History revisited - the man who stopped Thunderbolt

INFAMOUS CHARACTER: Thunderbolt is one of the most reognisable names amongst Australia's bushrangers. This is his statue in Uralla.

Some years ago on a visit to the McCrossin’s Mill Museum in Uralla I was fascinated to see that my great grandfather John Goode was one of those signing the document congratulating Constable Walker on his actions in shooting bushranger Captain Thunderbolt in Kentucky Creek in May 1870.

Growing up in Armidale, the name Constable Walker was a familiar one, if overshadowed by the more famous Thunderbolt. However, I actually knew very little about Walker. He was there as a necessary figure in a much bigger drama.

Alexander Binnie Walker was born in 1847, joining the police force as a teenager. After training in Sydney, Walker was sent early in 1867 to the Northern Police District where he served first at Grafton and then briefly at Armidale before being posted to Uralla in October 1867.

Uralla was, to use Walker’s own phrase, then it its roaring days. For four days a week Walker guarded the mail from Uralla to Bendemeer. The coach travelled past that rock now called Thunderbolt’s Rock south of Uralla.

In 1869, Walker and boss Senior Constable Mulhal were involved in the search for Charles Rutherford. Rurtherford and another man, Frank “Dr” Pearson had been bushranging and had been involved at a shooting at the Shearer’s Inn at Engonia where Constable McCabe had been shot and killed.

Pearson, a fascinating rogue who claimed to be the model for Boldrewood’s Captain Starlight character, deserves a column in his own right. For the moment, the two men split up after the shooting, with Rutherford coming up though the Liverpool Plains onto the New England to Innes Taylor’s property Terrible Vale.

Mulhall and Walker pursued Rutherford for four days without sighting him. Soon after Walker could have been shot, for Rutherford watched him while Walker changed horses at the pub at Carlyle’s Gully. Three days later, Rutherford was shot by the publican while trying to hold up the pub at Pine Ridge.

The fight that took place at Kentucky Creek has been variously described.

Walker was not a big man, five foot five inches or just over 165 centimetres tall, but he was young and obviously reasonably fit. Shot, the much older Ward grappled with Walker. Walker's horse fell. Thunderbolt rushed at him with his revolver in his hand. Walker then fired at the bushranger, who rose and attempted to grapple with the constable. The latter then struck Thunderbolt over the head with the revolver. It was Walker's last shot that killed Ward.

Private and official tributes flowed to Walker, including a Government reward of 300 pounds. On 1 June Walker was promoted to Senior Constable in charge at Glen Innes and then in August Sergeant.

Walker went on to a long and very successful career in the police force. His death at Cremorne in Sydney at the end of March 1929 attracted considerable newspaper coverage, in part because of the link the bushranging past.  

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 18 March 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History revisited - combatting leprosy

STARTING POINT: Leprosy became a problem in Australia during the Gold Rushes. The first reported case in the New England was in 1881 

I have deferred the next column on the history of history in New England because I need to do more research to complete it.

In 1881, New England’s Chinese community collected subscriptions to send a leprosy sufferer away to Queensland. The plan misfired. Police at Stanthorpe arrested him and sent him back.

Leprosy, now called Hansen's Disease after Norwegian Armauer Hansen who discovered the bacterium that caused it in 1873, has afflicted humans for a long time. It existed in ancient China, India and Egypt as far back as 6000 BC and may have been brought to Europe by Alexander The Great around the 4th Century BC.

The incidence of leprosy peaked in Europe in the fourteenth century. It was a disease that caused great fear and loathing. Lepers were expected to live in isolated colonies and in Europe they carried a bell to warn others of their presence.

While leprosy is still something of a medical mystery, it is clear that the disease is does not deserve the fear and loathing attached to it. In fact, most people who are exposed to the bacterium will never get the disease.

Leprosy affects the skin, the nerves and the lining of the upper respiratory tract, causing areas of skin to lose both pigment and sensation. It is this lack of sensation that results in most tissue damage. You hurt yourself, but don’t notice, leading to serious deformation, the rotting associated in the popular mind with leprosy.

