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--- gaining_colonial_experience_early_properties [2024/07/22 21:55] – [Hawkwood 1854-58] judith
+++ gaining_colonial_experience_early_properties [2026/01/31 18:48] (current) – [Hawkwood 1854-58] judith
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 ====== Gaining Colonial Experience ======
-When TLM-P wrote his [[roxburgh_castle_memoir|memoir]] about his voyage to Australia, he commented that he was too ill to work outside, 'almost the first time after sixty years of robust health'. That 60 years of good health, his enjoyment of hard physical activity((a trait he shared with many other successful squatters, see Barry Stone, //The Squatters: The Story of Australia's Pastoral Pioneers//, Allen & Unwin, 2019)) and general sociability, were major influences on his life in Australia. He needed all these attributes because he arrived at a bad time for the colony. The years 1838-40 were ones of severe drought; it contributed to an economic depression which was at its worst during 1842-43. TLM-P's fellow passenger, the Rev. W. Clarke, provides us with a glimpse of the difficulties when he wrote in August 1841:'The whole colony is in a state of distress ... There is scarcely one man in a thousand who can pay his way, even public men [government employees] are unpaid ... We are all nearly ruined together.' The rural districts, as Elena Grainger writes, had 'the reek of boiling-down works pervading the air as graziers melted down the fat from the meat from their sheep rather than give them away for wool or mutton, or, worse, allow the tortured ewes to nudge their still-born lambs until they too died of thirst.' ((Elena Grainger, //The remarkable Reverend Clarke: the life and times of the father of Australian geology//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp.84-85)) On the plus side, there was an acute shortage of healthy young men like TLM-P, especially from 1840 after the colonists successfully ended convict transportation to NSW, despite the protests of those squatters wanting cheap labour.\\
+When TLM-P wrote his [[roxburgh_castle_memoir|memoir]] about his voyage to Australia, he commented that he was too ill to work outside, 'almost the first time after sixty years of robust health'. That 60 years of good health, his enjoyment of hard physical activity((a trait he shared with many other successful squatters, see Barry Stone, //The Squatters: The Story of Australia's Pastoral Pioneers//, Allen & Unwin, 2019)) and general sociability, were major influences on his life in Australia. He needed all these attributes because he arrived at a bad time for the colony. The years 1838-40 were ones of severe drought; it contributed to an economic depression which was at its worst during 1842-43. TLM-P's fellow passenger, the Rev. W. Clarke, provides us with a glimpse of the difficulties when he wrote in August 1841:'The whole colony is in a state of distress ... There is scarcely one man in a thousand who can pay his way, even public men [government employees] are unpaid ... We are all nearly ruined together.' The rural districts, as Elena Grainger writes, had 'the reek of boiling-down works pervading the air as graziers melted down the fat from the meat from their sheep rather than give them away for wool or mutton, or, worse, allow the tortured ewes to nudge their still-born lambs until they too died of thirst.' ((Elena Grainger, //The remarkable Reverend Clarke: the life and times of the father of Australian geology//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, pp.84-85)) On the plus side, there was an acute shortage of healthy young men like TLM-P, especially from 1840 after the colonists successfully ended convict transportation to NSW.\\
+\\
+TLM-P came to have a romantic view of those men, similar to himself, who flocked to the colonies in 1839-40, describing them as 'a fine set of young fellows, full of pluck & energy, ready to go at & overcome all obstacles - just the stuff to make Pioneer in a new country.' Convicts too, he considered, were ambitious to serve out their sentence and make a new life in the colony - though he also noted that some unscrupulous masters trumped up charges against their useful men to ensure they could not get their ticket of leave.((Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/. He goes into some detail about his understanding of how the convict system worked in practice.)) \\
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 TLM-P was too late for free land grants, but he benefited from the increasing privatisation of the land in what is now Queensland. As one British observer wrote, in the early 1840s Australians turned to the Moreton Bay area, 'from which all are now hoping to extract the golden fleece, that tempted them to these distant shores.'((John Hood, //Australia and the East//, London: John Murray, 1843, p.198.)) The area was opened to free settlement after the Moreton Bay penal settlement closed in 1842, three years after TLM-P arrived in Australia. Initially the government sold yearly depasturing licences which allowed squatters to graze stock on Crown lands beyond the limits of location. After the 1847 Land Act  made it possible to buy land,((the Colony of NSW, then including Queensland, was divided into Settled, Intermediate and Unsettled categories, with leases available for 1, 8 and 14 years respectively.[[http://heritagegenealogy.com.au/a-timeline-of-land-ownership/]])) settlers could purchase land freehold.(([[https://www.dnrm.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/389422/landtenureqld.pdf]]: "Freehold land is the most complete form available for land alienation from the State. It is purchased from the State. Ownership by the titleholder is not absolute however, as the State is empowered to withhold certain rights, such as the right to any minerals or petroleum. In addition, use of the land may be controlled by legislation ... Non-freehold land is land under the control of the State of Queensland but which may be subject to a lease, licence or permit, reserved for a community purpose, dedicated as a road or subject to no tenure at all.""))\\
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 ==== Dalwood, 1839-c.1840 ====
-The first thing TLM-P needed was to gain colonial experience, a form of internship to learn the ways of the colony. He did so on //Dalwood// station, near Maitland in the [[wp>Hunter_Region|Hunter Valley]], north of Sydney.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.)) Dalwood House (pictured) {{http://www.dalwood.org.au/assets/images/dalwood-house.jpg?300}} is now a National Trust Property, located within the Wyndham Estate Winery.(({{https://www.dalwood.org.au/dalwood-house.html}}. As at 2016, it was not open to the public.)) In 1839 //Dalwood// was the home of George and Margaret Wyndham and, luckily, some of his family letters have survived.\\
+The first thing TLM-P needed was to gain colonial experience, a form of internship to learn the ways of the colony. He did so on a property called Dalwood, near Maitland in the [[wp>Hunter_Region|Hunter Valley]], north of Sydney.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.)) Dalwood House (pictured) {{http://www.dalwood.org.au/assets/images/dalwood-house.jpg?300}} is now a National Trust Property, located within the Wyndham Estate Winery.(({{https://www.dalwood.org.au/dalwood-house.html}}. As at 2016, it was not open to the public.)) In 1839 Dalwood was the home of George and Margaret Wyndham and, luckily, some of his family letters have survived.\\
