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| gaining_colonial_experience_early_properties [2026/01/31 15:11] – [Hawkwood 1854-58] judith | gaining_colonial_experience_early_properties [2026/04/03 12:19] (current) – [Hawkwood 1854-58] judith |
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| 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))\\ | 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))\\ |
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| 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 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)) \\ | 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)) \\ |
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| {{:640px-statelibqld_1_134937_macdonald_family_bromelton_house_albert_river_district_1872.jpg?300|}}\\ | {{:640px-statelibqld_1_134937_macdonald_family_bromelton_house_albert_river_district_1872.jpg?300|}}\\ |
| In 1859 //Bromelton// was acquired by Campbell McDonald whose family also owned //Dugandan//, a neighbouring property to TLM-P's later property, //Maroon//.(([[https://www.fassifernguardian.com/the-men-who-named-dugandan-wyaralong?amp=1]])) The world of the squatters in colonial Queensland was a very small one. The squatter community can also be seen in a c.1857 (and so far, despite Trove, unidentified) newspaper clipping in the //Bromelton// and //Hawkwood// stations ledger((MLMSS3117/box7X)) which listed TLM-P as one of the many squatters appointed a 'Commissioner of Peace'.((MLMSS3117/Box 7X))\\ He was a Commissioner for Ipswich with the role was very much about ensuring peaceful acquiescence of the status quo.\\ | In 1859 //Bromelton// was acquired by Campbell McDonald whose family also owned //Dugandan//, a neighbouring property to TLM-P's later property, //Maroon//.(([[https://www.fassifernguardian.com/the-men-who-named-dugandan-wyaralong?amp=1]])) The world of the squatters in colonial Queensland was a very small one. The squatter community can also be seen in a c.1857 (and so far, despite Trove, unidentified) newspaper clipping in the //Bromelton// and //Hawkwood// stations ledger((MLMSS3117/box7X)) which listed TLM-P as one of the many squatters appointed a 'Commissioner of Peace'.((MLMSS3117/Box 7X))\\ He was a Commissioner for Ipswich with the role was very much about ensuring peaceful acquiescence of the status quo.\\ |
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| === A Memoir of Bromelton and Hawkwood === | === Memoirs of Bromelton and Hawkwood === |
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| More about TLM-P and his properties can be found in reminiscence of Ernest Davies(('Some Reminiscences of Early Queensland', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, 6:1, 1959, pp.29-50.)), who acquired his colonial experience as a jackeroo for TLM-P. His brother Henry had migrated a 'couple of years' earlier than Ernest and was the manager of TLM-P's new property, Hawkwood. There is no information how the Davies brothers and TLM-P met, but one connection was Belgium. Ernest Davies was born at Ostend in Belgium in 1836, which may have resulted in mutual acquaintances. Around 1855, he migrated to Australia and met TLM-P in Sydney shortly afterwards. He recalled that, aside from Bromelton, TLM-P owned a property called //Woogaroo// 'halfway up the river between Brisbane and Ipswich' (Woogaroo was later renamed Goodna, now an outer eastern suburb of Ipswich) as well as 'considerable ... land on the Brisbane River' in an area called the Pocket (later Prior's Pocket). Davies describes how, at Bromelton, TLM-P had been 'for some years been building up a fine herd of [[wp>Shorthorn|short-horned Durham cattle]] and importing thorough-bred bulls from England.' He kept this stud herd safe near his town home on the Brisbane River. Confirmation of TLM-P's reputation as a cattle breeder comes from an advertisement in 1860, advertising cattle originally from his 'celebrated' herd.((//The Sydney Morning Herald//, 3 February 1860, p.7.)) By the time TLM-P employed Davies, he had sold the Bromelton lease with a provision being that the buyers would deliver 'certain drafts of cattle year by year for a stated period in payment for the station and stock'. Ernest Davies' first task was to assist in the delivery of 'some 300 or 400'((reminiscences are notoriously unreliable when it comes to precise detail, so we should not be too surprised that, a few pages later, the number has jumped to 'about 400 or 500 head')) stock from Bromelton to TLM-P's new station 'Hawkwood', where his brother Henry was 'in charge'. Ernest Davies worked for some years for TLM-P, noting that 'eventually for a year of so [he] took charge of Hawkwood when Mr. Prior was away.'\\ | More about TLM-P and his properties can be found in reminiscence of Ernest Davies(('Some Reminiscences of Early Queensland', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, 6:1, 1959, pp.29-50.)), who acquired his colonial experience as a jackeroo for TLM-P. His brother Henry had migrated a 'couple of years' earlier than Ernest and was the manager of TLM-P's new property, Hawkwood. There is no information how the Davies brothers and TLM-P met, but one connection was Belgium. Ernest Davies was born at Ostend in Belgium in 1836, which may have resulted in mutual acquaintances. Around 1855, he migrated to Australia and met TLM-P in Sydney shortly afterwards. He recalled that, aside from Bromelton, TLM-P owned a property called //Woogaroo// 'halfway up the river between Brisbane and Ipswich' (Woogaroo was later renamed Goodna, now an outer eastern suburb of Ipswich) as well as 'considerable ... land on the Brisbane River' in an area called the Pocket (later Prior's Pocket). Davies describes how, at Bromelton, TLM-P had been 'for some years been building up a fine herd of [[wp>Shorthorn|short-horned Durham cattle]] and importing thorough-bred bulls from England.' He kept this stud herd safe near his town home on the Brisbane River. Confirmation of TLM-P's reputation as a cattle breeder comes from an advertisement in 1860, advertising cattle originally from his 'celebrated' herd.((//The Sydney Morning Herald//, 3 February 1860, p.7.)) By the time TLM-P employed Davies, he had sold the Bromelton lease with a provision being that the buyers would deliver 'certain drafts of cattle year by year for a stated period in payment for the station and stock'. Ernest Davies' first task was to assist in the delivery of 'some 300 or 400'((reminiscences are notoriously unreliable when it comes to precise detail, so we should not be too surprised that, a few pages later, the number has jumped to 'about 400 or 500 head')) stock from Bromelton to TLM-P's new station 'Hawkwood', where his brother Henry was 'in charge'. Ernest Davies worked for some years for TLM-P, noting that 'eventually for a year of so [he] took charge of Hawkwood when Mr. Prior was away.'\\ |
| 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.))\\ | 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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| | For TLM-P's memories of Bromelton and Hawkwood stations see [[first_nations_australians|First Nations Australians]] |
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| ==== Hawkwood 1854-58 ==== | ==== 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).\\ | 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).\\ |
| 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.))\\ | 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 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 nurts. ((Rosa Praed papers, Oxley Library OM64-01, item 3.1.1.))\\ | An 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.)) TLM-P also incidentally mentions that, fearful of black attack, 'the least noise alarmed us at night ... We had neither windows nor shutters to the verandah part of the hut [they slept in] & for protection, put some slight bars across. Anyone trying to get in would make quite noise enough to wake me.'((Rosa Praed papers, Box 3, 8370, packet 3/1/1, Oxley Library))\\ |
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| 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.\\ | 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 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)). | 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)). |