In the nineteenth century, leprosy was endemic in parts of China and was brought to Australia by the incoming gold diggers. Those first Chinese lepers went unrecognised even when treated in hospital. It was not until 1857 that the disease was first identified.

We know that the Chinese diggers who came to New England first for gold and then for tin brought leprosy with them. We do not know how common the disease was, although its incidence was probably quite low.

In 1883, two more lepers were brought down from New England to Newcastle. They had to wait there, for no collier or coastal steamer would carry them to Sydney. The small Chinese community in Newcastle sent them food, but would not go near them. The Government ship Pinafore was sent up to take the patients to the infectious diseases hospital at Little Bay.

By 1888, there were 11 male leprosy patients at Little Bay. A new lazaret or leprosarium was established to isolate them from the rest of the hospital. There they would spend the rest of their lives.

The relationship between leprosy and the Chinese became a potent political weapon. Speakers wishing to stop Chinese migration railed against the “leprous Chinese”. But it was the Aborigines of Northern Australia who became the real victims of the disease.

With no natural immunity and greater concentration in camps, the disease spread, leading to a twentieth century epidemic, another disruption of traditional Aboriginal life. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 March 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History revisited - building the institutions that would preserve and promote New England's history

BUILDING HISTORY: Eric Dunlop's recreation of a bush school room in the Museum of Education around 1958

In 1920 the first New State manifesto, Australia Subdivided, put a key problem facing the North in this way: In Northern New South Wales, a few high schools, no technical schools, no universities exist to retain the intelligence and culture of the area.

To try to address this problem, the Northern leadership set about institution building.

The establishment of the Armidale Teachers’ College in 1928 was the first major building block. It was to include a museum that Education Minister David Drummond hoped would represent the North to students from the North. To this end, he peppered his Department with minutes demanding that they find the best possible exhibits.

Down in the Clarence, in 1931 Sir Earle Page suggested the establishment of a historical records museum, which was named the Clarence River Historical Society, with R. C. Law as Secretary. In 1935 the society affiliated with the Royal Australian Historical Society, the first country historical society to do so

In 1933, Drummond opened the Armidale Municipal Museum, proclaimed as 'the first municipally controlled museum' in the state. The museum, Drummond suggested, should be more than just a repository of specimens. To his mind, a country museum should firstly be a place for objects that are 'intimately bound up with the history of the district'; and secondly a place for things 'closely associated with the industries of the district'. He warned that, above all, the museum 'must not be allowed to become a mausoleum or dumping ground for curios'.

In 1936, the Richmond River Historical Society was founded. By 1938, it was publishing its own journal.

New institutions attract new people. Eric Dunlop was one of the people drawn to Armidale by the new Teachers’ College.

Born on 17 May 1910, Dunlop went to Fort Street Boys High School where he was taught history by CB Newling, later first principal of the Armidale Teachers' College. Newling reputedly fired Dunlop's interest in museums by setting a project for him and another student to examine and report on the Australian Museum's Captain Cook artefacts.

In 1933, Dunlop graduated from Sydney University as Master of Arts with first class honours in history in 1933. The following year with Newling’s encouragement, he took up an appointment as lecturer in history at the Armidale Teachers' College.

Dunlop stayed just two years at the College before returning to teaching. He decided that this was an error wanted to come back, but it would be 1949 before he could return. He would then take up the up the museums cause with great enthusiasm, leaving his imprint on Armidale and on the study of history.

Another of the new people drawn to Armidale by the new institutions was Jim Belshaw. New Zealand born, Belshaw arrived in Armidale early in 1938 as foundation lecturer in history and economics at the newly established University College.

The base was now set for an explosion in New England historical writing. Two very different institutions, a university and teachers’ college, would combine with local historical societies and community bodies to create a golden age in New England historiography.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 March 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History revisited - reflecting back on our history

FIRST OF ITS KIND: St John's Theological College was the North's first tertiary institution.

Continuing my story of New England historiography, the history of history in New England, the last decades of the nineteenth century saw a burgeoning interest in Australian history. Australia as a nation did not yet exist, but each of the colonies wished to promote their own achievements, while there was an evolving sense of national identity.

