Growing up in the 1950's my schooling and curriculum were vastly different than that of today.
At primary school my favourite subject was "social studies". I loved learning about the different places all over the world, sometimes people and places were just names, without understanding their true meaning.
Sitting at my desk at Ascot State School, 60 years ago, never in my wildest imagination would I have believed that one day my focus would again revert to social studies, nor that my interest and passion would one day become "social history". In the words of one of my fellow researchers, we "try to tell history in an interesting way". and respect the contribution that those who have paved the way before us, to create our current way of life.
To fully understand the reasons associated with the settlement of the area, the historical events of the day are included.
Bald Hills included Brackenridge for 100 years.
When the early land settlers and speculators purchased the Crown Lands around the southern banks of the Pine River, the area was called Bald Hills. Gradually the area became known as being one of the "best agricultural lands in the Colony" according to one correspondent.
It seemed the settlers were able to grow all sorts of crops successfully, and they were able to fell the huge stands of hoop pine and cedar trees. Most of the settlers were in some way or other related to one another. Without a doubt almost every one came from Scotland.
It was not my original intention to focus on the early settlers of Bald Hills in any detail, however it would be rather unjust to not give them the credit that is their due, for their early establishment of the area that we have lived and worked in, especially when so many of the families became interlinked.
Their stories are told in a "grid" fashion. The old maps are compared with today's maps, in order to get a better understanding of the history of where we have lived.
The old maps are from Brisbane City Council archives, and were used to define the areas when amalgamation of the councils took place in 1925. The red line is the suburb delineation. The green line is an electoral boundary. Those have changed over the years, for various reasons.
The current maps are courtesy of Google Maps
In land dealings, the County is Stanley, and within that is an area. Bald Hills is Parish of Nundah, that definition can be found on the title documents issued by the New South Wales Government for land purchases before 1859.
However not all the land was Parish of Nundah, sometimes it was Near North Brisbane, or Near the Pine River, to name a few.
Those old settlers would never recognise the area today,
The development of the Harold Kielly Park is a credit to the Brisbane City Council, in changing what was a not very pleasant looking area, into one that my grandchildren love to visit and to enjoy the wildlife, when they visit their grandparents, David and Cheryl who live close by, and are also one of the suburbs' old-timers!
From information from the Bracken Ridge Ward Office, the following story about Harold Kielly.
Harold Kielly Park (UBD map ref 109 N1)
A picturesque park off Hoyland Street and Bracken Ridge Road West overlooking the lagoons where swans nest each year along with other waterbird and marine life. This park offers the community facilities of electric bbq, flying fox, fitness exercise equipment, playground equipment for children and picnic shelter. This park is home to the Bracken Ridge West/Bald Hills Scouts and their clubhouse.
History: Harold Kielly was born to Patrick and Ellen, who both worked on the railway, Patrick as a ganger and Ellen as a gatekeeper at the Taigum level Crossing.
Harold attended Sandgate State School and in 1909 went to work for Shepherd & Co Cordial makers, and subsequent owners of the company, delivering soft drinks by horse and wagon around Brisbane and Redcliffe until being made redundant in 1928 at the approach of the Great Depression.
He married Nellie Weeks in 1915 and had three children, Margaret, William and Patrick. Harold continued to work in the Sandgate area, mainly as a bread carter, until he turned 65 in 1959. He died in 1961, and he and his wife are buried in the Bald Hills Historical Cemetery.
History: Harold Kielly was born to Patrick and Ellen, who both worked on the railway, Patrick as a ganger and Ellen as a gatekeeper at the Taigum level Crossing.
Harold attended Sandgate State School and in 1909 went to work for Shepherd & Co Cordial makers, and subsequent owners of the company, delivering soft drinks by horse and wagon around Brisbane and Redcliffe until being made redundant in 1928 at the approach of the Great Depression.
He married Nellie Weeks in 1915 and had three children, Margaret, William and Patrick. Harold continued to work in the Sandgate area, mainly as a bread carter, until he turned 65 in 1959. He died in 1961, and he and his wife are buried in the Bald Hills Historical Cemetery.
