DOUGLAS REID, GEORGE REID AND JAMES REID

Foreword

Douglas Reid wrote this account in 1920.

It is an account of the Reid family’s life in Northern Ireland, their voyage by sailing ship to Queensland, and their sojourn in Australia.

His father, the Rev. James Reid, M.A., the first Minister in Northern Queensland, only survived some four years in the prevailing rather primitive conditions.

 

But he was well appreciated and remembered, as the following extract from “Bowen Charge 1864 to 1935” (the History of Presbyterianism in Bowen and district) shows:-

“Arrival of Rev. James Reid: A long felt want was supplied when Mr. Reid not only undertook to establish the Presbyterian cause but also provided facilities for the education of youths by running a Boarding School in which he taught English and Classics, while Mrs. Reid taught French, Music and Drawing. Mr. Reid also took a prominent part as a citizen and advocated strenuously for the suppression of bushranging which was rampant in the district.

Passing of Rev. James Reid: Died at Bowen on 12^th April 1866, at the age of 51. He was held in the highest regard by the community indicated by the demonstration of respect at his passing, when the flags of the town were flown at half mast. His wife, Eliza Reid died on 6^th August 1900 at the age of 77, at “Rostrevor”, Adelaide, South Australia. Their graves in the Bowen cemetery are marked by a handsome Aberdeen granite stone erected by their sons”.

Left without financial resources after the passing away of the Rev James Reid in April 1866, the mother Eliza Reid, four sons and a daughter battled on, achieving very considerable success both for themselves and in the development of Australia.

The eldest son, J. S. Reid (James Smith Reid), seventeen when his father died, was always the leader. Early in the newspaper business, he started and ran no less than seven in Australia mostly in the mining fields, pioneered and promoted railways (particularly that to Silverton, Emu Bay etc.), and became one of the greatest mining promoters in Australia.

His records bear witness to his great drive and ability, as did his lovely home, Rostrevor, in Adelaide, which later became the Christian Brothers College.

George Reid, brother of James Smith Reid and another son of the Rev James Reid, pioneered for some thirty years in Australia, then on a trip back to the mother country, met and married Gertrude MacQuistan, daughter of the Rev Alexander MacQuistan D.D. of Inverkip, near Glasgow, and settled in Scotland.

George Reid became a director of the Australian Sulphide Corporation which had been started by James Smith Reid, his brother.

He had at least one son, George Macfarlane Reid who became an Air Vice Marshall in the Royal Air Force and was later knighted.

Descendants of George Reid are Macfarlane Reids in Western Australia and Scotland and the Luesdens of Arden in Scotland.

Douglas Reid, another brother of James Smith Reid and George Reid, married and settled in the United Kingdom.

Douglas Reid was also a director, London based, of Broken Hill Proprietary.

Other descendants in Australia are the Dewez family of Sydney and the Grice family of Melbourne and Western Australia.

Signed:

George Macfarlane Reid

Douglas Reid was the author of the following account, written in 1930.

THE REID FAMILY STORY

George Macfarlane Reid, my brother, was the youngest of the family of four sons and one daughter of the Rev. James Reid and his wife Eliza.

Our grandfather, John Reid, of whom as a very old man, I have some slight recollection, was a strong minded, devout man.

He was a farmer with a University education- not very uncommon in his day.

His wife, whose maiden name was Margery Dill, was described by my mother as the best woman she had ever known: accomplished, well-read, and deeply religious, she was of a most happy disposition.

The elder of her two brothers showed an enterprising spirit which was well rewarded. Considering their father's small estate, left to them in equal shares, was insufficient for the two of them, he let his brother take the lot on condition that he was supplied with the means to carry on until he was in a position to maintain himself.

Each had had a university education, and the elder, then well over 30, returned to college to study medicine.

After taking his degree, he practised in England, and ultimately became a man of considerable reputation as Dr. Dill of Brighton.

His patients included royalty, and he died worth upwards of £100,000, thought to be great wealth for a doctor fifty or sixty years ago.

The Dills were masterful men, most of them in the learned professions. Their strength of character was advertised in their strong features, and in particular the "Dill mouth" was something out of the common, so much so, indeed, that some of them were credited with being able to whisper in their own ears.

They claimed to have come from a Dutch family, long resident in England, while the Reid's originally hailed from near Edinburgh, and were said to have been learned people.

The Rev. James Reid, our father, had two brothers, and all three took their degrees in Glasgow University.

Young men worked for their education in their days: most of them walked to and from College, and for the serious business of crossing the Irish Channel, they had to charter small fishing boats.

On our mother's side, our grandfather was James Smith, in his day the leading lawyer in Glasgow.

His wife, and the mother of his six sons and three daughters, was, as the Scots lawyers have it, Mary Macfarlane or Smith, she being a Macfarlane of Luss, and it was to her that George was indebted for his second name,

At the time when our grandfather practised, there was neither typewriting or shorthand, and busy lawyers such as he found their correspondence and other composition a heavy tax on their time, but he at least was equal to it.

Our mother as a girl often called for him to be taken to some entertainment or other. It happened at times that she had to wait until he had finished for the day, and she used to sit and listen while he kept three clerks writing as fast as they could to his dictation.

His habit was to walk to and fro with his hands behind his back, and as each of the clerks gave the last word, he was told the next sentence or part of a sentence for the letter or legal document he was writing.

A successful lawyer, all went well with him until sorrow came suddenly and heavily in the death, almost together, of his wife and two sons, John and Douglas. The latter (Douglas) drowned in the Clyde River.

On the shore of the beautiful Lough Swilly, my father had a little thatched cottage on quite a small property, which included three tiny islands just out in the Lough.

In front was an artificial stone plateau, with a sea wall to forbid the Atlantic entering our front door.

At the back was a ceaseless flow of pure sparkling spring water, and a sweet little garden, with flowers and fruit and box-bordered that had a common meeting place in the centre, under the "arched tree". These were really two trees, rowans, with trunks six or seven feet apart. They were united at regular intervals by four arches of solid, living wood, almost as thick as their trunks. These had been formed by bringing together some of the topmost branches and binding them firmly. My father, as a boy, had made the highest and last arch.

This was our frequent and to us children, altogether delightful, summer home. It was directly over the water from the commanding situation of the High Cairn.

It was the birthplace of our father and our grandfather.

It was also here that, in June 1854, (died 1919, 65 years), that our dear brother George came to us. It was a small world that he entered, but a good one, holding for us few troubles.

Many things contributed to make ours a happy childhood, but probably the chief factor was our perfectly good health. Neither at birth, nor subsequently, with one trifling exception, did any of us ever have a doctor until after we had grown to maturity and been exposed to malarial and other troubles common to new country and hard, rough conditions of life.

I cannot remember George as other than a very happy boy.

We all felt that he was of a happy disposition – yet he was always quiet and undemonstrative.

He was never morose – that would have been foreign to his nature.

Mirth with him was always more or less subdued, and seemed more infectious than the noisy hilarity of other children. In that and some other respects George and Smith resembled each other.

Such recollections as remain to me place George in most of my cherished pictures of early youth and some subsequent years.

I cannot connect with him any of the others in just the same way; but doubtless my memory fails me there, and I know at any rate that to George as well as myself, Smith’s kindness, wisdom, and fine example made him truly the elder brother, but especially was this so when we lost our father, a little more than two years after we landed in Australia, Smith being then 17.

With less than a year and a half between us, a bad burning brought me back to something under George’s size, and that handicap was never removed.

We were thought to be like twins, and were constantly mistaken for each other; but I knew, and he knew, how unlike in many respects we really were.

Like twins, however, we were inseparable, and the affection between us was strong.

And yet, great as was our love, it did not stop us from fighting.

We seem to have fought very often, and to my shame, he being the younger, I usually got the worse of it.

“Sons of the Manse” as we were, we were indeed a little lower than the angels, and started life with at least a fair share of original sin.

My father was proud of his garden (at the Manse) in which there was an abundance of fruit in great variety and perfection.

But there was an adjoining orchard with bigger pears, redder apples, and riper plums, and many a morning there might have been seen one of us early birds doing sentinel whilst the other climbed and shook the branches.

We had a good number of similar unlawful exploits recorded against us.

One of these was the seizure of a boat with the vague idea of becoming pirates – where or how I cannot recall.

Our united efforts proved unequal to weighing anchor – very fortunately, for as the tide rose, so did the wind until it blew a gale. It turned cold, too, and we were drenched with spray. The boat heaved and dashed into the waves and rolled in a terrifying manner, and when at long last the tide fell low enough for us to wade, it was a subdued and shivering pair of cutthroats who gave up the sea.

George would never allow anyone else to take the punishment for anything he had done, and one of my earliest memories of him is in connection with a confession which indicated that at five, there was in embryo the same character as that for which he was noted all through the years of his manhood.

Having given his chin a gash in an attempt to “shave”, his father’s toilet table was placed out of bounds. But the temptation was more than he could resist when there was an opportunity of examining such an attractive article as his father’s watch. The result was a smashed glass. Hiding the evidence of his disobedience in his mother’s piano, and no questions having been asked, the incident was apparently forgotten when, some weeks later, he overheard remarks which indicated that a discharged servant was suspected of stealing the watch. He at once confessed his guilt and showed where the watch was hidden.

My father, a good horseman himself, considered riding an important part of a boy’s education, and we had a donkey to begin on.

But there were four boys, and one small donkey was not enough to go round, so we younger ones made little progress.

With a smart horse, we had many a rattling drive through beautiful country.

A jaunting car is chilly, and we were used to be dropped as icicles, to be picked up glowing hot half a mile or so further on.

About the time we sailed for Queensland, I can remember George, then eight, as a square shouldered, loose limbed boy, with the suggestion of coming bigness about him – quiet and rather reserved, but of a humorous and happy disposition, and having a keen interest in life.

He was straight in limb and straight in character – a fine type that remained unchanged to the end, save in so far as age and experience matured and strengthened it.

 

*****

Our path in life was largely determined by the fact that my father lost all the capital he possessed through becoming surety for one of his brothers.

Left to depend entirely upon a stipend that was barely enough for the maintenance of his family, there was small hope of education and a start in life for his sons.

And so my mother and he agreed that there would be a better chance for us in a new country.

We were originally destined for Canada and my father had secured a church at St. John’s, New Brunswick, on the eve of the civil war.

Before war actually broke out he visited the United States, to judge for himself, and the impression gained was that the conflict would be more protracted and be more disturbing to the whole of North America than it actually proved.

Consequently, in agreement with my mother, he decided to go even further a field and take us all to Queensland.

That was a decision which needed some courage, for in those days an emigrant to Australia had little hope of ever seeing his country or friends again.

My father never saw even a remote prospect of returning; while yet hardly seasoned to the climate, he contracted dysentery through drinking impure water; he had partly recovered, but, never previously having been sick, he was careless, and his carelessness brought on a fatal relapse.

*****

Over four months from port to port cooped up with some hundreds of others in a great ship (for 1,200 tons was a great ship in 1863), was a splendid experience for boys.

In that time, knocking about over quarter of the globe in search of favorable winds, we had many adventures at all of which George and I seem to have been present and together.

