“Murdered Italian will be revenged” “Bomb outrage at Ingham Police Investigating vendetta theory” “Was it murder to prevent murder?”

The caption reads: Killers and victim. Scarcella (white shirt and slacks,) in a group with Dagostino  [sic]  and Femio, Mafia leaders. Femio, on right, has his hand resting on the shoulder of his chief Dagostino.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/image/7338762-3x2-700x467.jpg (from an unidentified magazine)

When I conducted a tour of the Mercer Lane Mosaic installation I was asked what the little black hand high up on a panel was about. The little black hand is a reference to a little known yet frightening episode in the district’s history that gave plenty of scandalous material for the press to feed on: criminal meetings in the Ingham cemetery, brutal stabbings, gunshots in the night, homemade bombs, hired hitmen from the South, a knife wielding mother-in-law, lovers’ trysts in the cane, it had it all! The events occurred over a relatively brief period of time between Ayr and Mossman in the 1930s. They shone an unwelcome national spotlight on the district’s Italian immigrants and served to reinforce prejudice and negative stereotyping of the worst kind.

Beginning in 1932 Italians, and occasionally others, began to receive extortion letters and threats. Bombings, kidnappings and homicides followed. It was suggested that the crimes were being perpetrated by an Italian criminal organization, known as ‘The Black Hand Gang’, La Mano Nera, with supposed links to the ‘Mafioso’. La Mano Nera came from the emblem of a black hand that was imprinted on the extortion letters. Before this strange drama fizzled out in 1938 with the death of Vincenzo D’Agostino who was the supposed Herbert River ring-leader, three other Herbert River Italians were murdered: Giuseppina Bacchiella, Domenico Scarcella and Francesco Femio.  Since its flowering in 1932 scholars, and scandal mongers alike, have pondered whether The Black Hand was a disorganized small gang of ignorant, opportunistic thugs or a group with legitimate street credentials that was part of a wider international web of crime.

The drama that played out in the Herbert River district was a strange and perplexing one. It most likely, had no relationship to a national or international criminal conspiracy though there were those at the time, and those even in more recent times, who have tried to concoct that link. More realistically, it appears that the events were perpetrated within a narrow circle. The perpetrators were opportunistically attempting to extort money from those immigrant farmers who were beginning to establish themselves. Their bumbling, amateurish attempts indicated a lack of education and organization. Their activities also seemed to have roots in home grown feuds and vendettas, the intricacies of which remain unclear and unexplained to this day. The activities originated as one contemporary put it in all probability when “These gentry here form a small select band who started to terrorise some of the more susceptible Sicilians…They formed a colourable imitation of the Black-hand of their native land and proceeded to carry out extortion on some of the more timid fry.”  At the time however, it provided ample fuel for journalistic sensationalism and the anti-Italian movement.

As Adam Grossetti in his 2016 ABC Radio podcast ‘The Black Hand Gang’ reveals, the episode still reverberates to this day.  While many people were happy to speak openly to him, several sought anonymity. Adam has conducted extensive research and produced a fascinating account in which he attempts to explain the Black Hang Gang event and hazards some suggestions as to who may have killed Vincenzo D’Agostino. Though there is suggestion that D'Agostino knew who is killer was, even on his deathbed he refused to incriminate anyone. His murder went unsolved. Go to the following website to listen the two part radio series (May 9 and 10 2016): http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/my-very-good-friend/7337670

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

Douglass, William. From Italy to Ingham. Italians in North Queensland. St. Lucia: University of Queensland, 1995.

La Mano Nera - The Black Hand (Mercer Lane Mosaic)

La Mano Nera - The Black Hand (Mercer Lane Mosaic)

Women, past and present

Recently I saw advertised in the Herbert River Express that local woman Kerry Russo, who is the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning with James Cook University's College of Business, Law and Governance, gave a talk at a public event. If I recall correctly, part of her talk was about local women having to, or choosing to, pursue careers outside of the local community. Unbeknown to the wider community there are a surprising number of local women who, at this present moment, commute to other cities or towns or out to mining sites in order to hold down a job. They do this for a range of reasons. To pursue their hard earned careers and/or to support their families are two primary reasons. Meanwhile they are still, daughters, wives and mothers and still endeavour to be part of and active in their local community. It is a juggling act. It requires determination, persistence, commitment and grit. I am in awe of my fellow women as I am sure their families are.

As I have researched and read our local history over the years I have often felt in awe of the women of the past that I have encountered. Many of the facilities we take for granted today, schools, churches, hospitals and hotels for example, would not have been built if it had not been for their efforts and generosity. Their lives with errant drunkard husbands, with the absence of the finer things of life, far from home and family, living daily with the dangers of childbirth and disease and the menace of a strange environment and animals, their lives tells a tale of unimaginable hardship and sheer  bravery.

Take Maria Ferrero, who, fired by determination to have her children educated in a Catholic school by religious Sisters, rode tirelessly on horseback from door to door in the lower Halifax area seeking donations for a convent building fund. As a result of her and her community’s determination the Halifax Convent School, with boarding facilities for boys, opened on July 3 1927.  In a time of poor roads, unbridged rivers and creeks and most farming families still using horse drawn vehicles school attendance could be spasmodic. The boarding school offered a chance of reliable school attendance. 

Angelina Borello (nee Ruffinengo) came to Australia as a single woman at the age of 21. She already had brothers in the Herbert River district who were cutting cane.  A respected midwife, she conducted a maternity hospital at Lannercost from 1927 until 1937, and is said to have delivered thousands of babies. She offered an accessible, safer and more comfortable alternative than home birth. While she was very talented there were deliveries when complications arose. Imagine her anxiety as she awaited the arrival of Dr. Morrissey and his expert help. But to reach her was no easy matter, especially in the wet season. Just past Erba’s store in Trebonne there was a persistent boggy patch in the road. Whenever he was called by Mrs Borello, her sons, Joe and Ernie, would have to go down to the store to lift his car through the bog. The reverse would have to happen for his journey back to Ingham! Further to the comfort and help she gave to mothers and their babies she was generous in other ways. We learn from Parish records that it was only through her generous donation of land in 1933 that the Church of Our Lady of Pompeii could be built at Lannercost. Like the country schools, bush churches were vital to the life of farming people in the days when going into Ingham town could be a rare event. The country schools and churches were easier to reach and around them developed a sense of community. The school could be a dance hall of a weekend and fund raising for church or school gave families reason to gather at each other’s homes for euchre or florin evenings.

