ABERGOWRIE AND THE SOLDIER SETTLEMENT SCHEME

With ANZAC Day nearly here and my work on identifying the origins of Hinchinbrook Shire road and street names of the district I have been thinking about a historical photograph which is a favourite of mine. It was published in the book South Pacific Enterprise, The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited. The photographer was the inimitable Max Dupain and the photograph is of soldier settlers in Abergowrie. He has captured them looking into the distance as if contemplating a happier, more prosperous and peaceful future than the horror of the past they had just endured. One of the soldiers is William (Bill) Richmond Rae.

Source: South Pacific Enterprise

As far as I can make our at least 14 roads in the district, particularly the Abergowrie area, are named for returned solders-or soldier settlers as they were known in the 1950s. In all, however, 42 returned soldiers were allocated land in the Herbert River district. 

From road names I have identified these soldier settlers and I am open to correction: Henry and George Copley; David Craig; Reay Craven; Roy Dowling; Thomas Finlayson; Donald and Murray Groundwater; Charles Irlam; Arthur Lee; Stanley McCarthy; William Rae; Herman Strid; Douglas Venables; Herbert Wallis; Joseph Wilkinson. Noel Trost was another, though no road is named after him. But that is only 17 names of the 42. 

 How and why did soldier settlement come about in the Herbert River district? Compared to the south of the continent, the north was and continues to be sparsely settled. The close proximity of the battle front to Australia in World War 2 only heightened “the virtual obsession of land settlement authorities” (Tanzer). A solution was closer settlement with agricultural development. So, a Royal Commission on Soldier Settlement on Sugar Lands in 1946 looked into settlement of returned soldiers on farms north of Proserpine, but especially in the far northern sugar growing districts. The Herbert River district was viewed as particularly vulnerable and could be bolstered by new settlement of both returned solder and others. 

Meanwhile the demand for increased milling capacity to handle the Herbert River district’s crop was once more on the agenda. West of Ingham township had long been identified as a possible location with farmers petitioning the government in 1916 for a central sugar mill at Long Pocket. However now post World War 2 CSR and local farmers came up with the ‘Abergowrie Scheme’ which would achieve the duplication of Victoria Mill and the extension of cane growing into the Abergowrie district. 58 square kilometres of countryside along the Herbert River were identified as suitable for sugar cane cultivation.

The Abergowrie Scheme was ambitious, and it was planned that 200 new farms would be established by the end of 1954. The 'War Service (Sugar Industry) Settlement Act of 1946' was consequently passed and ballots were conducted of returned soldier applicants. Those selected for the Herbert River district were allotted 24.3 hectares (60 acres). By 1954 120 farms had been taken up by prospective growers, 78 of which had received assignments under the Sugar Industry Act, while 42 were ex-servicemen or soldier settlers who had secured their blocks by ballot. The first to take up their assignments were the soldier settlers during 1952 and 1953. 

 As John Tanzer, who had interviewed settlers from the period who were still on their farms in 1978 wrote: “During this early period of settlement the area was very isolated and living conditions were harsh. Ingham is some 50 kms. away and then was only accessible by a single dirt road. During the wet season this road was impossible for weeks at a time. There were no telephones except for one at a local agricultural college. Thus isolation was a major problem facing the new settlers and their families. In addition to the loneliness and isolation, living conditions were poor. There was no electricity in the area until 1957. Before this the new settlers had to rely on wood or coke stoves and kerosene or petrol lights. The only water available came from sinking bores. To begin with, many settlers lived in tents while their land was being cleared. Then they moved into farm sheds which were built first to store machinery. Half the shed would be used as living space and the other half set aside for the invaluable.” Moreover, “Despite the Central Sugar Cane Prices Board being assured by a spokesman for the proposal that, ‘the bulk of the land is lightly timbered, some of its river flats naturally clear and there is some scrub’ (Australian Sugar Journal, 1950), most of the land was covered by dense rainforest. This made the clearing of the land both time consuming and expensive” [requiring bulldozers]. “This high initial outlay naturally involved new settlers in substantial loan operations.” 

As soon as they were able both soldier settlers and others started abandoning their blocks. Up until 1958 they were prohibited (except in severe extenuating circumstances) by the Central Sugar Cane Prices Board from selling up. 45% of the solder settlers had sold up after 13 years and by 1978 when Tanzer conducted his research 27 solder settlers had left. While comparatively more soldier settlers exited than others in the five-year period between 1958 to 1962, once the five year sale prohibition had been lifted a half of all the new settlers who were to leave their farms did so. (Tanzer). Bill Rae was not one of those. Arthur Lee died tragically in 1953, but several others like Bill Rae weathered the adversities and held onto their farms. 

Source: South Pacific Enterprise

The reasons why those soldier settlers exited who did can be guessed at: • The benevolent motivation of authorities regarding returned soldiers-their eligibility was decided with less caution than in the cases of the other settlers • most of them were from the south and had never before grown sugar cane but rather had worked on dairy or sheep properties • were new to the Herbert River district so did not have family support or relatives on adjacent farms with whom they could have shared machinery, labour and expertise • they received smaller farms, in some cases less than the minimum area deemed necessary to provide an 'average living'. Of those new settlers, soldier settlers or others, who received less than 28.2 hectares (70 acres), Tanzer calculated that fewer than 50% survived • High establishment costs • Inability to access to adequate finance • Mechanization, increased costs, imperative to increase assignment • Constraint of size of initial land grant made purchasing additional assignments from those who exited prohibitive • Isolation and harsh living conditions 

For those who had to walk away from their farms on the Herbert it must have bitter sweet. They came here with so much hope. Most would be dead now, but for some their names live on not only when their families speak their names but in the collective memory of a community as residents traverse the roads named for them. 

Source: South Pacific Enterprise. The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited. Sydney: Angus and Robertson,1956.