My father acted as chaplain and in spite of some discomfort and inferior food, we were a contented family – with not only surroundings of daily and constantly changing interest, but with that beacon ahead, helpful in all circumstances – something to look forward to at the journey’s end.

Smith alone was a sufferer – seasick almost continually, he nearly lost his life through exhaustion.

In our wanderings, we sighted South America, the Cape, and Tasmania, and during some stormy weeks far down South, we “smelt ice”. And there were incidents not likely to recur nowadays.

A month out of Liverpool, when the sailors had worked off the “dead horse” – that is, the pay advanced for their families before sailing – they threw the painted canvas imitation of the animal overboard, after much ceremony, together with blazing tar barrels that lit our wake long after sunset.

Then crossing the Line was made the occasion for celebrations which were according to immemorial precedent, and lasted from midday till well into the night.

They began with Neptune and his retinue of ministers and officers boarding the ship – coming up from the bottom of the sea, dripping and with seaweed clinging to them.

Our Captain and officers formally received them at the gangway.

Neptune took command of the ship, and for the rest of the day she was given over to drunken revelry.

Several passengers who had refused to subscribe to a drink fund and some stowaways were roughly handled.

Shaved with a razor made of hoop iron and while choking with some greasy abomination prescribed by Neptune’s doctor, each victim was pitched into a large square sail, slung amidships and full of water, there to be pounced upon by the ship’s apprentices, impersonating some sort of sea devils, who went very near to drowning the poor wretches.

One passenger climbed into the rigging, and, producing a knife, had the temerity to defy the sailors.

He was quickly surrounded, his knife thrown overboard, and he himself lashed spread eagle fashion to the rigging.

When liberated in the evening, he had to be carried below.

The whole crew became more or less drunk, and it was fortunate that there was little wind.

The decks had been cleared with a powerful hose, but we were allowed to remain, to witness and take some part in the absurdities and rough play of the men, who had constant work and no relaxation, considered fun.

It was a great show for us, and I don’t remember feeling shocked at any part of it.

By that time we had many friends amongst the men, and were quite safe with them.

Owners were parsimonious, as was evident in the quality of the food supplied – though we apparently suffered no harm from it.

In the “deep sea” we showed no lights, and for that small economy, we risked and just escaped going to the bottom with another ship also without lights and “lying to”, consequently helpless. We rolled together as we passed, and lost a little of our rigging.

One morning we had a great surprise, in finding ourselves completely landlocked. It had been very dark in the night and the ship had sailed in amongst the Solitary Islands without land being seen until daylight disclosed it all around us.

According to the captain’s reckoning we were 200 miles from the nearest land. He was generally under the influence of drink, and now, with rockbound coasts on every hand, he began to make ready to beach the ship. He was frustrated in this intention by a few leading passengers, who, without waiting to discuss the matter, rushed him to his cabin, where they locked him up and gave the command to the chief officer.

George and I were always occupied I think – climbing the forbidden rigging, “helping” the sailors, listening to their yarns, or playing some practical joke that had been planned by them.

I cannot say whether it was at their suggestion we carried into effect a scheme which rid us of people who were trespassing upon our rights and at the same time gave us some sport.

Our two cabins were ventilated through the deck by short lengths of eight or ten inch piping, each having a cap on the top end with perforations about the size of a five shilling piece.

A number of inconsiderate people had got into the habit of sitting on these things, and thus interrupting our current of air.

In hot weather, the change was at once noticeable, the cabins becoming unbearable.

The table forks provided by the ship were two pronged, of steel, and easily made very sharp.

Having taken the loan of one of these, we lashed it to the end of a stick long enough to reach through the ventilators.

There was a certain amount of luck in using the instrument, for we had to guess the thickness of clothing to be pieced – but I think we must have made liberal allowance for this, judging by the prompt result.

During such a voyage, there was inevitably every variety of weather, from the wearying calm when the sails hung idle against the masts to the hurricane in which the wind and waves played with the ship. We were wearied to distraction in the doldrums, rolling heavily for days on a glassy swell, the monotony all through the stifling nights, being dreadfully trying, every one of a thousand planks and beams grating on its neighbour at each discomforting roll and giving out its individual creak.

In squalls we twice actually saw, as well as heard, a great square sail split with a crack as startling as tropical thunder and rapidly dissipate away in the wind with a noise like innumerable pistol shots.

And there were times when the elements seemed to combine to show what could be done in a hurricane. Then the sea was blown into a sheet of flying spray; the ship, plunging and rolling and driven this way and that, was like a living thing trying to escape from its tormentors – with the bare rigging quivering under the intense pressure, each vibrating rope and cord yielding its individual part in a grand organ note that, rising and falling, voiced the wild fury of the storm. In such a scene, crouching under some shelter, where in awe we watched and listened, what small figures we felt ourselves to be!

After a week or more on the same course, lying over to a strong, steady breeze, it came as a pleasant change when we got on to the other tack.

And the change was brought about with spectacular ceremony that might well have been designed for the entertainment of boys.

At any rate, George and I were always keenly interested, and in our excitement, we must have run some risk of being knocked over by rushing seamen.

The whole crew being assembled on deck by the command “All hands to bout ship”, a quiet order from the captain became a bellow from one of the mates and reverberated from the powerful throats of the quarter masters, as with a great chorus of “Aye, aye, Sir!” the crew dashed to their places at the ropes.

There was heard the voice of the best singers in the ship – and all sailors seemed to sing then.

He sang a verse of unconscionable length, of love and ships and the sea, in a clear voice very fine.

The chorus was to us the most attractive part. The words in themselves might have no meaning, but in the mouths of 50 or 60 lusty seamen, they meant a great deal – joy and sadness, and anything else we wanted them to mean.

As the final note was given to the breeze, there was a volley of orders, and instantly ropes were let go and others hauled by rushing squads of men; all the spars and much of the running gear of the ship, so taut and trim, fell suddenly into loose disorder.

Without a pause, however, the yards on every mast swung round in unison, to the tune of rattling blocks and creaking irons, and were hauled upon until they again assumed rigid symmetry.

The it was “Belay, all!” and the ship laid over and gathered way on her new tack.

At times, fear came into our young hearts, from what we saw and heard.

We had thirty three burials at sea, all alike save one, and that one was very memorable.

When our flag was at half mast any ship in sight could similarly pay tribute to the dead.

One day when there was to be a funeral, a fine full rigged ship on the same course and only perhaps two miles away, had in sympathy hoisted her flag to half mast, and being faster than we were, stood in until one was little more than half a mile distant without losing her position abreast of our ship.

She must have had her men standing by, for at noon, as we swung around the wind to lie to during the service as was the custom, so did she and there she remained, actually present with us as a mourner at that vast graveside until, the rites concluded, we resumed our course.

The body was that of a little girl of three or four, and it may be that the majesty of death has seldom found grander recognition.

We witnessed the whole sad tragedy of a man lost at sea – a fine powerful bronzed and bearded sailor.

Heavy booted and clad, we saw him spring into the Captain’s gig (slung athwart the stern) to give a hand at a rope.

It must have been rotten, for under the extreme strain it gave way, and overboard he went.

The ship was brought to and a boat lowered but there was no plug in the boat, which began to fill, and the men with difficulty got back to the ship.

Seeing this and no doubt fearing that the boat had been recalled and that he was to be abandoned, the man left the hencoop which had been supporting him and started to swim with desperate energy towards us.

He had not got many yards on the way when there was a great splash, and he was gone, and we were told that that horror of the sea, a shark, had taken him before our eyes.

That night, before we could go to bed, George and I had to get comfort at our mother’s knee, for the sailor who had met with such a terrible death was one of our dearest friends. He had sailed all over the world, and he never tired of telling us fascinating stories of land and sea. He had small children at home – his eldest, Georgie, was a mischievous boy who, he feared, “would be no better than parson’s sons”.

We lost another man, also one of our friends, at our journey’s end. He was a sturdy little man, a Londoner, I think, and was said to be the most evil and worst tempered of the whole ship’s company.

But he had become strangely attracted by George – “Geordy”, he always called him.

It was a joke among his mates that he couldn’t keep up his ill temper when George was near. He could do anything for the boy he was fond of, even to giving up bad language. George often got him to promise to stop swearing and to keep his word for perhaps an hour at a time.

We were standing off and on, waiting for a pilot from the Brisbane River, but the weather was too bad for him to come out. In a violent squall, when all hands were taking in sail, four of the men were knocked off the bowsprit.

Three of then caught in the chains, but the fourth, George’s friend, fell into the sea.

The appalling cry of “Man overboard!” goes through a ship quicker than anything else, and there were many anxious faces over the lee bulwarks as the ship swept past the poor fellow. He gave no sign of recognition of anyone until opposite and quite close to the boy he loved, “Ah, Geordy! Geordy!” he cried, and in a second or two was overwhelmed as he lost the shelter of the ship. Who knows but that the influence of the boy may have been of some small help, some little comfort, even at that dreadful moment.

Our old wooden ship had been rough and at times very uncomfortable, and yet we had a homesick feeling for her – a feeling short lived, however, in the midst of all the wonders and attractions, as well as discomforts, of the new land.

We had been put ashore at Rockhampton, and after a few days experience of the tropical thunderstorms and steamy heat of that place, then little better than a black soil flat, we were glad to escape, although bound still further north.

Our destination was the new settlement of Bowen, on the beautiful harbor of Port Denison, and then the most northerly town in Queensland.

Our passage, in a very small steamer, was memorable for at least one incident.

Sheltered by the Great Barrier Reef, the sea along the coast was usually all that could be desired, and a voyage there, with days of comfort and interest and nights under a sky of inconceivable splendour, was indeed a pleasure trip. But our captain was used to such pleasures and wanted change, and when he heard that my mother’s piano was in the hold, would have it on deck, so that they might sing and dance.

After shifting half the cargo to get at it, the sailors had hoisted the heavy case almost clear of the hatches, with all our little world as interested spectators, when the tackle parted.

There was a loud bang, followed by a twanging that lasted apparently for minutes. Poor Mother! The shock was too much for her prized Broadwood, which never again could be called a good piano.

At Bowen, with a handful of others, we were in possession of a new world, and a beautiful and attractive world, in spite of drawbacks.

There were new beasts and birds and fish; new trees, new fruits and flowers.

It was a mystery to us, an absorbing mystery. We were present at another creation, seemingly, for everything was new.

It was early summer and the scent of flowers was in the air – the golden wattle, the long sprays, in fiery red and warm yellow, of the ti-tree, laden with honey and heavy with scent, the cool, sweet water lilies in every lagoon, and many others.

Here, in certain favourite little valleys was a wealth of orchids hanging from the trees not long to survive, for even those that escaped the collector and wanton destroyer seemed to find the breath of settlement uncongenial.

The gumtree blossoms, scarcely noticeable kept countless thousands of parrots busy – Blue Mountain parrots, the most active, energetic and noisiest birds.

From almost before day till dark, bodies and tongues were in perpetual motion, save in the universal midday hush of the bush.

They are always associated with our early days, and in later days too, with George.

Wherever we might be riding around the cattle camp, on the rod with a start in the dark for a long day, or just up from the blankets in the freshness of the dewy morning, the glittering heavens as yet undimmed by the light of the coming day – something quick as thought would shoot by us; there would be a familiar short, sharp cry, with innumerable echoes, and a new day was begun for the noisy little workers. And after them all the bush awoke.