The bravery of women, single, alone or widowed with children who arrived in the Herbert River district in the 1870s when the district was being opened up to European settlement is mind boggling. By the time the Mackenzie family established the Gairloch mill and plantation in 1872 it consisted of father William Mackenzie, a retired Presbyterian Minister, and five siblings and the partner of one of those children. Isabella Mackenzie was unmarried when she arrived in the district. Then Sligo, later Ingham, was no more than a camping ground and potential husbands while more numerous than eligible woman were still thin on the ground. Her sights settled on one William Stewart who had been engaged by the family to manage Gairloch. Apparently she married him “much to the astonishment of every one, and it did not result in a happy life for her.” An episode that happened to him is worth digressing for, for it gives you an idea of what sort of man she had to contend with. He was ‘fishing’ in the river one day, not with a fishing line, but with dynamite. He held the charge too long and it blew his right hand clean off.  Two days passed before a doctor could be got from Townsville to attend to the wound. Luckily the stump didn’t go gangrenous, but healed and from then on he wore a hook attached to it. We don’t know much of Isabella Stewart’s life with the foolhardy William, apart from that one quoted record of community dismay and his illfated fishing expedition, but we do know that when she arrived in the Herbert River district she was accompanied by another Isabella, the plucky widow Isabella Campbell with children in the folds of her skirt and a head full of hearty Scottish recipes. She may have had a better eye for good husband material for she quickly settled on George Wickham. He had a property called Cowden which he had selected in 1872. The landing for river vessels on his property was known as Wickham’s Landing. There he and his new wife, Isabella opened a hotel in 1875 called the Planter’s Retreat. Situated conveniently half way between Gairloch and the Camping Reserve it became an alternative venue to the family home for weddings. It was renowned for its pure liquor and good Scottish cooking.

Death was a constant companion to everyday pioneering life. Childbirth was a risky business that Mrs Borello helped to make less risky in the early twentieth century. But maternity and infant mortality in the first days of European settlement were tragically high. When Mrs Skinner’s baby took sick with diphtheria she and her husband set off with the baby from Halifax in a desperate effort to seek medical help in Ingham. Unfortunately as they stopped to rest the tired horse under the shade of mango trees the baby died in his mother’s arms. With death so common, there was little help or sympathy for the grief of those who lost a loved one. Laudanum and sleep were the stock panacea for the first days of grief. The depth of Mrs. Skinner’s grief can only be imagined but her son recalled that it took a long, long time for her to find some peace and recalled that poignant evening when she went for a walk to the gate and looking up at the starry sky she found peace as last and was able to move on from the loss of her baby.

Sources:

Douglass, William A. From Italy to Ingham: Italians in North Queensland. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1995.
Recipes of  Yesteryear. Halifax: Herbert River Museum Gallery Inc. 1992.
Skinner, F. Memories of Early Halifax. January, 1979. 
Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. Portrait of a Parish: A History of Saint Patrick's Church and Parish Ingham 1864-1996. Ingham: St Patrick's Parish, 1998.

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

Planters' Retreat Hotel, 1876. Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Photograph Collection.

Gairloch Plantation House, 187? Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Photograph Collection

Tennis Party at Gairloch Plantation House, 1875. Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Photograph Collection

'Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade'

You may have recently read Stuart Start, the Eye Feature in the ‘Townsville Eye’, October 8, 2016, which features the post World War 2 Displaced Persons Transit Camp or Migrant Camp located in Stuart. Presently an exhibition of photographs from private collections featuring this Stuart Migrant Camp has been curated and put on display at the City Library, Townsville. The exhibition will move to the Courthouse Theatre from November 16-20 when will Full Throttle Theatre Company will perform a production entitled Displaced, ‘a locally written play inspired by the true story of a Polish couple who left war-torn Europe and settled in Townsville, after spending two years in the Stuart Migrant Camp.”

When my book ‘Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade’ was first launched in 1990 it too was released to time with a play, which was a visiting production of Summer of the 17^th Doll by playwright Ray Lawler. I find it rather fascinating then, that just as I have achieved a reprint of ‘Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade’ in 2016 through the auspices of Boolarong Press, coincidently the post World War 2 displaced people and their stories have once more captured the public eye and interest. The migration of Displaced Persons to Australia between 1947 and 1951 was, in character and scale of preparation, unprecedented in the history of migration to Australia. Despite, and possibly because of, the plight of the current huge numbers of displaced people in the world, many of whom are seeking safety and refuge in Australia, just as the displaced persons of 1947 to 1951 did, this post World War 2 story of displacement is still being revisited and re-examined by historians and survivors' children and grandchildren alike.

I wrote ‘Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade’ from a unique position being both an historian and daughter of a displaced person cane cutter. I was therefore in the position to take the reader on a graphic and authentic journey from International Refugee Organization (IRO) Assembly Camp, across oceans to the shores of Australia, through Displaced Persons Camps, and deep into the cane fields of tropical north Queensland. In that journey two major themes of north Queensland history, immigration and the sugar industry, met.

‘Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade’ celebrates and records the days of manual cane cutting through a fictional character Branko Domanovic a displaced person cane cutter. Branko however, is an embodiment of the displaced person cane cutter and a true Gentleman of the Flashing Blade. When Branko arrived in Australia in 1949, the sugar crop of north Queensland was still cut by hand, by the oft mythologized ‘Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade’. Cane cutting was one of the least desirable unskilled occupations to which the displaced persons were allocated and one to which they made an invaluable contribution. Today the days of the manual cane cutter are no more. They are but the stuff of memory, history and legend.

When Branko stepped onto the deck of the Mohammedi, a displaced person refugee, he left behind him a war torn home land and loving family. In the sweat and dust of a North Queensland cane field youthful hopes and ambitions died. But there, at least, he breathed freely and moved without looking over his shoulder. He could dream that when he made good money and his country was free he would go home. He never did.

