Rural Life and Tragedy

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 friendliness, 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.

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.'³⁾ 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,⁴⁾ settlers could purchase land freehold.⁵⁾

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.⁶⁾ 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, 1965.⁷⁾ 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.⁸⁾

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 Hunter Valley, north of Sydney.⁹⁾ Dalwood House (pictured) is now a National Trust Property, located within the Wyndham Estate Winery.¹⁰⁾ 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 Napoleon¹¹⁾ 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.'¹²⁾

Another connection was Brussels. In the 1820s, Margaret Wyndham had lived in Brussels because her father had run 'a school for English boys' there.¹³⁾ 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.'¹⁴⁾ Evidence that TLM-P established an enduring relationship with the Wyndhams comes from his photo album. It 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.

While we are lucky to have the above pieces of evidence, luck runs out with George Wyndham's diary for 1830-40.¹⁵⁾ It is brief and largely focused on the weather - sadly, it makes no reference to TLM-P.

TLM-P then gained more colonial experience at a property called Belford. It was in the upper Hunter Valley and owned by Robert Dawson¹⁶⁾ and Mr Samuda.¹⁷⁾ Its indigenous name was Goorangoola.¹⁸⁾ TLM-P impressed his employers: in 1880, his second wife Nora described 'Mr Dawson' as TLM-P's 'old friend and “Master”'.¹⁹⁾ 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.²⁰⁾
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.²¹⁾ Colin Roderick, in his biography of TLM-P's daughter Rosa, states that Jacob Low, the Head Stockman at the time, had worked as a clerk in Edinburgh and was a friend of TLM-P. However, there is no information whether the friendship caused TLM-P to go to the station, or was a result of their work together there. 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.²²⁾

It was also at Rocky Creek Station that TLM-P formed a friendship with the celebrated explorer Ludwig Leichhardt.²³⁾ He later recollected that 'poor Leichhardt [went] with me on my road to take possession of my first station, Rosewood.'²⁴⁾ Leichhardt and TLM-P both needed the protection of extra men as they had to travel through land heavily defended by its Aboriginal owners.²⁵⁾ For more on TLM-P's friendship with the German explorer, click on Leichhardt.

Rocky Street Station was a testing place for a young, relatively inexperienced manager. It was at the centre of violent conflict between the settlers and the indigenous owners: there had been an Aboriginal attack on nearby Terry Hie Hie station with the revenge massacre of hundreds of Aboriginal people at Waterloo Creek. It was also in the vicinity of Myall Creek station where, in 1838, armed stockmen and a squatter's son murdered 28 defenceless Aboriginal people. Myall Creek had led to widespread white outrage when the attackers, other than the well-connected leader, faced criminal charges and some were hung.²⁶⁾

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'.²⁷⁾ TLM-P bought the lease from Dr John Goodwin (c1800-59).²⁸⁾

As Patricia Clarke points out, TLM-P stuck out on his own in largely uncharted country for Europeans, 'just three years after Patrick Leslie and his brothers had begun the wave of squatter settlement on the Darling Downs'.²⁹⁾ It appears that TLM-P was overly optimistic about the capital needed to run a station, as he soon left 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.³⁰⁾ 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.³¹⁾

Note: An account book for Rosewood, Lockiers Creek, for 1843 was donated to ML with TLM-P's diaries. This should reveal more information.

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.³²⁾ 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. ³³⁾ TLM-P solved the problem of inadequate capital by borrowing from his half-sisters: £600 in several instalments.³⁴⁾

The property 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'.³⁵⁾ The property 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.' ³⁶⁾ Bromelton was large, 60 square miles (almost 15,540 hectares).³⁷⁾

In 1846, TLM-P was sufficiently established to marry his love, 18-year old Matilda Harpur, although he was concerned he did not have enough money to sustain family life. He wrote to Matilda that his major worry was saving £200³⁸⁾, the amount he considered necessary for married life.³⁹⁾ Matilda, however, was idealistically keen to prove her mettle as a pioneer wife. A letter of hers quoted by Colin Roderick⁴⁰⁾ 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'.⁴¹⁾ 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 a novelist; and that she left Bromelton when she was 2 years old. While she drew on other family members' memories, decades had passed and they had had numerous homes by the time Rosa wrote her memoirs.