Strange birds were common; black and crimson, black and yellow and white cockatoos, fiercely wild and untamable, and the easily tamed, parrots and pigeons in endless variety and gorgeous plumage, the friendly and jovial laughing jackass, the magpie, with sweet and joyous voice, the rarer emu, tall and graceful native companions, that played “tig” on the plains and danced like children; and bower-birds that built and paved arcades for play-grounds.

Ambitious to tame the lot, by the time we had succeeded with a few doves and parrots, George and I had grown tired of pets, and we content to have the birds in their thousands around us. The bush and scrubs and hills were full of kangaroo and wallabies, and there were lots of possums. Snakes occasionally bit and sometimes killed people, but we soon got used to them. Flies, mosquitoes, and sand flies and ants did not allow us to overlook them – the fly a greater pest than all the rest put together.

We found a sudden interest, too, in various biting and stinging dwellers in the scrubs, of hornets, black and yellow, big and little, there seemed (in a sense) to be no end, and on one particular afternoon it appeared to us two that one sort might have sufficed.

We had new tomahawks, and were enjoying ourselves getting dead wood for the kitchen fire. Being intensely hot weather, we aped the labourers grubbing trees out of the streets and worked with our “Crimean” shirts open in front, and hanging loose outside our trousers.

There was a small glade in the scrub where we were at work, with a fine old ti-tree at its edge. We did not know then that the ti-tree’s soft paper like bark was a favourite foundation for the “nest” of a particular spiteful little hornet, but this we were to find out for ourselves, and also that it colonised in large numbers.

Hot and a little blown, I wandered across to the ti-tree and leant against it; the effect of my touch was like what happened the first time I pulled a trigger; a loud explosion of anger and as big a cloud as the old muzzle-loader made out of its charge of black powder.

Home was half a mile away, and I started for it at a pace I could not have kept up for half the distance, even had I reserved my breath for the race. George saw what was up and came to my aid, realising at the start what he himself was in for – but there was no deterring him, even at nine, if he thought a brother needed help. He continued with me, slapping my back and shoulders, and when we reached home his hair was as full of hornets as was mine and his body all over as closely patterned in pink and white.

Many a time afterwards we felt the hornets’ hot stab, but never in such a wholesale fashion.

A year or two later George got a sting and a fright with it. He had camped alone in a slab hut on land He afterwards converted into a farm, and in the morning when in the act of pulling on one of his boots, a thrilling pain shot through his foot, and he found a scorpion hanging to his toes. George was quite alone, he was young, and he was suffering acutely, and in his sudden alarm he could not remember just what a death adder should look like – whether this was one or sudden death in another shape; but he quickly and persistently applied the only remedies he knew. The hut was on the bank of the Don River, close to a scrub, so there were generally snakes about, and in case of accident a bottle of spirits was kept there. George took a drink of the spirits, burnt his foot with a fern-stick, and said his prayers; and he kept on repeating in the same order until his foot was well blistered and he found some difficulty in praying.

It was a long time before we saw anything of those very brutes, alligators, but there was proof that they were about, in rivers and lagoons.

At Jarvisfield, on the Burdekin, a man in the act of dipping a bucket was seized by the leg, and just saved himself from being drawn in by grabbing a sapling. The alligator was small, obviously quite young, yet the man had a struggle for life. It was desperate tug of war until his leg was suddenly released, what was left of it, torn to shreds. He was a shepherd all alone, and he managed to crawl to his hut,, where, in the heat of summer - and the flies- he was found alive on the sixth day.

Carted ninety odd miles to Bowen, his leg was taken off at the hip, and he recovered.

That was when the country was being stocked with sheep – an amazingly stupid error.

Kangaroo grass grew close and tall, excellent for cattle and horses, and in its seed there was a very curious provision of nature. With a finely barbed head, as sharp and almost as hard as a needle, it had slender, wire like tails four or five inches long at first straight, the burning heat during months of drought caused the tail to wind into a tight coil. When rain came, the solature set up a reverse action, and each seed, becoming an automatic boring machine, buried itself in the damp earth.

The poor sheep, unable to wait for that process, gathered the abundant seed direct from the grass, and with every step a thousand deadly instruments moved a tiny space, with cruel slowness, through wool and skin and flesh until, turned by the hard substance, they sheathed every bone in a dense black covering. In time the animal grew too sore and stiff to rise again, and so perished tens of thousands. Yet half an hours’ walk through that grass would have brought it home to any man in flannel trousers what would happen.

On that same station of Jarvisfield an alligator showed its brute strength by pulling the fore legs clean out of the body of a horse, seized whilst being ridden across the Burdekin on a rocky bar.

Near by were the alligator lagoons, where old “Yorkie’s” son sometimes fished.

“Yorkie” was a small settler, a cockatoo “squatter”, his son a level headed boy, a fine rider, in such request at the annual three days’ races.

One morning after the boy had failed to come home, “Yorkie” found a hat, a fishing line and other evidence beside a great log that stretched like a pier into one of the lagoons.

With his heavy old duck gun, that took a handful of powder and shot, and a plentiful supply of tobacco, he sat down beside the log. He watched there for two days and two nights without a sign (and without food), and on the third morning at dawn a great alligator broke quietly through the water and slowly drew its hideous length up on the bank, just on the other side of the log. Yorkie blew a hole through it – and he found sure proof that he had got the right one.

When shooting, we sometimes had the choice of swimming for ducks, or leaving them. I do not think we ever left the, but I am certain we never loitered in the water.

Boys who knew their way about showed us how to hunt possums. There was no difficulty about it. Possums were numerous and it was easy in the bright moonlight to find them, shale them off the branches, and, while they were stunned by the fall, finish them off with sticks. We said it was cruel, and they called us “new-chums”. We felt insulted and decided to show what “new chums” could do by catching the animals alive. A possum is a gentle looking little animal and always stupid in daylight, but he has good teeth and four sets of strong claws, all of which he uses with fierce energy, as we found out, for on several nights we took home live possums and honourable wounds in torn and bleeding hands. The wonder is we didn’t break our necks. None of the other boys wanted live possums, but they dropped the offensive epithet.

Christmas 1863 came round soon after we settled in Bowen, and to us that was an ever memorable Boxing Day, for we then saw, for the first time in our lives, real horse races, and other sports.

They took place on the beach, not a bad place when the tide was out, but when it is was in, the going was very heavy for both men and horses.

George and I were competitors in boys’ races, but we had never before performed in public and our shyness (which i regret to this day) sapped our strength, and we were “nowhere”.

From building material stacked on the beach, many boards were spread out on the sands and covered with good things – sandwiches, cakes and biscuits, fruit and sweets, ginger beer and lemonade – free and ample for all. Who were the donors of the feast or whence came the many prizes I have no idea.

We had music, too, from the bagpipes – the first musical instrument heard north of the 20^th degree – and how the skirl of it scared the blacks! The piper was a Scot of fine physique and proud bearing, to whom it was play to toss the caber and throw the hammer against all comers; but it was work, hard work – to ply the needle, he being a tailor! That was 56 years ago last Boxing Day, and, the fourscore though he be, the good man Donald Miller still gars his pipes to skirl on festive occasions and, summer and winter, takes his daily swim in the sea.

On that great day were gathered together many fine enterprising men, pioneers most of them, and I believe that of those present whom I knew or soon after got to know, each one has had his day, the piper being the only survivor.

On that same beach, later on and without spectators, there was another race which just missed a tragic finish. Everyone in the cattle country owned horses, and my father had started with Jack and Tom, up to any weight, for himself and Don, a clever little horse with both strength and breeding, for my mother.

And the delight of becoming horsemen at the right age was ours – though in our zeal perhaps we took more than legitimate advantage of our opportunities for practice.

The Native Wells were not more than a mile away, and to take the horse there for a drink (a special privilege conferred upon George and myself) we made the distance two or three miles at least.

And when sent with a message to a friend living out of town, we always added to our knowledge of the surrounding bush.

On some such errand, George met another boy, lucky enough to own his whole turnout – horse, saddle and bridle- and was rather superior about it.

George was as yet a very inexperienced horseman, but his courage was great and his confidence in old Jack unlimited.

So there was a challenge to a race, and the boys repaired to the beach.

The tide, which happened to be rising, had already covered the firm sand, and the race therefore had to be run on dry, soft sand.

This was in favour of the powerful Jack, and he was winning all the way, when an accident happened. There was a heavy sea on, and the waves sent out long creeping arms, the appearance of which was not relished by Jack, and when one particular snakelike thing shot right in front of him, he swerved sharply, sending his rider flying.

It was a man’s saddle, much too big, and, not being able to make the stirrups short enough, George had resorted to the dangerous expedient of riding in the leathers.

The result was that one of his feet slipped through and got caught.

Bush horses rarely kick, but old Jack was very ready with his heels, and the wonder is that he now used them only in an effort to get away from the fright some thing swinging and bumping along by his side, and whatever speed he had was certainly used to the utmost that day. He bolted from the beach, across a ridge of black sand, and over a stretch of ground thickly studded with tree stumps. After being dragged for more than a quarter of a mile, George was released by his boot being pulled off – with eyes, nose and mouth, and even ears stuffed with black, volcanic sand – but unhurt.

About that time the contractor was starting work on a jetty which, when finished, reached out three quarters of a mile into the harbour.

It proved a pleasant promenade, especially in hot weather, and from the end there was a fine panorama, of sea and shore, grassy and wooded hills and distant mountains, conspicuous being Gloucester Island, a bald eminence of rugged peaks that to West of Scotland people, recalled Arran.

Here we escaped from the pests, flies and mosquitoes; here when in luck we caught lots of fish; and here, on certain hot evenings, generally when there was thunder in the air, we could watch multitudes of moving creatures, great and small, each body luminous and sharply defined with phosphorus.

But here it was not thought wise to bathe, as sharks lie in ambush in the shadow of such structures, as they do in the shelter of rocks.

Many an hour on the jetty I can recall, and one especially remains distinctly in my memory.

It was a Sunday and glorious summer afternoon – bright, hot sunshine and a cool breeze.

We – George and I and half a dozen other boys – had just reached the outer end of the jetty when George’s hat blew off.

It was a new and “real Panama”, and of course he was proud of it.

There were no boats nearer than the beach, so there was but one way of recovering it, and George quickly threw off the few thin things worn in summer and jumped in.

Accustomed to regular bathing, George was very much at home in the water; but the wind had been carrying the hat along, and he had to swim fast for several hundred yards before overtaking it.

There were steps at the end and half along the jetty, and George started for the latter, a somewhat longer swim. And to our surprise he at once began to exert himself to the utmost, struggling and splashing like a poor swimmer. Thus he continued to the end, his pace decreasing as he exhausted himself, and when he reached the steps we had to carry him up.

The cause of his desperate energy was a shark – whether real or imaginary does not signify. As he turned for the jetty he saw or believed he saw a shark coming for him. George did not readily imagine things, and during that long struggle he was in momentary dread of being seized by a shark. He was then not more than 13 ½, and in his condition of most natural terror, he would have floundered and gone to the bottom had he not had a rarely brave heart.