Reprint of 'Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade' 

'Gentlemen of the Flashing Blade' can now be purchased from: 

http://www.boolarongpress.com.au/content/bookstore/bookDetails.asp?bookid=1023

I recommend to the reader the PhD thesis by Dr. Jayne Persian entitled: ‘Displaced Person (1947-1952): Representations, Memory and Commemoration. It can be accessed from this link

https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/10597/1/DISPLACED_PERSONS_1947_1952.pdf

She has consequently written further on the subject including an academic article called ‘Bonegilla: A Failed Narrative’. There will be people living today in the Ingham district whose parents and grandparents passed through Bonegilla which was the largest and longest operating post-war migrant camp in the post World War 2 period. 320 000 migrants were processed through Bonegilla in the years 1947 to 1971. Persian points out that Bonegilla is referred to as the birthplace of Australian multiculturalism. In her article she questions how this came about and “raises questions not only as to whether Bonegilla is a reactivated or a failed site of memory, but also as to the success or failure of multiculturalism as a historical narrative in Australia.”

“clique of insignificant ‘cockies’ with a soul a little above sweet potatoes and pumpkins”

As you walk Mercer’s lane looking at the mosaic you may pause and wonder at a panel where a full moon is seen through an open window. It shines over men sitting inside a cottage at a table lit by lamplight. One of the men’s horses is tethered outside.  Why were they gathered? What were they discussing? Is the full moon significant?

Yearning for a sense of community and needing mutual support in a hostile new environment the European pioneers of the Herbert River district worked quickly towards creating community facilities such as churches, schools and halls. A particular characteristic of settler communities in Australia was the formation of associations and in agricultural areas, farmer and pastoral  associations. The first farmer association in this district was the Herbert River Farmers’ Association formed in 1882.  Its story begins when a number of small portions of land were taken up between 1879 and 1881 in the area between what was called the Washaway and Gentle Annie Creek. This area was formerly an Aboriginal camping ground and the Europeans that came to live there called it Blacks’ Township. August Anderssen and Francis Herron were the first to show active interest in the area for farming. Others who took up land and/or would become significant to the story of this association were Harald Hoffensetz,  John Alm, A.W. Carr, N. Rosendahl, W. Johnson, John Buchanan, J. Loder, Henry Beardsworth and R.S. Alston.

When the Colonial Sugar Refining Company came to the district with the promise of a mill (the Victoria Mill which first crushed in 1883) it gave hopes to the small land holders that they might be able to grow cane that could be milled by the CSR Company because the company was already doing that in NSW.  Two representatives of the Blacks’ Township, August Anderssen and John Alm, were deputised to approach an officer of the CSR Company with a proposal that the smaller landholders grow sugar cane for supply to the new mill. This officer suggested that the Blacks' Township settlers form an association through which they could communicate their proposal to the CSR General Manager via the local officer. Undoubtedly he was of the mind that a collective approach to the Company would be more effective.  Following that a meeting of the Blacks' Township settlers was called at August Anderssen’s farm, Riverview, so that Anderssen and Alm could report back on what had transpired in their meeting with the CSR officer. Six settlers attended the meeting: Harald Hoffensetz, August Anderssen, A.W. Carr, N.C. Rosendahl, John Alm and Francis Herron. It was decided at this meeting to form an association which would be henceforth known as the Herbert River Farmers ‘Association. The founding premise was “to work for and promote the interests of the farming industry in general and the welfare and progress of the Herbert River district in particular”. Given the latter broad aim, membership was open to anyone regardless of occupation. Nevertheless A.W. Carr confirmed, that the new association would be first and foremost, a “Bureau through which the farmers could communicate with the Government or others on any matter of common interest” with one voice. These men were convinced of their ability to work and thrive in the tropics. Nevertheless they still maintained that Melanesian labour was required for certain aspects of field work and that this labour should be available to planter and small grower alike. Harald Hoffensetz is credited with proposing the formal motion for the formation of an association to be named the Herbert River Farmers’ Association and A.W. Carr is on record as the seconder of the motion”. August Anderssen was elected as the first Chairman, John Alm as Secretary mid A.W. Carr as Treasurer. Meetings would be held at the homes of each of the foundation members in rotation. Membership subscription was set at £1.  Our mosaic panel then pays tribute to the first farmer’s associations that came into being in this district including the Herbert River Farmers’ League and the Halifax Planters’ Club and their first informal and then formal meetings held in their outlying cottages .

But why the full moon?  Getting around the district from one small holding to another, from outlying farm to Ingham town was no mean feat in those times. Clouds of choking dust rose from unpaved roads in dry weather, while in the wet season the roads became a quagmire of cloying mud. Lesser used roads would become overgrown with vegetation after long periods of rainfall and impassability, and would then need the undergrowth to be cut away in order to become passable again. Streams were unbridged and crossing a full stream of water risked an encounter with crocodiles.  Travelling around the district in daylight hours was hazardous enough let alone at night. Therefore meetings of the Herbert River Farmers’ Association were scheduled on the Saturday night nearest each full moon so that the way would be lit and hazards could be avoided. While farmers travelled to the meetings on horseback they might also bring their families in a sulky as the meetings provided an opportunity for sorely needed fellowship amongst the farmers and their families The women especially, appreciated the chance to gather, chat and share a cuppa while their menfolk held their meeting. August Anderssen and his wife had set the precedent from the first of serving a supper for both the members and their wives after the meeting.

These first meetings of the Association quickly proved the value of unified action. Nevertheless there were detractors who regarded the Association members as a “clique of insignificant ‘cockies’ with a soul a little above sweet potatoes and pumpkins”. This attitude changed somewhat when in 1882, six months after its formation, upon receiving an unsolicited letter of support from Frank Neame accompanied by a donation of five guineas, the Association invited him to become the President of the Association. He eagerly accepted the position but due to illness was unable to go out at night to attend meetings. Meetings were henceforth held on Saturday afternoons in a room at the Hotel. At this time membership had grown to around 20 members. Frank Neame had been a long time resident of the Herbert River district, a successful planter and Chairman of the Hinchinbrook Divisional Board in 1880. His approval of the Association and the small grower ideals quietened any 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.” As President he pledged to “do all he could to advance the causes of the Association” believing that cooperation amongst farmers was much needed in the district. It is argued that his presidency added weight to the Association’s petitions to both CSR and the Divisional Board. Twelve months after formation the Association was able to boast 30 members.