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-How did TLM-P end up at //Dalwood//? The chance preservation of a letter in the Wyndham collection tells us. It was due to the strong network of the military men who fought in the long war against Napoleon((Christine Wright, //Wellington's Men in Australia: Peninsula War and the making of Empire, c. 1820-40//, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.)) and a chance encounter. On 22 December 1838, William Wyndham sat down in his English home and wrote to George Wyndham in Australia, telling him that their relative Arthur Heathcote had written:\\
+How did TLM-P end up at Dalwood? The chance preservation of a letter in the Wyndham collection tells us. It was due to the strong network of the military men who fought in the long war against Napoleon((Christine Wright, //Wellington's Men in Australia: Peninsula War and the making of Empire, c. 1820-40//, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.)) and a chance encounter. On 22 December 1838, William Wyndham sat down in his English home and wrote to George Wyndham in Australia, telling him that their relative Arthur Heathcote had written:\\
 'to say a friend of his (or rather his son) is about to sail in a few days for Sydney to seek his fortune. It is Mr. Prior, a young man Heathcote speaks well of, a son of, I believe, a brother-officer of his and one who fought on the plain of Waterloo. I met the young man at Farnborough Castle Fair with Heathcote.... I do not know for certain what line the young man intends to follow, but have no doubt it is that of farming. If you can show him any kindness in the way of hospitality, etc., I shall be much obliged to you. It is now become so fashionable [to make] a trip to your new country that I think your hospitality will be heavily taxed ere long, but I should fancy that any face fresh from home must be very welcome.'((Charlotte and Phillip Wright (compiled and ed.) //Extracts from Dinton-Dalwood Letters from 1827-1853//, Sydney: authors, 1927, p.148.))\\
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 While we are lucky to have the above pieces of evidence, luck runs out with George Wyndham's diary for 1830-40.((SLNSW MS1313)) It is brief and largely focused on the weather - sadly, it makes no reference to TLM-P.\\
+\\
+In recounting his memories of his early days to his daughter Rosa, TLM-P recalled that when he was at //Dalwood// in c.1839 [actually in late 1840], he had his first encounter with bushrangers, the gang led by [[wp>Edward_Davis_(bushranger)]] known as 'the "Jew Boy"' (he was Jewish). He recounted how he 'foolishly joined' a party to scour the country looking for them - perhaps foolishly because it was unlikely he was an experienced rider. TLM-P recounted how they didn't find the gang, but his (later) [[wp>Jacob_Low_(squatter-legislator)| 'old friend Jacob Low']] did. Low was with 'Mr Pringle's drays' going to the property Rocky Creek which, as outline below, TLM-P later managed. Low managed to fool the gang that he was too naive to be a danger: 'Low looking as simple as he could - he always was a cool card - said "Put the gun on one side, it might go off & hurt me." "The cove is a fool" said the Jew boy "let him alone." They then set Jacob to melt lead & cast bullets for them whilst they eat [sic] their dinner.' Shortly after the gang was captured and David and others of his gang were hanged.TTLM-P gives another account of Low's coolness in avoiding a possible Indigenous attack (p.22).((Rosa Praed papers, MS 8370, Box 3, packet 3/1/1, p.21)) \\
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 Given TLM-P's determination to assert his social standing as a gentleman, he was lucky to have such an introduction to George Wyndham. TLM-P's friend the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt was not so fortunate when he visited Wyndham's property and was deeply insulted when, 'instead of being invited in to dinner with the superintendent [Mr Samuda] and his guests, Leichhardt was shown to the kitchen to eat his meal alone'. Such actions were of deep 'public and private significance'; Leichhardt's protest was that (as might TLM-P have done) 'It is not my contact with a lower class of society, which embarrasses or offends me, but I feel the disregard by that society, in which my education entitled me, as strongly as any other person'.((G. Ginn, 'Leichhardt’s colonial panorama: social observation in his Australian diaries',  Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture 7(2):561 - 574. Brisbane))\\
 ==== Belford c.1840 ====
-TLM-P then gained more colonial experience at //Belford// Station. It is possible (given his 1882 diary entry below) that one of the owners, Mr Samuda,  was a family connection. //Belford// was in the upper Hunter Valley and owned by Robert Dawson((see www.jenwilletts.com/robertdawson2.htm)) and Mr Samuda.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.)) Its indigenous name was //Goorangoola//.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromleton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.17.)) TLM-P impressed his employers and he stayed friends with them.\\
+TLM-P then gained more colonial experience at a property called Belford. It is possible (given his 1882 diary entry below) that one of the owners, Mr Samuda,  was a family connection. Belford was in the upper Hunter Valley and owned by Robert Dawson((see www.jenwilletts.com/robertdawson2.htm; [[https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dawson-robert-1969]])) and Mr Samuda.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.)) Its indigenous name was //Goorangoola//.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromleton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.17.)) TLM-P impressed his employers and he stayed friends with them.\\
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 In 1880, his second wife Nora wrote to her step-daughter that 'Papa is expecting his old friend & ‘Master’ Mr Dawson up from the Richmond and I am promised a treat, as he is very nice and well-read. He writes a good deal for papers, is sanguine, theoretical, most unbusinesslike – consequently succeeds at nothing. … [after his arrival she added her own impression] he is such an old gentleman … He has told me the best way of doing everything from making butter in hot weather and rearing melons in winter, and we have talked over every book that either has read in the last ten years, discovering wonderful similarity in taste in so doing. Now I have set him down with [Rosa's book //An Australian Heroine//] and he keeps reading bits aloud and saying “Really this is very clever”, “How well this is put”, etc and is quite enthusiastic about it"'.((Nora to Rosa Praed, 17 October 1880, Praed papers, JOL)). In his 1882 diary recording his visit to England, TLM-P mentions visits to a Dawson and a Samuda.  In his 1888 diary, TLM-P notes that, among his letters is one from 'Revd. B. Dawson', perhaps of the same family (16 Sept).\\
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-In 1882, TLM-P travelled by train and coach to see Mr Samuda at Amersham (in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, 43 km northwest of central London). He tried to surprise Mr Samuda by telling the servant that he was 'Mr Simpson', but had his surprise spoiled when she returned to ask 'was I the gentleman they expected, Mr Prior, so had to let her know and spoiled my little surprise. Mrs Samuda came in, still the same little kind and impulsive woman, now 78 but she looked well for her age ... it is over 36 years since we met when I started away [visited?] after my marriage to Matilda. Dear old woman, every now and then she took my hands and shock them saying I am so glad to see you. ... Mr S. ...he too looks much better than I expected .. he is 79 very bald [grey hair in little he had, but lot of dark hair in his beard] ... Went over many of the old stories, of old times gone and told them what I knew of various people.  Mr S, broke in his last colt at 72 they have a very nice little house  ... even at her age the good housekeeper showing. ... They had a second cousin with them, miss de Montmorency[check original], her grandfather was the Naval man at Greenwich related to my Grandfather. Her Aunt the two who came to us at Gosport the eldest Mrs Bessy ... [Her father is stock broker called] T. Lodge de M.'(19 August)