Tanzer John M. AN INVESTIGATION OF NEW SETTLEMENT IN THE SUGAR INDUSTRY AS A RESULT OF POST-WAR EXPANSIONS. A CASE STUDY IN THE HERBERT RIVER DISTRICT, NORTH QUEENSLAND (Bachelor of Economics, Hons, 1979.) Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. RADF Street naming project.

Ellis Rowan, flower hunter

 

Many interesting women and their stories are woven into the history of the Herbert River district. One such woman is Ellis Rowan. Her exploits and success were remarkable for the era in which she lived. This lenghty blog researched and written with thanks by Chris and Vivienne Parry is a fascinating read. 

Ellis Rowan and her son Puck

Ellis Rowan was Australia's most celebrated flower painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An emancipated woman far ahead of her time, she turned what her fellow Australian artists deemed a 'genteel' female pastime of flower painting into an adventurous and profitable career that took her all over the world. In a career spanning fifty years and ending with her death in 1922, she produced more than 3,000 paintings, many of which she succeeded in placing in public collections. She exhibited her work as far afield as London and New York and achieved acclaim at the great world expositions of her day, winning ten gold, fifteen silver and four bronze medals. Queen Victoria selected three paintings for her private chambers. She was also a writer, she recounted her travels in the popular press and in a book entitled A Flower-Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand, published in 1898.

She was born in 1848 to a wealthy pastoralist family of Victoria. Besides a position of privilege, she inherited a talent for art and natural history. Following her education in Melbourne, she visited England and probably took art lessons, though she claimed, with characteristic exaggeration, to have been entirely self-taught as an artist. She began exhibiting her paintings at about the time of her marriage in 1873 to Frederic Charles Rowan, a British army officer then serving in New Zealand and later a successful Melbourne businessman.

Ellis Rowan trekked to remote and distant places ― all over Australia, New Guinea and to the tropics of Queensland on at least six occasions. She saw herself more as an artist and public educator than a botanical illustrator. She wanted to record not the structure of flowers, but to show how they grew in their native habitats: by sea or swamp, in sparse desert, or as in north Queensland, in dense rainforest.

Though Ellis placed artistic effect over scientific record, the subjects of her paintings are accurate enough to be readily identified. Throughout her career she called on botanists to identify her subjects, sometimes sending specimens as proof.

From 1887, Ellis Rowan travelled extensively in Queensland and Western Australia in an ambitious scheme to record the Australian flora. She found the tropical flowers 'more beautiful than all' and returned again and again to Queensland during the winter months.

To explain her long absences from her husband and young son while on her travels, she invented a socially acceptable excuse: that she could not withstand the severity of Melbourne's winters. The truth is that, despite her fragile appearance, she was a woman of enormous physical stamina and determination. She returned to Melbourne only days before the untimely death of her husband, from pneumonia, in December 1892. It was found that the husband was bankrupt, so needing an income Ellis began seriously exhibiting and selling her paintings.

By then approaching her sixties, her zest for travel had not diminished and she was determined to gain recognition for her life’s work. She travelled in South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland, financing her travels with regular exhibitions. Prompted by a commission for paintings of birds of paradise for a Royal Worcester fine china tea set, she made extensive visits to Papua New Guinea in 1916 and 1917. Travelling through rugged and dangerous country to paint the endangered Birds of Paradise, she fell victim to malaria which eventually broke her health.

In Sydney in 1920, she staged what was then Australia's largest art exhibition, showing more than one thousand works. Her takings from sales of over £2,000 set a national record for a woman artist. That’s about $160,000 in today’s money. But Ellis wanted more lasting success. She was determined to place her paintings in the public domain.

Ellis wished to have her own paintings together on public display. For many years Ellis, and later a memorial committee, lobbied the Australian Government to purchase her collection, even though at that time there was no national gallery to house it. The government eventually paid £5,000 for 947 paintings, in today’s money over $460,000. They are now kept in the National Library of Australia, in Canberra.

 Her travels in Queensland

In 1887, at the age of thirty-nine, she made her first painting expedition to Queensland. After time in Brisbane, where she had introductions to the Premier and the Government Botanist, she headed to Mackay by coastal steamer where she had heard there were 'many beautiful flowers' to be found at that time of the year. Not disappointed, she stayed for almost seven weeks.

She travelled to Townsville and from there she went to the sugar plantations of the Herbert and Johnstone Rivers. In the Herbert she stayed at Macknade House, and painted flowers from the gardens and orchids collected from the surrounding rainforest. She arrived in time for the annual Ingham show and race meeting. Here she met many people and gained invitations to other plantation houses and gardens. Ellis especially liked Lucinda Point and did several paintings there.

Herbert River Cocky Apple, Lucinda

To leave the district Ellis had to be rowed out to the coastal steamer with the Herbert River in flood. She wrote that it was very dangerous and she was lucky to survive. She did a sketch of the scene which was reproduced in her book.

On a later visit to the Herbert she stayed at Farnham plantation, where her niece, Joice Nankivell, was a six-year-old. Joice Nankivell went on to become the most famous woman to be born in this district for her work with children escaping Europe in WWII and later helping Greek refugees escape from the war with Turkey. Today there is a monument to Joice in the Ingham Botanical Gardens. After Farnham Plantation went bankrupt Joice and her mother went to live with relatives in Victoria, and there she saw Ellis again and visited her at her home at Mt Macedon. Joice later wrote that it was Ellis who encouraged her to be a journalist and to travel overseas.

Herbert River Shining Starlings

She then continued north to the plantations at the Johnstone River. On this visit to Queensland, she completed at least sixty-four paintings before the heat and an attack of malaria drove her from the tropics in December.

She returned to Queensland in the winters of 1891 and 1892 for more extensive visits. On one visit Ellis made grand tours of the Torres Strait islands in the Queensland Government steamer the Albatross, as guest of John Douglas, the Government Resident at Thursday Island, who was her brother-in-law. On Thursday Island she met Sana Jardine, said to be a Samoan princess, who was the wife of Cape York pioneer Frank Jardine. She invited Ellis to stay at their home, called Somerset, on the Cape York mainland. Somerset had been the home of the Government Resident of Cape York and Ellis did many paintings there. Sana then took Ellis on a boat trip to the outer islands of the Torres Straits.

