG by their

Community Concert, and 4BH by subscriptions sent by their listeners direct to the station’.52 Children eligible for support under the scheme were aged from five to thirteen years. All of the four homes established by 1955 – at Redcliffe, Torquay

(Hervey Bay), Townsville and Yeppoon – were named ‘Leslie Wilson Home’ in tribute

49 Roth Jones, ‘Outback children of Queensland: A health scheme which is working wonders’, Walkabout, 1 August 1955: 35. 50 The history of the Royal Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme, p. 6. 51 ibid., p. 7. 52 Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme, First Annual Report, p. 5.

69 to their founder.53 As well as the homes, children also attended camps at Lota (a southeast Brisbane seaside suburb), Coolum Beach (Sunshine Coast) and Townsville.54

In addition, from 1973, the scheme became known as the Royal Queensland Bush

Children’s Health Scheme, when the Queen assented to the royal prefix being used.55

The scheme obtained much of its funding through government subsidy and public donations. People called it a charity organisation; however, Sir Leslie Wilson always maintained: ‘This is not a charity – it is an investment in the future of the State.’56

Other seaside schools included Dirranbandi, Ramsay and Turallin, all in the south of

Queensland, and Ravenshoe in the north. It is not known whether the children of the

Dirranbandi State School, in the Western Downs region of southern Queensland, ever attended a seaside school; however, in 1924, Mr J.M. Corkery, head teacher, wrote to the Department of Public Instruction seeking several points of information about such schools.57 The department’s reply, which answered all of the points, enclosed an extract from a report on the Mt Colliery seaside school, and also advised that the Tannymorel and Loch Lomond schools held a seaside school at Redcliffe in 1922.

In 1926, the Ramsay and Hodgson Vale communities, just south of Toowoomba in southern Queensland, were intending to hold a joint seaside school for their pupils. The department approved the proposal. Correspondence concerned free railway passes, as

53 Jones, ‘Outback children of Queensland’: 35. 54 Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme., Fourth Annual Report of Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme (Incorporated), Brisbane: The Scheme, p. 4. 55 The history of the Royal Queensland Bush Children’s Health Scheme, p. 13. 56 Jones. ‘Outback children of Queensland’: 35. 57 QSA – ID 997425 – Dirranbandi 1924 – memorandum – 03 June 1924 – Folio 25149.

70 were issued to the Geham State School party in 1920. The correspondence in reply advised that free railway passes could not be approved.58

Likewise, in 1924, various schools in the Ravenshoe district, southwest of Cairns in Far

North Queensland, wanted to hold a seaside school at Double Island, just north of

Cairns. The Ravenshoe Seaside Excursion Committee requested information about similar camps in southern Queensland. In reply, a copy of the Mt Colliery report was forwarded to them. The committee was advised to contact the Railway Department regarding a possible reduction in fares for the excursion. They were also advised that

‘pupils in attendance at a seaside school are credited with such attendance on the ordinary school roll’, and that they should make application for permission for teachers to accompany the children, and the department should be advised how many pupils were taking part in the trip.59

On the other hand, the Turallin seaside school did go ahead from 10 November 1933.

Turallin and Millmerran are on the western fringe of the Darling Downs in southern

Queensland. The school committee had applied to the Millmerran branch of the

Queensland Country Women’s Association for the use of one of their seaside homes at

Sandgate for two weeks, ‘and the trip would have to fit in with the dates when the home is available’. Mr P.J. Bailey, chairman of the committee, also advised that ‘none of the pupils [has] been to the seaside and we consider the instruction they will receive during the trip will help their education to a great extent’.60 In reply, Bailey was advised by the department that the Turallin school could be closed if ‘sixty per cent of the children in attendance … take advantage of the opportunity to spend two weeks at the proposed

58 QSA – ID 997425 – Ramsay 1926 – letter – 12 July 1926 – Folio 34206. 59 QSA – ID 997425 – Ravenshoe 1924 – letter – 27 June 1924 – Folio 29830. 60 QSA – ID 997425 – Turallin 1933 – letter – 22 September 1933 – Folio 40959.

71 seaside school’. For the first time, the department also stated that it ‘cordially approves of this method of widening educational activities’.61 Miss M.B. Roberts, head teacher, did not elaborate on how funds had been raised, nor is there anything to indicate that she provided a report to the department at the end of the seaside school.62

Major Seaside Schools

A number of major seaside schools, such as Geham and Mt Colliery, were promoted by the Department of Public Instruction to other school committees as models to follow. In fact, the reports that were produced by those two schools were often forwarded to school committees by the department when such schools were planning their own seaside schools. A memorandum dated 23 February 1920 from Mr J.S.D. Collings, head teacher of the Geham State School, just over 15 miles (25 kilometres) north of

Toowoomba, stated that towards the end of 1918 a deputation from his school had met with the Hon H.F. Hardacre and Mr Morris in Toowoomba. They presented an ‘Outline of proposed educational fortnight at the seaside, for senior pupils of Geham State

School’. The idea was to take 25 to 40 of the senior pupils for two weeks to Redcliffe.

Two houses would be rented, one for boys and one for girls. Each house would have four adults in charge – two male and two female teachers and two male and two female committee members. The daily routine would include swimming, physical training, trips to Bribie Island, St Helena Island, Brisbane (museum, art gallery, newspaper office, gardens and Parliament House) and games. The local community would arrange the finances. Concessions would be requested from the department – a fortnight’s holiday for the whole school; free or cheap fares to and from Brisbane; and the use of a

61 QSA – ID 997425 – Turallin 1933 – letter – 27 September 1933. 62 QSA – ID 997425 – Turallin 1933 – memorandum – 16 October 1933 – Folio 44847.

72 government steamer for trips to the islands. ‘Mr Hardacre expressed his complete approval of the scheme and promised us all we asked for, provided we saw to the financial aspect.’ Heartened by this response, the local community got behind the idea and arranged sports days, concerts, dances, the raffle of a heifer and the sale of produce in aid of the trip. All of this activity clearly expresses a broad-based support for the scheme, which is not reflected in the fact that such support barely appears in the public record. Influenza and drought prevented them from going in 1919, but everything was ready to proceed on 1 May 1920. ‘We intend to devote the whole of our time to the children’s welfare and expect to spend £60 ($120) to £70 ($140) on the venture.’ The outline concluded that the children ‘will benefit immensely physically, morally, mentally and socially from the fortnight at the seaside’.63 Two weeks later, Mr Collings’ father, Joseph Silver Collings, who was a member of the Queensland Legislative

Council at the time, wrote to the Hon John Huxham, Minister for Education, in support of the Geham community’s intention to hold a seaside school. He noted how few of the children had ever seen the sea.64

A Department of Public Instruction minute released in March 1920 recommended that: the head teacher be granted the necessary permission to conduct the seaside school, and that the pupils’ attendance be considered as an ordinary day school; a female teacher be placed temporarily in charge of the Geham school during the seaside school; free railway passes for the teachers and pupils be granted; luggage be given free carriage; application be made to the Railway Department for a large marquee to be used as a dining tent; an application be made to the Treasury Department for a Marine

Department steamer to convey the party between Brisbane and Redcliffe on the forward

63 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – memorandum – 23 February 1920 – Folio 07514. 64 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – letter – 07 March 1920.

73 and return journeys; and, for one day during the school, a vessel should take the children for a trip around the bay.65

Figure 3.1: Girls of Geham State school, 1920 Source: QSA – ID 997425 – Folio 28088.

The Minister stated that he had ‘discussed this matter very fully with Mr Hardacre and found that he approved generally of Mr Collings’ scheme on the understanding that the department was not to contribute in actual cash’. He also approved several items, the principal one being that, after the first term vacation, ‘an additional vacation of a fortnight be granted to their school to enable them to conduct a seaside school for from

25–40 pupils, most of whom have never been to Brisbane’.66 Collings advised that the party of scholars and adults would consist of twenty boys, sixteen girls, three teachers,

65 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – minute – 23 March 1920. 66 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – minute – undated – Folio 10339.

74 two cooks, three committeemen and his wife, a total of 45. He advised that they had been able to rent ‘two good houses’ at Redcliffe, ‘Ormonde’ and ‘Redcliffe Cottage’.

They were also keen for the department to organise Messrs White, Chisholm and

Longman, ‘or other gentlemen you may appoint’, to instruct the children in bird life and such. Further, they were eager to use the lantern and slides for such instruction.67

The director of the Queensland Museum advised that Dr John Shirley, conchologist, would visit the seaside school. He added that Dr Shirley ‘suggests giving them half-a- day along the shore, dealing with marine objects, and half-a-day inland studying plant life’.68 Writing from Redcliffe, Mr Collings advised the department that they were ‘now quite settled in our seaside school’. Filling in some of the detail he was evidently quite aware would be needed, he also reported that: ‘We are bathing twice daily and the children are keeping a careful account of all their doings.’69

In a final exchange of correspondence between Mr Collings and the department, a detailed account of the seaside school was enclosed written by one of the children,

Evelyn McLaughlin, and a condensed version was to be published in the Education

Office Gazette. Also enclosed was a balance sheet. It was estimated that the average cost per person per day was 2/6 (25 cents). More than £20 ($40) was unused, and returned to the school funds.70

Evelyn McLaughlin not only recorded the activities of the fortnight at Redcliffe, she included her own commentary on some of them. For example, on the first Monday

67 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – letter – 30 March 1920 – Folio 13744. 68 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – letter – 14 April 1920 – Folio 16032. 69 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – letter – 03 May 1920 – Folio 18907. 70 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – memorandum – 14 June 1920 – Folio 28088.

