The Origins of the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement.
Paul Sutton & Chrissy Fletcher
On 28 June 1914 Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austria-Hungarian Empire (of which Bosnia was a part) in Sarajevo. The murder unleashed a chain of events that was to plunge the entire world into conflict within six weeks. In far away Australia few people had heard of Sarajevo, Bosnia or Serbia but the aftermath of this assassination was to change Australia forever in a myriad of ways. One such consequence was to transform the small Queensland railway siding on the North Coast Line under the shadow of Mt. Beerburrum into an agricultural settlement specifically established for ex-servicemen.
The Beerburrum Soldiers Settlement, approximately 40 miles north of Brisbane, was established in 1916 as one of many settlements throughout the State of Queensland for ex-servicemen returned from the Great War. Its aim was to provide the opportunity for ex-servicemen to establish themselves on the land at a reasonable cost, as a reward for their efforts and sacrifice in serving their King, their Empire and their Country. Whilst ultimately the scheme as a whole was a failure, it did survive for a decade as a state-sponsored initiative. Many of these ex-servicemen remained on the land around Beerburrum and many of their descendants are still there to this day.
The aim of this paper is to illustrate how the Settlement came into being as a result of the tumultuous chain of events which began in Sarajevo that day in the summer of 1914, and what remains today of the settlement. It will examine how the insignificant rail siding on the North Coast Line became the widely publicised manifestation of the government’s repatriation and reintegration programme for returned soldiers.
With the declaration of war between Britain and Germany on 4 August 1914, Australia saw itself plunged into the conflict from the outset. Even before war was declared the Federal government had offered Australian troops to be at the disposal of the Imperial Government in London should hostilities break out. Throughout Australia there was widespread popular support for the war and almost immediately men from all walks of life volunteered to join what would become the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF).
In Queensland, the Commonwealth camp at Enoggera in Brisbane was the centre for administering the state’s effort and was the reception centre for Queensland recruits. In August 1914 a total of 1481 had volunteered from Queensland and by the end of the year 6150 Queenslanders had rallied to the cause, and by the time the AIF went into action on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 this number had risen to over 10,000. By war’s end Queensland had contributed 57,700 men or approximately 14% of the entire AIF recruits. i
Whilst there might have been a degree of euphoria at the outbreak of the war, Queensland itself was in political and social turmoil. Queensland had long had the reputation of being militant, which saw a significant growth in trade union membership in the years since Federation, and the unions were beginning to make their presence felt. A series of well-organised strikes throughout the state in previous years had seen significant gains in the employment conditions of the workers, though the General Strike in Brisbane in 1912 had been heavy-handedly suppressed by the Denham government of the day which led to bitterness between the social classes. As the Labor movement in Queensland became more organised so too did its Labor Party political wing under the leadership of Thomas Joseph Ryan and Edward Theodore whose common sense “moderate” approach to socialism was finding support amongst both urban workers and their rural cousins.ii
The beginning of the war coincided with – or perhaps it is fairer to say caused – an economic recession in Queensland. Exports of agricultural produce almost immediately dried up as all available shipping was required to ship men and materiel to the war zone whilst much of the metal industry, which was heavily reliant on German customers, inevitably suffered. The knock-on effects were job losses and price rises which mostly affected the working classes, thus fuelling their growing sense of frustration and bitter resentment of the elite.iii
This all ultimately had an effect in the state elections in 1915 when Ryan and his Labor Party were swept into office with their agenda of social reform and greater state involvement in the economy and workers’ conditions. It was the Labor Party that was to manage the soldier settlement schemes within Queensland.
As a country, Australia had little experience of how to integrate returned servicemen into society. Its first military forays overseas, the Maori and Boer Wars, saw relatively low numbers involved and so reintegration was not problematic. But the numbers that had enlisted in 1914/1915 meant that when the time came for the soldiers’ return, significant issues would be encountered in reintegrating them into society and the workforce, and that adequate plans would need to be in place. Given the priority of early 1915 was still to win the war rather than to worry too much about peacetime, the debate, such as it was, came more from the concerned members of the public expressing themselves in newspapers rather than governments formulating repatriation policy.