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Whenever doing a family research project, or creating Social History, it is the "stories behind the stories" that hopefully make the presentation of history a little more "interesting".
This is Patrick Kielly's story!
Harold Kielly was the son of Patrick and Ellen Kielly. Patrick was born in Ireland and he arrived in Queensland aged 21, in 1874 on the ship "Darling Downs". He was the son of Michael Kielly and Maria Guilfoyle, and was born in Tipperary.
He married Ellen Monaghan in 1879, and they had a very large family.
He enlisted and served in the Boer War in South Africa 1899 to 1900, along with his eldest son Michael Patrick Kielly. Patrick Kielly enlisted in World War I, indicating his age was 44.
Two of his sons, Michael Patrick and William Stephen Kielly enlisted, both boys were in their 20's.
Patrick became ill while at the Western Front, and it was found that he was actually 58 years of age, and he was discharged due to "wear and tear of life"
William was injured in France, and died of his wounds. He is buried at Dernancourt cemetery near Albert in France. His brother Michael returned to Australia.
Patrick died in 1924, and his obituary details his life. He and Ellen were living at Nashville, after living on the Darling Downs when he worked on the railway.
Ellen's brother David, also enlisted in World War I, aged 45. He returned to Australia.
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The Queensland State Government archives holds records of the first land dealings from 1845 to 1855. According to those on-line records the first sale of land was in 1845.
Members of the McConnel family bought many blocks in the area
Members of the McConnel family bought many blocks in the area
McCONNEL David Camron
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11 May 1854
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113
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL David Camron
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11 May 1854
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119
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL David Camron
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11 May 1854
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173
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL David Cannan
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5 Feb 1850
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62
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Bulimba
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McCONNEL David Cannan
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5 Feb 1850
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63
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Bulimba
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McCONNEL David Cannon
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22 Sep 1846
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1
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNEL David Cannon
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11 Sep 1848
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9
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North Brisbane
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McCONNEL David Cannon
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23 Dec 1853
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55
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North Brisbane
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McCONNEL David Cannon
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23 Dec 1853
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56
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North Brisbane
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McCONNEL David Cannon
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1 Jun 1854
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117
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL David Cannon
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1 Jun 1854
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118
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL David Cannon
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1 Jun 1854
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123
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL Frederick
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1 Jun 1854
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171
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL Frederick
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1 Jun 1854
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172
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL John
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1 Jun 1854
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166
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Sandgate
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McCONNEL John
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1 Jun 1854
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170
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Sandgate
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McCONNELL David Cannon
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13 Feb 1855
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30
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL David Cannon
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13 Feb 1855
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31
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL David Cannon
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13 Feb 1855
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32
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL Frederick
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25 Oct 1853
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24
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL Frederick
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25 Oct 1853
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31
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL Frederick
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25 Oct 1853
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32
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL Frederick
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25 Oct 1853
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33
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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27 Dec 1845
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10
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Ipswich
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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2
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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3
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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5
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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6
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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7
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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8
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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9
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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10
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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10 Jan 1845
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15
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near North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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19 Jul 1845
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9
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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19 Jul 1845
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16
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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25 Oct 1853
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25
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North Brisbane
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McCONNELL John
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25 Oct 1853
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26
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North Brisbane
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The McConnell family were from Scotland. They were the land registered owners of Crown Lands in the Bald Hills and Sandgate region.
To fully understand why the role the Scottish families played in the Moreton Bay and surrounding areas, some background and research links are included.
Many Australians whose Scottish ancestors arrived in the years 1830 - 1870 probably do not realise just what an astounding contribution their early ancestors made to the Colony.
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The scottish presence in the moreton bay district 1841-59
is recommended as a source of information about the early Scottish immigrants and stories which relate to many of those settlers and landowners in the Bald Hills region.
A couple of snippets:
.......................However, the
Scots subscribed to the notion that the district's progress was dependent
upon community unity rather than the pursuit of an inward-looking national agenda.
Scottish assertion was delayed until 1849 when David McConnel withdrew most of
his compatriots from Lang's evangelical union to found the first Presbyterian
church. Although willing to work alongside settlers of other nationalities, the Scots showed
that they would break ranks when their national identity was
threatened..........................................