The Herbert River Farmers’ Association was the first small sugar cane farmers’ association formed in tropical north Queensland (north of Townsville) and did successfully negotiate the supply of small grower cane to the CSR mill. In 1884 the Association received the long awaited letter from CSR offering a seven year contract for cane supply. No limitations were put on how much cane the farmers could supply to the mill. The Mill offered a price of 10/- a ton and would harvest the cane. The Association had achieved a major victory for north Queensland small cane growers and had made them the first tropical north Queensland small growers to sell cane to a mill.

Herbert River Farmers' League Building built 1925
Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library collection

Sources:

Alm, John. 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. Ingham: Herbert River Express, 1932,33,34.  

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

Henry Wickham, adventurer, Knight, smuggler, tobacco planter and father of the rubber industry.

Bill Bryson, writer of many entertaining non-fiction works including Down Under and A Short History of Nearly Everything dedicates several pages in his 2013 book One Summer: America 1927 to an eventful story of 70 000 smuggled rubber seeds and a young English adventurer in Brazil.

While the Herbert River Valley in the late 1870s was on the frontiers of exploration and settlement, it was just that, the unknown potential, that attracted men and women from all of the world, both moneyed and those of meagre means. While some came and persevered, the vast majority, came, ventured and went on to disappear into the ether or go on to make their mark somewhere else in the world. One such was a Henry Alexander Wickham, that very same adventurer who had ventured to Brazil in 1871.

When he died in 1928 at the fine old age of 82, and by then Sir Henry Wickham, he was variously described as ‘father of the rubber industry of the British Empire’ or a “living [Sir Walter] Raleigh” or a “smuggler” who was responsible for the industry that “has changed the habit of civilisation and put 35,000,000 automobiles and 40,000,000 bicycles on the roads of the world.”

So what was he doing in the Herbert River Valley? Bill Bryson recounts that after Wickham had sold his 70 000 rubber seeds to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for a good amount “With the money thus made, Wickham went to Queensland, in Australia, to start a tobacco plantation.” While he is described in the Herbert River Story as American, American he was not. He was English, though he spent much of his adult life in the colonies. A short obituary gives these details: Sir Henry Wickham was born in 1846. He was explorer and pioneer planter for half a century in the equatorial belt, Central America, Orinoco, Amazon Valley, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. He was sometime Commissioner for the Introduction of Para Indian rubber for the Governor of India, and also inspector of Forests and Commissioner of Crown Lands.”

The thing about popping up in the colonies is that you can be anything and anybody you want to be and so Henry Wickham, arriving in the Valley in circa 1877 after his failed plantation venture in the far north of Brazil (as described by Bill Bryson) convinces a Mr. J.E. Hammick that he is a tobacco expert from the Americas and they embark on growing tobacco together at Hammick’s property of Coolamantong. Meanwhile Henry Wickham has bought his own property called Maragen. Douglas R. Barrie in Minding by Business: The History of Bemerside and the Lower Herbert River District of Queensland Australia recounts the difficulties Wickham and Hammick faced growing tobacco in the Valley. As Barrie recounts it wasn’t that they couldn’t produce a good grade of leaf, it was that they couldn’t cure it quick enough to meet the large local demand, so the product they had to market was in the end  inferior and did not meet the discerning standard of the local market!!

Wickham also tries some coffee growing. Coffee, tobacco, sugar, cotton, these were plantation crops that were looked to as potentially securing the settlement and economic viability of the north. He seems quick to blow his own trumpet for already in October 1877 the Acclimatisation Society notes a letter they had received from Henry Wickham detailing that he was having success with coffee growing. The Society records that “…it appeared that plants of the Liberian coffee, which that gentleman had himself imported from Kew, were thriving vigorously on the Lower Herbert, and that there could be no question of the climate being suited to this very promising addition to the exotic plants of commercial in the colony. Whether it would become a staple product was of course quite uncertain; but the fact of the plant being found in dry, hot situations, near the sea level, afforded great encouragement for believing that it would freely yield its fruit in Queensland.”

However it would seem that nothing of his plantation ventures in the Valley inspires Wickham with optimism to continue here, despite his initial flurry of hopefulness, and so by 1882 he ceases tobacco and coffee growing and leaves the district soon after. However much of the 569 acres of land he ownes was not disposed of until much later. Some of it became the Mount Maragen Town Selections. While a town as envisaged never developed, Bemerside eventually became that township with the Seymour Hotel built on one of the larger of the town blocks.

Sir Henry Wickam, drawn by Tom Cottorell
for the Advertiser in 1928.

When he left the Herbert River Valley after his failed tobacco growing attempt Bill Bryson writes that  “Then he went to Central America, to British Honduras, to grow bananas. That venture failed, too. Nothing if not resilient, Wickham recrossed the Pacific to British New Guinea (now Papua New Guinea), took out a twenty-five-year lease on land in the Conflict Island, and set about collecting sponges, cultivating oysters and producing copra from coconuts. At last he achieved modest success, but the isolation was more that his wife could bear. She decamped to Bermuda and never saw him again.”

Sources:

 “Sir Henry Wickham Dead,” News, September 28, 1928, 15.

Barr-Linney, J. “Adventurers of the Century: Sir Henry Wickham, A Living Raleigh,” The Advertiser, May 5, 1928, 23. Illustrator Tom Cottorell

“Smuggler Founded Great Industry. Sir Henry Wickham and the Rubber Seed,” The Southern Mail, February 4, 1936, 3.

“Death of Pioneer Planter,” The Telegraph, September 29, 1928, 8.

“Queensland Acclimatisation Society,”  The Queenslander, October 13 1877, 22.

Barrie, Douglas R. in Minding by Business: The History of Bemerside and the Lower Herbert River District of Queensland Australia. Ingham: Douglas R. Barrier, 2003.