Until the middle of 1915 the state authorities’ main priority, naturally, was to recruit, equip, train and dispatch the volunteers as quickly as possible. Little thought was given as to what would happen to these men on their return to Australia – be they fit or maimed. The early months of 1915 saw a trickle of soldiers being returned to Australia whose services in the AIF were no longer required. Either they were sick, medically unsuited to soldiering, those who were sent home for varying degrees of ill- discipline or those who had returned from the expedition against the German possessions in New Guinea. It was around this time that questions began appearing in the press asking what was to be done to assist these returnees to settle back into civilian life. As these men were mainly sick rather than maimed, the main concern was to find them employment. It became commonplace for jobs to be advertised as “suitable for returned soldiers” as printed in The Truth, a Melbourne newspaper in January 1915: “It should thus become a duty, devolving upon either the Government or the community itself to ensure recognition of the claims of returned soldiers in the matter of employment, and, in any case, to ensure preference for soldiers, all else being equal, over the loafers who refused to turn to when the Empire called”.iv
The concept of discharged soldiers receiving land goes back at least as far as the Roman army. The notion of rewarding soldiers with land to set themselves up for the rest of their lives was always a big incentive for men to join the army in the first place. This was a common reward scheme and throughout the history of the British Empire, soldiers and civilians alike were able to obtain land in the various Colonies and Dominions in return for the service they had provided to the Crown.
One of the first proponents of land settlement for soldiers was an Australian, Herbert E Easton of the British Immigration League, an organisation which encouraged immigration from Britain prior to the war. Easton happened to be in Britain when war was declared and took it upon himself to publicly declare it was Australia’s obligation to provide land for any British soldier who wished to take up a new life on the land in Australia after the war. In this he was supported by Earl Grey who was commissioned by the British Government to ascertain the practicalities of widespread emigration of British ex-servicemen after the conclusion of the war. On Easton’s return to Australia in mid-1915 he travelled the country extolling the merits and benefits of such a scheme to the Australian public and politicians alike. His trip was well publicised in the national press which did much to raise awareness to the Australian general public of the concept of land settlement for returned soldiers.v
Western Australia took the lead when one private individual offered Earl Grey’s scheme “100,000 acres of fruit land in proximity to the railway, at £2 an acre, the purchase money not to be paid for 20 years. The owner further offers to advance £50,000 as working capital towards placing these proposed settlers on the land in such a way that neither interest nor capital need be paid by them until they are in a position to do so out of realised profits”. This generous offer spurred the Western Australian Minister for Lands to state that the Crown “might see its way to make even a more liberal offer”.vi Not to be outdone the Victorian State Assembly in May 1915 was suggesting they could also offer up land for Earl Grey’s scheme but it was South Australia that first legislated to provide a settlement scheme for returned Australian servicemen in December 1915.vii
This awareness of the need to make provision for returned soldiers became more urgent once Australia heard the news that its forces had gone into action in Gallipoli in April 1915. The Federal Government on 2 May issued its first casualty list which was soon published in newspapers across the country. The horrors of war had suddenly become real, and it became apparent that repatriation would soon become an issue to be dealt with by the Governments.
Initially recruitment, and by extension demobilisation, of servicemen was seen as a state responsibility, but with the numbers involved the Federal Government was required to take the leading role in all aspects of the military administrative effort. In September 1914 a new Federal Government was elected under the leadership of Andrew Fisher. This ministry then established a Federal War Committee to oversee recruiting and associated activities at a national level. In August 1915 it was recognised that similar committees should be established at state and even district level, not just to co-ordinate recruiting (which had seen a drop in levels early in 1915) but also to direct the repatriation of invalids and provide assistance to them and their families, and to also deal with the question of land settlement for the returned soldiers. Initially, such activities were financed from the various patriotic funds raised in the states rather than from state or even federal financing.