75 night, she related that Mr Black led a fishing party on the Redcliffe Jetty, ‘but we had to buy our fish on Tuesday’. On the first Wednesday, the girls had their afternoon swim and the boys missed theirs because they played a cricket match with the local cricket team, ‘but all had a most enjoyable afternoon’. During the trip to Bribie Island, ‘Mr

Black’s fishing party made a fine haul’. After their full day in Brisbane, ‘we went off to bed after one of the most instructive days of our lives’. During the last day of their two weeks by the sea, they ‘managed to find time for two good swims’. Then, when they reached their final destination, ‘we arrived tired but happy after a glorious holiday’.71

A condensed version of her account of the Geham seaside school was published in the

Education Office Gazette a few months afterwards, stating that the idea of seaside schools ‘at which recreation and instruction might be simultaneously provided has been under consideration for some time’. Such schools would be for the benefit of children from the inland or the western districts of Queensland. The Geham seaside school was stated to be an experiment that proved ‘an unqualified success’ because of everything the teachers and committee did before and during the school. The account reiterated: ‘It was distinctly understood that the department could not grant any financial assistance towards the movement.’ Instead, funds were collected locally through a series of entertainments and donations. More than sufficient funds were raised for the school, and supplies of fruit and vegetables were also provided by the local community. As well as participating in games, physical exercises and swimming, the children had spent their days collecting and examining natural specimens from the beaches or the adjacent bush.

They were entertained by an exhibition of swimming and lifesaving by a team of experts, and were given an elocution address by Mr Walter Collings. A large party of

71 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – summary of proceedings from the diary of Evelyn McLaughlin.

76 government officials who spent a day with the children formed the view that the venture should ‘be regarded as a distinctly successful development conducted on modern educational lines’.72

There have been two small publications about the Geham State School. The first one, produced for the school’s centenary, includes two photographs with the caption

‘Redcliffe 1919 [sic]. Geham pupils with J.D. Collings (H.T.)’.73 It is possible that those were two of the photographs that were taken on the day these government officials visited. Evelyn McLaughlin recorded that: ‘Mr Lunn, the official photographer, and Mr

Morris, Director of Technical Education, took some photos of us all in the two cars in front of “Ormonde”.’.74 One shows a group of children and adults in and around two cars in front of a house, and the other shows children and adults gathered for a group photo on a beach. The later publication refers to the 1920 seaside school: ‘About [1920],

Mr Collings took most of the classes to Redcliffe for a holiday by the sea, perhaps prompted by the flu epidemic so that children could partake of the sea air. By all accounts it was a resounding success.’75 After the seaside school, there was correspondence between the department, Mr Collings and Mr Bebbington. Collings and

Bebbington were keen for twelve sets of the photos to be presented to the Geham State

School teachers and members of the Geham community to thank them for their efforts to achieve the seaside school. After much persuasion, the department agreed to create the twelve sets, which were finally despatched in September 1920.76

72 ‘Seaside school at Redcliffe’, Education Office Gazette, 3 August 1920: 209. 73 Geham State School, Souvenir brochure, Geham State School centenary, 1871–1971, The School, 1971, p. 23. 74 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – summary of proceedings from the diary of Evelyn McLaughlin, p. 5. 75 Parents and Citizens Association of the Geham State School, Geham State School, 1871–1996: 125 years of education at Geham: incorporating a history of the Geham district, Geham: The School, 1996, p. 60. 76 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1920 – notation – 03 September 1920 – Folio 42682.

77

During 1929, the Geham community again made arrangements for their children to attend a seaside school at Southport for a fortnight from 12 October. They intended the school to be similar to the one in 1920, but there would be several differences. In July

1929, a handwritten departmental notation on a letter from Mr H. Biegel, secretary of the school committee, read: ‘For some years past the Department, for financial reasons, has ceased to grant free railway passes or monetary assistance in connection with seaside schools.’77 Not to be deterred, Biegel made representations to Mr A.E. Moore, the Premier, about the matter. The department informed Moore that it would not be possible to grant the passes. It also informed him that ‘Geham was, I think, the first school to undertake an excursion of this kind, and the then Minister (Mr Huxham), in order to give the movement a start, granted railway passes to the children concerned. It is customary now for communities to raise funds for such purposes by means of fetes, concerts, etc.’78 Another difference was that Mr Robinson (head teacher) was only permitted to take one of his teachers (Miss Adams) to the 1929 seaside school, while the other teacher (Miss Doig) remained at Geham ‘to carry on the work of the school for the children who will be left’.79 Concerned that the seaside school would not attract any official visitors or natural history instructors, Robinson sought the permission of the department to depart from the ordinary school curriculum and ‘to teach swimming, to take drill and organised games, and how to revive the apparently drowned’. He also planned to take the children to Coolangatta, Tweed Heads and Fingal Lighthouse, and

‘to teach as much local geography, correlated with history’. He thought the trip would

77 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1929 – notation – 20 July 1929 – Folio 38531. 78 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1929 – letter – 10 September 1929. 79 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1929 – notation – 16 September 1929 – Folio 48949.

78 be instructive for the children because most of them ‘have never seen a river, much less the ocean’.80

In 1920, Mr Watson, the head teacher at Mount Alford State school, sought permission to hold a two-week seaside school. His idea was to ‘work much on the lines of the mountain camp I conducted last Christmas vacation’. He also stated that the school would be for the ‘educational and physical development of the children’.81 He estimated that the cost of the trip would be £70 ($140), and that the trip would be held in August or early September after the funds had been collected. He also requested free railway passes for the party ‘as was done in the case of the [1920] Geham State school trip’.82

The department granted approval for the passes. Watson advised that the sports events, sale of gifts and social evening had been held and that the ‘movement has gained greater popularity than even the mountain camp conducted here last Christmas vacation’.83

Finally, he advised the department that the local health officer was completely in agreement with the trip, which was delayed until 12 October 1920. The first week was spent at ‘Jetty View’, Manly, and the second week at ‘Orient House’, Redcliffe. There was an ‘at home’ to receive departmental officials and other visitors on the first

Saturday at Manly. According to the daily program provided to the department, the activities were similar to those undertaken by the Geham children in 1920, with the

Mount Alford children possibly engaging in more ‘school routine’.84 In the publication celebrating the centenary of the Mount Alford State School is a record of the excursion that more or less coincides with the details in this correspondence. It also includes two

80 QSA – ID 997425 – Geham 1929 – memorandum – 6 September 1929 – Folio 48949. 81 QSA – ID 997425 – Mount Alford 1920 – memorandum – 31 May 1920 – Folio 25369. 82 QSA – ID 997425 – Mount Alford 1920 – memorandum – 9 August 1920 – Folio 38864. 83 QSA – ID 997425 – Mount Alford 1920 – memorandum – 31 August 1920 – Folio 42968. 84 QSA – ID 997425 – Mount Alford 1920 – memorandum – 30 September 1920 – Folio 48755.

79 photographs, one of the children at Redcliffe beach and the other of the group at Boonah

Railway Station with all of the children and adults named in the accompanying caption:

[In 1920,] the whole school of 38 left for two weeks camp organised by the head

teacher, H.W. Watson. Schoolwork still continued but there were many enjoyable

times boating and playing on the beach at Redcliffe. Children’s Welfare

Association paid the rent of the houses and the children had free railway passes

from the government. To raise money for the meals and other expenses a sale of

gifts brought £50 ($100) and altogether it cost £77.13.0 ($155.30). A mountain

camp at Mount Alford had been enjoyed by less privileged children under the

umbrella of the Children’s Welfare Association.85

Children from the Columboola and Goombi State schools and the Lilyvale provisional school, all near Miles in the Western Downs region of southern Queensland, enjoyed a seaside school at Nudgee Beach from 4 to 12 December 1924. It is not possible to deduct from the extant correspondence which of the teachers attended the seaside school, nor exactly how many of the 34 children attended. According to Miss

McAllister: ‘The Lilyvale scholars have never seen a town or the ocean and hardly seen anything like town children, some have never ridden in a train so if they were shown a few places of interest they would be delighted and could also learn many lessons.’86 Mr

A.S. Rheuben, secretary of the Columboola school committee, wrote to request the department to send ‘some instructor out to lecture on lifesaving [or] nature studies’. It is

85 Margaret J. Oppermann, Mount Alford memories: Mount Alford State School centenary 1888–1988, Mt Alford, Qld: Mount Alford State School Centenary Committee, 1988, p. 12. 86 QSA – ID 997425 – Columboola 1924 – memorandum – 29 November 1924 – Folio 56537.

80 not clear whether they got their nature study lecturer, but a hand-written note advises that they did receive a visit from a lifesaving squad.87

In June 1920, Mr B.G. Cutler, head teacher of the Eidsvold State School in the North

Burnett region of Central Queensland, sought the department’s approval for a three- week seaside school at Redcliffe in May 1921. Cutler had read the newspaper accounts of the Geham seaside school, and he had obtained full details from the head teacher of the Geham State School, including a copy of Evelyn McLaughlin’s diary. He advised the department that ‘out of over eighty scholars only six have ever seen a train – not one a boat, tram, or stone building’.88 The departmental reply advised Cutler that the minister approved the Eidsvold seaside school, and in March 1921 Cutler wrote again to the department that the dates at Redcliffe were to be 27 April to 12 May, and the group would consist of 35 children and ten adults. He requested coach passes as well as railway passes, and he asked to be provided with two tents, ‘one for boys and one for girls … to be erected on the beach and used as dressing rooms’.89 In reply, the department advised that a relieving teacher would be made available at Eidsvold State

School for the duration of the seaside school. It also advised that the railway passes were enclosed with the letter, but that coach passes would not be made available because the department could not bear the cost of coach fares. The government storekeeper was requested to supply the two tents.90

In his report on the seaside school, Cutler revealed that his committee had initially been

‘very dubious about having anything to do in the matter as they considered my scheme

87 QSA – ID 997425 – Columboola 1924 – letter – 1 December 1924 – Folio 56389. 88 QSA – ID 997425 – Eidsvold 1921 – memorandum – 28 June 1920 – Folio 31447. 89 QSA – ID 997425 – Eidsvold 1921 – memorandum – 02 March 1921 – Folio 08977. 90 QSA – ID 997425 – Eidsvold 1921 – letter – 12 March 1921.

81 too gigantic a proposition for a small inland settlement over three hundred miles

[483 kilometres] from Redcliffe’. However, he had won them over. The money for the seaside school was raised with the aid of two dances, a fancy-dress ball, a school concert and voluntary subscriptions. The total raised was £107 ($214), and the total expenses were £105 ($210). They rented two houses, one for the boys and one for the girls. Their journeys to and from Redcliffe took more than 30 hours. Cutler explained that the group had received ‘splendid hospitality’ from the various city and shire councils it passed through on the way. The children swam almost every day, and a team of teachers representing the Royal Life Saving Society demonstrated lifesaving, scientific swimming and diving. There were also two official visits by representatives of the department. The group made several visits to places of interest in Brisbane, Ipswich and locally. An important visitor was Mr White, government botanist, who ‘took the children for a ramble through the bush and explained the flora of the district’. The other important visitor was Dr Shirley, conchologist, who explained ‘all about the local [shell] specimens they had collected’.91

Two small, neighbouring schools, Loch Lomond and Tannymorel in the Southern

Downs region of southern Queensland, took their children to seaside schools on at least three occasions. The first time was in August 1922. Although the department had since ceased to provide rail passes for seaside schools, they did provide relieving teachers.