David McConnel
of Manchester, educated in Edinburgh, married to a
Scot and lay-founder of Brisbane's first Presbyterian church, contributed significantly to the Scottish ethnic group
at Moreton Bay
Among the
articles on the colonial careers of urban-based Scots in a couple of Queensland-based
historical journals can be found the early engineering initiatives in Frogs' Hollow of
master blacksmith Alexander Cameron, a sequential narrative on the achievements of
storekeeper-politician John Richardson and the breath-taking array of John 'Tinker' Campbell's entrepreneurial
activities ...........
...............Thomas Dowse had
occasion to request the squatters to act less like bullock drivers
and more like
gentlemen when they came to town to 'violate our little community'.
Their 'drinking, whoring and folly by night
was getting beyond the pale.................
SMH, 22 August 1843, mBTN, p.
26; Leichhardt to Nicholson, 6 February 1844, inBri.sbane River
Valley, p. 50
Playing bagpipes in the streets of Brisbane, no less!
The McConnel Family from their descendants
From The McConnel Family Research
The establishment of Bald Hills as a farming community in the late 1850s was closely linked to the move by Scottish squatters John and David McConnel of Durundur on the Upper Stanley River (south of the Conondale Range and west of the Glass House Mountains), and their pro-Brisbane, pro-John Dunmore Lang associates, to establish a port at Cabbage Tree Creek, Sandgate in the 1850s.
The move was given impetus with the reinstatement of the northern passage to Moreton Bay, around the northern end of Moreton Island and south past Redcliffe and Cabbage Tree Creek, as the principal shipping passage in 1848, following the wreck of the Sovereign in the South Passage in March 1847.
In the early 1850s the McConnels and their associates, who supported John Dunmore Lang's vision of the development of a "cotton colony" north of Brisbane between Cabbage Tree Creek and South Pine River, lobbied for the establishment of a port at Cabbage Tree Creek, which they claimed was more convenient for shipping than the Brisbane River, offered safe berths for larger vessels, and in particular, would give more direct port access to the Stanley River squatters, who could travel via North Pine through Bald Hills to Cabbage Tree Creek.
The McConnels were joined by a number of prominent Brisbane businessmen, including John Richardson, Thomas Dowse, Robert Davidson and George Raff, who in 1852 called for a port to rival Cleveland, and the development of a resort suburb, at Bramble Bay.
The New South Wales government had already set aside a village reserve at the head of Cabbage Tree Creek, and now the Scottish connection was pushing for its survey and the survey of a road from Brisbane. The village was surveyed in 1852 and in November 1853 the first Sandgate town lots were offered at public auction. There was much interest, and high prices were obtained, with the McConnels, Dowse and Robert Davidson purchasing heavily. Wikipedia
http://cressbrookstation.com.au/the-mcconnel-family-cressbrook-today/ The Life of the Mc Connels
John and David McConnel
The establishment of Bald Hills as a farming community in the late 1850s was closely linked to the move by Scottish squatters John and David McConnel of Durundur on the Upper Stanley River (south of the Conondale Range and west of the Glass House Mountains), and their pro-Brisbane, pro-John Dunmore Lang associates, to establish a port at Cabbage Tree Creek
The McConnel family is synonymous with Queensland and Australian pioneering history, being one of the first families to settle in Queensland prior to its separation from the Colony of New South Wales. The McConnel family also made significant contributions to the grazing industry, health and schooling departments and colonial government of Queensland.
Settled by David Cannon McConnel on 15 July 1841, Cressbrook was the first run to be taken up by British settlers in the Brisbane Valley outside the 50-mile settlement limit to the penal colony at Moreton Bay and included over 120,000 acres.
Upon settling on Cressbrook, D.C. McConnel built a slab hut, which is now the oldest residence and third oldest building in Queensland. Cressbrook was named after D.C. McConnel’s brother Henry’s estate in Derbyshire, England and was run under the partnership of John, Frederic and David McConnel from 1843 until 1861.