On at least one of her visits to Cairns, Ellis visited Hambledon House, built by the Swallow family, the wealthiest sugar planters in the district. The house had a huge library and a ballroom lit by crystal chandeliers. Ellis put her sketch of the house in her book.

On her visit of 1892 Ellis Rowan spent some time in Cooktown. Her object on this trip was to paint the Cooktown Orchid. From there she made an expedition to the remote Bloomfield River, and it here beside the river she found much to paint, including the Wonga Vine and the Moonflower. Ellis then made a strenuous climb of Mount Macmillan to look out over the Bloomfield valley to the coast: a scene she described as ’one of the finest in all Queensland’. From 1911 to 1913, Ellis, then in her sixties, undertook more visits to Queensland.

Herbert River Snow Wood

After 1913 she turned her attention to New Guinea, in search of Birds of Paradise. Here, in two trips at the age of 70, she painted 45 of the known species.

Ellis Rowan was possibly the most enthusiastic of all the traveller-artists to visit the Queensland tropics in her day. In 1892, looking out over the Bloomfield Valley, she wrote: ‘... if our Australian artists only knew what rich and endless subjects they would find in Northern Queensland, they would surely make up their minds to endure a little roughing and camping out ...at this time of year. It would well repay them.’

She was fortunate enough to travel when much of the countryside was botanically unexplored and its natural beauty unspoilt, when she could share the joy of finding rare or even unknown specimens. Above all, it was the botanical richness of the tropics that attracted Ellis.

Though she stressed the importance of recording her subjects in situ, working quickly, she usually completed them in a nearby plantation house or hotel. Her book recounts how she laboured into the night, painting specimens collected on excursions or presented to her by local residents. Though executed indoors, the paintings generally have the freshness of works painted in the open air, for she was a rapid and direct worker, proud that she could apply her paints without the aid of pencil under-drawing.

Ellis Rowan did not claim to be a botanical artist in scientific terms, but her evocative paintings and writings did much to raise public appreciation of the Australian flora. She left a precious record of the Queensland landscape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and of plant species that are now disappearing.

Adapted from Judith McKay, Ellis Rowan: A Flower-Hunter in Queensland (Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1990)

Other references:

National Library of Australia

Ellis Rowan. A Flower Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand. 1898

M. Hazzard. Australia’s Brilliant Daughter Ellis Rowan. 1984

P. Fullerton. The Flower Hunter Ellis Rowan. 2002 NLA

J McKay. Ellis Rowan A Flower Hunter in Queensland 1990

 

"Bursting at the seams" - a little history of Abergowrie State Primary School and Abergowrie area

 Abergowrie State Primary School, a brief history

The small rural school, Abergowrie State Primary School, which opened in February 1953 and celebrates its 70^th anniversary on 11 November 2023, has quietly and effectively provided educational opportunities to hundreds of students over those years despite the challenges and changes that have assailed it.

Image: Flyer 70th Anniversary Celebrations (Facebook, Abergowrie State School)

The school takes its name from the "Abergowrie" selection, taken up by Irish immigrant James Atkinson in 1883 in the wake of George Elphinstone Dalrymple’s exploration. Atkinson used the Celtic word "aber" meaning confluence and the name of Gowrie Creek, indicating the confluence of Gowrie Creek with the Herbert River to construct the place name Abergowrie. Gowrie takes its name from an ancient district in Perthshire. The word gowrie means gloomy, dull and murky.

Abergowrie township, established as a result of the 1950s sugar assignment expansion, was approximately 40 kilometers from Ingham and so services needed to be provided like churches, shops and a school. When the State Education Department was informed of the number of children of primary school age requiring education and the distance to the nearest state school, permission was granted to open a state primary school. The Department of Public Works pledged £2224 for the erection of a new school. The school adopted a motto to reflect its farming origins: is ‘Nihil Sine Labore’ which translates to ‘Nothing without hard work’.

School logo

Abergowrie State Primary School was opened on Saturday 21 February 1953 by Mr. C. G. Jesson, M.L.A. assisted by the Regional Director of Education Mr. A. Whitmee. The building, which was just finished a week before the first school term began on February 23, was planned for a maximum of 40 students. By March 1953 44 students were enrolled and the school was said to be “bursting at the seams”. By June the enrolment was reported to be 55 students. The teacher was provided with an assistant when the numbers increased. By August the parents had agitated successfully to obtain a new classroom (21 x 24 feet) to cater for the larger enrolment anticipated in 1954. Improvements to the school structure have been effected over the years, beginning with money approved by the State Government for improvements to the school In 1973.

Image: Abergowrie State Primary School 1953

Today, the community has shrunk, and school numbers have declined with parents choosing to send their children to larger schools in Ingham. However, due to the distance to these schools, and the remoteness of some children’s properties the school is kept open by the State Education Department. For the wider community the school is more than an educational facility, it is a community hub providing for example a polling place, a disaster recovery centre and a playgroup.

As of February 2023 the school is listed as offering an Early Childhood to Year 6 education to 11 students. The Cheeky Moneys Playgroup is conducted at the school every Tuesday morning in term time. The students benefit from small class size, individualized tuition and all the benefits of a roomy modern school and a well-appointed nature playground (built in 2020 and created by LEAP Innovations with donations from community members and a grant).

Image: Abergowrie State School playground (Facebook, Abergowrie State School)

The students, small to big, benefit from everything a bigger school has to offer including, swimming lessons at the Hinchinbrook Aquatic Centre, a library/resource centre;  Do Re Me music lessons; sporting opportunities such as the Athletics Carnival and All Schools Touch Carnival  enabled by combining with other small schools to form teams; engagement with other small schools such as Macknade State School; community engagement with fund raising events such as that conducted by the School Council Bike-a-thon to raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation; and visits from educational experts who supplement day-to-day learning with new experiences. The list goes on.