+In 1882, TLM-P travelled by train and coach to see Mr Samuda at Amersham (in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, 43 km northwest of central London). He tried to surprise Mr Samuda by telling the servant that he was 'Mr Simpson' but had his surprise spoiled when she returned to ask 'was I the gentleman they expected, Mr Prior, so had to let her know and spoiled my little surprise. Mrs Samuda came in, still the same little kind and impulsive woman, now 78 but she looked well for her age ... it is over 36 years since we met when I started away [visited?] after my marriage to Matilda. Dear old woman, every now and then she took my hands and shock them saying I am so glad to see you. ... Mr S. ...he too looks much better than I expected .. he is 79 very bald [grey hair in little he had, but lot of dark hair in his beard] ... Went over many of the old stories, of old times gone and told them what I knew of various people.  Mr S, broke in his last colt at 72 they have a very nice little house  ... even at her age the good housekeeper showing. ... They had a second cousin with them, miss de Montmorency[check original], her grandfather was the Naval man at Greenwich related to my Grandfather. Her Aunt the two who came to us at Gosport the eldest Mrs Bessy ... [Her father is stock broker called] T. Lodge de M.'(19 August)
 ==== Rocky Creek c.1840-43 ====
-The next step in gaining colonial experience was learning to manage a property. In 1840 TLM-P was appointed manager of //Rocky Creek// Station in the Northern Tablelands of NSW, south-east of what is now the town of Moree.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromleton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.17.)) He was just 21-years old. The station was on Rocky Creek, which flows into the Horton River, which in turn flows into the Gwydir River in the [[wp>Nandewar_Range|Nandewar Ranges]].((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information; location information with thanks to David Godden and Ross Drynan.))\\
+The next step in gaining colonial experience was learning to manage a property. In 1840 TLM-P was appointed manager of Rocky Creek Station in the Northern Tablelands of NSW, south-east of what is now the town of Moree.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromleton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.17.)) Rocky Creek flows into the Horton River, which in turn flows into the Gwydir River in the [[wp>Nandewar_Range|Nandewar Ranges]].((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information; location information with thanks to David Godden and Ross Drynan.)) He was just 21-years old and still new to the colony. The position had been promised to Jacob Low, a stockman on the property who was 10 years older than TLM-P. It is a credit to them both that they subsequently became friends. The difficulty of finding a suitable man to manage a property is illustrated by the fact that one likely reason TLM-P had been appointed and not Low was that TLM-P had been almost a year in the colony while Low (if TLM-P was correct in saying Low had arrived in 1840) was a new arrival. Neither man had appropriate rural experience before arriving in NSW: TLM-P had been in the navy and Low had begun his articles (to be a solicitor) under a 'writer to the signet' in Edinburgh (a senior solicitor). Their continuing friendship was helped by Low being appointed manager when TLM-P left and that they both subsequently became property owners and sat in the Queensland Parliament.((Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/))  \\
 {{https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0crDQ5lNqNg/VRecfAy2nGI/AAAAAAAABoA/8cyBEZ6AI-E/s640/22.Rocky%2BCreek%2BPastoral_small.jpg?300}} A contemporary view of Rocky Street Station by artist Mick Pospischil.\\
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-The station was owned firstly by John Harley Pagan until his death in May 1846, aged 32; then by Robert Pringle.((Thomas A. Darragh and Roderick J. Fensham (eds), //The Leichhardt diaries. Early travels in Australia during 1842-1844//, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum| Culture, Volume 7, Part 1, Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 2013. Thanks to David Godden for this reference.)) TLM-P recalled that that Jacob Low was the Head Stockman when TLM-P arrived, and disappointed that he had not been appointed in charge. Low had at least begun his articles (to be a solicitor) under a 'writer to the signet' in Edinburgh (a senior solicitor); he took over the Manager's position when TLM-P left.((Andrew Darbyshire, A Fair Slice of St Lucia. Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, St Lucia History Group research paper no. 8, p.99 citing Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/, p.22.)) Like TLM-P, Low later acquired his own property (on the Darling Downs), was elected to the Queensland Parliament and lived in Brisbane. Roderick also states that TLM-P stayed at Rocky Creek for two years. It was during this time that he made trips to Sydney, stopping on the way at Cecil Plains, a station owned by the Harpurs: the attraction was young [[matilda_m-p|Matilda Harpur]], his future wife.((Colin Roderick, //In Mortal Bondage. The Strange Life of Rosa Praed//, Sydney, London: Angus and Robertson, 1948, pp.7-8.))\\
+The station was owned firstly by John Harley Pagan until his death in May 1846, aged 32; then by Robert Pringle.((Thomas A. Darragh and Roderick J. Fensham (eds), //The Leichhardt diaries. Early travels in Australia during 1842-1844//, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum| Culture, Volume 7, Part 1, Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 2013. Thanks to David Godden for this reference.)) TLM-P recalled that it was after the Myall Creek massacre and conflict between the men on the generally-small and under-staffed properties and the Indigenous owners was widespread. One common precaution was to place bars in the chimneys to prevent Indigenous warriors attacking through them. Doors and shutters were also fortified to delay any entry by attackers.((Rosa Praed papers, Oxley Library, Box 3, MS 8370, Box 3/1/1/, p.22.)) Like TLM-P, Low later acquired his own property (on the Darling Downs), was elected to the Queensland Parliament and lived in Brisbane. Roderick also states that TLM-P stayed at Rocky Creek for two years. It was during this time that he made trips to Sydney, stopping on the way at Cecil Plains, a station owned by the Harpurs: the attraction was young [[matilda_m-p|Matilda Harpur]], his future wife.((Colin Roderick, //In Mortal Bondage. The Strange Life of Rosa Praed//, Sydney, London: Angus and Robertson, 1948, pp.7-8.))\\
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 It was at //Rocky Creek// Station that TLM-P formed a friendship with the celebrated explorer Ludwig Leichhardt.(({{https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/leichhardt-friedrich-wilhelm-ludwig-2347}})) He later recollected that 'poor Leichhardt [went] with me on my road to take possession of my first station, Rosewood.'((TLM-P, Diary, entry for 19 August 1888, MLMSS)) Leichhardt and TLM-P both needed the protection of extra men as they had to travel through land heavily defended by its Aboriginal owners.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.)) For more on TLM-P's friendship with the German explorer, click on [[Leichhardt]].\\
