gaining_colonial_experience_early_properties [Murray-Prior History Wiki]

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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.\\
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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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In 1860, a year after Queensland became a separate colony, four Lands Acts were passed relating to the settlement and alienation of Crown lands. These leases were for 14 years and enthusiastically taken up.((Ross Fitzgerald, //From the Dreaming to 1915: A History of Queensland//, Vol.1, St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1982, p.125)) 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.' 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.((accessed online September 2018.)) 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 father-in-law, Edward Darvall and presumably many other colonial patriarchs.((J. Godden, //The matriarch of Rockend: Emily Mary Barton, more than Banjo Paterson's grandmother//, Ryde History Series, Ryde District Historical Society, 2021.))\\ 
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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.((G. Ginn, 'Leichhardt’s colonial panorama: social observation in his Australian diaries',  Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture 7(2):561 - 574. Brisbane))

==== 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 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:\\

'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.))\\ 

Another connection was Brussels. In the 1820s, Margaret Wyndham had lived in Brussels because her father had run 'a school for English boys' there.(({{https://www.dalwood.org.au/founders.html}})) 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.'(({{https://www.dalwood.org.au/founders.html}}. TLM-P was also lucky in encountering George in the 1840s and not Wadham Wyndham who, 40 years later in a frenzy of religious mania, slaughtered his wife and children.//The Bulletin//, 19 September 1887; D Wilkinson (ed.) //Extracts from Dinton-Dalwood Letters//, privately published, 1964, p.xiii; TLM-P, Diary, 19 July 1888.)) 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.((TLM-P, Diary, 19 July 1888.))\\
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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.\\
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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 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)) 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) 
==== 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.))\\
{{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.))\\ 
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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 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. [[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. 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/.))\\

====== First Properties ======

==== Rosewood 1843-45 ====
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'.((Prior, T L M, Rosewood, Moreton Bay,18/09/1843, NSWSR, index for Prior; 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.18; [[http://www.medicalpioneers.com/|Medical Pioneers Index]]; Thomas A. Darragh and Roderick J. Fensham (ed) //Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Culture//, Vol. 7, Part 1, 30 June 2013, The Leichhardt diaries. Early travels in Australia during 1842-1844, Brisbane, Queensland museum.)) 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.'((19 August)).\\
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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.((see [[http://www.medicalpioneers.com/|Medical Pioneers Index]]; 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; and Ray Kerkhove and Frank Uhr, //The Battle of One Tree Hill//, Boolarong Press, Tingalpa (Qld), 2019, pp.62,121)) 
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 [[wp>Darling_Downs|Darling Downs]] had begun.((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.)) 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.\\
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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 objected to 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 under-estimated 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.((Ray Kerkhove and Frank Uhr, //The Battle of One Tree Hill//, Boolarong Press, Tingalpa (Qld), 2019, pp.62-63,159,183,203,226;Section 3,4.)). \\
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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 attracting settlers like him with military experience. 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 per cent 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]].\\
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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 ==== 
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.((Depasturing licences, SRNSW, https://indexes.records.nsw.gov.au/searchhits_nocopy.aspx?table=Depasturing%20Licenses&id=67&frm=1&query=Surname:%; H. J. Gibbney, 'Murray-Prior, Thomas Lodge (1819–1892)', //Australian Dictionary of Biography//, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murray-prior-thomas-lodge-4282/text6927, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online 14 August 2018.)) TLM-P solved the problem of inadequate capital by borrowing from his step-sisters: £600 in several instalments.((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; In 2017 values, £600 is around £69,348 or AUD$110,956; [[http://www.in2013dollars.com/1845-GBP-in-2017?amount=600]]))\\
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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. Patricia Clarke in the same book (p.17) claims it was Bungroopim)) 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))\\
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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. \\

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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With profits from live cattle decreasing for all squatters in the region,((Patricia Savage, p.11)) 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.((Collin Pfeffer, //The Fassifern Story: a history of Boonah Shire and surroundings to 1989//, Boonah Shire Council, c.1991, p.20.)) Fluke, foot-rot and scab all infected TLM-P's sheep.((Colin Roderick, //In Mortal Bondage. The Strange Life of Rosa Praed//, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1948, p.11)) 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.((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.22; 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/.)) 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.\\
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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.((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.))\\
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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.((Reid, //A Nest of Hornets//, Masters thesis, p.146; 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.22; Isobel Hannah, 'The Royal Descent of the First Postmaster-General of Queensland', //Queensland Geographical Journal//, vol.LV, 1953-54, p.12.)) 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.\\
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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 ===
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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.'\\
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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/.))\\
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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 moved his family 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))
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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.'\\
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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.)) The ledger for Hawkwood for 1856-57 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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Hawkwood was relatively isolated and the 1850s was a time of bitter war between the white 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.)) A succinct summary is at [[https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/detail.php?r=1516|Colonial massacres - Hornet Bank aftermath]]. The Hornet Bank massacre was the murder of 11 members of the Fraser family and staff who lived on Hornet Bank station, about 200k by road from Hawkwood; the women 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 of their widowed mother. 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 the massacre so that she could use the information when writing one of her novels (it was used in her //Australian Life: Black and White//). TLM-P apparently did not want to write it all out himself, so he told his recollections to his second wife Nora who wrote it down for Rosa.\\
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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.\\
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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)).  
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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. 

==== Ormiston c.1858-59 ====
After selling Hawkwood, TLM-P bought a banana plantation on the bay of the area now known as [[wp>Ormiston,_Queensland|Ormiston]], some 25km from central Brisbane.((Reid, A Nest of Hornets, Masters thesis, pp.215; Isobel Hannah, 'The Royal Descent of the First Postmaster-General of Queensland', //Queensland Geographical Journal//, vol. LV, 1953-54, p.12.)) 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.((https://www.hollows.org/au/eye-health/trachoma))\\
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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. \\

==== Creallagh 1859-68 (occupied until c.1863) ====
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.((Roderick, //In Mortal Bondage//, p.32; //The Australian Encyclopaedia//p.205)) 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.((p.112)) In October 1861, TLM-P tried to sell it but did not get a buyer.((//The Courier//, 9 November 1861, p.1)) 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 plantation((//The Courier//, 9 February 1863, p.1.)) 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.((MLMSS 3117/box 9, pp.244-45))\\
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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'.((Queensland Legislative Council Debates, Hansard, 5 February 1884, pp.47-48.)) For an outline of the context of 'sugar slaves', see article by Jeff Sparrow [[https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-slave-state-how-blackbirding-in-colonial-australia-created-a-legacy-of-racism-187782?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202368023618&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202368023618+CID_d58e49792c2466719ed131053d48270f&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Friday%20essay%20a%20slave%20state%20-%20how%20blackbirding%20in%20colonial%20Australia%20created%20a%20legacy%20of%20racism|Friday essay: 'A slave state - how blackbirding in colonial Australia created a legacy of racism', The Conversation, August 5, 2022]]\\
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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.\\
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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 [[politics_and_the_post_office|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_and_rathdowney|Maroon]]\\
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