Abergowrie State Primary School takes its name from the surrounding area and exists because the expansion of sugar assignments that occurred in the 1950s. The following is a potted history of Abergowrie.

Abergowrie history

Before the pastoral selection of Abergowrie, or Abergowrie State Primary School were ever conceived this was Warrgamay Country. Probably not the first of the Warragamay people’s encounter with Europeans, but the one that would have drastic consequences for them was marked by a monument and plaque at Abergowrie in 1964. The plaque reads:  George Elphinstone Dalrymple explorer and public servant passed this way in 1864, leading the first group of Europeans to enter the Herbert River Valley, en route from Port Hinchinbrook (Cardwell) to Valley of Lagoons, in his steps came settlement. Erected 1964.

Image: George Elphinstone Dalrymple 1964 (monumentaustralia.org.au)

Despite its use for grazing and farming by European settlers, Warrgamay people were still endeavoring to live and hunt on Country till the 1940s. Traditional Warrgamay ownership was recognized in the 2021 native title ruling by the Federal Court of Australia.  In recognition of this the school opened a yarning circle in the same year to connect its school community with the traditional owners. The yarning circle is used for staff meetings, student council, and a safe place for children to talk, reflecting the traditional use of a yarning circle by Warragamay elders for conversation, the sharing of knowledge, and discussion of important issues.

Image: Yarning Circle (Facebook, Abergowrie State School)

Prior to and during World War 1 Abergowrie-Coldwater lands, which had been resumed from the Atkinsons proved valuable to growing small crops. Cultivation and experimentation were boosted in response to appeals by the wartime authorities for food and the need to supply products which were no longer obtainable because of the war. One of the best-known growers was Primo Capra who successfully grew large crops of potatoes, watermelons, tomatoes, and pumpkins for an interstate market. Small crop growers struggled for lack of labour and transport facilities for their crops. Later land on which small crops had previously been grown were converted to sugar growing with the resumption of sugar expansion. Though other cash crops such as tobacco were tried, sugar dominated because of its suitability to a variety of soil types and climatic conditions and the fact that its processing and marketing were handled by a large corporation, the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR).

Construction on a road access to Abergowrie began in 1933 under the relief scheme for the unemployed during the Great Depression of 1925-1935. Road access was vital to St Teresa’s College, Abergowrie, a rural boarding college for boys which opened in March 1934 by the Christian Brothers.

 Prior to World War 2 the Lands Department had refused to open further Abergowrie lands to selection because of a belief that it was of poor quality for farming, a supposition which was later disproved when after World War 2 the lands were opened up for selection for sugar cultivation.

The Abergowrie State Primary School was opened to educate the children of farming families who moved to the area to take advantage of CSR’s Abergowrie cane expansion scheme. The area had been earmarked as early as 1946 when a Royal Commission toured the north and the Abergowrie area was investigated for its potential for sugar growing. The local sub-branch of the Returned Soldiers League (RSL) suggested that the area should be divided up into allotments to be taken up exclusively by ex-servicemen for sugar cane cultivation. Though at this stage it was envisaged the area would have its own mill. A new central mill for the district had been agitated for since 1886. James Aitkinson had even suggested that one be established on Abergowrie lands in the 1880s. While the Government decided that there would be no further mills it was decreed that there would be an increase of three percent in the sugar peaks to accommodate some ex-servicemen who chose to take up farming after the war.

Image: Young soldier settler cane farmers in the Abergowrie district (The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited, South Pacific Enterprise)

This scheme came to fruition because of a marketing agreement between the United Kingdom (UK) Government and the Queensland Premier, the Hon.  E.M. Hanlon in 1949 in response to a post-war demand for Australian sugar. In order to be able to fulfil the agreement the Australian sugar industry needed to increase its production markedly. There was still plenty of room for expansion of sugar growing in the Herbert River Valley and so it was proposed that the Victoria Mill be duplicated. This proposal together with one for land in the Abergowrie area to be opened to soldier settlement was approved in March 1950 and so Abergowrie township and the largescale sugar growing area came about.

It was envisaged that opening up Abergowrie to sugar growing would attract 200 growers and their families, 300 additional cane cutters, loco drivers, navvies, etc (and their families) together with a number of field hands, basically the establishment of another ‘sugar town’.

CSR duplicated the Victoria Mill’s mill train in order to handle the additional cane supply the Abergowrie farms would produce. Abergowrie land was taken up by returned soldiers under the soldier settlement scheme which the Hinchinbrook Council and the RSL had championed rather than small areas along Ingham Line. Streets with names like Tobruk andTarakan attest to the war experiences of these returned soldiers.

By 1951 118 assignments had been granted at Abergowrie. On 1 July 1953 the first cane from Abergowrie went to the mill.  By 1954 all assignments were under cane. Once more new immigrant families and new farming families lived a pioneering lifestyle alongside the progress that was being witnessed in other parts of the Valley. Many first lived in sheds and barracks before proper homes were built courtesy of low interest government loans.

A town plan was approved by the Minister of Lands in 1952, which included provision for 40 township blocks, and to include provision for churches, businesses, playground, a tennis court, a school, a sports reserve and laneways and streets.

Before roads were systematically sealed, beginning in the 1950s, and wooden bridges replaced by cement structures, a trip to town by Abergowrie residents, for instance, could be a whole day’s undertaking. Though a high-level bridge over the Herbert River did not come to Abergowrie until 1971 and in flood time the road can still be impassable. As the road improved and family motorized vehicle ownership became commonplace Ingham became more accessible and most services except the school closed. The community and offices at the large rail infrastructure at McKell’s siding too closed down, though the siding remained. It had once been the base for four locomotives, 10 loco crews, one six-man rail and navy gang, a traffic officer and two cane inspectors. Structures at the siding included barracks, eight employee’s cottages and two staff houses as well as an office and locomotive shed. Accordingly, the population of Abergowrie has declined from 1954 when the population numbered 700 individuals.