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 Leichhardt also sheds light on the youthful TLM-P, making his way alone in a strange country, determined to re-establish his family fortune and status. When TLM-P was 22 years old, 'exuberant and self-assured', and superintendent of //Rocky Creek// station, Leichhardt chatted with a man he encountered on the verandah, a former convict named Waterford. When TLM-P arrived, Waterford 'rose to shake hands with him, but Prior rebuffed him so coldly that the man quietly sat down again. Shortly after that happened, the hut-keeper served the midday meal and, Leichhardt recorded, TLM-P took him (Leichhardt) outside and told him that 'Waterford was a convict who seduced [raped?] a girl, whom a friend expressly placed under his protection.' TLM-P then said to the man that 'Mr Waterford I regret I cannot be more hospitable towards you, but your midday meal is served in the hut'. 'Explain yourself', said Waterford. Prior replied 'I think I am not of equal rank with you'. Waterford said 'thank you', saddled his horse and rode away leaving his meal untouched. The tale spread and 'Every stockman, every hutkeeper' was incensed as they thought the TLM-P had acted as he did only because Waterford had been a convict. At Mr Dangar's station 100 miles further on, someone said that they would like to bolt the door on Prior and set the dogs on him. Waterford declared he had been insulted 'by this young fob' and swore that he or his son would eventually take revenge on him. Leichhardt sympathised with TLM-P's scruples, but thought TLM-P lacked finesse and judgment especially as the bush assumed the snub was due to his 'atoned life (as a convict) and 'not for his unatoned' seduction/rape of a girl under his protection. Leichhardt wrote that 'common-sense just dictates being careful in this country and not to know the errors and crimes of its inhabitants.'((G. Ginn, 'Leichhardt’s colonial panorama: social observation in his Australian diaries',  Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture 7(2):561 - 574. Brisbane))\\
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-//Rocky Street// Station was a testing place in other ways too for a young, relatively inexperienced manager. TLM-P recalled it as at the centre of violent conflict between the settlers and the indigenous owners. The context was an Aboriginal attack on nearby //Terry Hie Hie// station with the revenge massacre of hundreds of Aboriginal people at Waterloo Creek. //Rocky Creek// Station was also in the vicinity of //Myall Creek// station where, in 1838, armed stockmen and a squatter's son murdered 28 defenceless Aboriginal people while the rest of the camp were peacefully working on the property. [[https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=1454|Myall Creek]] had led to widespread white outrage when the attackers, other than the well-connected leader, faced criminal charges and some were hung.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.17.)) TLM-P, in his memoir for Rosa, noted that stations were much smaller then, running less than 1,000 head of cattle, with the workmen mainly former convicts, and that it was not unusual for stations to be bailed up for days with men and cattle speared. Despite the courageous stance of [[https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/plunkett-john-hubert-2556|Attorney-General John Plunkett]] that killing blacks was as much murder as killing whites, the massacres continued, albeit more discreetly. TLM-P mentions reprisal raids by the notorious Native Police under the direction of Major Nunn.((Andrew Darbyshire, A Fair Slice of St Lucia. Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, St Lucia History Group research paper no. 8, p.98 citing Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/.))\\
+//Rocky Street// Station was a testing place in other ways too for a young, relatively inexperienced manager. TLM-P recalled it as at the centre of violent conflict between the settlers and the indigenous owners. The context was an Aboriginal attack on nearby //Terry Hie Hie// station with the revenge massacre of hundreds of Aboriginal people at Waterloo Creek. //Rocky Creek// Station was also in the vicinity of //Myall Creek// station where, in 1838, armed stockmen and a squatter's son murdered 28 defenceless Aboriginal people while the rest of the camp were peacefully working on the property. [[https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=1454|Myall Creek]] had led to widespread white outrage when the attackers, other than the well-connected leader, faced criminal charges and some were hung.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.17.)) TLM-P, in his memoir for Rosa, noted that stations were much smaller then, running less than 1,000 head of cattle, with the workmen mainly former convicts, and that it was not unusual for stations to be bailed up for days with men and cattle speared. Despite the courageous stance of [[https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/plunkett-john-hubert-2556|Attorney-General John Plunkett]] that killing blacks was as much murder as killing whites, the massacres continued, albeit more discreetly. TLM-P mentions reprisal raids by the Mounted Police under the direction of Major Nunn.((Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/))\\
 ====== First Properties ======
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 The combined result was that, almost immediately, TLM-P planned to leave //Rosewood//. When he wrote to the Ludwig Leichhardt in September 1843, he mentioned that he intended 'selling my station and believe I have already got a purchaser'. He had stocked it with sheep and horses.((TLM-P to L. Leichhardt, 27 September 1843, MLMSS683, pp.105-08)) TLM-P still saw opportunity to the north of what was then the colony of NSW. From his time at //Rosewood// onwards, TLM-P lived in what became, from 6 June 1859, the colony of Queensland. It was very much a frontier settlement. Moreton Bay had just ceased to be a penal colony, so had no new convicts, but a significant proportion of the small white population remained 'unfree'. It is estimated that in 1846, 15 percent of the population of County of Stanley (which included the major centres of Brisbane and Ipswich) were convicts.((Ross Fitzgerald, //From the Dreaming to 1915: A History of Queensland//, Vol.1, St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1982.)) \\
-An account book for Rosewood Station for 24 June 1843-1844 survives((MLMSS 3117/Box 6/Item 4. A microfilm copy is in the Fryer Library, University of Queensland, MIC8952. Though it is catalogued as from 24 June, the first entry is for the 23rd)). For more see [[employees_stores|Employees, Stores]].\\
+An account book for Rosewood Station for 24 June 1843-1844 survives((MLMSS 3117/Box 6/Item 4. A microfilm copy is in the Fryer Library, University of Queensland, MIC8952. Though it is catalogued as from 24 June, the first entry is for the 23rd)). For more context see [[employees_stores|Employees, Stores]].\\
-\\
-TLM-P needed to be reasonably self-sufficient. That included not only medical books but at least one on the law.{{  :scan_20171014.jpg?250|}} The title page of his law book is shown in the next photo.((Provenance: Sarah Godden)) The book is inscribed, 'Thomas Lodge Murray Prior, Logan River Moreton Bay. January 1845'.\\
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 ==== Bromelton (also Bungropin, Broomelton, Bugrooperia) 1845-53 ====
