History of Ripple Creek Mill and Plantation

When Robert Mitchell Boyd and John and Joseph Wood from NSW acquired Arnot’s 600 acre selection on Ripple Creek in 1882, their venture became the Ripple Creek Plantation and Mill. Installing machinery obtained from Mirrlees, Watson and Co., Glasgow, it first crushed in 1883. Despite its late start it operated the longest of the now defunct mills. Its strengths were that its owners were experienced sugar growers, it was a private concern, it was not overcapitalised, and it used a good proportion of the available plantation lands for growing sugar cane. It also took cane from independent and tenant growers. It had a large annual production of refined white sugar achieved by a sulphitation process, which gave it independence of those few companies that monopolised refining, the largest of which was CSR. By 1906 it had grown to 3 580 acres.

A ‘classic plantation’ and longest operating of the now defunct mills. Ripple Creek Mill, 1884. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection)

In every respect it was the epitome of the classic plantation, essentially a self-sufficient community. The substantial plantation house was surrounded by a luxurious tropical garden and featured a tennis court. Besides the sugar mill, there was also a saw mill and a manure ‘mill’. There were stores, a post and telephone office, a school, hospital, a blacksmith’s shop, implement shed, stock yard, slaughter yard and stables for over 100 horses. 

The 100 horse mill stables, Ripple Creek, n.d.  (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection)

As well there were officers’ houses and workers’ cottages and barracks. It had its own tramway system and a wharf on the Seymour River. When Gairloch Plantation and Mill closed and went up for sale in 1887 Wood Bros. and Boyd of Ripple Creek acquired 500 acres of that plantation. Robert M. Boyd, of Ripple Creek Plantation, 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, it was not until the passing of the Railways Guarantee Act in 1895 that the divisional board could secure loans to lay a tramline on the northern side of the river. After that Boyd of Ripple Creek followed CSR, taking supplies from both tenant and independent farmers. By 1904 CSR records showed that land-owning farmers outnumbered tenant farmers. 

When Robert M. Boyd put his Ripple Creek Planation up for sale, CSR began construction on a bridge across the Anabranch to facilitate access to Ripple Creek land before the Ripple Creek management had managed to sell their property. This quick action is indicative of why CSR was a survivor and able to withstand the constraints others buckled under to. CSR had a broad business base, astute management, was opportunistic, protective of its own interests, and prioritised agricultural research and innovation. It, of all the planters on the Herbert, was in the position to put in the required infrastructure: bridges, rail, and rolling stock to source small growers’ cane as they became increasingly more numerous. R.M. Boyd felt unable to offer prospective suppliers the same price that CSR offered, nor was he willing to enter into long-term contracts. He argued that there was no way he could increase his mill’s output of raw sugar since it lacked the requisite amount of cane to run the mill in “double shifts”. Moreover, Boyd was only permitted to refine so much white sugar because CSR (as dominant refiner) controlled how much refined sugar produced by other millers could be put on the market. The only course left was to close down. Even CSR had clear reservations about the viability of taking the crop let alone purchasing the mill. In 1906 Wood Bros. and Boyd listed Ripple Creek Planation Mill plantation for sale, though with clear regret. They blamed the farmers for the position they were in, saying that the farmers were holding back on planting cane, trying to force the Ripple Creek management’s hand to pay the same prices as CSR offered its farmers. They hoped that the mill would continue as a cooperative mill. There had been some hope in the Valley that the government would step in to ensure the survival of the mill and the farmers had petitioned the government accordingly. CSR ended up purchasing the sugar mill machinery, tramlines and rolling stock. 

1893. Ripple Creek Estate Mill Docket, small farmer Daniel Pearson. Source: Pearson family, Brooklands.

In 1908 the Ripple Creek Mill conducted its last crush and the plantation was again offered for sale, this time with the land offered as discrete blocks. It had been arranged that CSR’s Macknade Mill would take the purchasers’ cane. With the Ripple Creek Plantation and Mill closed down, CSR became the sole miller in the district, and its monopoly of the sugar industry there and dominance of the wider Australian sugar industry was commented on with censure, even at the time. Boyd did not sever all contact with the district even after selling out to CSR. His son Archie, with his wife and their children, continued to reside at ‘The Palms’ Ripple Creek; Boyd Snr. would visit and maintained his connections in the Valley. Archie and his family moved to Sydney in October 1913 following his father’s death there on December 4, 1912. With the sale of Macknade to CSR and the closure of Ripple Creek mill, CSR became the dominant miller on the Herbert, operating both of its mills as central mills.