Image: Abergowrie Township 2022, (property.com.au)

According to Brother V. M. Doran who wrote a history of Abergowrie College “Telephone communication with Ingham did not come until 1945 when the college boys cleared a line through the forest area and using the most suitable of the fallen timber for poles, strung a line to Elphinstone Pocket. The college became the exchange for the first people who moved into the area and acted as the "Civic Centre" until the Abergowrie township was set up.” Then in 1955 the telephone system was extended with an initial 78 subscribers being hooked up. The exchange was transferred to Hann's store in Abergowrie township where postal business could also be transacted. In 1957 the area was connected to electricity.

From 1964, the Abergowrie landscape changed yet again when the Forestry Department indicated that it would be commencing surveys in the Abergowrie area for land whose soil suited the cultivation of plantations of softwoods, namely Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea var. Honduras). Abergowrie State Forest was cleared and planted with Caribbean pine in 1981-2. The State Forest now has pine plantations alongside tropical rainforest and open eucalypt forest.

Abergowrie is not immune to flooding and cyclones and received some of the brunt of Cyclone Yasi sustaining damage to houses and cane crops. When flood waters rise Abergowrie residents can still be flood bound for days despite the modern day convenience of bitumen roads and high concrete brideges.

Today abandoned tobacco drying sheds, cane cutters barracks and farmhouses testify to a past that is hardly remembered. Stands of pines outline a horizon the Traditional Owners would not recognize. The sugar expansion into the Abergowrie area brought prosperity and people but with the end of manual cane cutting and increased mechanization of all processes the population of Abergowrie and its needs have changed. Abergowrie township once envisioned to become a bustling civic centre has fallen into a long sleep. One constant, however, has been Abergowrie State Primary School which still rings with childish laughter and enthusiasms and still provides a vital learning space for Abergowrie’s children.

Sources:

Abergowrie State School 1275, https://schoolsdirectory.eq.edu.au/Details/1275

Andrew M. Burton and Penny Olsen, “Management of exotic pine plantations in northeast Queensland for goshawks,” Australian Forestry, 63:3, 174-180.

: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00049158.2000.10674828

“New School Buildings,” Cairns Post, 7 November 1952, 5.

“Abergowrie development,” Daily Mercury, Thu 8 January 1953, 13.

“New school,” Daily Mercury, 5 March 1953, 6.

“George Dalrymple,” Monument Australia. https://monumentaustralia.org.au/search/display/90356-george-dalrymple-

V.M. Doran, A History of Abergowrie.

Nathalie Fernbach and Dwayne Wyles, “Small Queensland schools treasured by teachers, families and students,” ABC News, 14 September 2020.

‘Ingham District,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, 30 April 1952, 3.

“Abergowrie School Already Too Small,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, 14 March 1953, 5.

“Herbert River,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, 5 March 1953, 5.

“Good C.C.S. Content In Macknade,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, 10 June 1953, 3.

Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui, The Herbert River Story, (Ingham: Hinchinbrook Shire Council, 2011).

Janice Wegner, “Hinchinbrook The Hinchinbrook Shire Council 1979-1979” (M. Arts thesis, James Cook University, 1984).

Dwayne Whyles, “Traditional owners guide north Queensland school's yarning circle,” ABC News, 4 December 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-04/traditional-owners-guide-abergowrie-school-yarning-circle/100670126

 

The early history of Macknade Plantation and Mill

Neame’s Macknade Mill acquired as a working concern by CSR, 1896. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection)

Macknade Mill reached its 150^th year anniversary in August 2023. The sugar industry of the Herbert River district has much to thank its founders for. The founders were English gentlemen Arthur and his younger brother Frank of Macknade Estate, Faversham.

The enduring legacy of the Neames is:

1.      Successful sugar cultivation on the Herbert

2.      The establishment of cultivation of sugar by small farmers

3.      Small farmer representative body (the predecessor of today’s Herbert River Canegrowers)

4.      Italian immigration and small farming

Of course, this must be balanced with two other less laudable consequences of colonization:

1.      The dispersal of the Indigenous owners from the land on which the Neame brothers would grow cane

2.      The importation of Melanesian indentured labourers to cultivate that land

The legacy and consequences of the Neames' incursion into the Valley would change the landscape and demographics irreversibly.

We know so much about Macknade Plantation and Mill, founded on the Traditional Lands of the Warrgamay, Nywaigi and Bandjin/ Biyaygiri peoples, because of a diary written by Arthur, The Diary of Arthur Neame, 1870-1897 and official correspondence and records held in the Queensland and National Archives and the CSR Archives held at the Noel Butlin Archives ANU, Canberra. I took a deep dive into the story of Macknade Plantation and Mill when I researched my doctoral thesis: Small sugar farmer agency in the tropics 1872 -1914 and the anomalous Herbert River Farmers’ Association

Frank, who was two years younger than Arthur, seemed to hold onto his sense of class privilege more strongly than Arthur who despite his strong fraternity with fellow planters was very much at home in the Valley and was not above calling in on small farmers on his journeys from one plantation to another.^[1] As the older brother he was also more hands on when it came to the work on the plantation and he was of more robust health than Frank. Reading his diary, it’s hard not to like Arthur and it is hard to reconcile him with the prevailing attitudes which found him considering the local Indigenous people “treacherous and cunning” and the indiscriminate retribution exacted of those Indigenous people who killed the Conn couple as having a “wonderful effect”.[2]  

We first meet the brothers shepherding on a sheep station in western Queensland.^[3] Shepherding on a pastoral station belonging to an acquaintance of the family was the accepted way of gaining colonial experience for new-chums.

They travelled to Australia on the same ship as brothers Edwin Sheppard and Onslow Frederick Waller whom they had known previously because the Wallers had lived near Faversham. Unlike many absentee and speculative selectors who took up land in the Herbert Valley, the Neames came and explored the Valley first. On their second visit to the Valley in May 1871 (after their first visit to the Valley earlier in the same year accompanied by James Mackenzie of Gairloch Plantation Mill, had been unsuccessful^[4]) they selected their initial 1 280 acre block after climbing a tree in order to better survey a suitable piece of land.^[5] Their selections taken up in partnership with the Waller brothers were on the north side of the river which was bounded by two watercourses, the Herbert River and the Anabranch, and the ocean.