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 //Bromelton// was on the Logan River, 35 miles from Brisbane, near the current town of [[wp>Beaudesert,_Queensland|Beaudesert]]. It was 'watered by the Logan River, part of Teviot Brook, Allen's Creek, and Crow's Creek.' ((Isobel Hannah, 'The Royal Descent of the First Postmaster-General of Queensland', //Queensland Geographical Journal//, vol. LV, 1953-54, p.11.)) It was large, 60 square miles (almost 15,540 hectares).((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.18. Her information about Bromelton's size is for 30 September 1848 and comes from the NSW Government Gazette)) Its name had been originally spelt Broomelton, after an Aikman estate in Scotland; the M-Ps (mis)spelt it Bromelton. Its indigenous name was the same as its nearby lagoon, Bungroopin (now rendered Bungropin) meaning 'the place of parrots'.((Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.8. Rosa Praed, in her novel //The Romance of a Station// has her heroine grow up on 'dear old Bungroopim' station.)) The lagoon was in front of the homestead and large and deep. In his history, Fox claims it was 85 feet deep (nearly 26 metres) with its Indigenous owners well aware it could be dangerous as they considered it bottomless and the haunt of a bunyip.((Matthew Fox, //The history of Queensland: its people and industries: an historical and commercial review descriptive and biographical facts, figures and illustrations: an epitome of progress//, Brisbane: States Publishing Company, 1919, vol. 1, p.313.))\\
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-In 1846, TLM-P was sufficiently established to marry 18-year old [[matilda_m-p|Matilda Harpur]], although he was concerned he did not have enough money to support a wife and children. He wrote to Matilda that his major worry was saving £200((this sum was worth around $26,392 in 2017 values.)), the amount he considered necessary for married life.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.19.)) Matilda was idealistically keen to prove her mettle as a pioneer wife. A letter of hers quoted by Colin Roderick((//In Mortal Bondage//, p.9)) has her chiding him for selling his bullocks so that he could employ builders to erect a suitable house for his young bride: '//Let me beg of you to make no such sacrifice again, but to discharge those builders, and when I come, let me be your assistant in improving your hut, for indeed I should like to have in my power to prove that I could be happy with you anywhere//.' In any case, it appears that Matilda's and TLM-P's first home was a 'slab hut'.(([H. Krause], //The Story of Maroon. A Souvenir Review of its History and Development 1827-1961//, Maroon Centenary Celebrations Committee, 1961, p.11.)) The description comes from Rosa Praed in her //Australian Life, Black and White//, but it should be kept in mind that what constitutes a 'slab hut' could vary widely; that Rosa was foremost an imaginative novelist; and that she left Bromelton when she was 2 years old. While she drew on other family members' memories, decades had passed by that time, making it all the more likely that Bromelton homestead was remembered in comparison to the more substantial homes they later occupied. There is little doubt, however, that it was a hard life for a young bride, with the nearest station (//Tamrookum//) reputedly two days riding away. ((Allan Morrison, 'Some Queensland Postmasters-general', Brisbane: Post Office Historical Society, 1953, p.4)) It is not known whether TLM-P discharged his builders, but he did employ two (Samuel Crewe and Patrick Sullivan) during May-August 1848.((Ledger for Bugrooperia station, Logan River, Queensland, May 1848-1849, 13pp, MLMSS 3117/Box 6/Item 5))\\
+On 3 September 1846 TLM-P was sufficiently established to marry 18-year old [[matilda_m-p|Matilda Harpur]], although he was concerned he did not have enough money to support a wife and children. He had written to Matilda that his major worry was saving £200((this sum was worth around $26,392 in 2017 values.)), the amount he considered necessary for married life.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.19.)) Matilda was idealistically keen to prove her mettle as a pioneer wife. A letter of hers quoted by Colin Roderick((//In Mortal Bondage//, p.9)) has her chiding him for selling his bullocks so that he could employ builders to erect a suitable house for his young bride: '//Let me beg of you to make no such sacrifice again, but to discharge those builders, and when I come, let me be your assistant in improving your hut, for indeed I should like to have in my power to prove that I could be happy with you anywhere//.' TLM-P did not discharge his builders as his account book records that he employed two (Samuel Crewe and Patrick Sullivan) during May-August 1848.((Ledger for Bugrooperia station, Logan River, Queensland, May 1848-1849, 13pp, MLMSS 3117/Box 6/Item 5))\\
+\\
+Rosa Praed, their eldest daughter, later described Matilda's and TLM-P's first home as a 'slab hut'.(([H. Krause], //The Story of Maroon. A Souvenir Review of its History and Development 1827-1961//, Maroon Centenary Celebrations Committee, 1961, p.11; Rosa Praed, //Australian Life, Black and White//)). It should be kept in mind that what constitutes a 'slab hut' could vary widely; that Rosa was foremost an imaginative novelist; and that she left Bromelton when she was 2 years old. While she drew on other family members' memories, some 40 years had passed by that time, making it all the more likely that Bromelton homestead was remembered in comparison to the more substantial homes they later occupied. It is likely that the 'hut' was not the usual one room shepherd's hut,((TLM-P described how these huts usually had a '"Cooliman" ... a rough basin formed by the bark from an excrescence on an apple gum tree. It is shaped very much like a small canoe. At Outstation huts the men generally had one or two of these fixed outside the door for washing in - the soap on a little ledge above'.Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1, p.31)) but was something like TLM-P later depicted (with his second wife Nora drawing) as 'a usual bark hut' like the Hornet Bank station home. He described it as having a verandah, being divided into 3 main rooms (a sitting room, a 'sleeping room', and a storeroom with extra beds in the storeroom and skillion room off the verandah for an elder brother and his tutor): {{:usual_bark_hut.png?400|}}((Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/, pp.26-27)) Whatever the exact nature of the house, there is little doubt that it was a hard life for a young bride. In addition, TLM-P was away from home regularly on station business and the nearest homestead (//Tamrookum//) was reputedly two days riding away.((Allan Morrison, 'Some Queensland Postmasters-general', Brisbane: Post Office Historical Society, 1953, p.4)) \\
+\\
+{{:640px-statelibqld_1_134937_macdonald_family_bromelton_house_albert_river_district_1872.jpg?300|}}\\
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-{{:640px-statelibqld_1_134937_macdonald_family_bromelton_house_albert_river_district_1872.jpg?300|}}
 Bromelton homestead in 1872: it was later demolished and another home built on the site.((http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=SLQ&search_scope=SLQ&docid=slq_digitool134937&lang=en_US; Kathleen Nutting, Then and Now. The Story of Beaudesert 1874-1974, ?Beaudesert Shire Council, 1974, p.42)) {{:homestead.jpg?300|}} Is this faded photo the 'slab hut', Bromelton? It is reputed to be one of the family homes, though it is odd that Matilda doesn't appear, and what was the occasion that merited the man on the right (TLM-P?) formally dressing complete with top hat? Or was it enough of an occasion to have a professional photo taken at this time when photography was still new? If the boy on the right is T de M. M-P, and the photo of Bromelton, then it was taken towards the end of their time there.((Photo provenance: J. Godden.))\\
