Sir George Bowen and the Problems of Queensland's Defence 1859-1868
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Sir George Bowen and the Problems of Queensland's Defence 1859-1868. by DUNCAN ANDERSON, B.A.* It seems a strange inversion of normal priorities that defence In both Victoria and New South Wales the almost defunct proved a problem for Queensland in the years immediately after volunteer units, which had been formed at the outbreak of separation. In 1859 the colony's treasury was virtually empty and the Crimean War increased tremendously in size2. Queensland, the total population was only 25,000. Indeed, the largest towns, with a French naval base at Noumea, only 700 miles from Brisbane and Ipswich, had a combired population of under Brisbane, did not prove an exception. The volunteer movements 8,000, and outside this area Queensland was little more than of 1859 were a popular response to -the threat of war, a feeling a vast, in part unexplored, cattle run. which left no part of the Empire untouched. At the risk of making an understatement, the colony obviously The war hysteria of 1859 and the concomitant idea of a had many basic developmental problems. However, even the volunteer force filtered into Queensland through The Moreton most cursory examination of the standard historical sources, Bay Courier reprints of British press articles, and more the Brisbane Courier and Queensland Daily Guardian, the particularly, through the steady arrival of immigrants from Governor's despatches and Parliamentary debates, reveals that the older colonies and direct from Britain. These influences the colonists spent an inordinately large proportion of their created a climate of opinion in the colony favourable to the time arguing the pros and cons of defence issues. Defence formation of a local military force. was the subject of three acts of the Herbert Ministry and of But the war scare was not to be the only pressure forcing a full-scale commission during Macalister's Government at a the colonists to consider their defences. Sir George Bowen, time when the colony was suffering from a severe depression. Queensland's newly appointed governor, was, in the long term, Earlier, the defence problem had been the cause of Brisbane's to exert more influence on his colony's defence policies than first dangerous civic disturbances which came close to ending the threat of 1859. In his letter of appointment from the the life of one of the colony's most promising politicians, Secretary of State, Bulwer Lytton, Bowen had received explicit Charles Lilley. It was also the issue which led Sir George instructions to form a volunteer unit "as rapidly as circumstances Bowen into a series of inter-colonial disputes with New South would permit"3. This order from the Colonial Office was the Wales ar.d New Zealand, and was the subject on which he product of a long-term policy begun in 1846 to force the argued most frequently and most bitterly with the Colonial colonies to undertake responsibility for the greater part of Office. their own protection4• Since this time the British Government had been increasingly reluctant to supply regular garrisons to The relatively high priority which defence received at the self-governing colonies, feeling that self-government necessarily outset of Queensland's independence was not, of course, an implied self-reliance. In fact, shortly before Bowen's appoint isolated phenomenon. In late 1859 war between Britain and ment, an inter-departmental committee of the War Office and France over Napoleon Ill's Italian policy appeared to be a Colonial Office had brought down a report advocating a system real possibility. In all parts of the self-governing Empire this of comparatively heavy financial contributions from colonies threat resulted in an outbreak of spontaneous military activity. wishing to have a regular garrison5. This was the strongest In Britain, for example, a volunteer corps was enrolled which, l effort to date to force the colonies to undertake full responsibility in a few months, had several hundred thousand members .- for their own military defence. Acting on the implications of this report, the Secretary for *Research Assistant in History, University of Queensland. War, Sidney Herbert, asked Bowen, in October 1859, if he P(lge Thirty-two Queensland Herital!e would consider forgoing the establishment of a regular garrison. the idea of self-interest. It was surely politic for Britain, he As an alternative, the War Office recommended the establish argued, to protect her commerce with Queensland, which in ment of a soldier settlement scheme, under which retired 1865 he estimated to be worth at least £4,000,00010 . troops from the Indian Army would be given land grants in Such arguments, however, evoked only curt replies from Queensland6• the Colonial Office. After a protracted dispute with the Bowen disliked such a scheme. "Regiments of this sort," Government of New South Wales, Bowen finally did manage