Bryson, Bill. One Summer: America 1927. London: Transworld Publishers, 2013.

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

The Tree of Cockaigne

Chloe Salmon reaches the top of the greasy pole and clutches her
prize of cash. Photograph by Sarah Scragg, State Library of
Queensland: Australian Italian Festival

Picture attribution: Landscape with greasy pole. Majolica Cloister
of Santa Chiara, Naples, (1739-42). Architect Domenico Antonio
Vaccaro, painters, Guiseppe and Donato Massa.

We repeat community and family traditions, but often we don't know where or how they originated. The greasy pole, which features at each Australian Italian Festival is such a tradition.  Everybody enjoys the spectacle and amusement but does anybody know the origins of this challenge? It  began in a time when the poor and the rich ate very, very different foods. The competition, which requires strategy and stamina, traditionally, has as its reward, foods of some value, like prosciutto e formaggio! Winners of the greasy climb were rewarded with food that was usually unavailable to them.

Peter Robb in a work called Street Fight in Naples: A City’s Unseen History has this to say about the history of the greasy pole. “All over Europe the Tree of Cockaigne was part of the carnival festivities that preceded the austerities of Lent. It was basically a greasy pole with a couple of sausages tied to the top and whoever reached them first won the sausages. In Naples the Land of the Cockaigne was always more elaborate, Naples having more poor people than anywhere else in Europe. The rewards were greater and so was the violence of the contest. The Land of the Cockaigne involved painted scenery and an ersatz forest  of trees, a complex construction usually described as the Cockaigne machine, bearing cheeses, hams, sausages and other delights in their upper branches. The mass assault on the food was a brawl that always ended in shed blood, broken and bones and quite often deaths. It was an entertaining and reassuring sight for those who were not themselves hungry, and choreographed for laughs.”

The Land of Cockaigne comes from Dutch literature and refers to Luilekkerland which is the land of the lazy and the gluttonous. In popular stories this land was described as a “mythical place where there is no need to work, and where food and drink are so abundant that we only need to open our mouths to take in what we desire.”  The Land of Cockaigne is the subject of many famous artists’ paintings.

Next time you watch and laugh as keen competitors slip and slide down and hopefully up the pole spare a thought to the hungry of Naples for whom long ago, the prize meant more than life and for whom the risk of scaling the pole could be injury or death.

Sources: Robb, Peter. Street Fight in Naples: A City’s Unseen History.London:  Bloomsbury, 2010.

“Heilbrunn Time Line of  Art History,” The Met,  http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/26.72.44/.

From small things, big things grow....

While sugar has been the longest lasting, most profitable crop grown here there has been much experimentation since the first European settlement in the Valley in finding alternative or supplementary crops. Tobacco achieved some commercial success over a number of attempts and physical evidence in the form of drying sheds dotted around the district, and a tobacco press still preserved at the Tyto precinct give mute testament to that industry.  Rice was another, and today the Biasi, Accornero and Russo families are venturing on a 21^st century experiment with production of that crop. However it is not the first time that rice was grown in this district.   

Rice was possibly introduced to Australia by Chinese gold prospectors coming to Australia for the Gold Rushes. In the 1860s rice was being grown by the Chinese in North Queensland to supply the northern gold fields. However it is the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme that makes large scale rice production possible. By 1928 Australia was growing enough rice to supply its own domestic consumption needs and had in that year even produced an excess of 3 000 tonnes that could be exported. Rice was grown in paddies and depended on a ready supply of water. In order to encourage a domestic industry, the Federal Government, in 1927, imposed a duty on imported rice, but also came to an agreement that rice would not be grown outside Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA).  

In 1930 it was reported in the Northern Miner in relation to the Herbert River Valley that “Some interest is being shown, no doubt on account of the restriction of the extension of the acres of sugar cane lands, in the introduction of new crops into the district. Mention has been made in previous letters of the growing of pawpaws at Abergowrie. For some time past both tobacco and rice have been grown on a small scale on Frank Fraser Ltd’s land at Blackrock, and last week several excellent examples of rice were on view at Messrs Hardv and Venable’s office Ingham, grown by Mr. Mackie at Blackrock. The tobacco grown is reported to be looking splendid, and a fine crop is expected from it.”

Nevertheless a commercial venture of rice was understood to be hampered by legislation as this Townsville Bulletin report of July, 1946 testifies: “At the last meeting of the Bowen Chamber of Commerce it was stated that in response to representations from the local chamber, the following additional chambers have expressed themselves as favourable to the action taken by Bowen regarding the removal of restrictions on rice growing in Queensland — Ingham, Warwick, Gympie Traders' Association and Ipswich. The Brisbane Chamber advised that thev are still in communication with the Department of Agriculture on the subject.” In September of that year in response to a question by Mr. Theodore (Herbert) of the Secretary for Agriculture and Stock, the reply was given that rice seed had been obtained from overseas and indicated that rice growing in Queensland conditions would be trialled. On further enquiries by the Townsville Chamber of Commerce in 1950, the Federal Department of Commerce and Agriculture stated that there were no Federal restrictions on rice growing and that in fact “Agricultural production is a State function, and there is no restriction on rice production. At the same time, growers would be well advised to consult the State Department of Agriculture before going in for cultivation on a large scale. At present, rice is grown commercially in Australia only in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area. There, the competing demands of fruit and other crops for the limited quantities of water available make it necessary to control the area put under rice. This, however, is not with the' intention of restricting rice areas, but to make the best use of the water."

In 1967, centred on the flood plain soils of the Burdekin delta, a small rice industry began. A long grain, high quality rice was produced for which there was a ready market.  At the same time what has been described as a “tiny lower Herbert, rice industry” also took off.  Hampering this fledgling industry was availability of a suitable water supply.  An alternative way of growing rice which presaged the way that the Biasi, Accornero and Russo families are now growing rice in the Herbert River Valley was shown possible by a Mrs. A.E. Maddern of Yuruga in 1950: “An Interesting experiment with rice seed, carried out by Mrs. A. E. Maddern, of Yuruga seven months ago, has proved successful. Of six grains of rice planted, three germinated and matured. Known as Dry Land rice, the seed was grown under ordinary district conditions, with very little cultivation, just being watered casually. A sample brought to town showed a well matured plant, the rice thickly clustered on the stems showing excellent development, a rough estimate being about 6000 grains of rice to the one rice seed. The seed was received from a sister of Mrs. Maddern's at Redland Bay, Brisbane, who also experimented at the same time but the seed failed to respond to growth.”