John McConnel & his son, Arthur John McConnel
Born in Manchester, John McConnel was the youngest child of James and Margaret McConnel, and younger brother of David .C. McConnel of Cressbrook.
In 1842, he and his brother Frederic travelled to Sydney, and became partner with David at Cressbrook in 1844, namely D. & J. McConnel.
The brothers later purchased Durundar from the Archer Brothers in 1851. Following the cessation of John and David’s partnership in 1861, John retained exclusive rights at Durundar until 1867, living there with his wife Amelia Bunting and son Arthur John McConnel.
John was appointed to a seat in the Queensland Legislative Council on 26 April 1861, however resigned in July 1868 due to deafness.
John’s only son Arthur lived at Durundar, founding a prominent Hereford stud, and then at Clayfield with his wide Mary Beatrice (nee Keen). Arthur founded the Australian Hereford Society in Australia, contributed articles to the Brisbane Courier in relation to the McConnel family and the early history of Queensland and was appointed a Magistrate of the Colony of Australia.
David and Mary McConnell
Mary first arrived at Moreton Bay in the Colony of New South Wales (now Queensland) on 1 May 1849, as the young wife of an established landholder, David Cannon McConnel. McConnel was the eleventh child and fifth surviving son of James McConnel, the Scottish owner of a Manchester fine-yarn spinning firm and, from 1835, the Cressbrook Mill that manufactured lace thread.
In 1839 at the age of 21, he gained a share of his father’s fortune. Armed with his inheritance he migrated to New South Wales the following year. Arriving in Sydney, he headed north, buying stock en route and crossed into present-day Queensland via the Darling Downs. Marking trees on 15 July 1841, he claimed ownership of a 240 square-mile section of the upper Brisbane River valley, naming his property ‘Cressbrook’ after his family’s Derbyshire estate. McConnel thereby won the reputation of being the first settler to run sheep in the area. In 1845 he bought stud Shorthorn cows from the Australian Agricultural Co. and imported bulls from England to establish what was to become a famous stud.
David returned to the colony with Mary his wife at the request of his brother John who, with Henry Mort, was managing Cressbrook. The McConnels sailed on the Rev’d Dr John Dunmore Lang’s second chartered ship, the Chasely. Lang, who had been promoting the emigration of industrious, virtuous and God-fearing men and women to improve the ‘moral tone’ of the colony, was appealing in 1849 specifically to Manchester industrialists to invest in the growth of cotton. As the son of a prosperous Manchester cotton mill owner, McConnel answered the call, establishing Toogoolawah (Bulimba) on the Brisbane River.
http://cressbrookstation.com.au/history/In 1842, he and his brother Frederic travelled to Sydney, and became partner with David at Cressbrook in 1844, namely D. & J. McConnel.
The brothers later purchased Durundar from the Archer Brothers in 1851. Following the cessation of John and David’s partnership in 1861, John retained exclusive rights at Durundar until 1867, living there with his wife Amelia Bunting and son Arthur John McConnel.
John was appointed to a seat in the Queensland Legislative Council on 26 April 1861, however resigned in July 1868 due to deafness.
John’s only son Arthur lived at Durundar, founding a prominent Hereford stud, and then at Clayfield with his wide Mary Beatrice (nee Keen). Arthur founded the Australian Hereford Society in Australia, contributed articles to the Brisbane Courier in relation to the McConnel family and the early history of Queensland and was appointed a Magistrate of the Colony of Australia.
David and Mary McConnell
Mary first arrived at Moreton Bay in the Colony of New South Wales (now Queensland) on 1 May 1849, as the young wife of an established landholder, David Cannon McConnel. McConnel was the eleventh child and fifth surviving son of James McConnel, the Scottish owner of a Manchester fine-yarn spinning firm and, from 1835, the Cressbrook Mill that manufactured lace thread.
In 1839 at the age of 21, he gained a share of his father’s fortune. Armed with his inheritance he migrated to New South Wales the following year. Arriving in Sydney, he headed north, buying stock en route and crossed into present-day Queensland via the Darling Downs. Marking trees on 15 July 1841, he claimed ownership of a 240 square-mile section of the upper Brisbane River valley, naming his property ‘Cressbrook’ after his family’s Derbyshire estate. McConnel thereby won the reputation of being the first settler to run sheep in the area. In 1845 he bought stud Shorthorn cows from the Australian Agricultural Co. and imported bulls from England to establish what was to become a famous stud.
David returned to the colony with Mary his wife at the request of his brother John who, with Henry Mort, was managing Cressbrook. The McConnels sailed on the Rev’d Dr John Dunmore Lang’s second chartered ship, the Chasely. Lang, who had been promoting the emigration of industrious, virtuous and God-fearing men and women to improve the ‘moral tone’ of the colony, was appealing in 1849 specifically to Manchester industrialists to invest in the growth of cotton. As the son of a prosperous Manchester cotton mill owner, McConnel answered the call, establishing Toogoolawah (Bulimba) on the Brisbane River.
In 1849, only seven years had elapsed since the governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, had announced that the penal settlement at Moreton Bay would be closed, and the area opened to the trading opportunities of free settlement.
In 1846, when the government began to expend money on public works, the population was 950, and by 1851 it had reached only 2,103. There was no store, and government building projects had to wait until Queensland became a separate colony in 1859. Streets were undefined, the layout of inner Brisbane not yet determined.
Although roads inland had been surveyed and labelled, they were rutted bullock tracks that became impassable after rain. Few people owned a vehicle (the McConnels were an exception), the main means of transport being boat travel on the river, as yet unbridged. The Government Resident, Captain John Wickham, rode a horse to the settlement from his Breakfast Point residence, Newstead.
An early Brisbane shop, opened in Queen Street in late 1849, was the butchery of (later to be) notorious, Paddy Mayne (a murderer who used stolen money to advance his business). Even in 1861, Brisbane ‘was not a very attractive city ... with unformed streets, atrociously kept shops, and houses few and far between’.
On 1 August 1849, McConnel purchased 173 acres (69 hectares) for his agricultural property. The Yugarabul meaning of Toogoolawah was said to be ‘heart-shaped’, from the shape of the promontory formed by the river on three sides. Toogoolawah was the name used by Mary, who also recognised that during the 1840s, it had began to be called Bulimba. Its location on the southern bank of the Brisbane River facilitated travel by carriage to Cressbrook via Ipswich.
At both Cressbrook and Bulimba, the McConnels embraced the Enlightenment ideals of order, harmony and progress. Both thriving enterprises, these properties resembled self-sufficient private towns, organised along hierarchical lines of British rural society’s concept of paternalism. While McConnel was the ‘paternalist’ by definition, Mary was his willing supporter.
Testament to progress, Bulimba by the time of its sale in 1853 had expanded to ‘220 acres of land, 180 of which are available for tillage’. The estate consisted of eight workers’ cottages, brick outhouses including kitchen, laundry, storerooms, sheds, a carpenter’s room, the smithy, stables, a coach-house, workrooms and a large, two-storeyed barn. Another cottage lay alongside the dairy, which was large enough to milk 50 cows.
A boatshed stood near the wharf. There was an overseer (whose wife kept the poultry yard), men to manage the large dairy cow herd, farm labourers to clear and cultivate the land, a carpenter, coachman, housemaid, indoor servant, two cooks (husband and wife), and nurses to assist with Mary’s first two babies.
As well as the required cotton crop, wheat, barley, maize, oats, millet, sweet potatoes, lucerne and Italian rye grasses were planted. Mary reported that, when the land was cleared of subtropical vegetation, drained and ploughed, the virgin soil encouraged ‘everything [to grow] like mushrooms’. There was of course a kitchen garden, and also orchard trees, including oranges and pineapples, and banana palms. German immigrant families worked as ‘vine dressers’ on the grape vines. In time, ornamental trees and shrubs surrounded the house.
McConnel family at Cressbrook Station, ca. 1887. Photograph of the McConnell family in the garden at Cressbrook. J. H. McConnel was the Managing Partner at D. C. McConnel & Sons after his father's death in 1885.
Mary McConnel lived among the local Indigenous peoples on two properties: on her husband’s sheep and cattle property, Cressbrook, near Toogoolawah,2 25 kilometres north of Esk and 200 kilometres north-west of Brisbane and, from 1849 to 1853 at their agricultural farm, Toogoolawah, later
Bulimba, on the south side of the Brisbane River, eight kilometres downstream from the settlement. Her memoir, Memories of Days long gone by. By the Wife of an Australian Pioneer, covers her life’s experiences up to 1878, set down for the sake of her children
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The first recorded purchase of land in the area was to John Mc Connell. He was granted 11 Land Grants in the Sandgate and near North Brisbane areas in January 1845.
The lands around Bald Hills were recorded as County of Stanley Parish of Nundah and a certificate issued by the New South Wales Government. The land description was in chains and links.
A cricket pitch is a chain! 22 yards, or 66 feet -there were 100 links in a chain
All land was offered at £1.00 per acre.
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CENTURY OF DEVELOPMENT
Faded Papers Tell the Story of Pioneer Effort
By R. R. Perry, from the note* of H. J. J. Sparks.
Interest has been challenged, imagination fired anew, by the celebrations in Sydney of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of settlement in Australia.
AND while the peoples of all States join with visitors from many lands in paying homage to these gallant first-comers to Port Jackson, it is fitting that Queenslanders should give a passing thought to the achievements of the sturdy men and women who blazed the track in this Stale.
Of their daring and fortitude faded papers now in the possession of the Oxley Library — many of them original manuscripts — tell the story in simple words that all who read may understand and appreciate. No literary giants were these: they were explorers, settlers, men and women of action rather than writers.
There is no artistry, no striving for effect, in these scratched and blotched pastes, or in the poorly printed pages of the more ambitious. But for men and women of Imagination, who ran form mental pictures of the bitter struggles that were waged against thirst and fever and famine, drought and ruin and flood, and the black shadows that moved stealthily through the undergrowth — an everpresent menace— these documents speak in words of living fire.
QUEENSLANDERS will celebrate in April next the centenary of the establishment in Nundah of the German Lutheran missionaries -the first organised group of free settlers In this part of Australia which became the colony and finally the State of Queensland. This was a venture that for courage and pathos is without parallel in Australia.
QUEENSLANDERS will celebrate in April next the centenary of the establishment in Nundah of the German Lutheran missionaries -the first organised group of free settlers In this part of Australia which became the colony and finally the State of Queensland. This was a venture that for courage and pathos is without parallel in Australia.
In 1940 will be celebrated the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the squatter explorers, who blazed the track for colonisation. It is not proposed, in this brief review, to tell the tale of a hundred years of development, but merely to cast a fleeting backward glance at the names of those early-comers who pushed herds and flocks into the areas now known as the Darling Downs, Upper Brisbane, Wide Bay and Burnett: to Indicate some of the faded manuscripts and publications now gathered in the Oxley Library, which tell of these early exploits— of the trials and triumphs of these men and women of a hundred years ago.
Few of those who meet to-day the scattered remnants of demoralised tribes of aborigines on the fringes of the more settled areas may realise fully the danger these presented to the early coiners. But it may be stated on the. authority of Mr. H- J. J. Sparks, honorary secretary of the Oxley Memorial Library, who has devoted many years to the collection for the State of historical documents, that no fewer than 260 white persons were killed by blacks
Few could read unmoved the Recollections of a Rambling Life by Thomas Archer, for it contains the epic story of Archer's expedition from Durundur to Mt. Abundance, before the latter area was taken up by MacPherson. It tells also of the trek of the Archers through the Darling Downs to the Upper Brisbane urea, to settle at Durundur. and later at Eidsvold and Rockhampton.
Rich records of the Upper Brisbane area are contained in the privately and publicly printed and manuscript histories written by the McConnel family — authoritative , comprehensive Information, much of which has not yet been made public.