The secretary at the Tannymorel school, Mr Bradford, referred to the minister’s visit to

Loch Lomond on 16 February 1921 when he invited their ‘committee and pupils to organise a seaside educational tour’. Bradford explained that it had taken so long to raise the funds for a seaside school, but ‘[i]t has become almost a sacred duty to honour

91 QSA – ID 997425 – Eidsvold 1921 – memorandum – 18 May 1921 – Folio 22183.

82 our promises to the children who have been so frequently disappointed yet remained hopeful’.92 The seaside school was held at Redcliffe and the party of 50 children and seventeen adults travelled by train and coach. Mr W.J. Gallogly, head teacher at Loch

Lomond State School, reported that there were no official visits and no nature study lectures, but that the children did undertake excursions, witness a lifesaving demonstration, participate in lessons based on their nature study rambles, and learn to swim. Gallogly pointed out to the department that he and Mr Menerey, head teacher at

Tannymorel State School, ‘exercised a vigilant supervision over the children’. He wrote: ‘Ours was no holiday! I anticipate that the results of the tour will repay a hundredfold the work it entailed.’93

The next time the Loch Lomond and Tannymorel communities made contact with the department about running another combined seaside school was in 1926. They were planning to hold the school in February 1927 or later. The department spelt out that the combined committees would have to take care of all the arrangements regarding accommodation, food, cooking, train fares and transport. ‘This Department does not defray any portion of the expenses.’94 Perhaps as a result, in 1928 those two communities sought a combined a seaside school. They planned to hold it in October

1928 at Cribb Island for 35 children from Tannymorel and fifteen children from Loch

Lomond. The combined committee had to cover the entire cost of the school, which was estimated to be over £110 ($220) and, because they had not undertaken any fundraising,

92 QSA – ID 997425 – Loch Lomond & Tannymorel 1922 – memorandum – 16 August 1922 – Folio 37825. 93 QSA – ID 997425 – Loch Lomond & Tannymorel 1922 – memorandum – 19 October 1922 – Folio 49773. 94 QSA – ID 997425 – Loch Lomond & Tannymorel 1926 – letter – 13 July 1926.

83 it was necessary for them to charge all attendees.95 Mr A.E. Stewart, head teacher at

Tannymorel, who was in charge of the seaside school, wrote a short report to the department, advising that many of the children had been taught to swim and that places of interest in Brisbane were visited. The older children kept diaries of their activities.

One of the places they visited was McWhirters department store in Fortitude Valley.

The store ‘promised to donate prizes for the best essays on “A visit to McWhirters: my impressions”’. Stewart reported that ‘fully seventy-five per cent of the children and one adult of the party had not previously seen the sea’.96 In 1933, 27 of the 35 pupils of the

Loch Lomond State School attended a seaside school from 22 September to 6 October.

The department approved that the event should be held, and that the Loch Lomond school be closed for the duration.97 However, nothing else is known about the seaside school, including its location.

The Mt Colliery seaside school was held at Redcliffe from 15 to 31 October 1923.

Twenty-eight children from Mt Colliery in the Southern Downs region of south

Queensland, representing twelve families, and fourteen adults participated. It took the community three years to raise the funds. They conducted raffles, an art union, concerts, a children’s fancy-dress ball, local picture benefits and social entertainments besides holding sports meetings in conjunction with Tannymorel and Loch Lomond communities. From those meetings, Mt Colliery was allocated a share of the proceeds.

The community raised more than £105 ($210) and the total cost of the school was more than £107 ($214). Twelve out of 38 families on the school records and 28 out of 93 children on the school roll participated in the summer school. Mr P. Kehoe, the head

95 QSA – ID 997425 – Loch Lomond & Tannymorel 1928 – memorandum – 4 September 1928 – Folio 42830. 96 QSA – ID 997425 – Loch Lomond & Tannymorel 1928 – memorandum – 23 October 1928 – Folio 51941. 97 QSA – ID 997425 – Loch Lomond 1933 – telegram – Folio 39916.

84 teacher at Mt Colliery State School, reported that: ‘It can be inferred that the majority of the parents here were not in favour of this seaside trip.’ Still, a substantial amount was, in the end, raised and committed to the project. The children enjoyed many days of surfing, bathing and rambles along the beach collecting shells. They also went on trips to Bribie Island and Brisbane. They were taken to the pictures and they also went to a picnic at the Humpybong State School. Representatives of the department who visited the Mount Colliery seaside school ‘showed that the Department appreciated their efforts in trying to make the lives of these children happier’.98

Figure 3.2: Children of Mt Colliery State school, 1923 Source: QSA – ID 997425 – Folio 54454.

In 1924, Mr W.M. Wilson, secretary of the Wallumbilla State school committee, approached the CWA about another proposed seaside school. (Wallumbilla is in the

Western Downs district of southern Queensland.) Mr W.P.B. Miles, secretary of the

98 QSA – ID 997425 – Mt Colliery 1923 – memorandum – 17 November 1923 – Folio 54454.

85 association, advised Wilson that the best dates for the school would be 14 to

28 November, and that the school should be held at Tweed Heads – ‘it is a long way ahead of Sandgate or Wynnum and there are no mosquitoes or sandflies at Tweed

Heads’. Miles offered that the party could have a day and night in town (Brisbane), with camping accommodation at St Luke’s Hall, and that the catering fee for the seaside school would be two shillings (20 cents) per head per day. He was prepared to lend to the committee a marquee and ‘good sound tents’. Wilson advised the department that the seaside school committee comprised delegates from Wallumbilla, Chadford, Raslie and Stakeyard schools, as well as the (Queensland) Country Women’s Association. The committee’s intention was to take school children from the district to a seaside resort for a fortnight’s holiday – ‘a luxury I may state untasted by a large percentage of our

Western boys and girls’.99 Twenty-five pupils from the Wallumbilla, Stakeyard,

Chadford and Pickanjennie schools participated and about twelve pupils from Perthton school also expressed interest – in total, including adults, about 50 people.100 The department gave approval for the twelve Perthton pupils but not for their head teacher to attend the trip, so it is unclear whether this excursion included the Perthton pupils. The inclusion of girls is, however, noteworthy, and will be taken up in more detail in the next chapter.

* * *

This chapter began with an exploration of the schemes at the seaside for outback children. It included an examination of the scheme for Queensland seaside schools that was developed by Hon H.F. Hardacre, Minister for Education, in the late 1910s. It

99 QSA – ID 997425 – Wallumbilla 1924 – letter – 26 September 1924 – Folio 45107. 100 QSA – ID 997425 – Wallumbilla 1924 – letter – 11 November 1924 – Folio 53168.

86 included a study of the location of Yeppoon in central Queensland as an intended site for a permanent seaside school. As it turned out, seaside schools were never to be held in purpose-built accommodation, but they were held predominantly on the coast of

Southeast Queensland. A number of seaside schools were held during both the 1920s and 1930s, and were funded by parents and members of the community.

87 4

Sand Gardens: ‘This Pleasing Pastime’

Just as mountain camps and seaside schools were features of the child health

movement in Queensland, so too were beach-based sand garden competitions. During

the inter-war years, the playground movement connected Brisbane to a global outlook

regarding the extent to which health and education shaped the well-being of

Queensland’s children. Sand gardens – an organised play activity in open-air

surroundings – illustrate ideas about the child, the environment, hygiene, and welfare.

The playground movement of that period emphasised free play in land-based sand gardens. This movement was advocated by transnational advocates inspired by the

United States hygiene movement. Although there was no explicit hygiene movement

in Australia, similar eugenic ideas were influential in shaping the educational and

welfare experiences of the Queensland child in this era. This chapter examines the

first twenty years of beach-based sand garden competitions in Queensland.

Sand garden competitions on the beaches of Southeast Queensland and Northern New

South Wales were run by the Daily Mail newspaper and then, with the amalgamation

of the Daily Mail and the Brisbane Courier, continued by the Courier-Mail. They

commenced in the summer of 1921/22, and were held until war restrictions on beach

activities spelt their demise. A parallel competition, commenced in 1927 and run by

the Bramble Bay Social Club, was held on the Cribb Island beach. Generally, the

children who took part in the competitions were aged between five and fourteen years.

88 The children were given 90 minutes to complete their gardens, and the timing was

governed by the tides.

Sand and Organised Play: From Land-Based to Beach-Based

At the end of the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth century, middle-class

philanthropists across the world started to look at open spaces, or parks, to shape

urban society. This shaping of urban society in the Western world was one of many

reform initiatives that fitted the description of child-saving. It was the intention of the

philanthropists to save working-class children from ‘the perceived disorder,

immorality, criminality, drunkenness and promiscuity of the neighbourhoods in which

they lived’.1 Such philanthropists lobbied for parks designed to ‘improve both the

morals and health of densely populated inner city areas’.2 Galen Cranz calls these

‘reform parks’. She distinguishes between ‘pleasure grounds’ established from about

1850 to around 1900, and ‘reform parks’ from about 1900 to around 1930;3 the latter

were aimed at health and hygiene, based on the idea that the open spaces could clear the foul air that carried miasmas. As the park movement grew in America and Europe, it began to focus more on children’s playgrounds, known as ‘play centres’ in England.

The playground movement wanted to provide playgrounds in ‘poor, overcrowded urban neighbourhoods’.4

One such neighbourhood in Queensland, Fortitude Valley, was the responsibility of

the Reverend Loyal Lincoln Wirt, an American who, in 1905, took up an appointment

1 Julia Gatley. ‘Giant strides: the formation of supervised playgrounds in Adelaide and Brisbane’, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 29 (2001): 35. 2 Jodi Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”: social reform and the Queensland children’s playground movement, 1910–1930’, History of Education Review, 29(1) (2000): 32. 3 Galen Cranz, ‘Women in urban parks’, Signs, 5(3), supplement (1980): S79. 4 Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 32.