he wrote to Sidney Herbert, "inevitably become involved in to have about a dozen troops seconded from the Sydney the politics of the colony.'" Indeed, one of the examples garrison in January 1861 11 , a force which Major General Chute, the Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Australasia, of such a scheme in Australia had been the New South Wales l2 Corps, a force recruited in England from a number of British subsequently tried to have transferred to New Zealand . In the regular units. Arriving in the colony in 1790, the force gradually early 1860s the Maori War was the major British military accrued economic and political power, to such an extent that commitment in the Australian area and exaggerated requests in January 1808 its officers had staged a coup d'etat and from an insignificant colony were not regarded sympathetically, deposed Governor Bligh. This history was hardly calculated certainly not when they conflicted with the current trend of to endear such forces to future colonial governors. colonial defence policy. An increased garrison did not arrive until October 1866. It is But more important, perhaps, was the fact that the ironical, in fact, that it was the fruition of the British Govern implications of the scheme clashed violently with Bowen's ment's withdrawal policy that gave Queensland a larger garrison concepts of imperial defence. His understanding of this subject than Bowen had originally requested. Acting on the terms of was thirty years out of date. He was an imperialist of the the 1862 Mills Committee's report on ways and means to "Stephen" school and had little conception of the changes in reduce garrisons, the Colonial Office eventually devised a the imperial structure wrought by the Colonial Reformers and 8 scheme for an overall cutback in the Australian colonies. the fiscal and political theories of the Manchester economists . This scheme, however, involved a more equitable distribution Bowen's first experience as a colonial administrator had been of forces amongst the colonies. The unexpected result was in the Ionian Islands, an imperial naval station where these that, although there was to be a general withdrawal, Bowen radical influences had had little impact. Completely out of found the force to which he was entitled increased from a sympathy with his London superiors, he could only view with handful to a complete company13. apprehension any move which would tend to weaken, as he It would seem that Bowen's luck with his efforts to obtain put it, "the Imperial Connection". One such move would be a garrison had finally changed. All that now had to be done the abandonment of his right to have a regular garrison. was to secure the sanction of the Legislative Assembly for One part of Bowen's defence activity, therefore, was to be the funds required to maintain these troops. This apparently a succession of efforts to obtain and then maintain a regular simple step, however, proved fraught with difficulty. In May garrison. The qualities of determination and stubbornness he of 1864, a bill for the maintenance of an increased garrison displayed in this struggle provide some indication of the way presented to the Assembly was roundly attacked on economic he was also conducting efforts to form a local volunteer force. grounds. After a lengthy debate, this objection was narrowly Although these two efforts were contemporaneous in their overcome by presenting the troops as inexpensive warders for operation, his garrison policy was generally carried on in the new prison at St. Helena. British regulars, it would seem, isolation from the rest of the colony. It is therefore convenient could be used for a variety of non-military activities14. to examine this first. There was, however, a more serious objection of long duration. The regular forces already stationed in Queensland were extremely unpopular. Many examples can be found in the Brisbane Courier and the early 1860s of letters and articles * accusing them of brawling, drunkenness and of generally lowering the tone of the community. This criticism had begun less than two weeks after the arrival Beginning in February 1860 he kept up a constant barrage of the first contingent. On 21 January 1861, a letter under of requests to the Colonial and War Offices. This was to last the pseudonym "Vanguard" was published in The Moreton until the complete garrison finally arrived in October 1866. Bay Courier with the caption "A Budding Nuisance". A group Bowen used a variety of arguments to convince his superiors of soldiers, drinking outside the "Sawyers Arms", a hotel in that the colony really needed a regular garrison. These can George Street, had bothered "Vanguard" and some ladies in be organized in a logical progression. His chain of reasoning his company, while they were on their way home from church. began with the assertion that a volunteer force could not be "Vanguard" was censorious: established without a regular contingent to act as a nucleus.