Bromelton homestead in 1872: it was later demolished and another home built on the site.⁴²⁾ 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? 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.⁴³⁾

In 1844, Hugh Aikman co-inherited his brother's estate in Scotland and soon after returned there.⁴⁴⁾ TLM-P subsequently bought out Aikman's share of Bromelton.⁴⁵⁾ 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.⁴⁶⁾

Despite personal happiness, Bromelton was not a success. TLM-P's (not necessarily completely accurate) Annual Returns of Depasturing tells 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. Part of the 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 quickly ate Aboriginal crops and compacted the light soils; once fertile soil was quickly and unwittingly destroyed.⁴⁷⁾

With profits from live cattle decreasing for all squatters in the region,⁴⁸⁾ 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.⁴⁹⁾ Fluke, foot-rot and scab all infected TLM-P's sheep.⁵⁰⁾ 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.⁵¹⁾ 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 to arrive from Brisbane, and during floods the drays had to wait until the river subsided.⁵²⁾

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.⁵³⁾ 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.

Among the diaries donated to ML was a 13-page ledger for May 1848 to 1849 for this station.⁵⁴⁾ In 1859 Bromelton was acquired by Campbell McDonald whose family also owned Dugandan, a neighbouring property to TLM-P's latter property, Maroon.⁵⁵⁾ The world of the squatters in colonial Queensland was a very small one.

More about TLM-P and his properties can be found in reminiscence of Ernest Davies⁵⁶⁾, 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.⁵⁷⁾ 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 400'⁵⁸⁾ 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.⁵⁹⁾

As labour was scarce in the hotter, more isolated parts of Queensland, squatters like TLM-P supported schemes to employ cheap labour. They urged the renewal of convict transportation⁶⁰⁾ and encouraged the migration of Asian and Pacific Islander labourers to Australia. Maxine Darnell has compiled a list of Chinese labourers brought to Australia to work on a fixed contract; she points out that only a minority of these men have been identified. Court records account for an over-representation of men who fell foul of the legal system. Her list is at indentured.pdf. TLM-P is given as the employer of 19 Chinese men between December 1848 and May 1857 at Bugrooperia (Bromelton) and Hawkwood. For more information about individual employees, click on Darnell list.

Despite TLM-P's problems with Bromelton, Helen Gregory found that, during 1852-54, he spent just over £1,364 on land in and around Brisbane. That sum was around $92,619 in 2017 values. ⁶¹⁾ Half the land (in terms of value) was bought in 1854. That year TLM-P bought 11 lots of land in Brisbane worth £752.11.6.⁶²⁾ As the next map indicates, by 1887 he owned a considerable part of Kangaroo Point. The last known selection he made was at Toocoohah (Moggill) which became known as Prior's Pocket: it was the area that, Ernest Davies recalled, TLM-P used to fatten cattle. In 1860 he advertised two Mogill farms, 400 and 800 acres respectively, for lease.<sup>63)

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The context to these purchases is important. As Helen Gregory points out, they were a gamble on the future prosperity of the Brisbane region 'at a stage in its development when the future was by no means assured.'⁶⁵⁾ It appears that both TLM-P and his first wife Matilda were optimistic about the future of their new country. Rosa Praed claimed that Matilda wrote to her mother-in-law Eliza M-P, that 'Some day this will be a flourishing country; its capabilities are greater than any of us know, and our descendants may be building towns on this wild land which we have reclaimed from the wilderness.'⁶⁶⁾

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 Brisbane⁶⁷⁾. Also in 1854, he applied to select 640 acres on the west bank of the Albert River.⁶⁸⁾ His most significant acquisition was a property called Hawkwood (its indigenous owners called it Naraigin) on the Auburn River, a tributary of the Burnett river (north of what is now the Sunshine Coast).