The Neames named their selection after Macknade from where they originated. Macknade Plantation and Mill was the third planation and mill established. The first was Gairloch by the Scottish Mackenzie family. The second was Bemerside by Ferrand Haig, together with Henry Robert William Miles. In his memoirs, planter Arthur talked primarily of Haig with whom he seemed to have had a genuine friendship which continued after Haig had to relinquish Bemerside. Aristocratic Miles married Frank and Arthur’s younger sister Mary in 1882.

Arthur recorded that:

I have laid out the plantation so that each block measures ten acres, the road around each being 15ft. in width, a block on the river bank is reserved for the mill house, and most of the buildings for the men, the overseers and the staff, and cottages for the married people will be around this block.^[6]

This arrangement was customarily determined by status with different ethnic groups housed separately and designated specific roles. The housing of different Melanesian groups discretely was necessary given inter-tribal violence which was not infrequent on the plantations of the Herbert River. ^[7]

Neame's residence on Macknade Plantation, Ingham Queensland, circa 1881. (Source: State Library of Queensland. Unidentified. (2004). APO-22 Album of Views of Townsville and Herbert River. Image number: 100170)

The erection of the mill and all the requisite buildings, the clearing of the land, and the initial plantings and cultivation on Macknade Plantation provided employment for both white and Melanesian labourers. White workers helped Arthur construct the buildings and erect the machinery but he found drunkenness a recurrent problem. The arrival of the sober Scandinavians was welcomed. One of the immigrants who worked for him and of whom he spoke in glowing terms was Swedish immigrant, August Anderssen. As Arthur recorded, Anderssen claimed that he owed all his later good fortune to the start Arthur gave him, but Arthur demurred saying that August “really owed it to his own hard work & intelligence.”^[8] 

The willingness of the Neames and others to allow new immigrants to work their holdings was to an extent self-serving. They cleared the land and planted food crops required by the plantations while also providing the white, skilled labour required by the planters. Nevertheless, this was an opportunity that gave the new arrivals the wherewithal to take up selections of their own. The open-handed treatment given to these immigrants—providing equipment, often even a rudimentary hut to live in—led them to regard the Neames favourably.

The mill first crushed in 1873 and made 140 tons of sugar from 70 acres of cane.^[9] The mill, imported from Glasgow, had a 20-horsepower capacity and was described as “a first-class plant and mill replete with all the modern improvements.”^[10] It had larger and heavier rollers than either the Bemerside or Gairloch Mills which gave it a much greater capacity to crush heavier crops. ^[11] The installation of an electric plant in the mill house enabled crushing around the clock. By 1875 there were 210 acres under cane and the capacity of the mill had been upgraded. The prospects for both planters and settlers in the Valley in that year were forecast as being “exceedingly bright.”^[12]

A significant feat achieved by Haig and Arthur was the construction of a large sugar store shed on a sand bank at the mouth of the Herbert River. The pair named it Dungeness after Dungeness in the Strait of Dover, England.^[13] From there, their bagged raw sugar was transported by steamers to southern markets and refineries.

Dungeness, described as “a miserable, low-lying dead-and-alive-place,” circa 1881. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection) 

The Neame brothers were not only hard workers but also prudent. They invested in improved facilities for their mill and employed good cultivation techniques. They also divided the plantation work according to their skills. Arthur by his own admission was not good at the bookwork and so Frank took responsibility for correspondence and the accounts. Onslow Waller looked after the stock and did the butchering. Edwin Waller was responsible for the cultivation, while Arthur superintended fieldwork and work in the mill house and much else. In the absence of a reliable doctor he did all the doctoring on the plantation with the aid of a medical manual. They considered themselves benevolent and enlightened employers. Arthur recorded that he “took a lot of trouble to see that the boys (Kanakas) were well cared for, and knew every boy by name, even when there were nearly 150 on the place.”^[14] Later, on their return to the Valley in 1886, the Neames were proactive in the face of the dearth of Melanesian labour. They procured Chinese, Malays (Malaysians and Indonesians) and Japanese labourers and offered tenancy arrangements.

Melanesian workers at Macknade and overseer Mr E.L. MacDonald. Their daily regime was ruled by the clock and the bell, n.d. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection)

The financial arrangement with the Wallers dissolved in 1879. That the Wallers had not been able to contribute any funds further than their original investment of £4 000 was one of several issues that caused the relationship to break down. Despite new, powerful machinery, a reliable, sober labour force, and the latest technology, Arthur admitted candidly that “had it not been for father’s help we should have become bankrupt and lost everything.”^[15] By 1878 their father had advanced them £12 000. The Neames kept the mill and all the plantation lands on the north side of the river while the Wallers took land on the southern side of the river. ^[16] The Wallers did not leave the Valley but transferred a former Gairloch plantation house to their property, Cordelia Vale, and from there invested in cattle, established a butchery, and farmed sugar cane which they supplied to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company’s Victoria Mill.^[17]

All did not go well for the Wallers, and in 1889 though still identifying as ‘sugar planters’, both were declared insolvent.^[18] Onslow remained in the Valley until his death, aged 51, in 1898.^[19] Edwin transitioned to small farming and continued to grow cane on his property, Maragen, as a contractor supplying to Ripple Creek. He continued farming for at least another decade and then left the Valley to retire in Brisbane where he died in 1935, identified as a retired sugar grower rather than planter.^[20]

Both Neame brothers went back and forth to England several times and even had their parents and siblings visit them. The brothers married in England. Arthur left Frank to manage Macknade on his own when he went home to England in April 1882. During that visit he married Jessie (nee Harrison) and together they returned to Macknade three months later. Both of Arthur and Jesse’s children, Godfrey (1886) and Arthur (1888), were born in England. Two of Frank and Louisa (nee Bennet)’s children, Harold and Marjorie, were born at Macknade while Gerard was born in Surrey in 1885.^[21]

When the first local government, the divisional board, was created in 1879 the economy was controlled by the plantations. Frank was elected chairman of the divisional board while Arthur was a founding councillor as was Edwin Waller. ^[22] Frank Neame was honorary secretary, Queensland Planters’ Association.^[23]

Still looking for labour solutions to ward off the demise of the plantation system the association proposed that Italians and Germans could be encouraged to immigrate as an alternative labour supply and that its members would guarantee to provide work to Piedmontese immigrants who would arrive in 1891 on the Jumna. ^[24] Later Neames leased out land to Italians who took up 150 acres while around another 200 acres were taken up by other small farmers.^[25] They were reputed to be on good terms with their tenants, acquiescing to all reasonable requests.^[26]

The Neames were early supporters of the concept of farming by smallholders and of smallholders’ empowerment through association. founded in 1882. On the Herbert River Farmers’ Association (HRFA)’s foundation in 1882 an unsolicited letter of support was received from Frank, accompanied by a donation of five guineas.

The HRFA invited him to become president, an honour he accepted.^[27] It was not uncommon for agricultural associations to ask somebody of some community standing to preside. This would be especially useful where the formation of such an association by smaller farmers was regarded by others as audacious and ridiculous. Founding secretary Johan (John) Alm made much of Neame championing the HRFA. He wrote that as a long-time resident of the Herbert River district, a successful planter and chairman of the Hinchinbrook Divisional Board, Frank’s approval of the association and the small grower ideals dampened criticisms, for he “was so universally admired and respected by all sections of the public that they would not adversely criticise anything in which he took a leading part.”^[28] His and his brother’s patronage was valued for the weight it gave to the association’s petitions to CSR, the divisional board and governments. Alm recalled that as president, Neame pledged to do all he could to advance the causes of the association. Neame opined that cooperation amongst farmers was much needed in the Valley.^[29]

While Neame wrote a letter of support, gave a donation and accepted the honour of being patron, he may not have been able to do much else for the HRFA. Moreover, Neame and his wife left for England in late 1882 and did not return to the Herbert until 1886. In poor health, Frank returned ‘home’ at the end of 1890, dying in the autumn of 1891.^[30]  On Neame’s death his brother Arthur assumed the presidency and was president until 1893. After that W.T. White, government surveyor and dairy farmer, was the president until the HRFA handed over its objects to the Herbert River Farmers’ League (HRFL), which in turn would hand over its responsibilities to the Herbert River Farmers’ Association (today’s CANEGROWERS).^[31]

Macknade was affected by ‘rust’ disease (disease of sugar cane caused by a mite which allows infection by the fungus red rot) in 1875 and 1876 but survived due to astute management and the planting of a more rust-resistant variety.^[32] Edward Fanning, Thomas NanKivell and Sons, a company with a Melbourne business base of ships and warehouses^[33]  made their speculative advance into the district in 1880, buying Gairloch Plantation Mill which had been resumed from the Mackenzie family by the Bank of New South Wales. The company also acquired Macknade Plantation Mill (for £60 000, £30 000 to be paid up front, the rest to remain on mortgage), trading as the Macknade Sugar Company. This came about because the Neame brothers had decided to return to England in 1883.^[34] J.E. Hammick was installed as resident manager. ^[35]

Fanning, NanKivell and Sons monopolised the Herbert River Valley for a time acquiring as well as Gairloch and Macknade, Hamleigh Plantation Mill and Farnham Estate. The concentrated ownership streamlined administration and afforded the potential of efficiency through economies of scale.^[36] But their valley-wide reach was unsustainable, given that its properties were 80 percent mortgaged. Moreover, as Neame found on his return to Macknade, extravagance both in what the company had spent on the Valley plantations and the NanKivell sons on their planter lifestyle, had negated that potential.

While figures vary, the company’s properties were inarguably huge, but the ratio of land put under cane compared to unproductive land was small. In 1882 Macknade was 6 000 acres with 400 acres ready for harvesting; Knowing that all of Fanning, NanKivell and Sons’ plantations had been running at huge losses, and that the company was still heavily in debt, Frank Neame returned in 1886 to assess the situation. When negotiations to enter into a partnership failed because Fanning, Nankivell and Sons were so far in debt, the company relinquished Macknade to the Neames in lieu of the large part of the purchase money still owed. Arthur also came back to the Valley and in 1887 the Neame brothers resumed management of their plantation. Arthur attributed the debacle to over-extension on the part of Fanning, Nankivell and Sons.^[37]

The Neames were shocked with what they found on their return. Arthur recorded that cattle were camping in the cane fields which were ruined and overgrown with weeds. The mill, while equipped with good machinery, was badly laid out and the buildings in need of repair. He wrote that “no one would have believed that place had been occupied for the last two years.”^[38]

On their return to the Valley in 1887, the Neames began leasing land, and persisted with it despite the reluctance of white selectors to commit to cane growing on tenancy arrangements, preferring to own their own land. The only growers to take up their offer were Chinese.^[39] As an incentive the Neames contracted to cart the cane and, as more growers came on board, they began to lay down tramlines and provide portable horse-line for the fields. Robert M. Boyd, of Ripple Creek Plantation and Mill, also leased to tenants, and both he and the Neames would have liked to have purchased cane from more contractors but needed the divisional board to put in the infrastructure on the northern side of the river, as they could not afford to do it themselves. Unfortunately, even though a survey was carried out for a tramway on the northern side of the river in 1889 and an application made by the Divisional Board for a government loan, supported by Robert Boyd the proposal was rejected. It would not be until two decades later that CSR would install a tramway from Macknade to Elma Grove on the northern side of the river that the concept became reality.^[40]

It took them several years to get the plantation and mill back to making money. Arthur stated in his memoires that he had hoped to stay in the Valley and that his and Frank’s sons would carry on the enterprise. On Frank’s death in 1891 Arthur continued on at Macknade for another five years but then decided to sell up and return to England. His own health was deteriorating and he found that he could not find a manager whom he could trust while absent from the plantation. ^[41] Only the Neames had managed to span the two plantation phases (represented by themselves and Fanning and NanKivell), returning reluctantly to England when it was clear that the plantation mode of production had come to an end in the Valley.