The former Prime Minister, Mr Chris Watson, was given the role of unifying the activities of the various state war councils as well as to consider a scheme to provide employment for returned soldiers, and he was also directed to formulate a national land settlement policy on behalf of the Federal government which could then be put to the states for discussion and adoption. Mr Watson travelled around Australia during the spring of 1915, giving his views on the land settlement issue and listening to public opinion on the matter before returning to Melbourne to finalise the Federal Governments plan. On 8 October 1915 Mr Watson delivered an address to the newly constituted Queensland War Council regarding the Federal government’s current views on the reintegration of servicemen into society at the end of the war. He explained how soldiers serving overseas would be sent a War Census Card from “which will be obtained their previous employers’ names, and nature of employment, etc etc in order that provision may be made, when they return from the War and discharged, for their employment”. He also stated that for those who returned incapacitated the Government would approach “Technical Colleges, Blind Institutions, etc….with a view to training the men for employment in capacities other than those which they previously occupied”. viii
With regards to the question of land settlement, Mr Watson explained the Federal government’s idea “was to purchase land suitable for farming, the purchase to be arranged either from Government or private owners, by bonds, not cash. It was not the intention to make a gift of land so furnished to the soldiers but to allow them to occupy and eventually obtain title under the bond system, interest payable, being perhaps waived, during the first year or two of occupation”.ix Mr Watson went on to say that the funding was to come from “subscription, being obtained from all districts whether holding land suitable for settlement or not”.x His suggestion was that the necessary financing come from local community fund-raising rather than from state or federal coffers.
By the time of Mr Watson’s visit to Brisbane in October 1915 the Labor Government of Mr Ryan had been in office for four months and had already started enacting its reform agenda. Two of Ryan’s most committed supporters in the government were Edward Theodore (who would replace him as Premier in 1919) and John McEwan Hunter who became Minister for Lands. As such Hunter was to play a significant role in the formulating and implementation of Queensland’s soldier settlement scheme.
In many ways this Labor government which held power until 1925, introduced many radical programs and projects, including the establishment of various state enterprises. Most were ultimately failures but the period ushered in an era of what we today might call “big government” where the state government became involved in many commercial activities ranging from food production and distribution, public works and even hotel management. The land settlement for returned soldiers’ proposals of 1915-1916 in Queensland must be viewed with this government policy in mind as it explains many of the ideas that manifested themselves in Beerburrum.
At a meeting of the War Council during the week after Mr Watson’s visit, Mr Hunter was appointed Chairman of the Land Settlement Sub-Committeexi who then appointed the Under Secretary of Lands, Mr Gordon Graham (a career civil servant whose first post was a surveyor in the Lands Department in 1888 and who had worked his way up the ladder to this position in 1914) xii, the Member of the Legislative Council AH Whittington (an experienced pastoralist he was also President of the United Graziers Association and a fierce critic of the Ryan government)xiii, Mr AH Benson (previously an Instructor in Fruit Culture in Queensland and most latterly Director of Agriculture in Tasmania) xiv and Mr Watts, the Land Commissioner to the committee, to assist him. This was undoubtedly an experienced committee with expertise in many aspects of agriculture and farming which indicate the importance attached to the committee by the Government. Under Mr Hunter’s direction this sub-committee was charged with formulating the government’s soldier settlement policy.
The sub-committee recognised from its very first deliberations the importance of proximity to the railway of any proposed land settlement as a crucial element to eventual success of the scheme. In fact, a report to the War Committee dated 15 November 1915 stated “the difficulty of locating sufficient suitable Crown lands near railway communication and it was suggested that owners of large areas of undeveloped lands along railway lines might be communicated with in order to ascertain if they were prepared to gift or grant a lease of such lands…..”xv The first reference in the minutes of the sub-committee to what was to become the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement further illustrates the importance of proximity to the railway. Whilst the location was not mentioned by name it was referred to simply as “an area of Crown land on the North Coast line…..”xvi In a time when the Queensland road system was not yet developed, the railway was the main artery for movement of goods and people around the state and laying of new track into undeveloped country was a precursor to opening of land for new settlement. So important was the need for railways in this regard Mr Ryan was to lament, after one of his numerous tussles with the unelected Legislative Council when they blocked his plans for the Many Peaks-Cannindah and the Orallo-Injune Creek railways in December 1915, that the construction of such railways “would open large areas of land suitable for close settlement…this land….was of a class that would be mostly required for the settlement of ex-servicemen….I regard the action of the Council in rejecting these railways with a great deal of concern”. xvii
The sub-committee looked into all types of farming activities to identify which would be most suitable and where. No doubt Mr Benson’s expertise in this area proved beneficial. Both he and Mr Watt’s looked into the possibilities of fruit, wheat and dairy in November and Mr Benson even visited Stanthorpe to ascertain the likelihood of fruit farming there.xviii Few locations seemed as promising as Beerburrum, being Crown Land already (and therefore not needing to be expensively resumed), and being close to the railway and seemingly fertile.
