When TLM-P wrote his 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 activity¹⁾ 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.' ²⁾ 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.

The properties mentioned below are not the only ones in which TLM-P had an interest, as he appeared to assist his sons and sons-in-law establish themselves by helping them buy property. In this, he was very like his contemporary in Sydney, his (second) father-in-law Edward Darvall, and presumably many other colonial patriarchs.³⁾ TLM-P's early career in Australia illustrates what his friend the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt deplored: (in others' words) 'the transitory and opportunistic character of the colonial population, (in Leichhardt's words) 'most of whom came to make their fortunes and nothing else', a restless opportunism that did little to benefit colonial society.⁴⁾

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.'⁵⁾ 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,⁶⁾ settlers could purchase land freehold.⁷⁾

In 1860, a year after Queensland became a separate colony, Lands Acts were passed relating to the settlement and alienation of Crown lands. Leases were for 14 years and enthusiastically taken up.⁸⁾ One provision was for 'squatting licences … a sort of trial of the squatter prior to granting him a lease over his run. If he failed to stock the land for which he had obtained a licence within nine months, he became ineligible to claim a lease and the land was forfeit.'
Queensland Archives outlines important changes to the sale of land in the 1860s-70s:
1. “The sale of Crown land after auction was allowed under Section 8 of the Alienation of Crown Lands Act 1860. Any lots offered at auction that were not bid for, or where a buyer had paid a deposit and subsequently forfeited it by not continuing with the sale, were made available for sale by private contract. The land was sold at the upset price or in the case where a deposit had been forfeited, at the upset price less the deposit. The land had to be paid for with ready money which included land orders. The Crown land became freehold when the land was sold.' and
2. “The Crown Lands Alienation Act 1868 restricted sales of Crown land to lots of land located in the country. It also enabled volunteers in the defence force to acquire ten acres of town lands or 50 acres of country lands by way of a free grant…“
3. “The Crown Lands Alienation Act 1876 included suburban and/or town land as well as country and provided for the value of improvements to be added to the price.”

For more on the complexities of colonial land ownership, and the huge benefits reaped by squatters acquiring Crown/indigenous land, see Beverley Kingston, 'The Origins of Queensland's “Comprehensive” Land Policy', Queensland Heritage, 1:2, 1965.⁹⁾

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 Hunter Valley, north of Sydney.¹⁰⁾ Dalwood House (pictured) is now a National Trust Property, located within the Wyndham Estate Winery.¹¹⁾ In 1839 Dalwood was the home of George and Margaret Wyndham and, luckily, some of his family letters have survived.

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 Napoleon¹²⁾ 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.'¹³⁾

Another connection was Brussels. In the 1820s, Margaret Wyndham had lived in Brussels because her father had run 'a school for English boys' there.¹⁴⁾ It is not known if this was the school associated with the Rev. Drury that TLM-P had attended, or another one. In any case, TLM-P was lucky as George Wyndham was generally admired: 'Respected for his leniency to his assigned labour in the early days and himself a hard worker in the field, George Wyndham considered himself mainly a farmer and pastoralist. He was highly respected within both the local and wider community.'¹⁵⁾ TLM-P established an enduring relationship with the Wyndhams. His photo album includes a photo of Reginald and Julia Wyndham, George and Margaret's son and daughter-in-law, taken in 1868, and two of John Wyndham (another of George's 11 sons?) taken in 1869. As well, TLM-P's 1888 diary records his visit to the Wyndhams when he stopped off at Tamworth when taking the train to Melbourne.¹⁶⁾

While we are lucky to have the above pieces of evidence, luck runs out with George Wyndham's diary for 1830-40.¹⁷⁾ It is brief and largely focused on the weather - sadly, it makes no reference to TLM-P.

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'.¹⁸⁾

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 Dawson¹⁹⁾ and Mr Samuda.²⁰⁾ Its indigenous name was Goorangoola.²¹⁾ TLM-P impressed his employers and he stayed friends with them.

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”'.²²⁾. 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).

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)

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.²³⁾ 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 Nandewar Ranges.²⁴⁾
A contemporary view of Rocky Street Station by artist Mick Pospischil.