At my father's death, my mother, with a young family and in a strange land, found herself penniless; when all the bills were paid, she had but one half-crown left. It was suggested that we should get a loan - there were relations on each side who were well off. But she would not hear of it; her sons were not to begin life on borrowed money, but must trust in God and their own exertions. We fully realised afterwards how wise and brave she was, and how much we were indebted to her for her help then and on many other occasions. And George in some measure repaid her for his quiet cheerfulness, steady resolution in times of difficulty, and manly straightforward conduct at all times, as a boy and as a man, brought her comfort. She freely acknowledged this; he was her sunbeam, dearest of all to her.

It was in these circumstances of immediate necessity, but with great latent possibilities in four strong and very healthy boys, supported and cheered as we were by our mother and sister, that we had to face the world. And looking back now over the fifty and odd intervening years, with a good knowledge of our individual characteristics, I do not think it was a bad start, even though it meant a long uphill struggle. We all of course had to work; even the youngest George, then less than 12.

He tried several situations, in each of which he gained credit, but in none did he long remain, and it ultimately became obvious that the restraint of indoor work did not suit him.

His longest term, more than a year, was in a telegraph office, where he found good friends.

The telegraph master, who rose rapidly until he became superintendent of the whole service in Queensland, was Mr Matvieff.

His wife and he were Russians supposed to be of noble families.

Both were fond of George, and showed him much kindness.

He suffered from that weakening complaint, fever and ague, at intervals for about 18 months, and Mrs. Matvieff set herself the task of curing him, and, besides the usual medicines, she administered daily for the purpose of keeping up his strength, egg flips and other luxuries – remedies which the thought very sensible.

When George decided on a change, Mr. Matvieff, having tried in vain to dissuade him from leaving, testified to his fine character; he had had to do with many young fellows, he said, but none he liked so well as Geogre, and none he could trust so absolutely.

Then as in later life, George acted with much deliberation or instantly, as the occasion required.

There was an instance of this characteristic when he was at the telegraph office. He was attacked by a fellow, both older and stronger, who came at him savagely with a long saddlers awl in each hand.

It was an awkward situation, but at the right instant George flapped his soft felt hat into the fellow’s face, and as it dropped his even then “terrible right” brought forgetfulness to his adversary.

That remarkable presence of mind that enabled him to do the right thing instantly and apparently without thought was a valuable gift – when during a number of years he had much to do with young horse and wild cattle, and associated with it was a fine steady nerve, I saw a good example of the combination in Melbourne, many years later.

George and I were walking in Wellington Parade, a fine suburban thoroughfare, when it dawned upon us that something was happening.

There were no mechanical vehicles then, and the street was fairly full of the usual horse traffic – hansoms, four wheeled cabs with linen awnings, landaus, victorias, and so on.

There was shouting up the street, and drivers were all looking in that direction, most of then whipping up their horses and drawing in to the side.

Then there was the loud thudding noise of a heavy horse galloping, and immediately there came into view a powerful young horse, bolting as fast as terror could drive him, a light cart skipping and rattling at his heels.

A collision meant a smash, and he was readily given the right of way.

What his part was to be George promptly decided.

Dashing to the middle of the street, he stood directly in front of the runaway, and as the animal came up and was about to dash into him, he took a quick step to the near side. Simultaneously his long left shot out, and, getting a grip of a yard or two of broken rein, he threw his weight on to it – almost at right angles – with a heavy jerk that nearly brought the animal down.

With a scramble, he kept his feet, was slung round on to the pavement and up against a wall, where he went down in a heap.

Before George had reached 16, gold was discovered within 130 miles of Bowen – the first to be found in North Queensland.

The news sent a thrill of excitement throughout the whole of Australia., and there was a rush of diggers from all parts of the south.

The new goldfield, Ravenswood, was not of great extent, but what there was of it was good while it lasted. No large fortunes were made; it was " a poor man's field" - capital for development was not needed, and almost all diggers were on gold and doing well. For the most part it was a young man population, full of vigour and hope and restless energy. After a long and heavy day's work, men in crowds spent half the night walking up and down the main street in the bright white light of the tropical moon or under a sky of sparkling brilliance. Everybody wanted to see everybody he knew, to tell and hear how things were going, and above all to find out about reports of new gold finds- always in the air. A hundred campfires along the creeks and gullies and circling the hills, with here and there a flute or concertina, or someone singing, were more suggestive of life and activity than even the flags and busy windlasses which, visible by day, arched in irregular order over ridges and hilltops. The day was dusty - coaches and buggies coming and going, and many cartloads of quartz on the way to one of the batteries that seldom were silent except for Sunday rest. And everybody rode and was in a hurry, pounding and adding to and scattering, the almost impalpable dust of the busy main street of the Main Camp.

We were used to dust. Before we took our first trip South, George and I had lived 17 years without seeing a paved street, a railway, a gas light. We had much to be thankful for!

It was in Ravenswood that Smith stated his first newspaper (the first of several altogether, in six of which I was his partner), and George accompanied him to the field. Smith was young and inexperienced for the responsibility of conducting a newspaper, but he was not long in showing that he had a clever mind and sound judgment, and was gaining a reputation as a fearless journalist. The paper had not been published many months when he gave proof of his courage - and there was a sensational developmennnt. Hall (I think was his name, getting to know that a Gympie bank manager meant to travel to the coast carrying a large parcel of gold, without the customary escort of mounted police, went on ahead and " bailed him up". The manager showed fight, and in a revolver duel, was shot dead. Hall was a good bushman, and managed for a while to keep out of the way, but the pursuit became too hot, and at night he crept into Gympie to Staples, a lawyer. Staples agreed to "capture" him the next morning and claim the reward (£2000 -£3000), one half of which he undertook tto hand over to Hall's wife and little child. The reward was paid to Staples, and he stuck to the lot. As no one in Gympie would then speak to him, he came north to Ravenswood. At the same time there came to Smith a full account of the affair, with a request to use his influence to prevent any decent people having anything to do with Staples. Smith published the whole story; the same day a writ for criminal libel was served on him; in the evening there was an angry thunderstorm and Staples was struck by lightning - the crown of his head and soles of his feet being perforated as if by heavy shot. That, it was said, was the interposition of Providence.

The richest find on the field would not have induced George to work underground, and the life of a gold digger seemed to have no attraction for him. He made himself useful in the printing office when disposed to work there; but with freedom to do as he chose, he generally preferred to knock about the field, getting news wherever he could for the paper. In doing so he made friends here and there amongst the diggers - and the best were very good. In the early days there arrived from the old country many young men of good education and family who had not the means to start in cattle or sheep, or sugar-growing, and the goldfields offered the opportunity of escaping from the risk of becoming mere "wages men". And so, in a community of altogether enterprising and independent men, there was an appreciable percentage of the finest type from "home". The good sense of the general body maintained order, the British idea of fair play being the ruling principle. Fighting was common, but it had to be fair, and any man who even showed a knife or revolver in a difference quickly found that the best thing for him was to clear out. Even the dissatisfied Irishman, nursing his discontent wherever he is, was made to behave himself. For a year there was only one constable and no lockup.

Prisoners - usually men arrested for being drunk and disorderly - were chained to a log, and some mornings they found themselves in sufficient form to pull it to the nearest public-house - and back again after they had had a drink.

In time it came to be recognised that whatever information George brought in was reliable. There were two reasons to account for this; one was his good standing with many of the best men on the field, who were always ready to help him; and the other lay in his own judgment. Little children look people straight in the face, frankly avowing by their expression that their purpose is to decide whether they will like or dislike, trust or distrust. That habit George retained always, and even then as a boy he had a remarkable gift in summing up men's characters and deciding whom he could trust. Among George's friends was J. M. Macrossan, owner of the Saratoga mine and one of Smith's regular contributors, who soon afterwards went into Parliament, became Minister for Mines, and was noted for his wonderful memory. He was much attached to George, and his persistent attempts to break him of his only vice eventuated in a bet against either being caught smoking by the other, the odds being 20 to 1 in George’s favour.

George was very wide awake, and as his only chance Macrossan dropped tobacco; he devoted much of his spare time to watching George, but, although he often found clouds of smoke and George in close proximity, he never caught him smoking.

After a visit to his home in Bowen, George started to return to the goldfields with a mob of horses he meant to sell. Almost all horses had to find their own living, even the teams of bush draft horses being turned out to grass after their day’s work. On stations or at farms they had regular beats or “runs”, and the quietest horses, when they realised they were being driven right away from their runs, would make determined efforts to get back.

With the small mob George had there should have been at least two men for the first day, and they, well mounted and expert at their work, could have blocked at the start any such attempt.

George was unaided, and although he was riding a splendid mare, handy and quick at the work and very fast, he had his work cut out.

Twice the mob had broken back – once in two lots, when he had to drive one after the other and then swing them all round. After that he kept them going and had got them on some miles, when for the third time they made a bolt for it.

This was on Salisbury Plains Cattle Station, and it happened that just there was a stretch of “devil- devil” ground, the whole surface being miniature hills and valleys, over which few horses were safe except those bred on it.

The mare was hot and keen, and fast as the mob broke from the track, she was faster, but as she headed them she went down crash and rolled over George. Both up quick George was instantly aware that a glass flask in his trousers pocket (where it should not have been carried) was smashed.

Blood spurted over his head, the femoral artery having been cut, and his handkerchief was bulged before he could tie it round his thigh. In his desperate emergency, he thought his only chance lay in galloping back to the head station, three or four miles away. He had only taken a few steps towards the mare, however, when he fell in a faint.

The road between Bowen and Ravenswood was so little used as to look a mere bridle track. Station bullock drays went over it, but the grass quickly covered their tracks, and one might have camped on it a week without seeing anybody, except perhaps Toms, the weekly mailman, or some of the ever wandering blacks.

And yet help was at hand, to save as by a miracle a life very precious to all who know George.

There were two travellers on the road, a lawyer and a doctor (Blakeney and Doudney) riding from Townsville to Bowen on some urgent legal business; it was nothing unusual to see a number of horses anywhere along the road, but their interest was aroused when they saw one with a saddle on, and when a figure appeared and fell, they knew something was wrong.

Finding George unconscious and bleeding, they hastily tore a blanket into strips, which they wound many times tightly around his thigh.

Behind them there was no help nearer than Inkerman Downs Station, fifty miles back, but they thought they could not be very far from Salisbury Plains, so the lawyer rode quickly there, to return with a spring cart driven by a station hand, and carrying everything thought needful.

It was some hours after the accident that George became conscious that he was extremely weak, but lying soft and comfortable on the floor of a spring cart, with a stranger sitting beside him. The he again forgot, to awake in the Bowen hospital.

Of many narrow escapes, I think that was the narrowest that George ever had. He was carefully nursed by his mother, but he was months in regaining his strength, and it was about a year later when he again went up to the goldfields.