89 as minister to the Wharf Street Congregational Church in sub-tropical Brisbane. He

had undertaken missionary work on four continents after becoming an ‘ardent social

reformer’ when he witnessed the working conditions in Chicago factories in the

1880s. After monitoring the poverty and misery in Fortitude Valley, Wirt preached

for, among other things, better housing, parks and playgrounds.5

Town Planning for Playgrounds

During the 1910s in Australia and New Zealand, modern town planning was being discussed. Those at the forefront of the discussion were alert to the British, American and European progress movement, including the “Garden City” and “City Beautiful” movements. A town planning tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1914 was organised by the British Garden Cities and Town Planning Association, and conducted by Charles Reade and William Davidge.6 In New Zealand, Myers Park was

opened in the city of Auckland in January 1915. Almost two years later, in November

1916, the Myers kindergarten and playground were opened: while the first

kindergarten in New Zealand was opened in Dunedin in 1889, Myers Playground was

a supervised public playground that linked town planning concerns with ideas about

children’s ‘fitness, health, morality and efficiency’.7 Urban reformers began to

develop supervised public playgrounds across Australia in the 1910s. In South

Australia, the first playground was built outside the capital of Adelaide, whereas in

Queensland, all the early playgrounds were built in the capital of Brisbane. In both

states, there were close links between playgrounds and early town planning

conferences.

5 Helen Gregory, Playing for keeps: C&K’s first century, 1907–2007, Brisbane: C&K, c.2008, p. 6. 6 Anéne Cusins-Lewer and Julia Gatley, ‘The “Myers Park Experiment” (1913–1916) and its legacy in Auckland’. Fabrications, vol. 12, no. 1, Jun 2002: 61. 7 Cusins-Lewer and Gatley ‘The “Myers Park Experiment”’: 63.

90

In South Australia, the impetus was directed by the South Australian Town Planning

and Housing Association (SATPA), whereas in Brisbane it was directed by the

Playground Association of Queensland. It is worth comparing the two models.

SATPA was formed in 1915. The South Australian Government Town Planner,

Charles Reade, was the convenor of the first Australian town planning and housing

conference and exhibition, which was held in Adelaide in October 1917. Reade’s

support of the playground movement was demonstrated with the building of a

children’s model playground within the conference exhibition, behind the Exhibition

Building on North Terrace. The model playground consisted of ‘swings, slides, see- saws, sandpits [sand gardens], and open space’ and was utilised every afternoon by four hundred children. The year after the conference, the Adelaide City Council granted three acres (1.2 hectares) of land on West Terrace for a playground. The council eventually took control of the site, halved the size of the playground and

completed it in 1924. Meanwhile, the first public playground to be finished in South

Australia was the Port Pirie Playground. Port Pirie is an industrial city 139 miles

(224 kilometres) north of Adelaide, and the playground was completed in

August 1918.8

In Brisbane, three such playgrounds were the Neal Macrossan Playground in Moreton

Street, Paddington (formerly Ithaca or Paddington Playground), opened in August

1918; the Bedford Playground in Love Street, Spring Hill (formerly Spring Hill

Playground), opened in 1927; and the Valley Playground in East Street, Fortitude

Valley, opened in 1922. The Valley Playground only existed until 1943, when it was

8 Gatley, ‘Giant strides’: 38.

91 ‘re-appropriated by the Brisbane City Council … for use as public air raid shelters

during the second world war’.9 The Neal Macrossan Playground is named after

Justice Neal Macrossan, who was a long-time president of the Playground

Association. ‘Much of the five years it took to complete the first playground was spent trying to convince the Ithaca Town Council to approve the use of the former

Paddington cemetery site for the playground.’10 Approval was achieved in 1917 and

the playground was completed in 1918. It was opened during the second Australian

Town Planning Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane from 30 July to 6 August

1918. The Bedford Playground was named after Mary Josephine Bedford, an early

English-born philanthropist ‘who successfully instigated many elements of family

welfare in working class suburbs of Brisbane through her involvement with both the

Playground Association and the Crèche and Kindergarten Association’. Before her

involvement with those two organisations began in 1905, she was involved in

improving the Children’s Hospital and she was active in developing the Queensland

branch of the National Council of Women.11 The Valley Playground was situated in what was known as a ‘working man’s suburb’. Even though there were topographical social divisions in Brisbane – between crests and peaks and gullies and flats – it was common for ‘whole suburbs … to acquire class labels’.12 Helen Gregory states that

the Brisbane playgrounds were usually associated with an adjacent kindergarten or

crèche, probably due to Bedford’s involvement with the Crèche and Kindergarten

Association.13 The most important aspect was that each playground was centrally

9 Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 43. 10 Julia Gatley, ‘For King and Empire: Australian women and nascent town planning’, Planning Perspectives, 20 (2005): 131. 11 , accessed 24 June 2008. 12 Graeme Davison. ‘“New, brawny, uneven and half-finished”: Brisbane among the Australian capital cities’, in Brisbane History Group, Brisbane in 1888: the historical perspective, Brisbane: Brisbane History Group, 1989, p. 157. 13 Gregory, Playing for keeps, p. 50.

92 located within the slum district of each place, and thus central to the target population.

According to Carolyn Leach, there were six supervised children’s playgrounds in

Brisbane during the 1930s.14 Only the playgrounds managed by the Playground

Association were supervised; the others were developed by the Brisbane City Council or local progress associations. One of those developed by the Brisbane City Council was in the Domain of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens15 at the rear of the Queensland

University of Technology (formerly part of the grounds of Old Government House).

The inner suburbs of cities at the end of the nineteenth century were heavily populated

areas, and the welfare of white children in these precincts was of particular concern.16

Brisbane was no different. Working-class people were living in overcrowded conditions that were unsanitary and unpleasant. Hygiene was an ongoing dilemma, particularly where housing allotments were as small as four and three quarter perches

(120 square metres). There were major sanitation and sewerage problems in such areas.17 The Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885 prescribed a minimum

allotment size of 16 perches (405 square metres). However, many ‘pocket

handkerchief allotments’ were created in ‘gullies and swampy reaches of the Brisbane

River’. The Act had been introduced because of the belief that ‘space and fresh air

were the surest guarantee of health in colonial towns, especially those situated in the

tropics’.18 Even so, there were problems with the implementation of the Act because it

14 Carolyn Leach. ‘The leisure pursuits of Brisbane children during the 1930s Depression’, Queensland Review, 15(2) (2008): 99; Gatley, ‘Giant strides’: 38. Gatley does not list them, but states that there were eight children’s playgrounds in Brisbane by 1938. 15 , accessed 24 June 2008. 16 Aboriginal children were differently cast as a ‘problem’. See, for example, Mark Copland, Jonathan Richards and Andrew Walker, One hour more daylight: a historical overview of Aboriginal dispossession in southern and southwest Queensland, Toowoomba: Social Justice Commission, Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba, 2006, pp. 100–01. 17 Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 33. 18 Davison, ‘“New, brawny, uneven and half-finished”’, p. 158.

93 was silent about ‘where such subdivisions could be located, how they were to be

levelled or drained, or about what could, or could not, be built upon them’.19 H.J.

Diddams, Mayor of the City of Brisbane from 1921 to 1924, denied that slums existed

in Brisbane. However, the lived experiences were that the inner suburbs remained

‘densely populated slum areas into the 1920s’.20

The National Council of Women was the major organisation involved in the

establishment of the playground movement in Queensland. ‘The playground

movement advocated good food, fresh air, sunshine, and exercise as basic

requirements for mental and physical wellbeing.’21 It was from within the ranks of the

council that the Playground Association of Queensland was created, holding its first

provisional committee meeting in 1913, the same year that land was ceded at

Paddington for a children’s playground. When the Paddington playground was

opened in August 1918, it was Australia’s first supervised public playground.22 The association controlled the Paddington playground; however, the land remained the property of the Ithaca Town Council and, from 1925 onwards, the Brisbane City

Council. Because of that, the local government took control of maintenance and equipment for the playground.23 The Playground Association of America (the

Playground and Recreation Association of America in 1911 and later the National

Recreation Association), which was founded in April 1906, was the model for the

association, and it adapted the precedent ‘reform parks’ to the local Brisbane

conditions. One of the basic aims of the Playground Association of Queensland was to

‘facilitate the full development of all children and to provide aid to those children who

19 ibid., p. 159. 20 Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 38. 21 Gregory, Playing for keeps, p. 50. 22 Gatley, ‘Giant strides’: 34. 23 Leach, ‘The leisure pursuits of Brisbane children’: 99.

94 may not otherwise fulfil their potential’.24 According to Helen Gregory, the association was formed to promote the development of children’s playgrounds and

recreation centres in densely populated areas full of low cost housing.25 The

association was formally incorporated in 1919. In its first annual report, also in 1919,

Josephine Bedford commented on the games that were played by the unsupervised children of the working class:

It is by these early games of hazard that the taste of unearned pleasures are

planted and fostered, and from these we draw, the gambler, the waster, and the

dishonest, for the ‘boy who has not learned to play rightly is the father of the

man out of work’.26

During her overseas travels, Bedford attended a conference on parks and playgrounds

in 1911 at the University of California, Berkeley.27 She was also witness to the play

movement in America, and it was out of that movement that the Brisbane children’s

playgrounds developed. The reforming philanthropists such as Bedford chose the

‘congested inner city suburbs’ to establish the first playgrounds because of their

concerns for the children’s ‘moral and health dangers of the street’.28

If women’s philanthropy and morality were important to the playground movement,

so too were education reformers and town planners. In 1925, Dr Harvey Sutton, at

that time Principal Medical Officer of the New South Wales Education Department

24 , accessed 24 June 2008. 25 Gregory, Playing for keeps, p. 50. 26 M.J., Bedford, cited in Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 35. 27 Gatley, ‘Giant strides’: 38. 28 Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 44.

95 and Lecturer on Preventative Medicine at the University of Sydney, told the Royal

Commission on Health:

[T]here should be provision that at every half mile throughout the city there

should be playgrounds … [The children] badly need an opportunity for

organised play and a certain amount of supervision, which they would be

taught, as well as health habits …29

Within the official catalogue of the second annual town planning conference and exhibition lies a detailed plan of a playground for Paddington. Attributed to Robert

Black, who was an authorised surveyor and town engineer, it was the first published plan of a Queensland children’s playground. Fulfilling the requirement of such plans, the ‘design revolved around the need for supervision, space for organised play, and gender and age division’. The Paddington Playground was 4 acres (1.6 hectares) in size, while the Valley and Spring Hill Playgrounds were each about 1 acre (0.4 hectare). The use of space was very important to the management of each Brisbane playground. Flat land, preferred for the playground sites, was possible in the cases of the Valley and Spring Hill Playgrounds. However, the Paddington playground had to be terraced because it was on a sloping site. All three Brisbane playgrounds were fenced to separate the children from ‘the unsavoury elements of the streets of the slums’. Just as American reform parks had public baths adjacent to them, so the

Valley and the Paddington playgrounds were adjacent to public baths.30

29 H. Sutton, cited in Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 36. 30 Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’: 40.

96 Each playground had a supervisor, who not only supervised the children but also

guided them to undertake certain activities that the philanthropists considered would

assist the child to be part of the community, not separated from it. Common to all of

the children’s playgrounds were the supervisors’ cottages, or field houses. However,

unique to each of the Brisbane playgrounds was the free children’s library. Leach

acknowledged that, by the 1930s, several children’s playgrounds were located in the

‘poor inner-city suburbs’ which provided ‘a place of recreation and structured

activities for children who were otherwise deprived of many commercial leisure

activities’.31 Likewise, Gatley observed that, in both Adelaide and Brisbane, the playground advocates focused their attention on children in the working-class residential areas, believing that they would benefit most from the ‘fresh air, sunlight, exercise, and discipline of such facilities’.32

Land-Based Sand Gardens

The first structured activities included in children’s playgrounds in North America

were land-based sand gardens (more commonly called sandpits).33 The idea to

establish two sand gardens for small children in Boston in 1885 came from the advice

of Dr Marie E. Zakrzewska.34 While Dr Zakrzewska was in Berlin in the summer of

1885, she saw supervised children playing in sand heaps in public parks, and wrote to the association saying that ‘in the public parks of Berlin there were heaps of sand in

which children, rich and poor, were allowed to dig and play as if on a mimic seashore,

31 Leach, ‘The leisure pursuits of Brisbane children’: 99. 32 Gatley, ‘For King and Empire’: 132. 33 Frawley, ‘“Haunts of the street bully”’:42. 34 Clarence E. Rainwater, The play movement in the United States: a study of community recreation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1922, p. 22.

97 under the care of the police of the city’.35 Initially, the Boston sand gardens were

supervised by volunteers. However, by 1893 the association employed the

supervisors:

In Boston the ladies started the [sand garden] movement, the school

committee gave the use of the school yards, the public contributed the

money, and poor, but reliable, motherly women were employed four days in

the week to matronize the little folks. It was a pretty sight to see these poor

children, doomed to spend the summer in town, playing with shovels and

pails in the sand, whose fascination was unending.36

Dorceta Taylor has argued that the female reformers used community organisations,

churches and schools to develop their playground projects because they did not have

access to the funds that landscape architects had to develop large park projects.37

Architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed the first neighbourhood playgrounds that he called sand gardens in 1888 at the Charlesbank Park in Boston. Olmsted’s son recorded that the sand gardens provided ‘for the active out-door recreations … almost essential to the vigor of the community’. And Olmsted himself recorded in 1897 that sand gardens provided ‘those little-understood influences upon … mental and physical health offered by … beauty of vegetation most in contrast with the work-a- day surroundings of city life’.38

35 Annual report of the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association, vol. 13 (1897). 36 ‘Sand heaps for poor children. Boston Letter to the Worcester Spy’, New York Times, 30 April 1889. 37 Dorceta E. Taylor, ‘Central Park as a model for social control: urban parks, social class and leisure behaviour in nineteenth-century America’, Journal of Leisure Research, 31(4) (1999): 23. 38 Leonard J. Simutis, ‘Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr: a reassessment’, Journal of the American Planning Association 38(5) (1972): 279.

98 Beach-Based Sand Gardens in Australia

Harvey Sutton, a professor of medicine, was a central figure in progressive medicine

in Australia in the first few decades of the twentieth century. In 1942, when he

reflected on his career, he stated that mental health was like a coin with two sides – one side is the dark side – and such a double effect reflected also the positive and negative aspects of health. The bright side of health – fitness, efficiency, perfection and happiness – led to a vigorous, harmonious existence, and mental health at its best.39 If we see in the beach-based sand garden competitions something of this

‘bright side’, then this feature is apparent in the photographs of competitions

published in the newspaper reports. The bright side is also evident in segments of film

coverage preserved by the National Film and Sound Archive that record sand garden

competitions. These sources offer glimpses into an almost entirely lost part of

Queensland’s history. A 30-second black and white newsreel from 1941 shows a sand

garden competition at Redcliffe beach, north of Brisbane. A large crowd watches boys

and girls as they create designs in sand. Children pose beside their finished gardens

and the winner of the competition, a small girl, is shown in close-up. However, the accompanying narrative, designed to entertain rather than to educate the viewing

audience, undermines the significance of this activity in the child health movement.

According to the film narrative:

[The competition] gives those worried parents a solution to the problem of

keeping the kids quiet. A Brisbane newspaper promoted this modelling

contest. It has courage; it has sand. Fancy the problem that developed when

choosing between little Evangeline’s symphony in silk and young Audrey’s

39 Michael Roe, Nine Australian progressives: vitalism in bourgeois social thought 1890–1960, Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1984, p. 144.

99 poem in pebbles. As ticklish as judging a baby show. (That job always had us

wet.) They’re all so good; we have to pick the winner at a propitious moment.

That would be at high tide! But, we’re kidding the kids. They’ve done a great

job. Folks, the winner.40

In a 1938 black and white film without sound, 45 seconds long, various entries in a

sand garden competition are shown along with a close-up shot of the winner. The film

shows sand gardens being created, including a contestant pouring tiny white shells on to the paths of a garden as well as placing a shrub into a garden bed in the middle of the lawn.41 Another film, without sound and made in 1936, shows a sand garden

competition at Sandgate in Queensland.42 A film shot by Cecil John Graham c.1940

includes unidentified sand gardens.43 And a home movie shot in Townsville in 1943

includes a public park with an exhibition of sand gardens (artistic constructions of

coloured sand) made by children.44

Beyond brief and tantalising film footage, newspapers are only slightly more revealing regarding the role of sand gardens. The original sand garden competition was an annual event conducted in Southeast Queensland by the Daily Mail (later the

Courier-Mail and the Sunday Mail). The first one was held during the summer holidays of 1921/22. Martin Hambleton was the pen name of the man who ran the

children’s pages in the Saturday and Sunday editions of the Daily Mail, and he managed the sand garden competition for the newspaper. The Saturday page begun in

40 National Film and Sound Archive. Title No: 72678. Title: News Briefs. 41 National Film and Sound Archive. Title No: 78620. Title: Highlights of the Week. 42 National Film and Sound Archive. Title No: 70547. Title: Highlights of the Week. 43 National Film and Sound Archive. Title No: 278974. Title: Graham, Cecil John. 44 National Film and Sound Archive. Title No: 78401. Title: Townsville Patriotic Procession and Sand Gardens, Strand Park.

100 1919 was called For the Young Folk, while the Sunday page begun in 1923 was called

For the Boys and Girls. By then, the Sunday edition of the Daily Mail was named the

Sunday Mail. These pages ran until the Daily Mail amalgamated with the Courier-

Mail in 1933. At that point, Martin Hambleton continued to run the children’s pages in the Sunday Mail, but not in the Courier-Mail. His last Sunday Mail children’s page was published the day after his death in 1938. A newspaper article announced that he was in fact a schoolteacher named Thomas Edward Martin, who had taught in four primary schools in Queensland since July 1915. Three of those schools were in the country – Allenstown at Rockhampton, Nambour Rural School, and College View at

Gatton – and one was in East Brisbane. Hambleton was at College View school when he commenced the newspaper columns, and he transferred to the East Brisbane school in January 1926, where he remained until his retirement in 1935. Therefore, for the first few years of the sand garden competition, Hambleton lived near Gatton, a considerable distance from the various beaches where competitions were held (the distance from Gatton to Sandgate is 120 kilometres).

Martin’s views place him among international leaders in health and education. They help to demonstrate the extent to which those themes shaped the well-being of

Queensland’s children during the inter-war years. It is possible to compare his language with that of people in other countries. For example, his views were similar to those of people such as Dr Zakrzewska who, according to historian Mark

Kadzielski, brought the land-based sand gardens to Boston. It is possible that Martin further developed the idea from well-designed land-based gardens with which he was familiar. Alternatively, because he was a schoolteacher, it is also possible that he developed the idea from sand tables popular with schoolteachers and Sunday school

101 teachers prior to and during the period. Finally, he may have simply borrowed the term ‘sand garden’, which in America followed the German model of ‘heaps of sand in the public parks in which the children of both the rich and the poor were permitted to play under supervision of the police’.45 Such sand gardens were also called sandpits

(sandkasten in German). Australian poet Mabel Forrest (1872–1935) published a poem with illustrations in the Daily Mail in 1928 about the London sandpits that were created for children who could not have seaside holidays.46 Gardening was also popular at the time. In 1914, Queensland teacher of agriculture James C. Stubbin published his work about school gardening.47 It was Mr Stubbin’s role to travel throughout the state to inspect school gardens. Since the early 1900s, there had been a growing interest in town planning and beautification schemes for public places, both of which the Brisbane City Council incorporated after its establishment in 1925.

The Daily Mail competition lost its impetus after the death of Mr Martin, and because of the impact of World War II. While sand garden competitions did continue for a few years after the war, during the late 1940s and the 1950s the idea was reduced to an activity at Sunday school seaside picnics.