The Hawkwood venture started ominously. When moving his sheep to his new property, he had to destroy 8,000 of them after they became infected with scab.⁶⁹⁾ 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 1856.⁷⁰⁾

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.⁷¹⁾ The four years they stayed at Hawkwood were marked by 'great anxiety and hard work'.⁷²⁾

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 Hornet Bank massacre. The definitive research into this massacre is a thesis and subsequent book by Gordon Reid.⁷³⁾ A succinct summary is at 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; 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 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.

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.⁷⁴⁾ For TLM-P's next venture, he tried to leave behind the problems of livestock.

This photo of a group of Aboriginal men (stockmen?) in the Murray-Prior papers (ML PXB661) has no attached information. It is a reminder of the huge gaps in our knowledge about the past, not the least from the Aboriginal viewpoint. The photo, faded and damaged as it is, gives context to TLM-P's criticism of depictions of 'Australians' and other indigenous groups at the Crystal Palace in England in 1882. He thought they were presented as 'miserable looking specimens' and 'very unlike those [Aboriginal people] I have seen'.⁷⁵⁾

For more on TLM-P's Aboriginal employees, see Angela Woollacott, Settler Society in the Australian Colonies: Self-Government and Imperial Culture, pp.172-73. ⁷⁶⁾

After selling Hawkwood, TLM-P bought a banana plantation on the bay of the area now known as Ormiston, some 25km from central Brisbane.⁷⁷⁾ 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. ⁷⁸⁾ In 1861, he offered it with its 700 acres of land, for sale, but apparently did not get a buyer.⁷⁹⁾ By February 1863 he was offering Creallagh for sale or lease, situated on the Shores of Raby Bay, near Cleveland, and adjoining the property and sugar plantation of the Hon. L. Hope, with 700 acres of land. It was described as the 'late' residence of TLM-P, and currently occupied by his brother-in-law, C. R. Haly, Esq. 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.⁸⁰⁾

TLM-P loved the rural lifestyle, but now he turned to a career in the public service, as Postmaster-General. For more on his time as Postmaster-General, see TLM-P's Career in Politics and the Post Office

For information about Maroon, a Murray-Prior family home for 54 years, see sidebar.

From 1865, the year after TLM-P acquired Maroon, he bought freehold land to the east of Maroon, on the northern bank of the Logan River, which he combined and named Rathdowney after his ancestors' Irish estate.⁸¹⁾

Acquiring Rathdowney was a group effort. TLM-P purchased 2,560 acres on 16 November 1868, while on 3 January 1876 his eldest son Thomas de M. M-P selected the homestead block of 640 acres under the 1868 Crown Land Alienation Act. Bill Kitson summarises, 'This Act allowed the Government to acquire half of the squatter's run either by resumption or voluntary surrender. This resumed half was then to be surveyed into blocks suitable for selectors looking for smaller agricultural farms. The run holder in return would receive a new lease on his half of the original run as well as other benefits. By this policy the Government was able to achieve their objectives of closer settlement with more people using the same area of land with the added benefit of an increase in rent.'⁸²⁾ The Act limited 'selections' of land to 640 acres and specified that the 'selector' had to have lived permanently on the land and farmed it, before its ownership was transferred to him. Wives and dependent children were ineligible to select land, in what proved to be a somewhat fruitless exercise to prevent what became known as 'dummying', i.e. paying trusted family members or employees to select then to transfer the land when ownership was confirmed. Eminent historian Ross Fitzgerald considers the squatters regarded selectors as intruders and manipulated land regulations to keep the newcomers out. As a result, 'many [squatters] resorted to “dummying” their runs (i.e., lodging land claims using the name of a family member or employee)… Most of the distinguished squatting families of the [Darling] Downs were involved….'.⁸³⁾ TLM-P and his eldest son were no exception. After the Rathdowney homestead block was confirmed as his, T de M. M-P immediately transferred the land to his father. TLM-P acquired more land under the selection act, another 640 acres in January 1880. As condition of acquiring the land, he had two witnesses swear that he had lived permanently there from the date of selection, February 1876. The witnesses were John Worrall and John Endersby, both stockmen in his employ.⁸⁴⁾