By the end of 1915 the Queensland government had in place the political will to act in this matter and had, through the activities of the War Council, the mechanism to identify and evaluate a multitude of options on how to proceed. What was lacking was any firm and practical method of funding the schemes (for it was apparent that financing such large scale settlement could not come solely from the largesse of the population as had been suggested by Mr Watson) nor did it have the legal or administrative apparatus to manage them. Without these in place there was little point in making any decision as to where these settlements would be located and what manner of farming they would practise.
In consultation with the Federal Government, Mr Watson drew up a series of proposals on the practical implementation of land settlement throughout the Commonwealth which were approved by the Federal Cabinet in January 1916. A meeting was called in Melbourne on 19 February 1916 at which representatives of all State Governments were invited to attend to discuss this proposal and to gain agreement from the states. Mr Hunter headed the Queensland delegation.
By the end of the meeting all the states had agreed to support the Federal Government’s plan which, in essence, was that the provision of all land rests with the states; that the Federal Government would provide funds by way of loans to the states to allow them to make advances through their own banks to settlers and such money was to be made available to settlers at cost where possible; that State Governments liberalise their conditions applying to repayment of such loans; that the Federal Government establish a special national repatriation fund to which citizens be invited to subscribe to help raise additional funds; that provision be made for the immediate establishment of State Farms for the evaluation and training of inexperienced men who wished to take land; that a system be introduced whereby obviously unsuited men are identified and not given land; that interest on loans to settlers not exceed 2½% in the first year and to be raised at a rate of ½% per annum up to the rate of interest at which the loan money was raised; that on the condition that their military records proved satisfactory, that soldiers enlisted but not sent to the Front be allowed the same privileges as those extended to returned soldiers. xix Incomplete as these proposals were they at least provided a national framework upon which each state was able to formulate their own settlement schemes and which clarified the source of funding and how such funding was to be managed. Mr Hunter was able to report to the War Council on his return that all matters from the conference were receiving consideration by the Government “and decisions on the matters would, he expected, be given at an early date, after which the Land Settlement Committee would become very much more active”.xx
With a basis of funding in place and general framework of principles established, the Queensland War Council was able to start its own substantive planning. Ultimately, the Government chose many locations throughout Queensland including Stanthorpe, Pikedale, Atherton Tablelands as well as numerous town plots around Brisbane. By the end of March 1916, the Government had decided that the Crown Land on the North Coast Line around the hitherto little-used railway siding at Beerburrum seemed worthy of further investigation as to its suitability of becoming the state’s largest soldier settlement, and Mr Ryan was able to announce at a by-election rally in Brisbane on 24 March that 44,000 acres in that vicinity was about to be surveyed. Mr Hunter was able to report the same to the War Council three days later.xxi
On 31 March 1916 the Surveyor General, Allen Alfred Spowers, wrote a short note to one of the Land Department staff surveyors, Mr JE Muntz, advising him of the urgent need to survey some land in the Parish of Beerwah “adjacent to Beerburrum Railway Station….as the matter is urgent I should be glad if you would call on me in regard thereto at your earliest convenience”.xxii Muntz was instructed to travel to Beerburrum forthwith and to “inspect, report and furnish designs for subdividing such…areas…as you consider suitable for the above purpose into farms from about 10 to 40 acres each”.xxiii
Prior to the settlement, Beerburrum consisted of a large forested area with a small railway station/siding that serviced a quarry on the slopes of Mt Beerburrum which belonged to the Redcliffe Town Council. Very few people lived in the area and they were mainly quarry workers and foresters.