There was a big rush on, to newly discovered gold, 60 or 70 miles from Ravenswood. George went on to have a look, without having any fixed idea, I think, of what he might do. On the way he found a lot of miners "bailed up" by a flood in the Burdekin - a mighty river, but too rapid for navigation, and like all other streams in the north, it shrank until for most of the year, it was little more than a chain of water holes. For a long distance up from its mouth, it was infested with alligators (crocodiles), as many a three legged cow on the cattle stations along it bore witness. The diggers camped on its bank were eager to get on the new goldfield, but they had had no experience crossing rivers, and when George suggested that they should swim their horses across, they bluntly thought him a young fool. A boatman was carrying passengers and leading horses over behind his boat - for those willing to pay a very exorbitant fare. And even at that it was a slow business. The river there was comparatively narrow - only something over 100 yards - (at the "lower crossing" on Leichhardt Downs station, where we often crossed, it was nearly a mile wide) - but the current was above the average. George swam over and back again, and thus encouraged, some of the men crossed, after having been shown exactly how it should be done. George had given them confidence by swimming one or two of their own horses to mid-stream and back again. A horse's strength with a man on his back is soon exhausted, but nearly every horse will swim a long distance if the rider alights off to lay hold of and be towed by the tail, steering him as easily as a boat splashing water along either cheek. With reins tied up to prevent them getting around the horse's legs and drowning him, we always started far above where we wanted to land. In the morning George was in great request, but it promised to be too long a job getting the lot (about 100) across, as many could not swim. So he changed his plan. With all hands at work he quickly made a fork and rail yard- three sides, standing partly in the water, which made the fourth side. With the horses packed in this, George swam his horse in front, to give them a lead, and at a whistle from him, 20 or 30 men with rods sent the lot in as fast as they could make them go, the rest of the men being spread down stream, in case any horses should turn back. All got across and the men were then ferried over, the boatman having been brought into a more reasonable mood. Seeing that his monopoly was being spoiled, he had become abusive, but George, well qualified to defend himself, was difficult to drag into a fight on his own account, and one of his new friends took up the quarrel. The diggers wanted to show him appreciation, and, had George been willing to accept their money, would have paid him well.

Out of that adventure, George made two good friends. One was a young fellow of the better class of Australians- slow of speech and slow to speak at all, honest, loyal, and very likeable. He would have made a fine mate, and he wanted George to join him. He had money to invest and carry on with. The other was one of three brothers, John, George, and Hamilton Rutherford, all chemists, and shrewd, dependable Ulstermen - men of strong character. The latter, George's friend, started a considerable factory for supplying Charters Towers, the new goldfield, with soda water, lemonade etc. and gave George a third interest in what soon became a profitable business. Hamilton Rutherford's affection for George was very strong. He would have done anything for him, and when, after they had been together only a few months, George decided to make a change, he was very cut up. They had got on pleasantly together, without any disagreement, and George retained a feeling of regard for his generous friend.

Soon after George left Charters Towers, Smith started his second paper there. It proved a very successful venture, for the Goldfield prospered and supported a large population.

Other gold discoveries followed, further north, and there were rushes on a large scale to the Etheridge, the Palmer, and the ill-starred Hodgkinson.

For a few years, the Palmer was a great gold producer. The gold was alluvial, got easily in the shallow workings, in the beds of watercourses that were dry most of the time, and in crevices in the rocks. Further north than any settlement, an outlet had to be provided, and Cooktown, at the mouth of the Endeavour River, came into existence to supply the want. There many enterprising young men quickly gathered to do business for the goldfields, and in rather a hurry to set about it. The noise of hammering was as great as on the Clyde, as the town of wood and iron was knocked up - a town boasting of a mile long main street of closely packed stores and shops, hotels and offices, finished and painted and mostly sign boarded inside of six weeks, and that in spite of the fact that the growing trees had included a good deal of ironwood, from which an axe rang as from an anvil.

We had sold the Northern Miner, and, removing the printing plant of the Ravenswood Miner to Cooktown, made a fresh start there.

The rainy season that year commenced early in December, and lasted almost three months. There was a famine on the goldfields and provisions were scarce in Cooktown – one Sunday dinner I Remember, the best that could be produced at Poole’s, the leading hotel, consisted of potted herrings and a collapsed plum pudding made of ships’ biscuits.

Our privations were trifling, however, as compared with those on the goldfields, where for many weeks men were in desperate straits for food.

Many diggers had reached the Palmer overland, by way of the Etheridge, bringing on pack horses what food they could carry, flour, tea and sugar, and sun dried beef.

But this did not last long, and the supplies they had looked for from the coast were held up for months by the floods.

At even the worst times an odd daring and resourceful packer could get through, at the cost of a few horses and their loads, carried away in rapid streams, or crashed down the steep side of a gorge, where the sodden and narrow edge of a siding gave way.

And he gathered a rich harvest, his loading bringing him a profit of 500 to 2,000 per cent on original cost – and salt more than that.

There was much sickness and scurvy through the want of salt. That very common article for a time fetched a high price, being weighted in one scale against gold in the other, and the fortunate possessors of some carried it in chamois leather gold bags and were careful at meal times lest theirs should be the ill luck of spilling even a few precious grains.

Some 5000 or 6000 diggers were camped at Cooktown waiting to go to the Palmer, and sick people wanted to come down to the coast – to die when they got there, many of them – but traffic was almost completely stopped by floods.

New surface soil was invariably unhealthy, and that of Cooktown was especially so, until man and stock had tramped over it for years and completely changed its character.

There was sickness – fever and dysentery – amongst the diggers, who were mostly from the Southern Colonies and as soft as new chums, and on the wet ground under calico tents they had a poor chance. Seeing the urgent need of a hospital, Smith took the matter in hand; in one short afternoon he collected about £800 from the business people – few of whom would have been there had they been well off – a large building of wood and iron was run up, men giving their time for the work, and within a week of the time the money was available, it was full of patients, mostly young men – getting a new lease of life or an easier exit.

That was the state of affairs when George arrived in Cooktown with a schooner load of cattle – the first ever seen in that part of the world. He had brought them there to sell, as a speculation but on finding how things were he decided to sell as butcher’s meat.

From amongst the diggers he chose several men – glad enough of something to do – and his judgment served him, for he could not have had better or more reliable men.

Arrangements were quickly made and the business started – on simple lines, as indicated by that most useful institution in most new settlements, the public billman.

In a high pitched unvarying voice, as devoid of commas as a lawyer’s document, he announced at regular intervals down the main street that:

“There will be sold at 1 o’clock, at the bough shed – Butcher’s Flat –the prime beef of two fat bullocks – newly killed and cut into convenient pieces at eighteen pence a pound God save the Queen”.

With grass free everywhere, the cattle were “tailed” (herded by a man on horseback) during the day and “camped” at night.

Driven as near as they would go to the bough shed – cattle being terrified of the smell of blood – the butcher’s work began when it was light enough to shoot straight and when all was ready and the long queue moving, a man dissatisfied with the piece of beef offered had to wait for better luck next day.

Having seen the business started, George returned to Bowen and chartered two more schooners – the three being at the time the only vessels obtainable.

The coast country was stocked with cattle up to and a little north of Bowen, so there was no difficulty in getting fat bullocks, but there was trouble enough and to spare in shipping them.

Perhaps only yarded once – as calves to be branded- these four and five year old bullocks had had complete freedom and were almost as wild as hares. The sight of man on foot or the smell about his dwelling terrified them, and it needed all the skill of five or six expert stockmen, or horses that knew the work as well as their riders, to get them through the town and “yarded” on the jetty.

It was done early, before people had begun to show themselves, but eve, then a barking dog or the sight of some early riser might send them flying. At times, though rarely, they broke in a body from the outer end of the jetty, and the unusual thunder of their hoofs increased their frenzy. More often, one or two maddened animals would break away in spite of everything, and then it was “Look Out!” for anybody on the jetty.

Old Day, risen from postman to postmaster, had splayed feet and was gone in the legs, but he had two rather nice daughters, and we treated him with respect.

One morning, returning from a steamer, he heard a clatter and, looking around, was horrified by the sight of a bullock coming at a mad gallop. There was a chain on either side of the jetty, carried by stout white posts, and underneath were two protruding ends of heavy round crossbeams, on which one could sit astride in safety.

If a man like Day were too precipitate, he might take a header amongst the sharks, while if he didn’t hurry the bullock would get him. Day was just in time. With a snort the bullock reached for the disappearing figure – to catch instead the white post on the point of his horn and fell quivering, with half his skull lifted off. Suck a bullock when maddened was as savage as any Spanish bull and quicker on his feet, and it would have been nothing unusual for George to stand in front of him – to stop him, if possible, or to step aside at the last moment.

With the shelter of the Great Barrier Reef, which closed in going North until it was only 10 or 12 miles from the land, the passage from Bowen to Cooktown was usually good, the steady south east trader being fair winds, but there were occasional calms, when the closely packed animals were stifled by the heat. There were luxuriant tropical islands, isolated and in groups, along the Reef, mostly tree clad, with branches reaching out over the water. Vast flocks of Straits pigeons tempted us ashore, when there was some daylight left, after we had anchored for the night, as all vessels had to, and bordering the reef the sea teemed with fish.

Well did I remember, on our first journey north three young men who kept the deck always – except at meal times. We slept on deck, for the air was warm, and we needed only a blanket and pillow, as well as some care lest one of us might be brought face to face with and suffer by the evil influence of the tropical moon, a moon that in a few minutes turned wholesome fish into poison, and from the power of which, some time later, Smith suffered for several months.

During the day the three of us, strong in the vigour of youth, ready and eager to do or endure whatsoever Providence might assign, found absorbing interest in the grand panorama of the North Queensland coast. Confined as we were to such narrow waters, the land was always near, and there, spread before us and changing quickly enough, slow as was our little coastal steamer, was a splendid succession of hills and valleys and mountains, bays and estuaries, and glistening beaches. And it was empty. Looking due West, we knew there was an expanse of 2,000 miles without a white resident – only a handful of diggers attracted temporarily by gold.

And the coast upon which we gazed, being uninhabited save by a few nomadic blacks, suggested every possibility imaginable. With the fervour of youth we agreed that we could live for ever in that country – “for ever” seems to have changed its meaning.

Most of the coast was wooded, and part of it, as we found afterwards, was a dense jungle, 100 miles long, of giant tress – cedar, kauri pine etc –(reported in February of this year, 1930, to have been devastated by a cyclone). Along Trinity Bay, at the North end of this belt of trees, was a beach where children might have played – of shells and coral, ground fine and bleached white, so firmly compacted as to show scarce a trace of the wheels of heavily laden bullock drays, I saw some years later, on the way from Port Douglas to the Hodgkinson, and bordering for nine miles a sea sparkling in a purity that had never been defiled.

It was only a hundred years earlier that Captain Cook, in his little 400 ton ship, explored this coast, sounding and surveying on his leisurely way. All prominent features of the land bore the names given by him, and where settlement began and long after, it was on his work alone, in charting his course, that all navigators had to depend. In foul weather his ship, the Endeavour, was three times driven on to the Great Barrier Reef, and to repair the damage he had to careen her opposite what is now Cooktown, at the mouth of the river he named after his vessel.

It was here that the kangaroo (as the blacks called it) was first seen ‘ “a beast that ran like the Devil on its hind legs”, and which they afterwards found, when the blacks supplied them with kangaroos and fish, to be very like venison.