There were also occasional sand garden competitions, such as the one on Karragarra

Island in southern Moreton Bay preserved in Peter Ludlow’s publication, Moreton

Bay Reflections, which includes an undated photograph with the caption ‘Sand garden competition at Karragarra’, without mentioning anything about it. The photograph has one sand garden in the foreground and a large crowd of people sitting and standing

45 Mark A. Kadzielski, ‘As a flower needs sunshine’: the origins of organized children’s recreation in Philadelphia, 1886–1911’, Journal of Sport History, 24(1) (1997): 171. 46 ‘Sandpits’, Daily Mail, 4 January 1928: 9. 47 J.C. Stubbin, The school garden: hints on tree planting, gardening, fruit growing, and elementary agriculture, Brisbane: Government Printer, 1914.

102 around behind it.48 A separate sand garden competition was held during the inter-war

period (first in 1926/27) at one of the beaches that participated in the Daily Mail

competition, Cribb Island. In mid-January 1927, the Bramble Bay Social Club

inaugurated its own sand garden competition on Cribb Island, the first activity

conducted by the social club. The only written report of the social club’s competition

appears in an edition of the Daily Standard newspaper. There were three divisions

within the competition: first division for ages five to seven; second division for ages

eight to eleven; and third division for ages twelve to fourteen. Reportedly, the prizes

‘gave great satisfaction, and the cake of chocolate distributed to each competitor was

valued by the recipients, who were not long in testing them’.49

Bess Bowden, who was born in 1920, self-published her childhood memories of summer holidays at Cribb Island. One of the Chalk family who lived in the

Albion/Ascot area, she spent many of her summer holidays with her family at Cribb

Island. There they put on stage shows that were reported in Brisbane newspapers.

Bowden described the family’s basic, but adequate, homemade shack. She also detailed her experiences and adventures, and included a chapter about sand gardens from a competitor’s perspective:

Once we had settled in for the holidays, we needed to get down to the serious

business of designing our sand gardens for the coming competitions. There

was the Daily Mail competition, which was held at each beach in turn, and in

addition, there was the local one sponsored by the bus proprietors … My

winnings usually provided me with a chocolate-coated Eskimo Pie ice cream –

48 Peter Ludlow, Moreton Bay reflections, Brisbane: Peter Ludlow, 2007, p. 89. 49 ‘Sand and shells. Youthful artists make beach smile. Sand gardens competition at Cribb Island. Record display’, Daily Standard, 18 January 1927: 1.

103 price four pence, each day after our swim. I ate it with relish, sneaking away

quietly so that I would not have to share as much as a lick.50

Figure 4.1: Sand gardens competition at Cribb Island, January 1931 Source: John Oxley Library neg. no. 119355.

Mrs Bowden described in detail how the Chalk children prepared for the sand garden competitions. As well as gathering shells, the children spent much time developing their designs. They used long window blind slats to draw accurate outlines. The children also made a homemade compass from two pieces of pine, nailed at one end and sharpened at the other, that allowed them to draw circles and arcs, and to make sure that all of their corners were at right angles.51 She reflected that ‘[t]he

composition of a suitable garden stimulated our creative minds and many variations of

design were tried before one was finally selected’.

50 Bess Bowden, Cribby. [Brisbane]: self-published, c.1990, p. 23. 51 ibid.

104 Even though Mrs Bowden would not have known it at the time, stimulating the

children’s minds was one of the aims of the sand garden competition. Children were

to draw their designs, time themselves, and check the accuracy of their calculations.

This was undertaken on a remote end of the Cribb Island beach, away from other

children. In the days leading up to the competition, the children used their shells to

practise constructing and timing the sand gardens they were going to present in the

competition. When they had perfected the process, they boiled the shells in the clothes

copper with a bleaching agent. They then dried the shells in the sun to get them as

white as possible.52 On the morning of the Cribb Island competition, the Chalk

children dug the ‘blue sand from the grassy bank at the edge of the beach’. That sand

was used in the sand garden; individual pigweed leaves were used as grass, and some

branches of it were set aside to plant as trees or shrubs in the garden. As the afternoon

tide receded, the committee in charge of the competition roped off an area of two or

three hundred yards (two or three hundred metres), where they marked square plots

for the gardens, each numbered. The competition commenced when a bell was rung.

Mrs Bowden remembered how important it was to practise daily before the

competition. Because of their practice, the children knew how much time to allow to

draw the design and lay the shells then, with the remaining time, to make the garden

beds and spread the gravel (small shells) along the paths. The centrepiece was the last

thing to be put in place. When they had finished, the children made any necessary

repairs, Mrs Bowden explained – required if a dog had run across a sand garden or if a

spectator stood on the edge of a garden. Once the finishing bell had rung, the children

could no longer touch their sand gardens.53 Next came the judging. Each sand garden was inspected and notes were taken. Because there were sections for different ages, it

52 ibid., p. 24. 53 ibid.

105 was possible for all three of the Chalk children to win prizes in the same competition.

Once the judging had been completed, the winners collected their envelopes

containing money or medals. Mrs Bowden remembers that Mr Gibson, the bus

proprietor, donated the prizes for the alternative competition.54

Mrs Bowden recalled that the Cribb Island competition was one larger part of the

Daily Mail sand garden competition held at a number of Southeast Queensland and

Northern New South Wales beaches each year, with the grand final held ‘at a beach to

be named’ (only ever Sandgate, Wynnum or Redcliffe). She noted that prizewinners were able to compete in the grand final competition, and that if the Chalk children

‘were among the chosen ones’, they took home all of their shells and gear in readiness for the final competition. There is no evidence that any of the Chalk children won any major prizes in any of the grand final competitions. Of the children, Bessie (Mrs

Bowden) was the most successful. She started with a book prize in the junior division at one of the Cribb Island competitions. She then progressed to book prizes in the senior division at the same beach. Finally she tied for first place, with her sister,

Daisy, winning third place – both at the Cribb Island competition.55 Those wins made

them eligible to enter the 1934/35 final competition at Sandgate. At that competition,

Bessie was awarded a special book prize.56 At the end of the holidays, the children

buried their tins of shells in the sand by their shack. They always hoped to recover them the following year, but they were never there as the tins had been washed out by the tides or other children had taken them. Either way, the next year the Chalk children started their shell gathering all over again. According to Bowden, all three

54 ibid., p. 25. 55 ‘Sand garden contest. Record day at Cribb Island’, Courier-Mail, 2 January 1935: 15. 56 ‘Sand gardens competition. Grand final at Sandgate. 3000 People Present’, Courier-Mail, 21 January 1935: 3.

106 Chalk children benefited from their sand garden activities, the main advantage being that they were ‘encouraged to become creative’.57

Another former sand garden competitor, Emily Law (née Hamilton) has also recorded her experiences of the competition. At Nambour in 1985, in an oral history interview for the Maroochy Shire Libraries, Mrs Law explained that she was in one of the first competitions. She remembered that the sand gardens were 6 feet (2 metres), and perhaps to a child they seemed twice the size than they really were. Lastly, she remembered the name of the man who ran the competition – Martin Hambleton – and the name of the newspaper involved, the Daily Mail.58

But if these recollections emphasise fun and creativity, the sand garden competitions were also structured activities with serious purpose. They were not only about sunshine and fresh air but also competition, and the combination of individuality with uniformity via rules and regulations. Prior to the commencement of the first Daily

Mail competition in 1921, several editions of that newspaper’s children’s pages included templates for the sand gardens, to give children an idea about the concept while encouraging them to develop their own designs. In those early days, the newspaper promoted the competitions as simply offering to encourage children to make sand gardens and castles, ‘this pleasing pastime’.59 The Daily Mail published in the early 1920s the core conditions for sand gardens or castles:

57 Bowden, Cribby, p. 25. 58 , accessed 8 January 2008. 59 Daily Mail, 26 November 1921: 13.

107 (1) The garden or castle must be completed on the portion of the foreshore set

apart for the purpose; and

(2) It must be the bona-fide work of the competitor.

Martin Hambleton adjudicated, assisted by local gentlemen, and their decision was

considered final. The prizes were presented on the spot.60 (These regulations were

expanded in following years, but remained largely similar.) By 1922, the reference to

‘castle’ had been removed.61 By 1940, sand gardens were to be judged on the criteria

of balance and proportion (10), architecture (10), originality (20) and general

effect (10).62

In 1938, the Brisbane City Council gave permission to hold sand garden competitions

on beaches under the control of the council during the forthcoming Christmas

vacation. The Courier-Mail and Sunday Mail intended to conduct the competitions at

the Sandgate, Nudgee Beach, Cribb Island, Wynnum, Manly and Lota beaches. The

application also requested that council undertake the necessary arrangements for the

roping in of the area chosen at each seaside resort, ‘as has been done in previous

years’. It was then stated that similar applications had been made to and granted by

the council for the past eighteen years, (although those applications are not obvious in

any of the minute books earlier than 1938).63 Similarly, in 1939, the Brisbane City

Council gave permission to hold sand garden competitions during the following

Christmas vacation. The application also requested the appointment of three members

60 Daily Mail, 10 December 1921: 13. 61 Daily Mail, 23 December 1922: 12. 62 Courier-Mail, 26 December 1940: 4. 63 Brisbane City Council, Minutes of Proceedings, 22 November 1938.

108 of council to act as judges. However, that matter ‘is usually left in the hands of the

Alderman for the Ward in which the competitions are to be held’.64

Overall, there was a very positive public response to the sand garden competitions. In

the newspaper report at the end of the first year’s individual competitions, the sand

garden idea was heralded as ‘a well-merited success’ for ‘the first of their kind in

Queensland’. It was also stated that the idea of encouraging the recreative enjoyment

and the designing capabilities of young people ‘is not a new one’, but because of the

effort of the Daily Mail, ‘it has been introduced into many of the seaside resorts of

Queensland’.65 The report also recorded ‘the greatest enthusiasm’ for the sand garden

idea, and stated that ‘it has been the absorbing topic of the seaside holiday-makers’.

The municipal authorities provided strong support for the competitions, and the

competitors were described as showing ‘intense enthusiasm’. It followed that the idea

of sand garden competitions ‘was to be a recognised feature in the future’.66

In January 1924, the first grand final was held at Sandgate. There were 26 children from ‘nine or ten watering places in southern Queensland’ competing for the title of

the Chief Sand Garden Builder of the South Queensland beaches. Again, girls

featured. Esme George of Toombul won that first championship, and her prize was a

gold wristlet watch. The other placegetters received money for their prizes, and

consolation prizes were books. In addition, every other competitor in the grand final

received a small gift as a souvenir of the event.