In addition to the land survey to be undertaken the sub-committee further asked experts in pineapple cultivation, Mr Joseph Rose of Buderim and Mr Cameron, of Messrs. Cameron Bros., to undertake an agricultural survey of the land and to report as to the suitability of cultivation of pineapples and citrus fruits. In July both had reported back to the sub-committee who recorded that Mr Cameron was of the opinion “that at first sight the country was disappointing but when carefully examined and gone over there was undoubtedly a large area that was most suitable for fruit growing and would give very fair return if used for pineapples, pawpaw, tomato or citrus fruits. In all places tested and where samples were taken the soil was of good depth and easily dug with a spade to a depth of eighteen inches. Accordingly it would be easy to work and while naturally well drained should retain moisture. In his opinion the country was suitable for the purpose for which it was proposed to utilise it”. Mr Rose was to separately report that “in his opinion the area was a very suitable one and worthy of all the support that the Committee had the power to give”. The sub-committee went on to state that both gentlemen had “visited farms adjacent to the proposed settlement. The pineapples on these farms showed the most satisfactory growth, – the fruit being of immense size and of fine quality in spite of the fact that the soil was about the poorest in the district and inferior in quality to any of the blocks on the proposed settlement.”xxiv
By June Mr Muntz had completed his survey of the land on the western side of the railway and commenced his survey of the eastern side. Mr Muntz’ survey reports state that the land on the western side of the railing was superior in quality to that on the eastern side but it was the land on the eastern side that was the first to be settled. This was possibly a choice that was to have future ramification as to the success or failure of the settlement.
On 7 August 1916 the sub-committee submitted its recommendation to the War Council that Beerburrum be selected as a suitable location for a state-sponsored soldier settlement and that a sum of £1000 be provided to commence formal construction. The recommendation was accepted by the War Council and submitted to the Cabinet for approval. On the following day the Cabinet approved the plan and agreed to provide the £1000 required. xxv Thus, barely two years after the outbreak of the war, the Beerburrum Soldier Settlement was born.
The plans for Beerburrum were indeed grandiose. Not only would 44,000 acres of virgin forest be cleared for the Settlement but a state-owned cannery was to be built nearby where the produce could be canned for sale and export. Plans were drawn up to move the railway line from its current location skirting the base of Mt. Beerburrum to a less steep incline a few hundred yards to the east, with the land between being set aside for the town lots required to create a new township. It was intended that this township be the hub of the Settlement containing not just the administrative offices but a general store, boarding house, School of Arts, blacksmith’s premises and more. There was also talk of building a district hospital.
To assist the returnees to learn about pineapple farming, a State Farm was established under the management of Mr Rose who became the supervisor of the Settlement. Labour gangs of ex-servicemen where employed to clear land for the Farm and to prepare the first lots for selection. The materials required started to be accumulated for this purpose: saws and axes for felling of the trees, explosives to blow up the stumps, poison to kill off the vegetation, horses and carts for the carrying, fertiliser for the soil, timber for housing as well as all the other necessaries for human habitation. It was undoubtedly a massive state undertaking and very much in the tradition of the Ryan government’s policy of state involvement.
These plans provoked a lot of interest in the local press, though it is fair to say that most of the expressions printed in the newspapers were far from supportive of the government plans, particularly in the “Brisbane Courier” where the editorial staff were very happy to print any letters received that were critical of the government’s plans. This is perhaps not surprising given that the newspaper was very right wing and was critical of many aspects of the Labor Government.
It didn’t take long for the State Farm to be cleared and buildings erected. The War Council was able to announce at the end of September 1916 that the first group of settlers had already travelled to Beerburrum to take up occupation with a view to receiving the first selections of land.xxvi
On 6 November 1916 the Governor General Munro Ferguson and his wife presided over the drawing of the lots by which the first nine settlers obtained their blocks of land. Private Ernest Bridge, 26th Battalion, drew Lot 489. Bridge had enlisted in February 1915 and landed on Gallipoli on 4 September 1916 but by 24 September he had been admitted to hospital with rheumatism and then caught pneumonia as a result of “exposure to wet & cold” and he was discharged as medically unfit in May 1916. Bridge didn’t remain long at Beerburrum before heading north to Capricornia.xxvii Private Robert Henry Searle, latterly of the 9th Battalion, obtained Lot 416. Searle, born in England had enlisted in Townsville on 8 February 1915 after serving in the New Guinea expedition. He sailed from Brisbane on 21 October 1915 for Cairo where on 2 February 1916 was admitted to hospital with cystitis and then had appendicitis. He was invalided back to Australia in April 1916 and was discharged as medically unfit. Still at Beerburrum in 1919 he seems to have left shortly after. xxviii