The blacks soon forgot Captain Cook and his big canoe; and they forgot our friend and enchanting storyteller James Morrell, who came to Bowen in 1863, after having been with a tribe for 17 years – as they forgot everything, in fact, for there could be no tradition amongst a people who dared not to speak of the dead or mention their names. It was only the “blackboy” who, having left his people young and been long “civilised”, would speak of the departed  - such as my mother’s “boy” Harry.

When gorgeous sunsets were common, there happened one evening to be one of amazing splendour, turning the West into a blazing fiery furnace. In answer to a question put to find if such a spectacle made any impression on the native mind, Harry said: “Me think good many black fellow dead, go alonga heaben, makein big fellow fire, cookum possum”.

Cooktown was a busy port, as long as the Palmer goldfields flourished, which was only some two or three years. George was making money, and Smith and I had made a good beginning with our business, we were all three of us putting our backs into the work

The Chinese - individually unobjectionable, but collectively intolerable - were arriving in shiploads under terms which gave their work to their bosses for three years for their fare and keep. They had their Chinatown on the outskirts of Cooktown - a place of sewerage, where they gambled their money away, and their credit, and even all that might remain to them of life; where they administered their own laws and inflicted their own penalties, even the death sentence being carried out - to the knowledge of the police, who tried in vain to discover the parties responsible. Many of them were used as beasts of burden, competing against packhorses in carrying provisions to the Palmer, and polluting the roads as they went. Dying compatriots looked in vain for even a drink of water, until force was used by passing whites, and the authorities had to keep parties of men constantly employed burying Chinamen. Smith was head and front in an agitation against the influx, and eventually succeeded in getting a poll-tax put on them - but not before 40,000 of them landed at Cooktown, and they had got, it was estimated, many tons of gold.

In our newspaper business Smith was always the head, and his policy ever was to get the ablest men available for our literary work. One of our staff at Cooktown was H. E. King, a well-known politician, fluent both with tongue and pen. At great sacrifice we broke a three years' agreement with him to permit of his accepting an offer of the portfolio of Minister for Mines. At that time we had as our chief correspondent on the Palmer Goldfields a very brilliant writer. "One-armed Jenkins" was a mystery: no one knew anything of his origin or how he had lost his left arm. But we knew his work - we knew too, he had many virtues and one vice. After three or maybe six months of splendid work he would suddenly set to and swallow by the bottle the poison sold as whisky, lying out under the fierce heat of the tropical sun or in torrents of rain. Yet even while so debasing himself, the instinct of his class kept him, in word and bearing, an English gentleman. His drunken fit having worn itself out in a week or so, he would appear on the morning after his last bottle, with an eye as clear and a hand as steady as a healthy child's. He had been on all the Australian Goldfields; a geologist and authority on mining matters, he appeared at home on whatever subject he took up. His ready resource was well tested by an incident on the Palmer. Roaming about on foot, as was his wont, he had to cross a tributary of the Palmer River, and set about it in the usual way, tying his belongings in a bundle which he strapped on his head, to keep it out of the water. The current was rapid and disturbed, and in midstream he lost his precious bundle, never to regain it. This was an awkward predicament for a famous journalist, naked and alone in a rugged, barren country, handicapped too, in having only one arm. However, having with the coarse river grass made a sort of sandwich-man of himself, he "walked delicately" picking his steps over the rough stony ground until, with feet bruised and cut, he found a prospectors' camp and was rigged out in rags. His chief concern was to find substitutes for his lost writing materials. There was little difficulty in making useful pens out of plain-turkey quills, and the bark of the ti-tree, resembling paper but extremely fragile, he thought he would make shift with, but he seemed stumped for ink. Every plant, every sapling that looked promising he tapped, but in vain until, after three diligent days he found a sap that served his purpose. Thereafter for several weeks we received rolls of correspondence, the news sheets fastened and protected round smooth sticks by a thick covering of the ti-tree bark - each "letter" resembling a little black piccaninny slung at its mother's back in its covering of bark. When gold was reported in New Guinea (after we had left Cooktown) there was an ill-fated rush, and the early history of One-armed Jenkins, accredited "special" of the Queenslander and Brisbane Courier, was lost under the clubs of the savage natives. Other lamented colleagues there were - Taylor, qualified for his work in London and Valpariso; Godwin, Oxford, ponderous enough for The Times; Sigerson, another brilliant mystery; Coleman, Mus. D. ("Mustard Coleman"), Cambridge, versatile and charming, under whose touch the always overworked piano became almost as eloquent as his pen. Alas, for these and for some few others like them, who, in the burning heat of the Back Blocks or the steam bath of the tropical coast, were unable to endure the perpetual mental strain imposed by their work.

I do not think any of us looked upon George’s business as a permanent thing, even although it was paying well and his occupation with it was not uncongenial – the buying and shipping of cattle and a general supervision. We were therefore not surprised when he decided to give it up. He had at last caught the gold fever, and that doubtless had much to do with his decision. The “Gold Fever” was a state of mental restlessness hard to combat, depriving the victim of sleep, and impelling him to abandon everything and join in some new mad rush. Instances were common of men under a vow against gold diggings and long settled comfortably in the south, suddenly throwing up everything to rush off to the other end of the country on the mere report of gold being found. One such attack would have made me throw away very good prospects for Smith’s restraining influence.

Having made up his mind, George lost no time in selling out and, with a mate, starting for the gold fields – where, as it turned out, he was not to remain long.

On the Palmer, gold was scattered over a wide area, and new rushes were frequent, to creeks or gullies or ravines in that broken, mountainous country.

When “good gold” was found the practice was usually to “keep it dark”, until the discoverers had time to tell their friends, but it was remarkable how the news got out.

When George and his mate arrived at the main camp – so called because it was the principal centre, with the Government officials and public offices – there was a big rush on and the air was filled with rumours of wonderful finds.

By the time they reached the locality, however, the rush was already overdone, so they went off prospecting on their own account. They got gold- it was to be found almost everywhere – but not rich enough to satisfy them, and they kept working out until, some 20 or 30 miles from the nearest camp, George became ill. The water was bad. Fever of a malignant nature was prevalent, and presumably George’s powers of resistance had not yet wholly recovered from his prolonged attack of fever and ague, the effects of which remained persistently in the system. At any rate he was now laid up with a most severe attack of fever.

Men working alone in the bush (“hatters”, they were called) were comparatively helpless, and therefore prospectors and diggers worked as “mates”, in twos or parties up to eight.

There was no written agreement – merely a customary understanding that they were to share alike in all things, and a great deal might be told about their honourable fulfilment of all their unwritten obligations. There were occasions, however – but extremely rare – when we heard of men reaching the lowest depths of meanness in cheating their own mates, or leaving them in the lurch in danger or sickness.

George’s mate, Joseph Larkin, was a Celtic Irishman, better educated than the average, whom he had known slightly. With all the world looking on, he would probably have shown courage enough but, like many of his breed, he was at heart a mean coward.

One could not always get just the sort of mate he wished, and the gold fever had precipitated George’s arrangements. In taking such a mate at all, it might be thought that for once his judgment was at fault. But as a matter of fact, it was not. Before leaving Cooktown, George told us he felt certain he could not trust Larkin, but he also assured us of his ability to straighten him up if he tried any tricks – a task he was quite competent for, although not within perhaps two stone of Larkin’s weight. But he could not then have contemplated what was really to happen.

George’s condition quickly grew worse, and Larkin took fright.

Beyond giving him some of the fever medicine everybody carried, he did nothing to help his presumably dying mate, and when George became very weak, Larkin took the two strongest horses and cleared out. But he did not report the matter to the police, but continued a very hurried journey right through to Cooktown. There he declared that he himself had had fever and in delirium had left George, “then as good as dead”. That was his story, and taking it together with the man’s appearance, our doctor told us it was incredible.

The day after his arrival in Cooktown, he managed secretly to get away in a south bound steamer and we never saw or heard of him again. There was no telegraph wire, or we might have had him detained, for his conduct suggested murder.

When George realised that he had been deserted, which he did in a kind of stupor, being much of the time unconscious, it seemed to him, as he thought afterwards, that one dominant idea became fixed in his brain – to get away – to look for help. The effort to get on his trousers and boots completely exhausted him.

It was fortunate the two remaining horses were weak, from want of food and were hobbled close to the tent. It took him most of the afternoon, he thought, to catch one of them and, after many failures, to put the saddle on him.

And then he was so tired he had to lie down again. And it was in the early morning, he thought, that he awoke to where he was and what he had to do. But he knew he could not mount; all he could do was to stretch his arm over the saddle and lean on the horse, which, being weak, walked very quietly along with him.

Many times he tripped on the rough ground, and sometimes fell, but he held the reins, and the horse waited for him until he had rested and was able to get up again. When he had been travelling a long long time, his horse lifted his head and neighed, looking intently at something straight ahead.

There, sure enough was a tent, and not far from it, by a rocky waterhole, were two men, intent upon a “prospect” one of them was washing in a tin dish.

Probably George had only travelled two or three miles, but the marvel was that he could move at all, and at the tent he collapsed.

They put him to bed and he became delirious.

But they were good men; they watched over him night and day until he was well enough to be lifted onto his horse, to be held on while they took him slowly to a camp having some accommodation and a doctor.

A few weeks later he was brought to Cooktown, on horse back all the way, for as yet in that rough country no route suitable for wheeled traffic had been found.

That for Geogre proved to be the last of the goldfields, and so for the time might be taken for his school days, for he was little more than of age when, a gaunt wreck of what he had been, he returned to Bowen, once more to be nursed back to health.

In other circumstances, his life till then would have been spent in the classrooms and playground. But for him instruction was found only in a rough school of practical experience, and his games had been work.

For one he greatly loved I have wished to tell something of George, in his youth, before she came to know him, but fear I have only indicated the path he followed. Perhaps from that, from the surroundings and conditions of life and the way he came through, some idea may be formed of what he was like. The social atmosphere was not altogether good in those early days. The men on the goldfields were generally a splendid lot, yet there was much dissipation, and the climate and the conditions under which men had to live encouraged dissipation. Very many strong men found the temptation more than they could resist, and went under.

But George came through unscathed. His mother’s influence seemed never absent, and his conduct varied slightly, if it varied at all, from what it would have been with her by his side.

We have passed through a long struggle, during which marvelous deeds by our young men have been recorded daily. They had their opportunities and rose to them in such a way as to astonish the world. By comparison the most stirring life in times of peace seems flat and dull. There were no big events in George’s early life, because there were no opportunities, but had it been otherwise – had he had the chance, there can be no doubt as to what use he would have made of it.

Thereafter for a number of years we did not see much of each other. Smith and I went on to the Hodgkinson goldfield- high in promise, but a bitter disappointment, where for the first 18 months two-thirds of the deaths were violent- thence to the great wool country, and subsequently to the silver fields, while George remained at Bowen.

But the never failing weekly letters from my mother, kept us in touch and told us all he was doing.

So far George had seemed constant only in change. He had been but a boy, however, growing fast in a hot, enervating climate, and his naturally robust health had been affected by fever. Now he was a man, and he set about doing a man’s work.

He would have become a squatter, with a cattle station, or a “planter”, sugar growing on a large scale, but for want of the necessary means.

So with his mind set on an open air life, he made a more humble beginning, with some breeding cattle, a few mares, and land to cultivate.

Smith had secured some good land on the Don River, a few miles from Bowen, where we had all spent many hot and happy holidays, chopping and burning.

But now for George it was to be a serious business.

In England a beginner is guided by the experience of a thousand years, but here there was little of such help, and he had to learn as he went along.

Prices of produce and cost of freight prohibited export, and the local market was small.

Labour was always a difficulty. The Kanakas, or South Sea Islander, was industrious, contented, and capable of sustained toil, but white labourers a thousand miles away thought that the Kanakas violated their privileges, and he was excluded.

The native blacks were of no use.

The difficulties were many and ever present, and George faced them with patient and steadfast resolution

Year by year he improved his position, at the same time providing a comfortable home for his mother.

It was a land of abundance, a land truly of milk and honey, but there was no “flowing” without persistent efforts.

It was healthy, too, but hot desperately hot for half of the year.

In such circumstances George held on to what he had begun. He had, literally and figuratively, put his hand to the plough, and there was no turning back – at no time was there any sign of faint heartedness.

Shorthanded, almost always in need of help, he himself worked “while it was day” with a vengeance.

Early and late he toiled and in heat almost past endurance, with a capacity for work that was great, he drew upon his powers to the utmost.

His work was not that of the mere labourer; a shrewd intelligence directed his every effort – so well, indeed, as to assure an independence after ten or twelve years.

With all his hard work, he continued to join in whatever was going in the way of reasonable recreation and amusement, and in giving a hand in every movement he thought of public advantage.

At the local sports and races he was a prominent figure, ready to ride the worst horse that could be found, or put on the gloves with anyone, for as a horseman or boxer he was probably second to none in Queensland.

His qualities gained for him the respect and affection of the people where he was known – true friends, who will now be saddened by the thought that they are not again to look upon his face.

I have been going back over a long long trail, and in doing so have become more and more convinced of what I have always believed – that George had a happy life, and in the story of it, if it were truly and justly told, there should be no sadness at all.

Dear George! As a boy he was much of a man. As a man he had always something of the boy.

Douglas RReid

1930>

+++++

Footnote by son George Macfarlane Reid:

George my father visited Scotland about 1890 staying with cousins.

He met and married my mother Gertrude Macquistan, oldest daughter of the Rev. Alexander Macquistan, D.D., the Manse, and Inverkip.

George only returned once after that to Australia.

Family lived along the Clyde, mostly at Prestwick, Ayrshire.

He loved golf and riding and was a Director of Sulphide Corporation with its headquarters in London.

He died at 65 in 1919 when I was in Egypt with the Royal Air Force.

He was buried at Glenburn Cemetery, Prestwick, where my darling mother joined him in 1949.

George was 6 ft, thin and athletic and hard as iron physically, very bronzed by the sun.

A bit fierce, but kind and straight as a die.

My mother Gertrude Macfarlane Reid was lovely in her youth and old age as you can see from her pictures. Lovely in face and form and very competent in character.

Ranald Macfarlane Reid

18^th January 1956.

The original text written by William Douglas Reid in 1930, was annotated in the 1980s, by Professor K H. Kennedy a well known historian on North Queensland history.

He provided valuable footnotes, which are appended here:

“In 1930 William Douglas Reid compiled a memoir on the early life of his late brother, George Macfarlane Reid. It provides not only a rare insight into the life and experiences of a family migrating to North Queensland in the 1860s, but also an invaluable account of early Bowen and the gold rushes of the 1870s, especially to Ravenswood, Charters Towers and the Palmer River. Few first hand accounts of the first years of settlement in North Queensland have survived; among then William Douglas Reid’s short memoir is outstanding for its graphic description.”

In editing and annotating William Douglas Reid’s typescript, Professor Kennedy said that he omitted approximately twenty per cent of the original text – namely the more personal reminiscences of George Macfarlane Reid’s character, idiosyncrasies and boyhood adventures and some family matters. The effect said, Professor Kennedy, “is to emphasize broader themes and highlight episodes on which little else has been recorded. Spelling, grammar and punctuation have been retained in their original form both in reproducing the memoir and in citing extracts of the Diary of Abijou Good for purposes of comparison.”

Having access to the family handed down version of the original, we see no great compelling reason to perform similar deletions, and are happy to include the totality of our great uncles’ transcript, which is what appears above. There is no harm in being proud of our incredible ancestors. Did they make a mark in Australian history!

We are indebted to Professor Kennedy for much on the history of North Queensland. He continued:

“A copy of the William Douglas Reid transcript was provided by the Bowen Historical Society, and permission to reproduce the memoir was given by Sir George Ranald Macfarlane Reid who deposited the original. The University of Melbourne Archives has permitted the reproduction in part of two letters from the James Smith Reid papers, and James Cook University authorised the use of excerpts from the diary of Abijou Good.

The Reverend James Reid and his family departed Liverpool on 18 June 1863. They arrived at Keppel Bay on 13 October 1863, the voyage lasting 118 days. The Reverend James Reid was appointed to the parish of Bowen soon after; he was the first Presbyterian Minister in North Queensland and only the third clergyman to be stationed north of the Tropic of Capricorn. (By 1864 three denominations had been established at Bowen- Roman Catholic – William McGinty; Church of England – F. T. Grovenor; and Presbyterian – James Reid).

The Reids emigrated on the barque “Rockhampton” under the command of Captain Joseph Brough. James Reid, then aged 50, and Eliza Reid, nee` Smith, (38), were accompanied by their five children: James Smith Reid (15), Mary Reid (13), John Reid (11), William Douglas Reid (10) and George Macfarlane Reid (8).

The “Rockhampton” of 1065 tons was from the Black Ball Line of James Baines and Company, probably the best known company in the Australian immigrant trade.

It is believed that the Reid’s first child, a son, died in infancy.

The typescript by William Douglas Reid, refers only in passing to Mary Reid, and does not mention John Reid by name.

Little is known of these two children. [Said Professor Kennedy –but as you can see, there is a full and elaborate family history derived from the sister, Margery Dill Reid although we know nothing about John Reid].

The recollections of the voyage out by William Douglas Reid can be compared to other similar recollections. For instance, H. H. S. Hurle and Abijou Good. Hurle’s voyage in 1865 on the “Queen of the Colonies: was reconstructed some fifty years later with the aid of diary notes and has been published in ‘Queensland Heritage’ I, 6 (1976). Abijou kept a diary of his voyage on the “Belgrave” in 1863 – James Cook University Archives.

Ships out used to take what was known as the Great Circle route – G Blainey “The Tyranny of Distance.”

The Reids put ashore at Rockhampton.

No sooner had the vessel discharged passengers at Keppel Bay, prior to sailing for Moreton Bay, than the local police magistrate and the acting district health officer filed condemnatory reports on its state and on the competence of its master with the immigration authorities in Brisbane.

James Jardine, the Magistrate, found the ship “in a wretched condition” on several accounts: accommodation, cleanliness and light in the steerage section were inadequate. Further he drew attention to Captain Brough’s relationship with Eliza Cassidy: he had removed her to superior accommodation and she had spent “a great portion of her days and nights in the Captain’s cabin.”

Similarly, Callaghan, the health officer, complained of poor ventilation in steerage and that “too many passengers were carried in proportion to the tonnage.”

Jardine substantiated his charges with a letter from James Reid, who, although Chaplain for the voyage from Liverpool to Brisbane, deserted the ship at Keppel Bay for fear of the lives of his family. That “the ship left Liverpool in a dirty and unfinished condition, that she was overcrowded,” that the “health and comfort of the passengers was neglected,” that “dietry fell short” and “medicine necessary to disease for the climate was wanting” was only incidental to the “conduct of the Captain”.

As (the Rev.) James Reid claimed:

“From the commencement of this voyage I regarded his procedure as strange and somewhat erratic in mind, but dreamed not for some time the cause. Soon however I had cause to attribute his strange conduct to intemperance …From the time of our sighting Tasmania until that of our dropping anchor in Keppel bay we had several most providential escapes from shipwreck and perishing. The imminent dangers in those cases, attributable as I believe to the intoxicated and consequently incompetent state of the Captain.”

At subsequent inquiry it was concluded that “the Captain was an habitual drunkard,” “that he removed a single female from the berth she occupied…and that there can be no moral doubt of their improper intercourse during some weeks of the voyage.” Further, “the matron neglected her duties” and the surgeon “did not duly estimate his position on board, or the importance of his charge.” As for the Rockhampton, its fittings were “altogether very defective,” “some cabins were most unwarrantedly crowded,” “the water closets were kept in a most offensive condition and the hospital rendered useless by the bad construction of one immediately over it,” and there was, moreover, “a serious want of discipline and order on board in everything relating to the social comforts of the Immigrants.” – Report of the Immigration Board of Inquiry on ship Rockhampton, November 1863.

J. M. Black’s Jarvisfield station was situated on the northern bank towards the mouth of the Burdekin River.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Edward Palmer, Early Days in North Queensland (Sydney 1903).”Several of these first newcomers took up coast runs and stocked them with sheep, believing they would thrive there. This was a mistake …For a few years in some places they did well enough, but they soon began to die from fluke, worms, and grass seeds, and they were accordingly replaced with cattle. The sheep on being removed to western pastures throve well, and soon recovered health. The seeds of the spear grass were a terrible scourge – they are finely barbed and intensely sharp and hard; once entered they pass right through the skin of the sheep, even into the flesh causing great annoyance and leading to poverty and death.

Ravenswood was North Queensland’s first reefing field, though it was not until the turn of the century that a process was devised to release the gold from the mundic ores. Thereafter A. L. Wilson’s New Ravenswood Company became a very profitable concern for nearly fifty years.

James Smith Reid published the first issue of the Ravenswood Miner in mid October 1879, having gained previous experience as a printer on the Port Denison Times. The imprint showed J. S. Reid as sole proprietor until 24 May 1883 when W. D. Reid’s name was incorporated.

Life on the goldfields in the 1870s has often been romanticized, and even contemporary exaggerations by writers such as W. R. O. Hill have to be treated with caution, says Professor Kennedy. For example, Hill described the Cape River as a “decidedly rough locality, there being fully two thousand five hundred men, representing many nationalities, and among them the scum of all the Southern Gold Fields…Dreadful stuff, called whisky, rum and brandy was sold in shilling drinks, and there was no need to wonder that many of the poor fellows, after the usual spree, became raving maniacs. Picture in your imagination a mob of two hundred or three hundred half drunk semi madmen running amok with each other in the brutal fights which were a daily occurrence. I have seen a man kicked to death in the open daylight”: W. R. O. Hill Forty Five Years Experiences in North Queensland 1861 – 1905 (Brisbane 1907).

Neither Jardine nor Daintree, Government officers who filed reports on the field in 1870 and 1872 respectively had cause to comment on the society at Cape River. Jardine, referring to the new rush at Charters Towers, acclaimed “the love of order amongst the majority of the population.” – Report by J. Jardine on the Goldfields of Charters Towers, Broughton, Cape River, Ravenswood and Normandy. 31 December 1872. Votes and Proceedings 1873 p 1074.

Again emphasing the violent nature of the Palmer River goldfield, Hill wrote: “I was sound asleep in my tent, and awakened by an awful scream…(We) found an unfortunate woman lying on the ground in a small tent, with her right arm chopped completely off above the elbow. The wretch who did it was never found, but I believe the woman eventually recovered. A man was stabbed through the heart by his mate …, without the least discernible provocation, and a storekeeper who lived not far from my camp was butchered, and his store ransacked by blacks. Scores of other exciting incidents made life on the Palmer active enough…(On) the road we met a constable who was riding out with the sad news that Sub-Inspector F… had just shot himself. We went at once and broke open the door of the poor fellows office, to find that he had discharged a rifle into his mouth, his head being blown to pieces. I noticed two holes in the iron roof, one of which was made by the bullet, and the other we found out afterwards was made by a piece of the skull being blown clear through the iron, as I found the piece on the roof.” Hill op. cit. pp 73-4.

Warden P. F. Sellheim reported of the Palmer goldfield in 1878: “this goldfield has been very orderly all along.”

Charles Powell’s Salisbury Plains station was situated about 23 miles west north west from Bowen.

The medical practitioner was probably E. Doudney, later a surgeon at Ipswich, and the lawyer was either C. W. Blakeney, former M.L.A. for Brisbane, appointed a district court judge in 1865, or W. T. Blakeney, a commissioner of the Supreme Court of N.S.W.

Mosman, Fraser and Clarke registered their claims to prospect auriferous country, soon after to be known as Charters Towers, in January 1872. Over the following forty years the reefs were to yield over six million fine ounces of gold.

Patrick Cassady’s Leichhardt Downs station was situated on the Burdekin River, inland from Jarvisfield.

Thaddeus O’Kane had acquired a half share in the Northern Miner in August 1873, and in January 1874 purchased the Reid’s remaining interests. The last issue of the Ravenswood Miner was published on 17 January 1874.

The new paper was the Cooktown Courier which appeared in March 1874.

Edward Palmer, Early Days in North Queensland, recalled that the “journalistic standard of the early days of Cooktown was esteemed, comparatively speaking, brilliant.”

There was rivalry between James Smith Reid and his competitor, the Cooktown Herald, as in November 1874, a court case resulted from Reid’s trespassing on the Herald’s premises, daubing paste on the type in the galley and plying the employees with grog. No fine was imposed.

Palmer ibid: “Rations were dear in the early days; carriage to Maytown was up to £120 per ton, beef was selling at 1s per lb…Early in 1874, the last of the flour was selling at 3s 6d per pannikinful, and even an old working bullock when killed was eagerly bought up at 1s per pound; the last pairs of Blucher boots were sold at 39s.”

Corfield – Reminiscences of Queensland 1862 – 1899 (Brisbane 1921): “I disposed of everything at high prices. Thus flour, 200 lbs bag for £20, and other things at like value.”

“Palmer fever” was a constant threat to the diggers, though probably some instances were malaria. Of the 175 deaths officially recorded between 26 October 1873 and 4 July 1875 47 were attributed to fever and 73 to dysentery.

The gold rushes conferred several years of prosperity on the northern pastoral industry. Allingham comments that they “probably saved the Kennedy squatters from complete insolvency and retreat, as befell many western counterparts, and in the 1870s gold continued to shape their fortunes.” Further, that the Palmer was “the most irresistible and numerically spectacular of the North Queensland fields, which the squatter welcomed as representing as even wider local market.” Taming the Wilderness

James Morrill was shipwrecked on the barque Peruvian in 1846. After his rescue from Cleveland Bay, he was repatriated to Bowen, but in 1864 agreed to accompany Dalrymple to Rockingham Bay to survey the township of Cardwell. He died the following year.

While James Smith Reid was editor of the Cooktown Courier, his journal published many letters to the editor propounding anti-Chinese views, but it was not until he established a newspaper on the Hodgkinson Goldfield that aggressive anti-Chinese editorials emanated from his pen, the thrust of which called for a poll tax lest the colony “becomes the habitation of wealthy graziers, Mongolians and Kanakas.” Hodgkinson Mining News editorial 7 April 1877.

In one of his last editorials at Thornborough, James Smith Reid blamed the Chinese for polluting the Hodgkinson River: “The same outpouring of filthy suds and stirring of muddy ooze by Chinamen’s feet continues, and in consequence the water is too offensive for ablutionary purposes.” (4 August 1877).

The resentment of Chinese intensified with the arrival of large numbers from overseas in 1875, coinciding with James Smith Reid departing the Palmer. His agitation from the Hodgkinson was motivated, says Professor Kennedy, not from the numbers on that field, but by fear of a repetition of the economic competition between Europeans and Chinese which had developed on the Palmer and by a popular fervour for restrictive legislation. Significantly European miners’ sentiments were mollified by the Chinese Immigrants Regulation Act 1877 and the Gold Fields Amendment Act 1877. The former placed a poll tax of £10 per head on Chinese immigrants.

Henry Edward King worked as a goldminer, journalist, government administrator and solicitor during his lifetime. He was also a member of the Legislative Assembly from 1870-73, 1874-83, and Secretary for Public Works and Mines from 1874-76. He was on the staff of the Cooktown Courier during 1874, prior to his election to the Ravenswood constituency.

This man was more than likely their former business associate in the Cooktown Courier as the imprint of the early editions read: “Printed and published by James Smith Reid and Joseph Edward Larkin.” This partnership was dissolved on 1 October 1874.

The characteristics of the northern digger were perceptively recorded by the Palmer River warden (Sellheim) in 1878: “If the Northern miner has one besetting sin, and, if since a thing is possible, even in a larger degree than his southern brother – and it certainly proves the existence of, at any rate, a remnant of energy that even the severity of the Northern climate has not been able to deprive him of – it is his readiness at a moment’s notice to sacrifice his all, if required, to enable him to hurry off to the scene of some new discovery – good or bad or authenticated or not. He most probably leaves a claim that means good wages, if nothing better, and tramps, suffering all kinds of of danger and hardships, on his way to some locality where, on calm reflection, his own commonsense and long experience would have told him that payable gold at the best could be but a very remote contingency; but his remembrance of having once missed a rush where his mate made a rise is too powerful an argument for him to overcome, and hence his determination at all hazards not again to lose another chance attached to some new Eldorado.” Mines Dept 1878.

Twenty years after leaving the Palmer, James Smith Reid wrote to his wife of a church service in Scotland which triggered strong memories of his youth: “The minister was speaking of the great and lasting benefit which must always result from the early training of children by pious parents, and he told a story of a young man who had been brought up as a child to love and fear God, but who had gone to Australia and given way to drink and evil habits, until he brought himself down almost as low as he could come. The thought of his early training came to him, and he had the courage left to abandon his evil courses and bring himself back to be the honored and respected man. It was my own story to the very letter – so true that I wondered if Mother could have told the Minister.” James Smith Reid to Martha Reid, 8 November 1895. Reid Papers

James Smith Reid and William Douglas Reid sold the Cooktown Courier to Henry Hoghton in June 1875. After a respite at Bowen, James Smith Reid returned north and opened another newspaper at Thornborough, the Hodgkinson Mining News. He relinquished to William Douglas Reid and William Isaac Booth in October 1877, they in turn sold out in 1879.

In 1880, the Reid brothers opened the Western Grazier at Wilcannia, New South Wales, a prosperous wool depot on the Darling River.

Four years later, James Smith Reid commenced the journal with which his name has been identified by many historians the Silver Age.

It was his Silverton presses which chronicled the rise of Broken Hill, and in fact James Smith Reid printed the Proprietary’s first prospectus in 1885.

His appetite for railways and mining company promotion was insatiable once he successfully launched the Silverton Tramway Company.

In 1888 he was elected a director of B.H.P. with the strong backing of Adelaide shareholders, but resigned in November 1889.

Thereafter he was the driving force behind the Tarrawingee Flux Company (1891), the Emu Bay Railway Company (1897) and the Chillagoe Proprietary Company (1897) which operated railways in western New South Wales, Tasmania, and North Queensland respectively.

His mining activities included the Euriowie Tinfields in New South Wales (1892), gold mines at Coolgardie (1893), the Sulphide Corporation (1895), Chillagoe Railways and Mines Limited (1897) and its associated ventures at Mount Garnet, Mungana, Forsayth, and Mount Mulligan.

Indeed, Chillagoe was his major enterprise for the last twenty five years of his life; its failure and the Mount Mulligan disaster probably hastened his death on 15 January 1922.

Although 72 years of age when he died, the impact of the Mount Mulligan fatalities must have been immeasurable.

At least William Douglas Reid appreciated his brother’s despair when writing to him in October 1921”

“The papers have published cables announcing the utter destruction of the Mount Mulligan coal workings and I take it that, if their statements are in accordance with the facts this terrible convulsion which had killed and wrecked all within reach means the end of the Chillagoe Co. I am very sorry to think so, for a very selfish reason, but my regret I think is chiefly on your account, knowing that it will be a very bitter disappointment to you, after the hard and long sustained effort you have made, really against fate, to turn defeat into success. Sad yet it may prove to be a good thing to you. If it does really mean the end of Chillagoe and you can accept the inevitable, a crushing load of worry and anxiety will have been removed from your shoulders, and you will be the gainer in improved health. That is what I hope, and I believe it will prove to be so, if you give up this most unfortunate concern.”

For his part, William Douglas Reid led a more constrained life, though for many years in the shadow of his eldest brother. He departed for England in 1899, but returned in the early 1890s to join George Reid on the Western Australia goldfields.

Connected with the rise of Mount Lyell, he served as a director of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company for two years until returning to England permanently in early 1897.

However, he retained his links with the Australian mining industry, initially through James Smith Reid, as a London director of many companies.

After serving the Chillagoe Company (1899 – 1919), Mungana (Chillagoe) Mining Company (1901 – 1915), and Mount Garnet Freehold Copper and Silver Mining Company (1901 – 1903), he was invited to join the London boards of Mount Elliott Limited (19999909 – 1921), Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited (1907- 1916), Mount Cuthbert No Liability (1909 – 1911) and finally B.H.P. (1909 – 1932).

He died at Balcombe, Sussex, on 9 September 1932 aged 80.

In 1917, the fire-brand Labor member for Bourke (Victoria) Frank Anstey published an anti-capitalist tract entitled Money Power in which he named the “economic lords” of the Metal Gang: along with the Robinsons, Baillieus, Monty Cohen, H. V. McKay, Sir John Grice, Bowes Kelly, Duncan McBryde and others, he listed W. A. (presumably William Douglas) and James Smith Reid.

George Macfarlane Reid bred cattle at Bowen for many years after leaving the Palmer.

He visited Scotland in 1890 where he married Gertrude Macquistan.

At Coolgardie in 1893, he quarreled with his brother William Douglas Reid and returned to Ayrshire in Scotland.

They were not reconciled for several years, but afterwards re-emerged strong friends.

Largely through James Smith Reid, George Reid was appointed a director  of the Sulphide Corporation (1895 – 1919), St. George (Coolgardie) Gold Mines (1895 – 1898) and Mount Burgess Gold Mining (1894 – 1899), though, in his own right, was involved in other mining ventures in Scotland and the United States.

He died, aged 65, in November 1919.