The station was owned firstly by John Harley Pagan until his death in May 1846, aged 32; then by Robert Pringle.²⁵⁾ 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.²⁶⁾ 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 Harpur, his future wife.²⁷⁾

It was at Rocky Creek Station that TLM-P formed a friendship with the celebrated explorer Ludwig Leichhardt.²⁸⁾ He later recollected that 'poor Leichhardt [went] with me on my road to take possession of my first station, Rosewood.'²⁹⁾ Leichhardt and TLM-P both needed the protection of extra men as they had to travel through land heavily defended by its Aboriginal owners.³⁰⁾ For more on TLM-P's friendship with the German explorer, click on Leichhardt.

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.'³¹⁾

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. Myall Creek had led to widespread white outrage when the attackers, other than the well-connected leader, faced criminal charges and some were hung.³²⁾ 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 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.³³⁾

In 1843, four years after his arrival in the colony, TLM-P optimistically judged he had enough money to lease and stock a property: Rosewood at Moreton Bay between present day Ipswich and Laidley, located 'at the junction of Lockyer and Laidley Creeks'.³⁴⁾ In his 1888 diary, when TLM-P was in Toowoomba, he wrote that 'Ruminating on the past, the year '43 when I first passed that way. Poor Leichhardt with me on my road to take possession of my first station, Rosewood.'³⁵⁾.

Dr John Goodwin (c1800-59) had acquired and named the property Rosewood in 1841 but sold it in mid-1843, presumably to TLM-P. Kerkhove and Uhr explains that when the doctor was away attending a birth, an Aboriginal group attacked the property with Goodwin's wife and young children inside. Thwarted, they moved on to kill another settler's infant daughter. Understandably, after that the Goodwins did not want to stay. They state that Goodwin sold it to Thomas Bell who, about to be declared bankrupt, put the property in the name of his father-in-law Major William North, but also that by 1846 it was owned by Thomas and John Coutts.³⁶⁾ In acquiring Rosewood, TLM-P was in largely uncharted country for Europeans. It was only three years previously, in 1840, that the pastoral invasion of Darling Downs had begun.³⁷⁾ It is reasonable to suppose that TLM-P felt he would miss out if he didn't act quickly to acquire land. He took a chance, but encountered three significant problems.

Firstly, according to Kerkhove and Uhr, Rosewood station was 'very close to the main Aboriginal pathways, camps and hunting grounds', including a 'large and important inter-tribal bora'. Indigenous owners of the land naturally resisted being dispossessed. They, including the famed Aboriginal warrior Multuggerah, led raids on the white usurpers from the dense Rosewood Scrub and in 1843 won a battle at One Tree Hill. While there were no known deaths of the newcomers in the years when TLM-P was thought to be at Rosewood, the countryside was in a state of (mostly guerrilla) war. TLM-P also underestimated the capital needed to run a station. The third problem exacerbated the second: during 1843-44 there was a credit squeeze which affected most of the squatters in Queensland.³⁸⁾.

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.³⁹⁾ 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.⁴⁰⁾

An account book for Rosewood Station for 24 June 1843-1844 survives⁴¹⁾. For more see Employees, Stores.

TLM-P needed to be reasonably self-sufficient. That included not only medical books but at least one on the law. The title page of his law book is shown in the next photo.⁴²⁾ The book is inscribed, 'Thomas Lodge Murray Prior, Logan River Moreton Bay. January 1845'.

Armed with his book on English law, TLM-P went into partnership to lease his second property on 24 September 1845. His partner, Hugh Henry Robertson Aikman, had occupied Broomelton since July 1842 when he was granted what is believed to be the first license to depasture (i.e. graze cattle on) Crown Lands on the banks of the Logan River.⁴³⁾ TLM-P solved the problem of inadequate capital by borrowing from his step-sisters: £600 in several instalments.⁴⁴⁾ David Marr in his brilliant Killing for Country. A Family Story, points out that it was common to borrow money from the extended family for this purpose - and hugely increased the pressure on the borrower to succeed. Massacring the owners of the land was one result, another was to overstock it and otherwise exploit the soil too ruthlessly.