Alec Stephens, 9th Battalion, enlisted 4 September 1914 and served on Gallipoli until hospitalised on 30 October 1916 with an unspecified sickness. After admission to hospitals in Gibraltar and England he was sent back to Australia in March 1916 and subsequently discharged. He remained at Beerburrum until at least 1919 on Lot 458.xxix
Corporal Alfred John Alcock, 15th Battalion, originally from Northampton, England, enlisted in November 1914 and was present at the landings on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. He was promoted to corporal the following day but was wounded in the arm on 7 August 1915. After periods in hospital in Malta and England he returned to Australia in March 1916. Alcock remained in Beerburrum until 1921 farming Lot 460.xxx
John Smith-Scargill, 15th Battalion, enlisted May 1915 and landed on Gallipoli in October that year. He was shot in the chest, with the bullet lodging in his liver, and on 4 December 1915 he was evacuated to Alexandria and then back to Australia where he was discharged. By 1919 Scargill applied to give up his block as he wished to return to England to have his family doctor remove the bullet that was still in his liver. A settlement overseer was to write “the hot summer weather here is too much for him to bear under the present circumstances, he is unable to do any work and his mind is slightly affected by the heat”. Scargill was allowed to give up his land (Lot 464) and left for England in September 1920.xxxi
Richard Derby Robertson enlisted into the Army Service Corps on 24 August 1914 and arrived in Alexandria at the end of May 1915. Whilst there he was admitted into hospital on 25 July with severe tuberculosis. Immediately he was shipped off to England where he remained for a month before being returned to Australia and discharged. Robertson stayed on his block (Lot 459) for barely 12 months before giving it up. xxxii
James Robertson Munro, who had served in a Scottish regiment prior to the war, joined the 9th Battalion on 24 August 1914. Present at the Gallipoli landing he was shot in the foot and evacuated to Egypt and then England before returning to Australia in March 1916. Munro drew Lot 462 where he stayed until 1923 though he was struggling to eke out an existence. In 1923 he was to write “I may state I’ve had a very hard time of it lately having to give away three of my little children for adoption too poor to keep them. I have three left. My average income all last year come to 29/4 a week….”xxxiii
Clarence Burton Newman, a 21 year old labourer from Victoria, enlisted into the 25th Battalion in July 1915. Newman saw no active service as he was hospitalised in Egypt with a severe heart condition that saw him returned to Australia and discharged in June 1916. Newman took Lot 463 but by January 1921 he was applying to give it up on medical grounds. He finally left Beerburrum during the winter of 1921. xxxiv Prior to leaving he wrote a book entitled “Give it a Name: The Secrets to Success”xxxv. Thomas O’Malley, originally from Ireland, joined up in June 1915 and arrived in Egypt in January 1916 where it was immediately identified that he had defective vision in his left eye. So bad was this defect that he was discharged and returned to Australia. He took Lot 461. It is currently not known when he left Beerburrum.xxxvi
The framework agreed to at the meeting of the State and Federal Governments in February 1916 of a general policy of Land Settlement, whilst a start, was far from a complete. In January 1917 at the Premiers’ Conference, a common framework of land settlement was agreed to between the Federal and state governments. They agreed to formalise their land settlement schemes by enacting specific legislation in each state based on these basic agreed principles. It was also reaffirmed that the responsibility of repatriation was a Federal role and as such the State War Councils were to become state-based federal bodies.xxxvii As a consequence, in February 1917 Queensland passed the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act which detailed all the financial arrangements, the administrative procedures and compliance requirements under which all Queensland soldier settlements were to be administered.xxxviii
By July 1917 the Under Secretary for Public Lands, Mr Graham Gordon, was able to report to Parliament as to the progress made. Of the 51,000 acres of Crown Land set aside about “20,320 acres of this area have already been designed into 436 portions in areas from 20 acres upwards…. The principal industry of the area will be pineapple-growing, but other farming pursuits, such as poultry-raising and beekeeping, will be carried on. On the Settlement, a training farm has been established where returned soldier applicants are provided with temporary employment and instruction prior to being allotted a block for themselves; 54 acres have been cleared, ploughed, and planted with pineapples: one acre has been similarly prepared and planted with oranges; 30 acres have been cleared and ploughed ready for the coming planting season, and a further area of 60 acres has been cleared, and ploughing operations are in progress. Thus a total area of 145 acres has been cleared on the Settlement. Eleven houses have been erected and are occupied by soldier settlers, and four houses are now in course of construction. Seventeen of the farms have been fenced with three-wire fencing, the total length being about 10 miles. Ringbarking operations have been completed on 100 acres. Two huts and a kitchen providing accommodation for 24 men have been erected on the Training Farm, also a storeroom, and quarters for the Supervisor. Several wells with good water supplies have been sunk. A general store for the convenience of the settlers has been erected. An area has been reserved for township purposes.” xxxix