Traditional paddy field. Image sourced from: Ingham, Richard. "Gene breakthrough could boost rice yields by 20 per cent." PhysOrg, August 22, 2012. Accessed August 4, 2106.http://phys.org/news/2012-08-gene-breakthrough-boost-rice-yields.html.  

Rice grown "dry land" method. Image sourced from: https://twitter.com/canegrowers/status/575443544359374848
  

Sources:
“Detailed Historic Timeline of the Australian Rice Industry,”  Sun Rice, accessed August 4, 2016,

https://www.sunrice.com.au/media/6662/detailed_history_of_the_australian_rice_industry.pdf

Courtenay, P.P. “Agriculture in North Queensland.” Geographical Research 16 (1978): 29-42. Accessed August 4, 2016. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8470.1978.tb00313.x.

Queensland Parliamentary Debates [Hansard] Legislative Assembly.  September 3, 1946. Accessed August 4, 2016. https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/hansard/1946/1946_09_03.pdf.

“Ingham Notes.” Northern Miner,  June 7, 1930, 2.

“Rice growing.” Townsville Daily Bulletin, July 6, 1946, 1.

“Ingham area.” Townsville Daily Bulletin, March 10, 1950, 5.

“Rice Sowing In North Queensland not Commonwealth. Controlled. Babinda Chamber of Commerce.” Cairns Post, November 4 1950, 1.

Shire Hall sagas

The recent work carried out to the façade of our Shire Hall gave a dated building a much needed facelift and brought it into the 21^st century. The Shire Hall is a pivotal building in any small community for it is usually the hub of civic administration. As Janice Wegner writes in her thesis ‘Hinchinbrook: The Hinchinbrook Shire Council, 1879-1979’: “At the heart of the business section is the Shire Hall; from here the Hinchinbrook Shire Council controls an extensive system of roads and community amenities, and regulates public health, safety, town planning, building, and many other of the multitude of functions given to local government.”

Furthermore it is the setting for some of the most significant events in people’s lives including debutant balls, wedding feasts, naturalization ceremonies, community revitalization workshops, industrial meetings, concerts, eisteddfods and so much more. Perhaps we shouldn’t get too fond of this particular building because it seems to be all too woefully common that beautiful buildings of our past have been deemed to be too old-fashioned or unfunctional and demolished. Even if they are still standing too many of them go unappreciated for the distinctive style of their architecture or their role in our history.

Where our Shire Hall now stands isn’t the original site. The first Divisional Board Hall was erected near Palm Creek and adjacent to the present Royal Hotel. The Board took advantage of government loans to borrow £600 to erect a Hall in 1883 and a further £500 in 1886 to enlarge it and add offices. Described as a "plain, unpretentious weatherboard structure, neither lined nor ceiled, of no architectural beauty" it was no more than a cottage, but it nonetheless sufficed for all Divisional Board (Shire Council after 1903) purposes, as well as doubling as a dance hall, and picture theatre leased by the Lyric Picture Co. with piano accompaniment played on a rented piano until the Council bought a piano in 1913. When the Board spent £277 furnishing the Hall it created much the same furore as occurred when a recent Council acquired a new Council meeting table. Then it was chairs "which are very massive and leather covered” which upset the rate payers!

The first Shire Hall was also a predecessor to our library with its reading room. Public meetings were held there as well as the agricultural section of the annual Show. It also provided shelter in flood and cyclone times. The building served as an occasional Mass centre after 1885 when Father James Cassar began visiting the Valley regularly. However he did not appreciate having to say Mass on a stage used by dancers and begged the community to build a church. He is on record as having said that “he would no more offer the Holy Sacrifice on the stage dedicated to the feet of the ballet dancer”! Rentals of the Shire Hall were a steady source of income until challenged by the building of other halls such as the Masonic Hall in 1901.

On the morning of Tuesday March 7, 1916 the first Shire Hall was destroyed by fire and with it, all books and records which were not kept in the safe which was too small, but on the Shire Clerk’s desk, though the contents of the safe and the piano were saved. Lost also were all the music, music stands and an instrument belonging to the Town Band, that were all stored in the hall. The fire was observed to have started in the office of the Shire Clerk. The story goes that an errant cigarette of the Shire Clerk was responsible. Russel Charles McWilliam, the Shire Clerk at the time, admitted to a Magisterial Inquiry held several weeks after the fire, to flicking his matches and throwing his butts on the ground and not checking if they were out. He also admitted that there was a bin near his desk which was full of paper and that there was paper on the floor. There was a suggestion, though the former Shire Chairman, Frank Cassady, thought it unlikely, that McWilliam had deliberately started the fire to destroy evidence of wrong doing. He had control or all cash and monies and was supposed to present a balance sheet at the General Meeting to be held that day. He had previously failed to present a balance sheet in February. Figures of revenue and expenditure presented previously to Ralph Godshall Johnson, Chairman of the Finance Committee,  by McWilliam, did not, according to Johnson tally, and McWilliam kept putting off presenting a balance sheet, saying that he was too busy to complete it. Whatever the truth of the situation was, the day the hall burnt day, was meant to be McWilliam’s last day as Shire Clerk anyway as he had enlisted. By the time of the inquiry Ralph G. Johnson, was the Shire Clerk (1916-1918).