SOURCES:“The Ripple Creek Mill,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, August 28, 1907, 4.“Ripple Creek Plantation,” Queenslander, June 8, 1901, 1110.“Ripple Creek Sugar Plantation, Herbert River, Ingham,” Queenslander, May 12, 1906, 24; “Advertising,” Macleay Chronicle, July 23, 1908, 8.Queensland Government, “Railways Guarantee Act 1895.”Census of White Persons directly connected with C.S.R. Coy’s Mills in Queensland, November 15, 1904, Deposit N305-D.1.0 6 2, CSR Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.“The Northern Miner,” Northern Miner, April 24, 1908, 4;“Ingham News,” Northern Miner, May 7 1908, 9. JAB Diary,“Robert Mitchell Boyd (1849-1912),” quoting “Ripple Creek Plantation,” Brisbane Courier, May 11, 1901, 15.Correspondence from R. Boyd to E.W. Knox, November 22, 1905, Deposit 142/1560, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; and handwritten notes, October 24, 1903, Deposit 142/1559, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.Correspondence from R. Boyd to E.W. Knox, November 22, 1905, Deposit 142/1560, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; and handwritten notes, October 24, 1903, Deposit 142/1559, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; correspondence from R. Boyd, to E.W. Knox, January 9, 1906, Deposit N305-D 3.0 F4 1, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra; and “Ripple Creek,” handwritten notes, October 24, 1905, N305-D 3.0 F4 1, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.  “Display Advertising. Ripple Creek Plantation, Herbert River, N.Q.,” Queenslander, September 8, 1906, 12.  “The Ripple Creek Mill: Premier’s Reply to Petition,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, August 28, 1907, 4 as quoted in JAB Diary, “Robert Mitchell Boyd (1849-1912).”Memorandum of agreement between CSR and Wood Bros. and Boyd, April 14, 1908, N305-D 3.0 4 1, CSR, Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Canberra.“The Queenslander: Ripple Creek Sugar Plantation,” Brisbane Courier, May 10, 1906, 4; “Farms, Land etc.: Ripple Creek Plantation, Herbert River, N.Q.,” Queenslander, June 16, 1906, 16; “Local and General,” Johnstone River Advocate, June 27 1907, 2; “Telegrams,” Evening Telegraph, June 20, 1907, 3; “World of Labour,” Worker, May 30, 1908, 7; “Notes and Comments,” Queenslander, May 2 1908, 36; “Advertising,” Macleay Chronicle, July 23 1908, 8.“Northern Sugar Industry,” Queenslander, August 11, 1906, 40; “MALEFICENT MONOPOLY The Colonial Sugar Refining Co.,” Sunday Times, December 1, 1907, 1; “Colonial Sugar Refining Company,” Daily Mercury, August 9. 1910, 7; Commonwealth Parliament, “House of Representatives,” [Hansard], Sugar Bounty Bill (No.2) Second Reading, September 21, 1910 and Constitution Alteration (Legislative Powers) Bill Second Reading, October 20, 1910; and Griggs, “The Decline of Competition,” for his discussion of CSR’s monopoly of the factors of the Australian sugar industry.“Herbert River Notes,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, October 11, 1913, 11; “Personal,” Townsville Daily Bulletin, December 12, 1912, 4; JAB Diary, “Robert Mitchell Boyd (1849-1912),” December 2-4, 1912.  

The Mysteries of Rooney's Pinch

Joan and Jerry Allingham of Stoneleigh, talked about in my last blog, would have passed a small outcrop called Rooney’s Pinch on their way to and from their property. Unlike the Allinghams whose story we know, who was ‘Rooney’ and why did he have a hill named after him?

Being an historian is like being a detective. You spend most of your time looking for clues and following leads. Many will be false leads even though they may sound possible. Some will be heading in the right direction and then peter out.  Sometimes you might build a convincing ‘case’ or story and stick by it only to find later that you have it all wrong. Other times you strike gold and solve the mystery.

Recently I was asked about Rooney’s Pinch, west of Ingham, adjacent to the Stone River Road in the upper Stone area. Did I know anything about it? I did a little cursory digging and what I have come up with is purely speculative but possible. See what you think.

Rooney’s Pinch is a small hill. Why was is called Pinch and not Hill?

Now that word is a bit of a semantic mystery.

‘Pinch’ can be applied to small hills and hamlets:

English place name books suggest that similar names with the pinch element could either be the Old English pinca which means finch or Later English pink meaning minnow. http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/ephraim.htm) 

Another theory suggests that the stinginess of the owner of the land could be why an area was called a ‘pinch’:

There is also one opinion that considers that field names with the pinch element refer to “derogatory names, ambiguously referring to parsimony and torture.” (Paraphrased from: http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/ephraim.htm)  

The Macquarie dictionary suggests that ‘Pinch’ means: a hill, a rise as in - This hill is a bit of a pinch; a slatey pinch, a rocky rise. (https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/map/search/word/pinch/Western%20District/ )

From that can be suggested then, is that Rooney’s Pinch was so named because it is a ‘small hill’ or on the other hand it could be referring to the thriftiness or meanness of the mystery ‘Rooney’.

So who was Rooney? That too, remains a mystery without further extensive research. However, I have a theory. I speculate that Rooney was Matthew Rooney of Rooney Bros. (a firm of architects, builders and contractors) established in Townsville by Matthew and his brother John in 1882. They went into partnership with James Harvey, establishing a timber-milling arm of their business.

Now M. Rooney was not a rare moniker in Ingham and Townsville as a search of old newspapers into the twentieth century show. There are M. Rooneys (including Matthew Rooneys getting up to all sorts of good as well as criminal behaviour).

So why do I speculate that Rooney’s Pinch could be taken from Matthew Rooney, respected Townsville builder?

In 1882, in the same year that Matthew and Harvey paired to go into business, a M Rooney and a J. Harvey take up neighbouring blocks in the Parish of Berwick (aka Stone River) as attested by this newspaper reference from the Queenslander, Saturday 30 September 1882, page 2 and consequent Parish of Berwick maps.

INGHAM. Before Commissioner Berwick, on the 30th August. SELECTIONS.—Accepted: W. G. Ewan, 1280a.,

Newton, 1280 a., Lannercost; J. Cassady. 1280 a., Berwick; W. C. Miller, 80a., Trebonne; H. B. Heaphy, 1000 a.. Trebonne; J. E. Palmer. 1000 a., Waterview; J. Harvey, 200 a., Berwick ; M. Rooney, 200 a., Berwick; A. Camp bell. 200 a., Cordelia; A. E. Cummins, 158 a., Berwick ; H. Stone. D. M'Auslan, J. Olson, A. S. B. Sutton, R. Hutchinson, T. Gibson, W. Harvey. J. Bonning. C. Bonning, each 160 a., Berwick. Re jected : J. M. Parkes, 1280 a., Garrawalt; B. Lynn, 1280 a., Marathon; K. A. Goldring, 1280a., Garra walt. Adjourned: W. L. Lynn, 160 a., Marathon.

It was not uncommon for people at that time to speculate on sugar land in the Herbert as in 1881 the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) had arrived in the Valley and had started to build its mill (Victoria Mill) while the Melbourne firm of Edward Fanning, Thomas NanKivell and Sons had also arrived and was building the second Gairloch Mill (1881) and had bought other defunct plantations. People had hopes of getting rich on sugar. While CSR, which had the money to lay an extensive rail system and used steam locomotives, would be anticipated to extend its line from Victoria Mill to the outlying areas such as Stone River.

And indeed, that is just what the Company did, and the line became an important one for the transport of not only sugar cane but goods and people. An article in the Northern Miner 3 September 1908, page 6 entitled “On the Stone River: ‘Along the line’” mentions M. Rooney’s landholding at the terminus of the CSR line. The area was described as “magnificent pockets of the richest land” where you can “grow anything on earth”. Even beyond the need for a terminus with storage shed, Rooney’s Pinch remained a designated siding on the Mt. Fox CSR line.

Matthew Rooney. Source: https://www.historicyongala.com.au/about-us/

Map. Parish of Berwick, County of Cardwell, September 1923

Whether M. Rooney and J. Harvey ever made good of that rich land I am not able to say. We do know however, that, unfortunately, Matthew's life ended prematurely and under tragic circumstances.

Matthew, his wife and daughter were among the 122 people, passengers and crew on board the SS Yongala when it sank, on 23 March 1911. En route from Melbourne to Cairns the Yongala encountered a cyclone and sank without a trace south of Townsville, just off Cape Bowling Green. There were no survivors.

Besides the mystery of the naming of Rooney’s Pinch is the tale of an Afghan trader or hawker who is rumored to have been buried somewhere on or around Rooney’s Pinch. FACT or FICTION?  Look out for the next blog!

SOURCES:

Paraphrased from: http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/ephraim.htm

https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/aus/word/map/search/word/pinch/Western%20District/

“Ingham,” Queenslander, Saturday 30 September 1882, 2.

“On the Stone River: ‘Along the line’,” Northern Miner 3 September 1908, 6.

Planters, farmers and Premiers

When Jonathan Pavetto went to personally petition government regarding the proposed bypass it was an easy trip by plane. In the days before farmers could travel to the southern capitals to petition Premiers or Prime Ministers the latter would travel by steamer to the north and farmers were invited on board to present their petitions. And just as today, candidates would come north to canvass for votes.

Samual Griffith (later Premier) came to the Herbert River Valley on an electioneering tour in 1883 it was a plantation stronghold though the small farmers had just formed the Herbert River Farmers’ Association (HRFA) and were hoping to supply the newly opened Victoria Mill. He had to convince the planters and small farmers that he would look after their interests. He met with businessmen, small farmers, planters and plantation managers. A photograph was taken to mark the event.

Samuel Griffith on an electioneering tour to the Herbert. Pictured with local landowners and businessmen including Lewis and Alfred Cowley, Frank Neame, Farrand Haig, and Charles Watson (a member of the HRFA), 1883. (Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Council Library Photographic Collection)

In 1890 when CSR threatened to close down Victoria Mill the HRFA wrote the Premier a ‘strong’ letter urging the continuance of Melanesian labour which the Association argued would keep CSR Company in the district. The Premier replied the he was planning a visit to the north and that the farmers would be advised when he was to visit Halifax. Sir Samuel Griffith sailed up the coast in the Government steamer, the Lucinda in December 1890. On the afternoon of the second day of his visit to the district, 25 December, the farmers presented to him the papers they had prepared. Griffith returned two weeks later, docked at Dungeness, and again invited farmer representatives to meet with him again on board the Lucinda. Those who met with him were August Anderssen, A. W. Carr, N. C. Rosendahl and John Alm, stalwarts of the HRFA.

In his memoirs, John Alm gave a first-hand account of that meeting. After general conversation, “the private Secretary, Mr Bell, appeared and informed the party that there were refreshments waiting below. They found a table neatly set in the saloon. The Premier sat down with the party, and the private Secretary acted as waiter. Sir Samuel was in excellent humour. He continually told the visitors not to be afraid of his whisky; stating it was good - no doubt it was, but it had the trick of mounting to the head; so they had to be careful, as they had a couple of hours work ahead of them, pulling their boat home.”

The Lucinda pictured on the city side of Brisbane River, opposite South Brisbane Wharves, n.d. (Source: State Library of Queensland. Lucinda (ship). (2004). Image number: 51548)

In May 1894 a farmers’ deputation again was brought to the steamer the Palmer when it docked at Dungeness where it was received by Premier, the Hon. H. Nelson. John Lely, Secretary of the HRFA, presented the farmers’ petition about the need for labour for the cane fields. A photograph of the steamer was taken by Harriett Pettifore Brim when she was a photographer in Ingham.

Steamboat the Palmer, Queensland, circa 1890-1900.(Source: Harriett Pettifore Brim, photographer on the Herbert River 1894-1902. State Library of Queensland. Image number: 31054 Harriett Brims collection 1890-1930)

Sources:

Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui, “The Herbert River Farmers’ Association:  'clique of insignificant cockies' or 'agents of change'?” (PhD manuscript, James Cook University).

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 (Aitkenvale: Terry Lyons, 2002, original edition published in Herbert River Express, 11th October 1932 to 20th January 1934), 59.

“A miserable, low-lying dead-and-alive place"*

The recent headline in the ‘Herbert River Express’ “Marina ‘timebomb’" in reference to Port Hinchinbrook Marina, shallow water and an inaccessible channel is not a new lament in regard to our sea water access from Port Hinchinbrook. Readers may not realize Port Hinchinbrook had once been predicted to become the main port servicing the hinterland and that Cardwell would become "the capital of a new and separate colony."

However the port's own physical shortcomings, together with the fact that the major ports of Cairns and Townsville, together with Dungeness and then Lucinda, took the business away from Port Hinchinbrook, means that Cardwell and its port never reached the dizzy heights predicted.

Rather for a brief period our own Dungeness, and then Lucinda became busy ports of call for the coastal steamers that plied the eastern coast.   Readers possibly cannot imagine that a scene such as this one which pictures a steamer plying its business on the Herbert River between the mills and Dungeness and then the Lucinda was common place once. The Herbert River provided the main means of access around the Valley.  Small boats travelled up and down the river carrying passengers and cargo and everyone used their own boats for crossing the river or making short journeys to visit friends or access the various small communities that had sprung up along the river. Each sugar mill had its wharf on the banks of the Herbert River for loading and offloading goods and passengers which were coming from, or going to, the port at Dungeness.

Macknade Plantation and Mill view of Herbert River with steamer. Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Local History Collection

Dungeness was the first port serving the district’s needs. In 1878 a Customs Officer was appointed and the new Customs House then opened in 1881 with a ship’s pilot appointed in the following year. This allowed ships to stop at Dungeness, rather than having to go on to Cardwell to load and unload goods which then had to be transported overland. The need for these services at Dungeness had become patently clear by the amount of trade that had been going in and out of Dungeness compared to Cardwell. However there were signs from the earliest days that Dungeness was going to prove problematic as a port. Initially at the mouth of the Herbert River, a wide stretch of deep navigable water extended back to the entrance to Dungeness Creek. Over the years shifting sand created a spit and eventually Dungeness was rendered useless as a port. 

Dungeness and facilities circa 1881. Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Local History Collection

As early as 1880, planters observed that the wharf at Dungeness was having trouble withstanding the rush of water during flood times and visitors rarely described the port in favourable terms. In 1882 it was commented that Dungeness was “not at all an attractive place consisting of about half-a-dozen houses built on the low sandy point on the southern side of the river mouth. The site is not a very secure one, as each wet season brings a heavy fresh down the river sometimes cutting off a portion of the point; already a wharf has been washed away, and it has been found advisable to shift one of the houses back to prevent its falling a prey to the waters.” Another visitor described Dungeness as “a miserable, low-lying dead-and-alive place; and here we sat and broiled in the sun for five hours, waiting for the tide to take us up in the tender.” The Marine Hotel started trading at Dungeness in 1884, no doubt hoping to prosper on trade from passengers and crews. While it was described by one later writer as “large and commodious” a traveller of the time described it as “so unprepossessing, and the people about looked such rough customers, that I preferred to keep as far away from it and them as possible, and sat melting slowly under a scorching sun until we were ready to start.” In 1894 the hotel burnt down and was not rebuilt.

It would be Cyclone Zeta of April 1894 that would spell Dungeness's final death knell as an official port. The writing had been on the wall. Earlier in the year on January 20 the Customs Officer at Dungeness telegraphed the Collector of Customs in panic to tell him that the “boatshed and gear suddenly disappeared…having been washed away by the heavy flood in the river.” Others were evacuated from the remaining buildings for safety. Then the rush of water down the river resulting from Cyclone Zeta further eroded the Dungeness spit and more buildings were destroyed. A fortnight afterwards another flood caused further damage and more erosion. It was clear at this point that the remaining buildings had to be removed and relocated with some urgency to Point Lucinda (later Lucinda Point). The moved buildings included the post and telegraph office, boatsmen’s cottages and boatshed. A new customs-house and quarters were built. At that point the days of Dungeness as a port were over. Even though Lucinda was an improved location the port was still inadequate, limited to approach by the smaller steamers which were the only type anyway that could navigate the inside route up the coast.

Halifax Wharf circa 1885 Source: State Library of Queeensland

The river serviced by a port at Dungeness was always recognized as going to be unsustainable. When John Ewen Davidson sailed up the Herbert River in 1867 he claimed that the river was only navigable in wet weather. In 1884 it was observed that “The great drawback to the district is undoubtedly the want of a navigable river as the Herbert is useless except for small boats.” Hazards such as sandbars, submerged logs and snags caused river travel to be dangerous. A semi-official River Trust group endeavoured to keep the river clear by blasting submerged logs and snags but their efforts were ongoing and frustrating because each flood deposited debris in different places, sandbars shifted and sand was deposited elsewhere to make new ones. By the 1880s river vessels could only go as far as Gairloch due to silting of the river. In 1884 the Government was thinking about constructing a tramline from Dungeness along the southern bank of the Herbert River to Ingham.

It was not until the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR) extended its tramway on to Ingham and down to Lucinda that the river wharves became obsolete. The port at Lucinda too became redundant once the North Coast Railway line was laid and the steamers ceased to ply the eastern coast line.

Paddle Steamer 'Kent' at Halifax Wharf Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Local History Collection

Lucinda - Pilot's Office 1910 Source: Hinchinbrook Shire Library Local History Collection

Sources:
Arthur Scott to Walter Scott, March 21, 1866. (Scott MS) as quoted in G.C. Bolton, A Thousand Miles Away: A History of North Queensland to 1920, (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1972).
“North with the Minister for Works,” The Brisbane Courier, April 10, 1882, 3.

M.E. Rowan, A Flower Hunter in Queensland and New Zealand  (London: John Murray, 1898), 23 and 24. *(Also title of this blog page quoted from Rowan, ibid., 23).

“Boom Days,” Herbert River Express, January 21, 1992, 6.

The Brisbane Courier,  January 24, 1894, 5.

“A Trip to the Lower Herbert,” The Brisbane Courier, February 7, 1884, 6.

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