64 Brisbane City Council, Minutes of Proceedings, 5 December 1939. 65 That statement seems to be claiming that the idea of sand garden competitions was not a new one, but I have not located any evidence that such competitions have been held anywhere else. 66 Daily Mail, 22 January 1922: 13.

109

Figure 4.2: Sandgate beach sand gardens competition, 1925 Source: John Oxley Library neg. no. 196390.

The sand gardens were judged out of a maximum number of twenty marks. Those were allotted under the headings of neatness, balance, architecture and originality. A time limit of 90 minutes was allowed for each competition. The report recorded the

‘enormous popularity’ of the sand garden competitions, which resulted in upwards of one hundred entries at each of the seaside resorts. The fact that the grand final competition was limited to the first, second and third prizewinners of the earlier competitions, however, meant many fewer gardens were judged. Even though the second placegetter of the grand final was a boy, girls dominated: the contemporary explanation was that the girls took ‘greater care and interest’ in the way they built

their sand gardens. Each of the competitors was equipped with a suitcase or basket

housing their tools of trade – ‘spades, rulers, trowels, scissors, knives, bottles of

greenery, baskets of shells, and brown paper parcels of sand’67 – just as they were in

local competitions.

67 ‘Sand gardens. Daily Mail competition. Championship at Sandgate’, Sunday Mail, 20 January 1924: 1.

110

It was during the 1938/39 season that Martin Hambleton (Thomas Edward Martin)

died, on 17 September 1938.68 The Sunday Mail reported that ‘a constant stream of children attended the offices of this journal yesterday to express their sorrow at his passing, and their appreciation of his friendship through the printed world’. It also recorded that Mr Martin was a schoolteacher, a newspaper columnist and the manager of the sand garden competitions ‘that were a major holiday attraction at beach resorts throughout southern Queensland and the north coast of New South Wales’. At his funeral, the Rev. J.F.T. Short stated that Mr Martin ‘had an object in life – to give to the younger generation an appreciation of the beauties of Nature’.69 The Courier-Mail

quoted the Rev. Short as saying that ‘the memory of Mr T.E. Martin would live in the

minds of thousands of young Queenslanders’.70 Mr Martin’s headstone in the

Lutwyche Cemetery, Brisbane contains the following inscription: ‘In loving memory

of … T.E. Martin (Martin Hambleton)’.

The mention of ‘Nature’ in the above reminds us of the wider context for sand

gardens. ‘Nature’ was integral to competition, skill development and cooperation.

Both girls and boys were targeted. During the inter-war period, boys rather than girls represented ‘the child’. Mountain camps were set up for boys, and only included girls after they had been running for several years. Therefore, it is worth noting that the sand garden competitions illuminate something of girls’ place in the child health movement in Queensland.

68 ‘Death of Mr T.E. Martin, well known teacher’, Telegraph, 17 September 1938: 9. 69 ‘Pen-friend of thousands of children passes’, Sunday Mail, 18 September 1938: 3. 70 ‘Death of children’s friend’, Courier-Mail, 19 September 1938: 3.

111 In 1938/39, the Martin family donated a special trophy, the Martin Hambleton

Memorial Cup, for that season’s grand final competition. It was awarded to the best

competitor under thirteen years of age, Lily Rayment, the girl who was placed fourth in the competition. According to the newspaper report, the competitors brought with them to the grand final grey, black, white, red and orange sands, green and red chopped weed, fancy shells, shell grit and sprigs of plants. The various coloured sands were ‘poured out of tins, castor sugar shakers, and even ladled out with spoons’.71 An

earlier grand final competition was described in the press as a ‘wonderful display of

sand craft’. The report praised the competitors for ‘the display, as a whole, was the

finest yet seen on any beach in Queensland’. Again, the majority of winners that year

were girls. One boy winner of a grand final competition had made a sand garden with

a background of pure white sand, which contrasted to the darker sand of the beach.

His garden was chiefly in squares and circles, with pure white shells. Shells were also

used for the border. It also had small clusters of leaves for relief. The design ‘obtained

practically full marks. It was an excellent piece of work, and the judges had no difficulty in placing it first.’ The first prize was the Daily Mail trophy.72

This award system was seemingly effective in shaping children’s enthusiasm for the

beach and interacting with Nature. Reports of the sand garden grand finals indicated

fierce competition, as seen in the following comment:

Shell decorations provided a contrast, oyster shell being used frequently, their

rough edges bearing quite an untrimmed appearance as compared with the

smoothness of some big fellows from the North Coast beaches. But it is

71 ‘3000 see sand gardens final. Annerley Girl wins’, Sunday Mail, 22 January 1939: 4. 72 ‘Sand gardens. Finals at Sandgate. Excellent designs’, Daily Mail, 16 January 1928: 10.

112 doubtful if the competitors gained points on account of the presence of the

latter variety, for such shells are certainly non-existent along Sandgate’s

beaches.73

That shells were non-existent along certain beaches must have caused a dilemma for

some competitors. As Bessie Bowden recorded, the competitors carefully prepared and took their shells with them from their ‘home’ beaches. By the early 1930s, however, the rule about the materials to be used in the sand gardens specified that they had to be ‘those found on the beach where the competition was held’.74 The

Mayor of Sandgate, Alderman E.W. Smith, said that the competition ‘was a great

movement for the education of the children and taught them the first principles of

having a beautiful home’.75 Many children entered the competition year after year. In

a grand final competition in the mid-1930s, it was reported that a fourteen-year-old

girl who was the first prizewinner had entered every competition since she was eight

years old. Similarly, a boy who was the second prizewinner had entered every

competition for the past eight years, and he had received several book prizes in the

grand final competitions during those years.76 During the late 1930s, Alderman

Decker said that ‘for the cultural value in artistic effort, he hoped the promoters would

regard the competitions as a permanent institution’. In response, Martin Hambleton

said that he hoped there would be sand garden competitions between Queensland and

New South Wales teams. It is obvious that Mr Martin wanted to keep the sand garden

competitions fresh by introducing new concepts as the years went by, and perhaps

73 ‘Sand gardens. Daily Mail competition. Championship at Sandgate’, Sunday Mail, 20 January 1924: 1. 74 Daily Mail, 10 December 1932: 13. 75 ‘Sand gardens. The final competition. Series of artistic designs. Viewed by a great crowd’, Sunday Mail, 18 January 1925: 1. 76 ‘Sand gardens competition. Grand final at Sandgate. 3000 people present’, Courier-Mail, 21 January 1935: 3.

113 they might have become a permanent team-based institution had he lived beyond

World War II. Martin revealed also that he had developed ‘the idea of sand gardens

from the sand castles on the Isle of Man, which the children lighted at night’.77

Because the sand garden competitions were held outdoors, it was always possible that they would be interrupted by rain. The 1940/41 grand final competition was the first one to be washed out by a storm during the event, and was postponed for a week. The

Courier-Mail paid for the train, tram and bus fares for the competitors and their parents to be able to travel to Redcliffe for the delayed event.78 The winner, a thirteen- year-old girl, hoped to have a career as an interior decorator. She ‘carefully planned her garden of shells, sand, and seaweed before she began to build it’.79

Not all of the prizewinners were older children. One year, for example, both the first and second prizewinners were just eleven years of age. The first prizewinner, a girl, gained nineteen out of twenty points. Alderman Dart congratulated the Daily Mail and

Martin Hambleton for encouraging sand craft work ‘which was instilling in the minds of the children a love of the beautiful’. In reply, Martin Hambleton said that ‘the competitions were training the children to be skilful with the hand and the eye and in many other ways’.80 The general manager of the Courier-Mail (Mr J.F. Williams)

presented a holistic view of the sand garden competitions. He stated that sand gardens helped children to ‘develop a sense of balance, originality, design, and beauty’. He

also asserted that the success of the competitions had been due to the ‘wonderful co-

operation and practical assistance of the various municipal and shire councils, progress associations, surf and swimming clubs, and police’. In reply, Martin

77 ‘Sand gardens contest to Annerley girl. 7000 at grand final’, Courier-Mail, 18 January 1937: 15. 78 ‘Storm stops sand garden final’, Sunday Mail, 19 January 1941: 7. 79 ‘Sand garden final seen by 500’, Courier-Mail, 27 January 1941: 6. 80 ‘Final gardens. Designs at Wynnum. Prize to Coolangatta’, Daily Mail, 21 January 1929: 9.

114 Hambleton ‘said the real effect of the children’s industry would be seen ultimately in their own homes. It was desirable that children should know something of design and layout.’81

The cooperation and assistance of the various associations, clubs and authorities showed another side of ‘the beach’. Before the concept of sand garden competitions for children came into being, there were occasional sandcastle competitions.

However, they did not usually entail lengthy preparation in the days and weeks leading up to the event, as well as dedicated concentration for more than 90 minutes on the day. And all of that work was to construct a temporary creation that would be washed away by the next tide. One year, the state Treasurer (Mr W.H. Barnes) presented the prizes for the grand final competition. He thanked the Daily Mail ‘for promoting such a splendid competition’. In response, Martin Hambleton stated: ‘What they had seen that day illustrated what the children could do, and how it would assist in the beautification of their future homes. It was an educational work.’ He was always enthusiastic about what the children could achieve because of their participation in the sand garden competitions. He endorsed sand gardens for mirroring the chief aims of modern education: to learn through activity and experience.82

Popularity

Sand garden competitions were extremely popular with the spectators, and thousands of them observed the grand final competitions, which were always held on a Saturday.

The spectators were attracted by the many original designs, which included palaces

81 ‘Sand gardens Grand final. Educational value to children’, Courier-Mail, 17 January 1938: 10. 82 ‘Artistic work. Entry a record. Sand gardens final. New Farm girl wins’, Daily Mail, 20 January 1930: 14.