While TLM-P joined his fellow squatters in circumventing the selection acts, he was sympathetic to the desire for people to own their own land. He was also aware that small holdings rarely provided a living for the selector. As he wrote in his 1888 diary: 'There seems to be a great land hunger. Now the more selections taken up the better but I can hardly see how they will make it pay - the labour and expenses of clearing is great; they deserve to succeed.'(entry for 5 July).
An undated photo of Rathdowney. The home has since been demolished and another rebuilt in its place. In September 1979, when it was inspected under the selection act, TLM-P was said to have lived in the weatherboard house with its shingle roof, a detached slab kitchen and separate slab house for workmen. There was also a garden.⁸⁵⁾

TLM-P's stockman John Worrall didn't just act as witness, but himself selected 320 acres to the north of the Rathdowney property. His two witnesses who swore that he had lived there permanently, and thus was entitled to own the land, were John Endersby (the other of TLM-P's employees/witnesses) and Thomas de M. M-P. In August 1879 when the selection process was completed, John Worrall immediately transferred the land to TLM-P.⁸⁶⁾

By 1880, the local council's rate book valued Rathdowney's buildings at £30.⁸⁷⁾

In November 1884, TLM-P sold Rathdowney to William Collins and Sons.⁸⁸⁾ Nora wrote to Rosa Praed on 3 November 1884, that it was sold cheaply but a necessity: 27/6 per acre for 18,000 acres; £4 per head for 800 stores bullocks and £23 a head for 750 cows.'⁸⁹⁾ As Nora told Rosa Praed, if TLM-P were '20 years younger it would be madness to sell it yet the constant strain of hard labour is too much for him.'⁹⁰⁾ Rathdowney was subsequently subdivided and Rathdowney town developed there.⁹¹⁾

TLM-P's land dealings were extensive and it is near impossible to follow them all. As shown above, he started to buy urban blocks in the 1850s.

The next table is from Angella Collyer who sourced it from the Queensland State Archives. It shows his land dealings in the 1860s.⁹²⁾

A total of 14,392 acres (5,824 hectares).

TLM-P's son also made numerous selections, see Thomas de Montmorenci, Florence and Mary M-P. TLM-P also had land in partnership with other family members, including his daughter Lizzie's husband Robert Jardine.

Angella Collyer found that in 1867, TLM-P leased Melcombe (it had 60 square miles available for pasture improvement; 16 square miles unavailable, “PP nil') and Heads of Logan (20 square miles available; 16 square miles unavailable; PP nil.) In 1869 he consolidated the two as 'one large property of 100 square miles' then in 1874 he separated them again, calling one property of 54 square miles Melcombe/Maroon and the other Palen. It is unsure, she states, if Palen and Heads of Logan had the same boundaries.⁹³⁾

In the 1860s, with governments resuming land to break up into smaller farms, landowners such as TLM-P secured their (leased) land by buying it freehold. TLM-P had been 'freeholding [i.e. converting to freehold] parts of his run, including 2560 acres on 16 November 1868 alone. In 1876 he allowed what was left of the leasehold to lapse or revert to the government.' From then on, Maroon comprised entirely of freehold land.⁹⁴⁾

Note: the Beaudesert Museum has numerous holdings relating to the Murray-Prior family, see https://beaudesertmuseum.org.au/main/images/BEAUDESERT%20HISTORICAL%20MUSEUM.pdf

This range of mountains, along with Mount Murray Prior, is in north Queensland near Cairns and the Indigenous community of Yarrabah. It was named after TLM-P.⁹⁵⁾ The following photo of the view towards the Murray Prior range was taken by Peter M-P in January 2020 from the Kuranda Range: