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--- politics_and_the_post_office [2019/01/29 16:06] – judith
+++ politics_and_the_post_office [2019/02/24 22:18] (current) – [Mrs Elise Barney] judith
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 ====== TLM-P's Career in Politics and the Post Office ======
-TLM-P was active in community affairs before Queensland existed as a separate colony. By 1851 he was a Justice of the Peace (JP) and a committee member of the Moreton Bay and Northern Districts Separation Association, which worked to create what is now known as Queensland as a separate colony.((Marie McCulloch email to T.A. M-P, 12 August 2004, gives the source as //Moreton Bay Courier//, 1 March 1851, but I've been unable to find any list of the Association's members in that issue.)) Just before Queensland was proclaimed a separate colony, he was among the 19 eminent men who founded the [[http://www.queenslandclub.com/home|Queensland Club]]. He went on to become Vice-President in 1889-90.((Andrew Darbyshire, A Fair Slice of St. Lucia, p.18.)) It is understood that his son Thomas and grandson Thomas were also members along with another son Hugh.((To see: Tom has history of Qld Club. Not available NSW)) At the time, the Queensland Club was the only meeting place for prominent men, notably squatters like TLM-P.((A. Morrison, 'Politics in early Queensland', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, 4:3, p.294.))\\
+TLM-P was active in community affairs before Queensland existed as a separate colony. By 1851 he was a Justice of the Peace (JP) and a committee member of the Moreton Bay and Northern Districts Separation Association, which worked to create what is now known as Queensland as a separate colony.((Marie McCulloch email to T.A. M-P, 12 August 2004, gives the source as //Moreton Bay Courier//, 1 March 1851, but I've been unable to find any list of the Association's members in that issue.)) Just before Queensland was proclaimed a separate colony, he was among the 19 eminent men who founded the [[http://www.queenslandclub.com/home|Queensland Club]]. He went on to become Vice-President in 1889-90.((Andrew Darbyshire, A Fair Slice of St. Lucia, p.18.)) It is understood that his son Thomas and grandson Thomas were also members along with another son Hugh.((To see: Tom has history of Qld Club. Not available NSW)) At the time, the Queensland Club was the only meeting place for prominent men, notably squatters like TLM-P.((A. Morrison, 'Politics in early Queensland', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, 4:3, p.294.)) The squatters were never a unified bloc and not always anti-liberal.((A. Morrison, 'Politics in early Queensland', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, 4:3, p.293.)) However, TLM-P was identified with 'the conservative rural interest' as opposed to 'the urban-liberal interest'.((Helen Gregory, 'Squatters, selectors and - dare I say it - speculators', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, XI:4, 1983, pp.74-87.)) Both groups were determined to consolidate their interests.\\
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-When Queensland separated from the colony of NSW in 1859, its settler (white) population was only around 28,000.((//From the Dreamtime to 1859//,? p.113.)). TLM-P and other squatters, though never a unified bloc and not always anti-liberal((A. Morrison, 'Politics in early Queensland', //Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland//, 4:3, p.293.)) were determined to consolidate their interests. The political system strongly favoured rural interests, so TLM-P largely represented dominant interests. The idea of mass democracy was still a radical idea and property owners were generally firm in their conviction that they alone had the right to rule - even if it did mean a few women managed to vote before legislation was amended to exclude them. TLM-P stood for the seat of East Moreton in the first election in 1860, urging electors to protect 'the interests of the squatter, the first occupier of the land'.((A. Morrision, 'Politics in Early Queensland', //Historical Society of Queensland Journal//, IV:3, p.297.)). When he failed to be elected, his sights turned to the public service.((//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. It states that TLM-P was offered a seat in the Legislative Council, but declined to twice unsuccessfully contest the East Moreton seat in the Legislative Assembly.]])) \\
+When Queensland separated from the colony of NSW in 1859, its settler (white) population was only around 28,000.((//From the Dreamtime to 1859//,? p.113.)).  The political system strongly favoured rural interests, so TLM-P largely represented dominant interests. The idea of mass democracy was still a radical idea and property owners were generally firm in their conviction that they alone had the right to rule - even if it did mean a few women managed to vote before legislation was amended to exclude them. TLM-P stood for the seat of East Moreton in the first election in 1860, urging electors to protect 'the interests of the squatter, the first occupier of the land'.((A. Morrision, 'Politics in Early Queensland', //Historical Society of Queensland Journal//, IV:3, p.297.)). When he failed to be elected, his sights turned to the public service.((//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. It states that TLM-P was offered a seat in the Legislative Council, but declined to twice unsuccessfully contest the East Moreton seat in the Legislative Assembly.]])) \\
 In mid-1861 the Queensland Parliament decided that the position of Postmaster-General should be combined with that of Postal Inspector and no longer be held by a government minister.((Desley Deacon, //Managing Gender: The State, the New Middle-Class and Women Workers 1830-1930//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989, p.238.)) The following year, TLM-P was appointed the new Postmaster-General. Darbyshire states that Matilda M-P's brothers-in-law, fellow squatters William Barker and Charles Robert Haly, provide part of the necessary bond.(({{http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murray-prior-thomas-lodge-4282}}; Darbyshire, p.7)) As TLM-P was offered the position when he was 'in utter ignorance' about running a postal service, he first took leave to go to Sydney where he was instructed in his new duties by the NSW Postmaster-General Major [William] Christie(({{http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/christie-william-harvie-3206}})) and Secretary of the Department, Thomas Abbott. On his return he appointed Postal Inspector (on 6 November 1861) and then also to the position of Postmaster-General on 1 January 1862.((//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. Note that the entry states he was instructed in Sydney for two weeks: a hand-written correction changes that to two months.]]))
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 Reference: D. Waterson, //A Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929//, Canberra: ANU Press, 1972, p.135.\\
-===== Mrs Elise Barney =====
+===== Elise Barney =====
 TLM-P had a very public clash with one of the few higher status women to have a lucrative, responsible employment. For TLM-P, conservative views on women's roles and self-interest combined when he was offered the position of Postmaster-General, over the claims of Elise Barney, Brisbane Postmistress during 1855-65.(([[http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barney-elise-12785]])) Historian Desley Deacon has outlined how Elise Barney had taken over the lucrative position when her husband, the previous postmaster, died. Her son Whiston Barney became her assistant. When Queensland became a separate colony, Elise Barney automatically became the head of the new postal department, responsible only to the politician appointed Acting Postmaster-General. Her work was soon officially found to be 'in every respect satisfactory'. When the new Queensland Government decided to combine the Postmaster-General position with that of Postal Inspector and to make it a public service position, a 'long and bitter struggle' ensued between TLM-P and Elise Barney, supported by her son. It was not helped by TLM-P having to have his office in the building in which the Barneys had lived and worked for years. As well, combining the Postmaster-General position with that of Postal Inspector travelling throughout the colony, suggests a deliberative move to exclude Mrs Barney((such inspections would be too dangerous, and perhaps too arduous, for a woman travelling alone as did TLM-P)). Whiston Barney resigned under pressure in mid-1883; in 1864 Mrs Barney was placed on leave after a clerk 'nominally' under her supervision embezzled funds. A Public Service Enquiry criticised both TLM-P and Elise Barney; a subsequent parliamentary Select Committee exonerated them. It appears that sympathy and blame remained equally proportioned between the two. Elise Barney was retired on a generous pension while TLM-P, as seen, was appointed to the Legislative Council when the Postmaster-General position again became a ministerial one.((Desley Deacon, //Managing Gender: The State, the New Middle-class and Women Workers 1830-1930//, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp.31,33, 38-40, 238; Desley Deacon, 'Elise Barney' in //200 Australian Women// (ed.) Heather Radi, Sydney: Women's Redress Press, 2007, pp.16-17.))