115 with lawns and drives, garden paths, ‘shell-studded stars’ and Maltese crosses. When

the afternoon tide was right, the organiser and the judges conducted the draw for

places. Then, half an hour later, the children began their work. The first time that

Wynnum was chosen as the location for the grand final competition, it was reported

that Alderman W.L. Dart ‘was pleased … that the Daily Mail had decided that the

finals should be contested at Wynnum’. There was no explanation about why

Wynnum was chosen as an alternative location to Sandgate. However, it may have

been because of the more favourable tides on the day selected for the competition. It

may also have been because the newspaper wanted to include a southside beach to

attract more southside finalists. In fact, of the thirteen major prizewinners, eight

represented southside beaches. Alderman Dart also thanked everyone concerned for

their ‘practical interest in the young people’.83

For one of the grand final competitions held at Wynnum Central, the Brisbane City

Council laid a ‘fine stretch of specially selected sand’ on the grass-covered reserve.

Beyond the sand, ‘a spacious roped-off enclosure enabled the thousands of interested spectators to secure an uninterrupted view’. That was also the first season that sashes were awarded to the placegetters, along with their other prizes – a blue sash for first prize, red sash for second prize and yellow sash for third prize. It was also the first report of the crowd being entertained with live music – provided by the Manly

Concert Band.84 Many of the spectators were family members of the competitors, but others were people – adults and children – who were attracted to the events because of the publicity. Some of those people were local to the relevant beach, others were holidaying in the area, while still others made the day trip from other locations,

83 ‘Sand gardens. Grand champions. Decided at Wynnum’, Sunday Mail, 16 January 1927: 6. 84 ‘Sand gardens final. Remarkable keenness at Wynnum’, Courier-Mail, 20 January 1936: 17.

116 particularly for the grand final competitions. Even though the competitions could be

seen as simplistic entertainment, particularly for adults, the judging could be an

exciting climax after witnessing the gradual creation of the gardens. Artistic sand gardens, which were created through children’s ‘imagination and constructive skill’, made a temporary attraction on the beach. Each year, there seemed to be an increasing number of competitors, so the draw for places along the stretch of sand commenced earlier each time.

As the years rolled on, the newspaper reports of the grand final competitions became more routine and much smaller, and no longer dominated the newspapers by being on the front page. One exception to that basic coverage was a report that was imaginative in its description of the sand gardens as ‘a wonderful place of fairy parks and elfin gardens’. That year, the Lady Mayoress (Mrs J.W. Greene) presented the prizes. She

thanked the Daily Mail for ‘instituting the annual competition’. She also stated that the competition was valuable to encourage the children’s ‘faculties of designing’.

Importantly, in reply, Martin Hambleton stated: ‘The design work had great educational value. It required initiative in planning, self-reliance, and capacity in

executing, which together with self-expression and natural development were the

chief aims of education.’85 Martin Hambleton, who was described as being

‘responsible for the founding of the sand garden competitions’, said that the ‘making

of sand gardens was admirable training for future landscape gardeners’.86

* * *

85 ‘Record contest. Sand gardens final. Big crowd watches’, Daily Mail, 18 January 1932: 10. 86 ‘5000 see sand garden final. Courier-Mail contest’, Courier-Mail, 22 January 1934: 5.

117 This chapter began with an investigation of the children’s playground movement,

which included land-based sand gardens. It looked at the children’s playground

movement within the United States hygiene movement. There was an absence of a

formal hygiene movement in Queensland, yet similar ideas on the educational and

welfare experience of the child influenced the development of sand gardens. Sand garden competitions were held on the beaches of Southeast Queensland and Northern

New South Wales from the summer of 1921/22 to the summer of 1940/41. They aimed to encourage time on the beach as both structured play in Nature and competitive experience. Those girls (as well as boys) involved expressed not only their enjoyment in the process but the skills they learned in design and hopes for their futures as citizens.

118 5

Conclusion

This thesis has examined the meanings and values attributed to mountain camps,

seaside schools and sand garden competitions in Queensland from 1919 to 1939.

These were important activities for children and youths in the inter-war period. These

case studies highlight aspects that were unique to Queensland, and show that all three

activities had their respective champions. Both uniqueness and champions have been

explored in the relevant chapters. Also noted is the part played by these activities in

the world movement to promote the health and well-being of the child. The historical

investigation of these activities has been structured around several themes: nature

study, specifically nature knowledge, the country life movement, and the nationalist

and eugenicist ideal of the healthy child or youth as future citizen.

There are two main points of uniqueness about mountain camps. The first one relates to Queensland’s coastal climate that is semi-tropical and tropical, not replicated in the other Australian states. The second is that the camps were run for ten years, nine of which were independent of both government departments and government funding, entirely by the volunteers of the CWA, with the financial assistance of community

members in Brisbane. Even though there were examples of seaside schools for

outback children in at least one other state, the proposal to construct permanent

seaside schools at a number of locations along the coast was not replicated elsewhere.

Even the temporary seaside schools that were held were unique themselves because each was organised, financed and run by the teachers and community members of that school. In some cases, it took years to collect enough money to finance the school,

119 particularly after the government concessions ceased after the first few schools had

been held. Contemporary newspaper reports emphasised the point that the sand

garden competitions were unique to Queensland. Their champion, Mr Martin, revealed that he conceived the idea of the sand gardens from the sand castles on the

Isle of Man even though two-dimensional gardens in the sand differ from three- dimensional sand castles.

The boys, and subsequently girls, who attended mountain camps were urban children and youths of parents who could not afford to send them away from Brisbane’s heat during their six-week summer vacation. Mountain camps were held at just two locations: Picnic Point, Toowoomba and Mount Alford, near Boonah. Both locations were within the Southeast Queensland temperate climate mountains of the Great

Dividing Range. Picnic Point camps were held from 1919 to 1928, with girls included from 1923 (although the Mount Alford camps were only held from 1920 to 1922).

The first mountain camp was a joint activity between the Department of Public

Instruction and the CWA, and the department met all costs. However, because the department was not able to finance later camps, they were managed solely by the association, with funds collected within the community in Brisbane. Varying from ten to fourteen days, the 1919 camp consisted of just 21 boys, but the number of children and youths participating in each successive year rose to around one hundred. Most of the children were in the pre-teen to early teen age range, but some slightly younger children were accommodated at the Mount Alford camps. The daily routine at the first

Picnic Point camp included bush rambles and lantern-slide lectures with nature study specialists, sport in Toowoomba, rifle shooting on the mountains, scout work, and practice in the use of telescopes with Dr Price. Subsequent camps gradually phased

120 out most of those activities, and they were reduced to bush rambles and sporting

activities. Mount Alford camps included nature study rambles and lantern-slide

lectures with naturalists, as well as visits to various farms and Coochin Coochin

Station.

Many of the children who participated in the seaside schools had not previously

visited the seaside; in fact, many of them had not previously visited a major town or

city, nor seen a train, tram, boat, or stone building. The seaside schools were held at a

variety of locations in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales, ranging

from Redcliffe to Tweed Heads, and generally lasted for two weeks. Most of the

schools were for the senior pupils; however, the Mount Alford seaside school

included all of the pupils. The daily routine of all of the schools included swimming,

physical training, day trips and games. In most cases, the local communities raised all

of the funds needed; however, in a couple of cases, the CWA assisted with

accommodation. The communities arranged, variously, sports days, concerts, dances,

balls, raffles and art unions, and received donations. Some communities took up to three years to raise sufficient funds, particularly after the government concessions were no longer available. The early seaside schools benefited from the government’s concessions, such as free railway passes and the use of a government steamer for transport to and from the schools as well as day trips. All of the seaside schools

counted as days present at ordinary school; however, only the early ones gained from

the temporary appointment of an assistant teacher at their home school. The number

of children who participated in the schools ranged from 25 to 50, with an appropriate

number of adults from their communities to accompany them. Nature study specialists

such as Messrs White and Chisholm and Dr John Shirley visited the early seaside

121 schools to instruct the children with the assistance of lantern and slides. The children

prepared for those visits by collecting natural specimens from both the seashore and the bush. The other specialists who visited the schools were the swimming, diving,

and lifesaving experts who entertained the children with exhibitions.

Newspaper reports about the sand garden competitions did not disclose a great deal

about the children who were involved. However, they were likely working-class

children, as the Courier-Mail undertook to pay for the transport costs for the

competitors and their parents to travel to Redcliffe for a grand final event. The

majority of the competitors were from Southeast Queensland, and only occasionally

from other places, such as one prizewinning girl who was from Roma in southwest

Queensland. Held on a varying number of beaches in Southeast Queensland and

Northern New South Wales, the sand garden competitions extended from Hervey Bay in the north to the Northern Rivers district in the south, over several weeks of the summer vacation. The competitions culminated in a grand final competition each year at one of three locations, Sandgate, Wynnum or Redcliffe. All of the competitions

were governed by the tides: 90 minutes was the time allocated for the children and

youths to complete their sand gardens. In the weeks leading up to the competitions, it

is more than likely that the majority of competitors planned, and in many cases

practised, their sand garden designs – either at the beach or in the backyard. In

reminiscences recorded by Bessie Chalk (Mrs Bowden), she reveals that she and her

sisters carefully planned and practised their designs. Sand garden competitions were

extremely popular with the competitors, often with more than one hundred entries at

each of the locations. They were also very popular with onlookers, with thousands of

122 spectators – adults and children – gathered at the various beaches, particularly at the

grand final events.

Finally, this study has set out to demonstrate the extent and significance of three little-

known aspects of the child health movement in Queensland during the inter-war years. The focus on mountains and beaches remind us that both were important locations where ‘fitness’ regimes were carried out. These hitherto under-recognised activities of the child health movement offer a new and unexpected perspective on reform in the inter-war years in Queensland. They also demonstrate that popular and leisure activities were more significant in the child health movement in Queensland than has previously been recognised.

Historian Warwick Anderson has demonstrated that there was considerable debate in our nation in previous decades about the impact of the semi-tropics and the tropics on whiteness.326 Each of the case studies described in this thesis represents an example of

educational experience outside the classroom that was meant to respond to that impact

of these conditions and their supposed impact on children in Southeast Queensland.

This thesis agrees with historian Stephen Garton also in his analysis that both nature and nurture combined in progressive public policy and societal views in this period.327

The philanthropic individuals and groups involved initiated progressive activities that were often provided in the face of inertia and disinterest from government.

326 Warwick Anderson, The cultivation of whiteness: science, health and racial destiny in Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005. 327 Stephen Garton, ‘Sir Charles Mackellar: psychiatry, eugenics and child welfare in New South Wales, 1900–1914’, Historical Studies, 22 (1986): 34.

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133