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 In 1844, Hugh Aikman co-inherited his brother's estate in Scotland and soon after returned there.((https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/2013/08/60-robertson-aikman-of-ross-house.html)) TLM-P subsequently bought out Aikman's share of Bromelton.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information. While //Australia's Representative Men// states he bought out his partner in 1853 this is likely a mistake and it was actually 1850, with the process starting a year earlier when Aikman returned to Scotland.[[http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murray-prior-thomas-lodge-4282]]; Patricia Clarke,'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.18; [[hhttps://www.geni.com/people/Major-Hugh-Henry-Robertson-Aikman/6000000032693354118]])) The partnership had been a happy one. When TLM-P was in England in 1882, he received a 'nice' letter from Hugh Aikman's son revealing that his late father had died but, 'that he had often heard him talking of me and ... looked upon his Australian life as the happiest'. The son invited TLM-P to visit if he was in the locality.((TLM-P, Diary, 27 July 1882, ML.))\\
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-Despite personal happiness, Bromelton was not a success. Aboriginal resistance had been largely overcome, particularly after the 1848 introduction of the feared Native Mounted Police. But there were other significant problems. TLM-P had learned to avoid sheep, but had around 2,000 cattle on Bromelton in 1848.((Deb Stenzel et al, Stenzel Land - the first land holdings of Carl Ludwig Stenzel and his children, ms, 23 July 2023)) TLM-P's (not necessarily completely accurate) Annual Returns of Depasturing continues the story. The return for 30 June 1851 states that the property was 60 square miles (15,539.9 hectares) and carried 6 horses and 2,200 cattle. The annual licence fee was £31. A year later, the run had expanded to 98 square miles (25,381.9 hectares) but had only one more horse and less (2,120) cattle, while the license fee had increased to £41. These figures are consistent though the ledger for Bugrooperia records a muster of cattle and that, om 29 May 1848, he had 718 cattle (286 male and 432 female).((MLMSS 3117/Box 7X)) The probably explanation is that the rest of the herd were elsewhere at the time. \\
+Despite personal happiness, Bromelton was not a success. Initially Aboriginal resistance was an issue and he later wrote that 'They had killed some of my cattle' and he gave an example of seeing a lone Aboriginal man and riding at him with a raised pistol. He had 'no intention of shooting' but assumed the man had murderous intentions. In fact the man turned out to live on the property and was very indignant at TLM-Ps actions.((Rosa Praed papers, MS 8370, Box 3, packet 3/1/1, p.23)) By 1848, Aboriginal resistance had been largely overcome, particularly with the introduction of the feared Native Mounted Police. But there were other significant problems. TLM-P had learned to avoid sheep, but had around 2,000 cattle on Bromelton in 1848.((Deb Stenzel et al, Stenzel Land - the first land holdings of Carl Ludwig Stenzel and his children, ms, 23 July 2023)) TLM-P's (not necessarily completely accurate) Annual Returns of Depasturing continues the story. The return for 30 June 1851 states that the property was 60 square miles (15,539.9 hectares) and carried 6 horses and 2,200 cattle. The annual licence fee was £31. A year later, the run had expanded to 98 square miles (25,381.9 hectares) but had only one more horse and less (2,120) cattle, while the license fee had increased to £41. These figures are consistent though the ledger for Bugrooperia records a muster of cattle and that, om 29 May 1848, he had 718 cattle (286 male and 432 female).((MLMSS 3117/Box 7X)) The probably explanation is that the rest of the herd were elsewhere at the time. \\
 A problem was that the invading Europeans had no idea that the land had been carefully managed by its indigenous owners. The introduced cattle and sheep not only quickly ate plants nurtured by Aboriginal people, they compacted the light soils. Once-fertile soil was quickly and unwittingly destroyed.((Bruce Pascoe, //Dark Emu//, Broome: Magabala Books, 2018, pp.10-11; Eric Rolls, //A Million Wild Acres//, Nelson, Melbourne, 1981, p.84.)) As well, the ancient soil with its thin layer of top-soil was much less suited to intensive agriculture than the rich soils of Britain and Europe.\\
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 Davies described Bromelton as having a 'very nice garden' next to a large, deep lagoon of at least 2.5 hectares. It was the age where much of the native fauna was new, and TLM-P and Matilda's sister Elizabeth both were convinced that they had seen the water creature the Aborigines believed inhabited the lagoon: a [[wp>Bunyip|bunyip]]. TLM-P was so convinced that he wrote to the //Moreton Bay Courier// reporting the sighting of 'an aquatic monster'. It was a claim that meet with ridicule - at least amongst white Australians, not so indigenous ones. Later accounts suggest that what they (and others) fleetingly saw was likely to have been a crocodile.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromelton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, pp.3,25.))\\
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 ==== Hawkwood 1854-58 ====
 By 1854, TLM-P decided that he had to look to Brisbane and also further north for opportunities. He sold the lease to //Bromelton// and, as shown, bought considerable land in and around Brisbane((e.g. //New South Wales Government Gazette//, 4 August 1854, p.1679)). Also in 1854, he applied to select 640 acres on the west bank of the [[wp>Albert_River_(South_East_Queensland)|Albert River]].((Helen Gregory, 'Squatters, selectors and - dare I say it - speculators', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, XI:4, 1983, p.81.)) His most significant acquisition was a property called //Hawkwood// (its indigenous owners called it Naraigin) on the Auburn River, a tributary of the Burnett river (north of what is now the Sunshine Coast).\\
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-In a later reminiscence, TLM-P recalled travelling there (or being guided by?) a young indigenous boy of about 13 years old. This unnamed boy told him about conflict in the area.((Andrew Darbyshire, A Fair Slice of St Lucia. Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, St Lucia History Group research paper no. 8, p.98 citing Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1/.))\\
+TLM-P relied on Indigenous help while assuming he had a right to their land. Later in life, TLM-P's daughter Rosie asked him to provide information about Indigenous Australians. TLM-P wrote that, after buying Hawkwood, he rode out to inspect the area, travelling with a young indigenous boy about 13 years old, 'a nice smart lad, full of fun' who TLM-P called 'Johnny'. The journey included at least one day where they both rode over 35 miles, the last part at night. During the journey, both parties sustaining riding accidents.TLM-P noted that, on the return journey, 'Johnny' rode 'a headstrong station colt' while leading another horse - the horse bolted with him and 'Johnny' was knocked off the horse and 'a good deal hurt'.TLM-P's reaction was to appeal to the Indigenous sense of humour: 'get a laugh out of a black boy & he is all right'; it was also a tit for tat for 'Johnny' laughing at him when he had fallen off earlier.((Rosa Praed papers,MSS 8370/Box 3, packet 3/1/1/.))\\
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 The //Hawkwood// venture started ominously. A warning sign was that, since its first settler occupier in 1848, TLM-P was the fourth occupier in six years.((HS Bloxsome, 'The discovery, exploration and early settlement of the Upper Burnett', //Historical Society of Queensland Journal//, vol.III:5, December 1945, p.344.)) The bad luck began when moving his sheep to his new property, TLM-P had to destroy 8,000 of them after they became infected with scab.(({{https://www.farmhealthonline.com/disease-management/sheep-diseases/sheep-scab/}}; //Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.)) The family initially moved from //Bromelton// to Woogaroo (now Goodna) on the south bank of the Brisbane River, while (as described in Ernest Davies' memoirs above) TLM-P put his stock on a 'narrow neck of land opposite, then called the Pocket, now known as Prior's Pocket'. He and his stockmen overlanded his sheep and cattle to //Hawkwood//, then his family moved there early in 1856.((Patricia Clarke, 'The Murray-Priors at Bromelton 1844-1853' in Patricia Savage (compiled), //They came to Bromelton: a brief outline of the life and times of the early pioneers who came to Bromleton - from the pages of history, personal diaries, old letters and family recollections//, Patricia Savage, 2004, p.23.))\\
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-{{:1857_hawkwood_.jpg?300|}} A page from the ledger kept by TLM-P in 1857 showing he had 13,342 sheep. A. Brown is the overseer and it also lists, somewhat indistinctly now, eight employees.((MLMSS 3117/Box 7X))
+For TLM-P and his growing family, living conditions at //Hawkwood// were primitive. Rosa Praed's reminiscences always need to be read with caution, and she left //Hawkwood// when she was 7 years old, but described their home as a hut made of wooden slabs with gaps between them, windows without glass and mostly earthen floors. She recalled that, in this primitive dwelling, TLM-P hung his collection of paintings which were later donated to the [[brisbane_art_gallery|Queensland Art Gallery]].((Kerry Heckenberg, 'A taste for art in colonial Queensland: The Queensland Art Gallery Foundational Bequest of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior', //Queensland Review//, 25:1, June 2018, pp.119-136; Rosa Praed, //Australian Life, Black and White//, 1885, pp.31-32; Rosa Praed, //My Australian Girlhood//, pp.60-61.)) The four years they stayed at //Hawkwood// were marked by 'great anxiety and hard work'.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.) //Hawkwood//'s 1856-57 ledger shows that builders were employed to improve conditions for the workers - C Daly and A Rucker were employed to put shingles on the kitchen (roof) and to build 3 shepherd huts with 10 x 6 feet rooms with each having a chimney, door and window.((MLMSS3117/ box 7X))\\
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-The //Hawkwood// (and TLM-P's other) ledgers usually record stock numbers, payments and receipts and employees' wages as well as store purchases. Occasionally we get a glimpse of more. In 1856, for example, TLM-P wrote this about an employee: 'Munday came up to Hawkwood with a mob of cattle and worked well whilst he was at it and herded at the Cattle Station for a short time, but hearing some thing about his wife he went away and thinking him sufficiently punished I gave his discharge.'\\
+//Hawkwood// was relatively isolated and the 1850s was a time of bitter war between the Europeans and the Aboriginal people who had lived there for some 50,000 years. A flashpoint occurred in 1857, in what is now known as the [[wp>Hornet_Bank_massacre|Hornet Bank massacre]]. The definitive research into this massacre is a thesis and subsequent book by Gordon Reid.((The thesis is available at {{https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/110512}}; the book is Gordon Reid, //A Nest of Hornets: The Massacre of the Fraser Family at Hornet Bank Station, Central Queensland, 1857, and Related Events//, Oxford University Press, 1982. Reid has also published an article about the massacre at [[https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_205360/s00855804_1980_81_11_2_62.pdf?Expires=1753767228&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ&Signature=I76rkIncQBll3H5fiVnRM4fFWuyqFXcEv61KNjYKNpaZlegCAyy8T-yP~rUTrUZBPSkH3OPI4Rrtq-GDYtDSnaOVT94qnq4cjtpgWglREzPSCGWxbDRjW5iAypkL2FJs7-B1MfpkQCDpbVNo2qZYsjasRwJ1VyGgmkDtLN2n-JU~YTHrJbUfbX9b4-SCQ7UskkrBBTVFjWKgrPefnTF3wjPRk9TlC365VZwC1wtq34yTPls-WnUMRhWHLzV2KpnO5TrhhVwghSlx7l-lDDg~OCONG0pVwegn2p7taUtIRlnIJLnIaWFHyxBV-oD8O2BIvpOi~pUTix281NT3NEIvSw|From Hornet Bank to Cullin-La-Ringo]]on Among the numerous other studies of this massacre, see A. Laurie, 'Hornet Bank Massacre October 27, 1857', //Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal//, 5:5, 1957; Zoe Smith, '"Unspeakable atrocities': The 1857 Hornet Bank massacre, interracial rape and white femininity on the Australian colonial frontier', //Lilith: A Feminist History Journal//, 29, 2023, pp.117-37.)) A succinct summary is at [[https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=622|Colonial massacres - Hornet Bank aftermath]]. Eleven members of the Fraser family and staff who lived on //Hornet Bank// station, about 200k by road from //Hawkwood//, were murdered. Mrs Fraser and two of her daughters were also raped. The murders were by Yiman (variously Jiman or Iman) language group as well as some men who had belonged to the notorious [[wp>Australian_native_police|Native Police]]. The massacre was reputedly in retaliation not just for the seizure of Aboriginal land, but also for the rape of Yiman women by the young men of the Fraser family - which took place despite the pleas, and written lobbying to authorities, of their widowed mother. A significant source about the massacre was TLM-P's own detailing of it - an unusual event that came about because his daughter Rosa Praed asked him about his recollections so that she could use the information in her book //Australian Life: Black and White//. TLM-P dictated his recollections to his second wife Nora who wrote it down for Rosa. One detail that TLM-P added was that the massacre happened shortly after there was conflict following a large Indigenous gathering in the Bunya Mountains (an annual event to feast on the bunya nuts, with the trees being prolific every two or three years) though the timing does not fit with the time of ripe bunya nuts.((Rosa Praed papers, Oxley Library OM64-01, item 3.1.1.))\\
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-For TLM-P and his growing family, living conditions at //Hawkwood// were primitive. Rosa Praed's reminiscences always need to be read with caution, and she left //Hawkwood// when she was 7 years old, but described their home as a hut made of wooden slabs with gaps between them, windows without glass and mostly earthen floors. She recalled that, in this primitive dwelling, TLM-P hung his collection of paintings which were later donated to the [[brisbane_art_gallery|Queensland Art Gallery]].((Kerry Heckenberg, 'A taste for art in colonial Queensland: The Queensland Art Gallery Foundational Bequest of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior', //Queensland Review//, 25:1, June 2018, pp.119-136; Rosa Praed, //Australian Life, Black and White//, 1885, pp.31-32; Rosa Praed, //My Australian Girlhood//, pp.60-61.)) The four years they stayed at //Hawkwood// were marked by 'great anxiety and hard work'.((//Australia's Representative Men//, ed. T.W.H. Leavitt, Improved Edition, Melbourne: Wells and Leavitt, c.1889, entry for T.L. Murray-Prior. The book used is the one TLM-P owned, signed by him and dated 14th June 1889. It is likely that TLM-P provided the information.) //Hawkwood//'s 1856-57 ledger shows that builders were employed to improve conditions for the workers - C Daly and A Rucker were employed to put shingles on the kitchen (roof) and to build 3 shepherd huts with 10 x 6 feet rooms with each having a chimney, door and window.((MLMSS3117/ box 7X))\\
+In his reminiscences for Rosa about Hawkwood, TLM-P stated that there was 18 months of war: 'Those 18 months of warfare were an anxious time for us. Business took me then a great deal from the station. When I came home I used to canter pretty sharply to the top of the ridge from which the place was visible with my heart in my mouth, for there was always the fear that all hands might have been massacred.' In the aftermath of the Hornet Bank murders, he ensured he had plenty of gun-powder and noted that 'I was better off [than my neighbours] at Hawkwood having 3 coast blacks & a gin [Aboriginal woman - as they were from the coast they had no necessary allegiance or even common language with the local Yiman tribe], Ernest Davis, Sydney Lind a German Dr & one of two other & plenty of arms & ammunition.' He described how a sheep-buyer called Horton convinced him and a neighbour Alfred Thomas that the Indigenous men were planning other murders and rapes. They formed a vigilante party which met at Hawkwood and which they named the Browns. The party comprised of Horton, 5 property owners, 2 overseers, 'a black boy from the Auburn' and 'Billy Hayes & Freddy [who were] my two blackboys (Brisbane boys upon whom we could depend' (p.32) One of the station owners, John MacArthur was nominated 'Captain', another indication of the quasi-military nature of the operation. The workers on the station, presumably aware of their own vulnerability, supported the action: 'It was shearing time but the shearers 'promised to shear s well, or better than if I were there, & they would not let anything go wrong on the station, & they kept their word.'(p.33) He claimed that Billy Hayes urged that they kill all Indigenous people they encountered but TLM_P insisted that he would leave if he saw a woman or child 'wittingly hurt'. They found them at a station and opened fire, some escaping and others being captured. One Indigenous warrior 'Ivery'(unclear - Terry?) he described as both a 'noted murderer' and 'a very fine man & a plucky fellow' single-handedly issued a challenge to McArthur despite him only having traditional weapons and McArthur a pistol. TLM-P again indicated the complexities of the situation as the warrior was protected by [[wp>William_Henry_Yaldwyn]] who owned Taroom Station, much to the neighbours' indignation. In the end, Police threatened to shoot Yaldwyn if he did not stop being used as a shield.(pp.35-36) TLM-P concluded 'The war was kept up for eighteen months during which there were continually either one or more parties out - & gradually a good many of the the ring-leaders were accounted for' - using 'most treacherous' means.(pp.37-38) Part of the latter conflict came about when the whites were convinced they had identified Indigenous 'murderers', in one case TLM-P objecting to a Mr Pigott employing Indigenous men building sheep-yards at a near-by property as he was convinced one of the labourers ('Auburn Boney') had been involved in killing white men on Hawkwood.(p.39) By this time Indigenous people needed a pass if they wanted to leave their camp (p.40). TlM-P described how 'the Browns' and the Native Police combined to capture those they thought were ringleaders - 'This put an end to the war'.(p.41)((Rosa Praed papers, Oxley Library OM64-01, item 3.1.1.))\\
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-//Hawkwood// was relatively isolated and the 1850s was a time of bitter war between the invading European settlers and the Aboriginal people who had lived there for some 50,000 years. A flashpoint occurred in 1857, in what is now known as the [[wp>Hornet_Bank_massacre|Hornet Bank massacre]]. The definitive research into this massacre is a thesis and subsequent book by Gordon Reid.((The thesis is available at {{https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/110512}}; the book is Gordon Reid, //A Nest of Hornets: The Massacre of the Fraser Family at Hornet Bank Station, Central Queensland, 1857, and Related Events//, Oxford University Press, 1982. Among the numerous other studies of this massacre, see A. Laurie, 'Hornet Bank Massacre October 27, 1857', //Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal//, 5:5, 1957; Zoe Smith, '"Unspeakable atrocities': The 1857 Hornet Bank massacre, interracial rape and white femininity on the Australian colonial frontier', //Lilith: A Feminist History Journal//, 29, 2023, pp.117-37.)) A succinct summary is at [[https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=622|Colonial massacres - Hornet Bank aftermath]]. Eleven members of the Fraser family and staff who lived on //Hornet Bank// station, about 200k by road from //Hawkwood//, were murdered. The widowed Martha Fraser and two of her daughters were also raped. The murders were by Yiman (variously Jiman or Iman) language group as well as some men who had belonged to the notorious [[wp>Australian_native_police|Native Police]]. The massacre was reputedly in retaliation not just for the seizure of Aboriginal land, but also for the rape of Yiman women by the young men of the Fraser family. Ironically, it was Martha Fraser who had tried to stop the rapes, pleading with her sons and asking the Native Police to stop them as 'she "expected harm would come" of their repeated acts of "forcibly taking the young maidens".'((Zoe Smith, '"Unspeakable atrocities': The 1857 Hornet Bank massacre, interracial rape and white femininity on the Australian colonial frontier', //Lilith: A Feminist History Journal//, 29, 2023, p.120)) More information about this massacre is in the family section of this website. A significant source about the massacre was TLM-P's own detailing of it - an unusual event that came about because his daughter Rosa Praed asked him about it so that she could use the information in one of her novels (she used in her //Australian Life: Black and White//). TLM-P dictated his recollections to his second wife Nora who wrote it down for Rosa. See his Memoirs((Rosa Praed papers, Oxley Library OM64-01, item 3.1.1.))\\
+One incident that illustrates the anxiety TLM-P felt for his family (as experienced by all sides of the conflict) during this time occurred when TLM-P and Matilda's eldest son Tom was about 7 years old (c.1855. TLM-P was unarmed when he heard Tom shouting. After rushing to get rifle and ammunition:'I saw my boy, who had just put the rams into the yard, in conversation with a blackfellow, who was gesticulating vigorously. Every time he moved his arm, I felt that the waddy might be intended for my boy ...[but] I reflected that had he intended to harm, he would have done it before. However it was an awful time'.(p.48)((Rosa Praed papers, Oxley Library OM64-01, item 3.1.1.))\\
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-TLM-P sold //Hawkwood// in the year after the Hornet Bank massacre. The property had not been a success. It appears the final straw was another outbreak of scab among his sheep. The family was apparently popular with his neighbours as they are said to have gifted him some 900 sheep to help replenish his flock.((Reid, A Nest of Hornets, Masters thesis, pp.214-15. It is possible that this is a confusion with the initial scab outbreak, or vice versa - or that scab was endemic.)) The station ledger includes a page listing 10 'working bullocks' and 39 horses in addition to 10 horses which were sold with the property. For TLM-P's next venture, he tried to leave behind the problems of livestock.\\
+TLM-P sold //Hawkwood// in the year after the Hornet Bank massacre. The property had not been a financial or any other success. It appears the final straw was another outbreak of scab among his sheep. The family was apparently popular with his neighbours as they are said to have gifted him some 900 sheep to help replenish his flock.((Reid, A Nest of Hornets, Masters thesis, pp.214-15. It is possible that this is a confusion with the initial scab outbreak, or vice versa - or that scab was endemic.)) The station ledger includes a page listing 10 'working bullocks' and 39 horses in addition to 10 horses which were sold with the property. For TLM-P's next venture, he tried to leave behind the problems of livestock.\\
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 TLM-P's ledger book from his time at //Hawkwood// (1854-58) is at the Mitchell Library. See [[employees_stores|Employees, Stores]]((MLMSS 3117/box 7X)).