Bromelton was on the Logan River, 35 miles from Brisbane, near the current town of Beaudesert. It was 'watered by the Logan River, part of Teviot Brook, Allen's Creek, and Crow's Creek.' ⁴⁵⁾ It was large, 60 square miles (almost 15,540 hectares).⁴⁶⁾ 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'.⁴⁷⁾ 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.⁴⁸⁾

In 1846, TLM-P was sufficiently established to marry 18-year old 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 £200⁴⁹⁾, the amount he considered necessary for married life.⁵⁰⁾ Matilda was idealistically keen to prove her mettle as a pioneer wife. A letter of hers quoted by Colin Roderick⁵¹⁾ 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'.⁵²⁾ 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. ⁵³⁾ It is not known whether TLM-P discharged his builders, but he did employ two (Samuel Crewe and Patrick Sullivan) during May-August 1848.⁵⁴⁾

Bromelton homestead in 1872: it was later demolished and another home built on the site.⁵⁵⁾ 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.⁵⁶⁾

In 1844, Hugh Aikman co-inherited his brother's estate in Scotland and soon after returned there.⁵⁷⁾ TLM-P subsequently bought out Aikman's share of Bromelton.⁵⁸⁾ 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.⁵⁹⁾

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 1848.⁶⁰⁾ 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).⁶¹⁾ 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.⁶²⁾ 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.

With profits from live cattle decreasing for all squatters in the region,⁶³⁾ TLM-P sold the lease to 6,181 hectares of his land so that, by 30 June 1853, Bromelton was 19,200 acres (7,770 hectares). The annual licence fee was accordingly reduced to £10/2/0. Disastrously, he supplemented his cattle and horses with 4,000 sheep. As Patricia Savage wryly comments, this was 'before it was fully realised that sheep don't exactly thrive on coastal Queensland'. TLM-P was not the only Britisher to assume sheep would thrive in what is now seen as cattle country: Robert Campbell owned Maroon in 1846-50, and estimated that it could carry 5,000 sheep.⁶⁴⁾ Fluke, foot-rot and scab all infected TLM-P's sheep.⁶⁵⁾ When the sheep failed to boost profitability, TLM-P tried a 'boiling-down establishment' - boiling animal carcasses for tallow and other by-products. That also proved unprofitable.⁶⁶⁾ The fluctuations revealed in TLM-P's Annual Returns are a reminder that much of the squatters' early efforts were trial and error, due both to their own limited experience in agriculture and ignorance of their new country.

More information about TLM-P's early difficulties at Bromelton come from his letters to Matilda before their marriage in September 1846. According to Rosa Praed who apparently was given the letters (but alas they are now lost to us), TLM-P complained of difficulties keeping his working horses shod and in good condition; of the large number of travellers that he (and all settlers) where expected to feed and house; the expense and labour entailed in sending rations to workers on distant parts of the property; and worry about 'myall Blacks', that is, those who tried to adhere to their traditional lifestyle and were considered, in the language of the time, to be 'wild'. Floods and distance were also problems. Rosa cited Matilda writing that it could take 12 weeks for supply drays (pulled by bullocks) to arrive from Brisbane, and during floods the drays had to wait until the river subsided.⁶⁷⁾

Finally, around September 1853, TLM-P sold the rest of Bromelton's lease for £2,500 (roughly equivalent to $253,405 in 2017), keeping the stock for his next property.⁶⁸⁾ The failure of Bromelton was a blow. He had Matilda and their four young children to support as well as a major debt to his step-sisters who, as Victorian 'ladies', had no employment options that did not entail drudgery and a severe loss of status for the whole family. Fortunately, as shown below, TLM-P also bought land in and around Brisbane which would prove a much more profitable investment.

In 1859 Bromelton was acquired by Campbell McDonald whose family also owned Dugandan, a neighbouring property to TLM-P's later property, Maroon.⁶⁹⁾ 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 ledger⁷⁰⁾ which listed TLM-P as one of the many squatters appointed a 'Commissioner of Peace'.⁷¹⁾
He was a Commissioner for Ipswich with the role was very much about ensuring peaceful acquiescence of the status quo.

More about TLM-P and his properties can be found in reminiscence of Ernest Davies⁷²⁾, 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 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.⁷³⁾ 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 400'⁷⁴⁾ 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 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.⁷⁵⁾

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 Brisbane⁷⁶⁾. Also in 1854, he applied to select 640 acres on the west bank of the Albert River.⁷⁷⁾ 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).

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.⁷⁸⁾

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.⁷⁹⁾ 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.⁸⁰⁾ 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 1856.⁸¹⁾

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.⁸²⁾
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.'

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 Queensland Art Gallery.⁸³⁾ The four years they stayed at Hawkwood were marked by 'great anxiety and hard work'.⁸⁴⁾

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 Hornet Bank massacre. The definitive research into this massacre is a thesis and subsequent book by Gordon Reid.⁸⁵⁾ A succinct summary is at 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 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”.'⁸⁶⁾ 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 Memoirs⁸⁷⁾

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.⁸⁸⁾ 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's ledger book from his time at Hawkwood (1854-58) is at the Mitchell Library. See Employees, Stores⁸⁹⁾.
For photographs (with permission) by Roy M-P of Hawkwood in 2021 click on Hawkwood photos. Note Roy's observation that the buildings are likely to have been built after TLM-P's time.

After selling Hawkwood, TLM-P bought a banana plantation on the bay of the area now known as Ormiston, some 25km from central Brisbane.⁹⁰⁾ One factor in TLM-P's decision to move closer to Brisbane was Matilda's deteriorating eyesight. She had contacted trachoma while at Hawkwood: it was a disease then known as 'sandy blight' because it feels like sand permanently and painfully in the eye.⁹¹⁾

TLM-P's diary of 1858-60 is at the Mitchell Library and can shed more light on this period of his and his family's life.

In 1859, after a year at Ormiston, TLM-P moved to 700 acres of mixed farm at nearby Cleveland, on the shores of Morton Bay, opposite Stradbroke Island. The farm was called Creallagh after one of the estates originally granted to his ancestor Captain Thomas Prior in Ireland - yet another indication that TLM-P was driven to recover his family's lost fortunes as Irish-based gentry. The colonial Creallagh grew maize, cotton and sugar-cane.⁹²⁾ Rosa Praed described it in her My Australian Girlhood as 'not one house, but four wooden huts built round a garden, and - as funds increased - joined by covered ways.⁹³⁾ In October 1861, TLM-P tried to sell it but did not get a buyer.⁹⁴⁾ By February 1863 he was offering Creallagh's 700 acres for sale or lease, describing it as situated on the shores of Raby Bay, near Cleveland. By then it was the 'late' residence of TLM-P, and currently occupied by his brother-in-law, Charles Robert Haly, Esq.(yet another indication of his close tie with his brother-in-law) It was, the advertisement stated, 'in one of the most beautiful and healthy localities in Queensland, admirably adapted for the Cultivation of Sugar or Cotton, with Water Carriage, and only 18 miles' from Brisbane. It was next to the Hon. Louis Hope's sugar plantation⁹⁵⁾ and it was Hope who eventually bought the property. TLM-P's ledger for March 1867 records a sale 'of Property … at Cleveland for £4,000' with the final payment due March 1868.⁹⁶⁾

TLM-P, like other squatters, advocated the use of imported labour while assuming that higher paid labour by Europeans was superior. He told the Legislative Council in 1884, at a time of booming demand for sugar, that he advocated the use of indentured Pacific Islanders after a strike by his men at Cleveland. He believed, he stated, that his men liked him as he liked them, but appeared outraged when they demanded 'a few pounds more'.⁹⁷⁾ For an outline of the context of 'sugar slaves', see article by Jeff Sparrow Friday essay: 'A slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism', The Conversation, August 5, 2022

For a drawing of Como, possibly a later name for Creallagh, see Andrew Darbyshire, A Fair Slice of St Lucia. Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, St Lucia History Group research paper no. 8, p.107.

TLM-P loved the rural lifestyle and the gentry status that went with prosperous grazing properties, but now found a new source of income as Postmaster-General. See TLM-P's Career in Politics and the Post Office It also helped him afford what would become his and successive eldest sons' main property, Maroon