In 1880, for example, the text books introduced into NSW schools contained a segment on Australian history. That same year saw the founding of the Bulletin magazine. In 1901, the Royal Australian Historical Society was established, publishing its own journal from 1908.

This was also a period of considerable intellectual curiosity in areas such as ethnography and anthropology and of a belief in self improvement leading to the creation of school of arts and mechanics institutes. These trends were reflected in Northern New South Wales.

In the Clarence Valley, for example, Thomas Bawden, as President of the School of Arts, gave three lectures in 1886 on the early history of Grafton. His collection of newspaper clippings and personal notes eventually filled 63 volumes. By 1906, the Grafton Daily Examiner was calling for the establishment of a local museum.

In 1898, St John’s Theological College (the North’s first tertiary institution was established in Armidale to train clergy. In 1918 E H Burgman was appointed Rector, the following year A P Elkin was appointed Deputy Warden, bringing to Armidale two men who were to play major roles in the development of Australian thought.

Later, in 1926, Armidale would lose the College to Morpeth in the Hunter. From its base there and especially through its Morpeth Journal, the College would have a significant impact on Australian thought through the 1930s.

Local newspapers began to publish historical pieces, while settler’s reminiscences started to appear.

Of especial importance from the viewpoint of New England’s Aboriginal peoples was the work of R H Mathews.

Born in 1841, Mathews worked as a surveyor across Northern NSW and into Queensland. In 1872, he married Tamworth girl Mary Sylvester Bartlett.

Mathew’s work drew as surveyor and magistrate drew him into contact with Aboriginal people. From around 1890, he began to document the language and social structures of the Aborigines with a particular focus on Northern NSW and Southern Queensland, creating a resource that would be of increasing importance.

All this work was laying the basis for later studies, but it remained localised and fragmented. Events were now to occur that would create the basis for the emergence of an integrated, influential and arguably unique New England historiographic tradition.

I will look at this in my next column. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 25 February 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.

History revisited - the telling of New England's history

STARTING POINT: Many of New England's first professional historians were drawn to Armidale when the Teacher's College was established in 1928

Lionel Gilbert was an Armidale institution, something drawn out clearly in John Harris’s obituary (AE, 11 February). He was also part of what I have come to think of as the golden age in New England historiography, the writing of history about the place and region in which we live.

Triggered by Lionel’s death, I thought that I might tell you a little in my next few columns about the history of history in New England. It’s an interesting story, reflecting both the changes in New England life and broader events, fashions and trends.

How historians write is largely set by the canons of the discipline. However, what they write about, the questions they chose to ask and answer, is very much a creature of current fads and fancies.

You can see this if you look at the Australian histories on the shelves in the diminishing number of bookshops. War is presently popular, as are books connected in some way with the convict period.

In my case, I write about the history of the broader New England because that is my personal passion, one connected with my own family and with the Northern causes that I became involved with from an early age. I am, I suppose, an historical relic in my own right, part of the history that I write about.

Historians stand on each other’s shoulders.

What we can think of as the North’s first professional historians were drawn to Armidale first by the Teachers’ College (1928) and then by the newly created University College (1938). They focused on local and regional history partly because of the ethos of the newly created institutions, partly because that was the source material that was most readily available.

By 1949, their students were beginning to produce theses such as A V Cane’s 1949 MA study, Ollera, Study of a Sheep Station. This was followed by articles and books, culminating in something of a publishing explosion in the 1980s. By then, each Armidale bookshop plus Pidgeon’s had a small section devoted to local publications.

Not all this writing came from the academy. Much such as Owen Wright’s Wongwibinda (University of New England, 1985) reflected family and local interests that had been triggered and directed to some degree by the professional historians.

Interest and output then declined, although interest in family history continued to grow rapidly. It wasn’t all bad news. Individual historians such as Lionel or John Ryan maintained interest, while there was also some very good individual writing.

In my next column, I will look in more detail at the history of our history, starting with the early period in New England historiography. Most of the books are now out of print, but you can still find them in second hand bookshops or in local libraries.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 18 February 2015. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015.