Building a new Shire Hall did not proceed immediately given that the country was at war and Council was divided on whether to apply for a £7 000 government loan. There was also contention as to how the building should look, with some wanting a substantial brick building. Council meetings were held meanwhile, in the Court House. By November a tender from Messrs Hanson and Sons had been accepted and by December 1919, a government loan had been secured. As continues to happen today, when the Council decides to implement change, there was a petition of protest when the Council proposed a change of location for the future Shire Hall. Despite the protest the hall reserve was then changed from next to Palm Creek to its present site on the corner of Townsville Road and Lannercost Street: 25 Lannercost Street. Progress of building the new two storey building, constructed of local bricks and fronted with a stately façade, was held up by wet season rain. By June 1920 it was beginning to progress well. The use of returned soldier labour was a condition of the Government loan required for its construction.  The former Hall reserve was then auctioned for perpetual lease as two blocks.

By March 1921 the building was almost finished and equipped and leases arranged to various businesses including a dentist. The main lessee of the Hall was again a picture company, this time the Ingham Picture Company. The lessee installed an electricity generator. The Council bought back some of the Hall electricity supply to power twelve electric street lights.  Not unexpectedly, fireproof storage was installed for the Council records and fire extinguishers were at the ready. The Council did not use all the land acquired and there was a consequent altercation between the Council and the Lands Department, the latter refusing to allow the Council to lease the land, stating that the land was to be used only for the original intention: for Shire Hall purposes.

Despite being described “as the best in the north” in 1921, already in 1934 there were hopes to construct a new Shire Hall. Plans drawn up in 1937 featured two stories, an upstairs theatre and returned soldiers recreation room, and several shops and offices but finances were not available. The Ingham Picture Company, in return for being granted a virtual monopoly on picture theatre activity in the town of Ingham, undertook to carry out improvements to the theatre, and that, with extensions to the Hall and the enclosure of a verandah area, had to suffice.

Before the construction of an official Anzac Memorial in Lannercost Street in 1959 the Honour Roll was housed in the Shire Hall and Anzac Day ceremonies were conducted outside that building. Up until the disastrous 1927 flood when it became patently clear that a better warning system was needed, a red pennant was flown on a flagpole outside the Shire Hall to warn of an impending cyclone.

By the 1950s the Shire Hall was becoming increasingly inadequate for all the uses being demanded of it and so construction on a new Hall began in 1961. The work was carried out by J.E. Allen and Co. for £73,000. Again there was community outcry from some quarters over the "waste" of money on a new Hall rather than expanding the old. Nevertheless, in retrospect it was realized to have been a wise move. The present Shire Hall was officially opened on December 15, 1963, well in time for a sitting there, of State Cabinet in June of 1964. The facilities of the new Hall included air-conditioning, offices, shops and a hall capable of seating 650 people. It also included a theatre complete with a very practical soundproof crying room equipped with a picture window through which mothers could still watch the movie while nursing and comforting their fretful children.

By 1979, in the year of the 100 anniversary of Divisional Board (Hinchinbrook Shire Council) there was again talk of a new larger Shire Hall and Civic Centre that would more adequately meet the needs of a growing town and district, and not the least, relieve the ever growing pressure on office space for the Council's staff. However all that has transpired in the intervening years was that spaces were reconfigured with the store spaces disappearing. In 1987 the Shire Hall was refurbished and the one remaining picture theatre remaining in Ingham relocated to the refurbished J.L. Kelly Memorial Hall, the former library. There have been further interior refurbishments undertaken in 2014 and exterior refurbishments as recently as 2106. A mosaic which pictures iconic aspects of Ingham and district now adorns the Lannercost Street frontage.

Sources:

Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. Portrait of a Parish: A History of Saint Patrick’s Church and Parish Ingham 1864-1996. Ingham: St. Patrick’s Parish, 1998.

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

Wegner, Janice. “Hinchinbrook: The Hinchinbrook Shire Council, 1879-1979.” Masters of Arts diss., James Cook University of North Queensland, 1984.

“Ingham Shire Hall Burned.” The Brisbane Courier, March 8, 1916.

“Herbert River Notes.” Cairns Post, March 15, 1916.

“Shire Hall Fire.” Cairns Post, March 23, 1916.

“Herbert River Notes.” The Northern Herald, April 7, 1916.

“Herbert River Notes.” Cairns Post, October 11, 1916.

“Herbert River Notes.” Townsville Daily Bulletin, September 1, 1921.

 

Lannercost Street Ingham 1912. Divisional Board Hall on left. Hinchinbrook Shire Library photograph collection.

Ingham Town Hall 1920. Hinchinbrook Shire Library photograph collection

Ingham Shire Hall during 1977 flood. Note the shop fronts. Hinchinbrook Shire Library photograph collection.

"Ingham Hall," Daily Standard, March 7, 1916.

"Herbert River Notes," The Northern Miner, March 5, 1921.

  

Father Thomas Gard MBE

As a community we bask in the reflected glory of those members of our community who have taken heroic and courageous action on some distant battlefield and been recognized and rewarded for that action. One such is Keith Payne W.O. and there are probably few, young or old, who have not heard of him as the recipient of the VC AM. Another less known however is Thomas Gard, the son of Mr. and Mrs Thomas Gard of Victoria Estate.  The family had been long time stalwarts of the St Patrick Parish and it was much to their great pride when their Thomas Jnr. was the first local boy to be ordained a Catholic Priest. Such was the excitement and importance of the occasion to the Herbert River district that a special rail motor ran from Ingham to Townsville on the day of the ordination, December 3 1933, to permit friends and relatives to attend the ceremony held at the Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Less than ten years later, with World War 2 raging, he was released by the Diocese to serve as a military chaplain with the 2/4 3^rd Australian Infantry Battalion. During the siege of Tobruk, on August 3 1941, he rescued Australian casualties under heavy shell fire, even venturing fearlessly into enemy German lines.  The way that he achieved the rescue makes a remarkable and dramatic story. An eyewitness recorded that “The enemy recognised his feat of bravery, held their fire, enabled and assisted him to gather in the wounded. They gave him a cigarette, let him have a rest and guarded him safely back to the British lines, where he arrived with his truck filled with wounded.” While another recorded that Father Gard offered a German officer a cigarette while convincing him to allow the removal of Australian dead and injured. However he did not achieve this rescue without the equal bravery of others: Father Tom Gard stood on the running board of the truck driven by Private Keith Pope, while Sergeant Wally Tuit stood on the bonnet of the truck with Red Cross flag flying. Following that episode, he went on to Syria to the Battle of El Alamein, and then served in New Guinea in 1943 to 1944. By 1945 he was back in Ingham to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of his parents, which, as could be expected, given the Gards’ involvement in their parish, was attended by not only Bishop Ryan of Townsville but every priest of Halifax and Ingham parishes. In the same year Father Thomas Gard was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his “gallantry under fire”.

At his funeral held on July 26 1993 he was recalled as “A man’s man of no nonsense, loved sport to the point of being almost a fanatic, feared no man including the Bishop, he was loved by the whole community.  Another of our colourful and outstanding priests…” Even more recently a reminiscence recalled him as “a particularly delightful man with a wonderful understanding of mankind’s follies and faults. Loved a beer and was there every year at the RSL’s ANZAC Day dinner.”

Sources:

Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. Portrait of a Parish: A History of Saint Patrick’s Church and Parish Ingham 1864-1996. Ingham: St. Patrick’s Parish, 1998.

Frazer, Ian. “Bravery under fire.” Townsville Bulletin: Everyday History. Celebrating 150 years since the naming of Townsville. Volume 4, 2016.

The Pub. “Reflection: ANZAC Day 2013: 554 thoughts on Reflection: ANZAC Day 2013.” Comment by Scorpio6to2. April 25, 2013. Accessed July 13 2016.

https://pbxmastragics.com/2013/04/24/reflection-anzac-day-2013/comment-page-7/

 

September 3 1941, The Northern Miner

"New Year Honours," January 1 1945, The Canberra Times

January 2 1945, The Courier-Mail

Side Show Alley

As the Show comes to town with its side show alley, still within the recall of memory – as late as the 1980s – are the tents lining Side Show Alley where human oddities could be viewed: the half man/half woman; dwarfs, the bearded woman and such like. This so called pleasure in the ‘freak show ’, now so repugnant, was a remnant of the European appetite for spectacle, fed in such venues as the side show alley of fairgrounds, circuses, exhibitions and museums and in earlier times sated by the performances by Aboriginal Australians and other indigenous performers. A particularly tragic episode in the story of the displacement of the Indigenous inhabitants of the Herbert River Valley which played itself out in the 1880s occurred within the context of America’s and Europe’s appetite for the spectacle. Indigenous Australians, displaced by frontier conflict, vulnerable to spurious offers of employment, were plucked from their homelands and toured and displayed as “savages”, the “lowest order of human kingdom.” Their physical appearance and performances contrasted satisfyingly with the onlookers’ perceptions of themselves as superior, morally, physically, intellectually and technologically.  Only as recently as 2004, was the very real, though totally ignored, “odyssey of sorrow” of the Aboriginal Australians’ experience finally acknowledged and recounted. Robert A. Cunningham, showman recruiter for the circus impresario Phineas T. Barnum toured a group of nine Aborigines taken from the Palm Islands and the Herbert River Valley in the 1883 circus season in America as part of Barnum’s Ethnological Congress of Strange Savage Tribes. Within a year, the first of the group, Tambo, died. That fact that he died on “a bitter winter’s day” is a revealing pointer to the emotional trauma, physical discomforts and privations these people endured. After Tambo’s death Cunningham moved the group on rapidly, reaching England in April 1884. He left behind the body of Tambo which was embalmed and displayed at various locations well into the twentieth century. Cunningham then toured the group independently, through Europe but by November 1885 only three of the original group had survived, the others all perishing as a result of the “brutal disregard for the welfare of these touring troupes of indigenous people.” It is salutary to note that this number included a family group with young child. It was observed at the time that his greatest pleasure, like any small child’s, was riding on his father’s shoulders.  This disregard for their welfare had at its core the idea that they were “expendable”. Cunningham then returned to North Queensland in 1892 to inveigle another group of Aboriginal people (six men, two of whom were accompanied by their wives) ostensibly to appear in the Columbian Fair in Chicago in 1893.

The majority of this last group was Nywaigi and mystifyingly, a number appear to have come from Mungalla Station owned by James Cassady. Mungalla is at the heartland of Nywaigi territory. After his purchase of the property in 1882, three important camps of Nywaigi people remained and continued to pursue their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They found a measure of safety on his properties and for this reason he was pejoratively described by a former officer of the Native Mounted Police, as a “black protector, for his own interests, and to the detriment of his neighbours’ property”. His neighbour, incidentally, at Mungalla, was Sub-Inspector Johnstone and his Native Mounted Police camp of Molonga. The mystery lies in how the Nywaigi people on Mungalla came to be in that 1892 touring group. It remains unclear, though the haste of their departure on a steamer bound for San Francisco indicates that it might have been achieved in Cassady’s absence or during a gathering at one of the Townsville fringe camps. That Cassady was expecting their return to the property is clear in his letter to A.S. Cowley, local Member of Parliament in which he asked him to investigate why they had not been returned.

During their time in America they were exploited, underfed, ill clothed, underpaid if not unpaid, and at the end of a tour left to their own devices. These were people who spoke English fluently, one of their number being attributed with articulating the sentiment that “We are not savages, although we are natives of a wild country”. Yet show after show they had to listen to a showman spruiking up their “ugliness”, their “cannibalism” and their “inferiority”. Only two of this second group were to return to Australia and when they did so they were met by the Townsville police, henceforth having their freedom curtailed by the Aboriginals Protection Act of 1897 . The “odyssey of sorrow” of these people has only finally had some closure when Tambo’s mummified body which was found in the basement of a closed funeral home in Cleveland, Ohio in 1993, was repatriated to Australia for burial on Palm Island after a ceremony to release his spirit was conducted by Indigenous American Indians in Cleveland. 

Quotes sourced from Poignant, R. Professional Savages, Captive Lives and Western Spectacle, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004 and as quoted in 

Vidonja Balanzategui, Bianka. The Herbert River Story, Hinchinbrook Shire Council, Ingham, 2011 from which, post has been lifted substantially from. 

1883 group source: http://www.mungallaaboriginaltours.com.au/gallery/event/historical

Mungalla homestead source: http://www.mungallaaboriginaltours.com.au/gallery/event/historical