Patrick Leslie's diary of his Journey, in which he established the first, station on the Darling Downs, is contained in Henry Stuart Russell's Genesis of Queensland. Russell arrived in Sydney in 1840. came on to Moreton Bay. and established tho station known as Cecil Plains, the first cattle station on the Darling Downs. So far as is known, hp was probably the first white man to cross the Dividing Range into the Valley of the Burnett, and he believed the river he found there to be Oxley's Boynp. Russell's expedition with Andrew Petrie to the Wide Bay, when they found and recovered from the blacks the convicts, Davis called Duramboi or Derhamboi by the aborigines) and Bracefell. who had escaped years previously from chain gangs, is described faithfully, both in the Genesis of Queensland and in Tom Petries Reminiscences.
Inspired Leichhardt APART from the explorations described in the Genesis, Russell s further expeditions are described in a paper compiled from his diaries and presented to The Royal Geographical Society of London. A reprint of the paper is now in the Oxley library, also many of Russell's private papers.
From one of these, an application to the Colonial Secretary for the position of Agent-General, written in a neat, firm hand, the story is told of how Russell Inspired Leichardt (also spelt Leichhardt) to blaze the overland trail to the Gulf. He was to have accompanied Leichardt, who had gone to Sydney to obtain assistance. Meantime Russell was invited by Sturt on a suggestion made from London) to Join him on his Inland expedition from Port Phillip. Leichardt and Russell disagreed about the route to be taken to the Gulf, and Russell decided to Join Sturt. But It was too late. The expedition had already started.
A valuable contribution Is a memoir by David Forbes, published by the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland in 1900. David and Francis Forbes were the sons of Sir Francis Forbes, first Chief Justice of New South Wales. They took up Clifton station, on the Darling Downs in 1843. Six years later Francis left for California, and his brother sold the property In 1650. The library possesses also the unpublished memoirs of John Watts who arrived in Brisbane in 1847. managed Captain Mallard's station, Pelton, on the Downs, and later Joined Hodgson In ownership of Eton Vale.
The Journal of Stephen Simpson, commissioner of Crown lands, of his Journey with the Rev. Eipper, of the German mission at Nundah, to the Mary River in 1842. is preserved in the form of a Parliamentary paper. A descendent, Christopher Eipper, was for many years editor of the 'Maitland Mercury,' the second oldest newspaper In New South Wales. Pioneering Scots APART from these books and manuscripts, yellow with age dealing with the history of the colonisation ol Queensland in the 1840-59 period, there is a wealth of general literature of historic value
Before the first settlement of free people was established at Nundah scenes like (his were not unusual just outside the city.
Lelchhardt's letters, published In Cooksland, reveal that he was much impressed when visiting the stations by the quality of these earliest squatters. They were educated men of good families, and comprised a large proportion of Scots or of Scottish extraction. In the light of records now available in the Oxley Library of these Scottish settlers it has been suggested that there is material for a new and challenging 'Tales of the Scottish Border.'
Be this as it may, there is undoubtedly scope for a' comprehensive publication embracing the cream of these ancient manuscripts and later publications, and it has been suggested by Mr. Sparks that grazing organisations might lend support for 'such a work by some competent writer. In the papers of such a book Patrick Leslie, who took up the first station in 1840. Hodgson and Elliot, Sibley, King. John Campbell. Isaac Gotvric, the Gore brothers. Henry Stuart Russell, the. McConnels. the Mackenzies. the Balfours. the Archers, and others of the courageous band, would live again as adventurous men and women who knew not the meaning of defeat.
In a leading article a year ago The Courier-Mail said, 'No State has had a more romantic, courageous, and colourful pioneering history than Queensland.
A score of incidents could be recorded revealing bravery in both men and women as noble as ever appeared on Grecian column.' V- is well that we should remember such men and women.
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Cressbrook Mill in England
In 1820 the tiny cottages in Ravensdale (known locally as 'The Wick') were built followed in 1840 the model village of pretty cottages at the top of the hill. The Cressbrook mill owners were generally philanthropic and as well as fine housing they provided piped water pumped up the hill from a spring near the river and they funded the village band, which still survives.Above the mill is Cressbrook Hall, the house of mill-owner Henry McConnel. The house stands on a bluff overlooking the river and is a fanciful piece of Gothic architecture. The position is superb, with magnificent views down Monsal Dale. Farther up the hill is the rest of the village, for the most part consisting of the cottages once occupied by the millworkers.
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