The Neames sold to The Victoria Plantation and Mill, which had first crushed in 1883, and which was a venture of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) and its subsidiary, the Victoria Sugar Company. Notwithstanding the period when the plantation mill was assumed by Fanning, NanKivell and Sons, this enterprise was a successful one, outlasting Gairloch and Bemerside, and surviving to be purchased as a still working mill by CSR two and half decades later.

With the sale of Macknade to CSR and the closure of Ripple Creek Plantation and Mill, CSR became the dominant miller on the Herbert, operating both of its mills as central mills. Victoria Mill and Macknade Mill, under CSR management, would survive all the travails that brought the other enterprises to their knees though CSR did threaten to abandon its activities on the Herbert several times.

 

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[1] Neame, Arthur. The Diary of Arthur Neame, 1870-1897 (Edited by Sydney May. Aitkenvale: Terry Lyons, 2003).78.

[2] Ibid., 48.

[3] Ibid., 4-15.

[4] Ibid., 17-23.

[5] Ibid., 17-18, 22-23.

[6] Ibid., 39.

[7] Ibid., 91.

[8] Ibid., 53.

[9] Ibid, 42-43.

[10] “The Herbert,” Mackay Mercury and South Kennedy Advertiser, April 3, 1875, 3; “The Herbert,” Brisbane Courier, October 19, 1872, 6. 

[11] Neame, 57.

[12] “The Herbert,” Mackay Mercury and South Kennedy Advertiser, April 3, 1875, 3. 

[13] Douglas R. Barrie, Minding My Business: The History of Bemerside and the Lower Herbert River District of Queensland Australia (Ingham: Douglas R. Barrie, 2003), 42-43

[14] Neame, 91, see note.

[15] Neame., 45, 92, passim; Janice Wegner, “Hinchinbrook: The Hinchinbrook Shire Council, 1879-1979” (Master’s thesis, James Cook University, 1984), 104.

[16] Neame, 86, 92.

[17] Barrie, 47, 49; “Some Northern Sugar Plantations.” Queenslander, December 31, 1887, 1071. 

[18]  “Current News,” Queenslander, March 2, 1889, 389; and Pugh, Pugh’s Almanac 1889, 100, 145, 138.

[19] “Family Notices,” Northern Miner, August 2, 1898, 2. 

[20] “Family Notices,” Courier-Mail, July 3, 1935, 1. 

[21] “Arthur Neame” and “Frank Neame,” Neame Family, accessed June 22, 2017, http://www.neamefamily.com/tree/getperson.php?personID=I1354&tree=neame; Neame, passim.

[22]  Wegner, 594.

[23] Correspondence from Frank Neame to the colonial secretary, March 29, 1889, Correspondence- inwards, Letter number 3073 of 1889, Series ID 5253, Item ID 847306, Queensland State Archives, Brisbane. 

[24] “Indented Foreign Labor,” Daily Northern Argus, July 16, 1891, 2.  The Jumna immigrants were brought to Australia under a scheme to replace Melanesian labour with European labour. See F. Galassi, Sotto La Croce del Sud Under the Southern Cross: The Jumna Immigrants of 1891 (James Cook University: Townsville, 1991).

[25] “Herbert River,” Sugar Journal and Tropical Cultivator, April 15, 1892, 50.

[26] “Herbert River,” Sugar Journal and Tropical Cultivator, March 15, 1894, 32.

[27] John Alm, Early History of the Herbert River District being "The Memoirs of the Early Settlement of the Lower Herbert and the Start and Progress of the Sugar Industry in the District, 1932/33/35” (Aitkenvale: Terry Lyons, 2002, original edition published in Herbert River Express, 11th October 1932 to 20th January 1934).39-40.

[28] Alm, 40.

[29] Alm, 40.

[30] Neame, 108, 127.

[31] “Herbert River Farmers Upon Mr. Cowley as a Representative,” Queenslander, January 19, 1889, 108; Pugh, Pugh’s Almanac and Queensland Directory 1892, 105, 108, 1893; Wegner, 627.

[32] ‘Lower Herbert,” Week, August 24, 1878, 21; Peter Griggs, “‘Rust’ Disease Outbreaks and Their Impact on the Queensland Sugar Industry, 1870-1880.” Agricultural History 69 (1995):428.

[33]  “The Gairloch Partnership Dispute,” Queenslander, June 10, 1882, 1; “Supreme Court” Brisbane Courier, May 30, 1882, 3. 

[34] Neame, 100, 108.

[35] “Supreme Court,” Telegraph, June 1, 1882, 2; Neame, 100.

[36] Peter Griggs, “Sugar Plantations in Queensland, 1864-1912: Origins, Characteristics, Distribution, and Decline.” Agricultural History 74 (2000): 609-47, 633.

[37] Neame, 108.

[38] Neame, 108.

[39] Jan Wegner, Jan, and Sandi Robb. “Chinese in the Sugar: A Case Study of Ingham and Halifax in the Lower Herbert District.” In Rediscovered Past: Chinese Tropical Australia, edited by Sandi Robb and Kevin Rains, (East Ipswich: Chinese Heritage in North Australia Incorporated, 2014),124; evidence of Frank Neame, Sugar Industry Commission, “Report of the Royal Commission, 1889,” 113; evidence of Robert Mitchell Boyd, Sugar Industry Commission, “Report of the Royal Commission, 1889,” 118.

[40] Wegner, "Hinchinbrook," The Tramways, 472-516.

[41] Neame, 114-15, 120.

[42] Consequently referred to as Fanning, NanKivell and Sons. The spelling of the NanKivell name varies. See de Vries, Blue Ribbons, Bitter Bread, 343 endnotes Chapter 1, fn1.