A year later the Under Secretary was to report further on progress: “In the nursery there are some 10,000 young orange and mandarin trees now ready for transplanting, and which are to be placed at the disposal of the settlers…. Stocks of all kinds of building materials are kept for supplying the requirements of the settlers. On the Settlement itself, 166 acres of pineapples have been on 36 farms. One hundred and forty acres have been cleared on 40 farms, 30 acres of which are ploughed ready for planting. To date 69 farms have been allotted, and 40 houses have been erected, all of which are occupied. Thirty miles of wire fencing have been erected. One hundred acres have been ring-barked, and the area has been fenced, and is utilised as a horse paddock for the settlement. Ten bores have been sunk and good supplies of water have been obtained at about 25 feet. An area has been surveyed as a township. A general store has been opened and is run entirely in the interests of the Settlement. A hall has been erected, in which a library has been installed. A school has also been built. Road construction works have been carried out on the Settlement.”xl
A review of the various Post Office Directories shows that in 1915, listed under Beerburrum township, the names of only nine residents but this had risen to 73 in 1918. In 1923, which is considered the height of the settlement the population was given as 250. These figures, though not necessarily accurate, are a useful guide which relate only to the township of Beerburrum itself and exclude Elimbah, Glasshouse and Beerwah all of which also experienced significant population growth due to the Settlement.xli
To sum up, the events of 1914/1915 that started in Sarajevo and which led to the creation of the AIF and deployment in Gallipoli and the Western Front, ultimately created the need for repatriation of soldiers to Australia, many of whom requested to settle on land at newly formed soldier settlements such as Beerburrum.
With the cessation of hostilities in 1918 and the repatriation of the majority of the AIF by the end of 1919, the requirement to settle soldiers on the land became a priority for the Government now led by Ryan’s successor Edward Theodore. It was at this point that the settlement at Beerburrum started to grow and by around 1924 consisted of approximately 1200 people. Throughout the life of the settlement, approximately 20% of the settlers had served in the British armed forces and had emigrated after the war as a result of the schemes formulated by Earl Grey. The balance was mostly Queenslanders with a few from other states. For all settlers, life on the settlement was challenging. The inconsistent quality of the soil, poor irrigation and the harsh extremities of the Australian climate worked against any efforts made by the settlers. Lack of experience and insufficient finances, coupled with the ill health of many of the settlers, led to the inevitable failure of many of the farms.
As a result, many of the settlers started to move away from Beerburrum in search of a more reliable and regular income. A lot of the failures on the land were a direct result of the inexperience in farming techniques of the settlers, many of whom were obviously unsuited to an agrarian way of life, either through temperament or injury. Some settlers stayed on and battled to make a living from their land and then, once the Great Depression hit in the early 1930’s, those still on the land had little option but to stick it out. With the onset of WW2 and the greater employment opportunities it created, many of the remaining settlers moved on, leaving only a handful of families remaining. In the years after WW2 Beerburrum remained a rural hamlet as other nearby towns expanded, and this marginalisation was further exasperated by the construction of the Bruce Highway to the east which removed Beerburrum even farther from the main communication arteries and regional relevance.
In a tangible sense, quite a few physical remains of the Beerburrum Settlement are discernible today. The location of the current railway station (then as now in the heart of the township) is because of the settlement. It was moved to its present location in 1919 from its position closer to Mt. Beerburrum as the gradient there was too steep for trains to slow down enough to stop at the platform and then move off again. Whilst the tracks and buildings might have been changed, its location at the end of the tree-lined Anzac Avenue (previous called Hunter Street after the Minister of Lands and another legacy of the settlement) would have been recognised by the settlers. On Anzac Avenue still stands the School of Arts, built by subscription in 1917 and looking now much as it did back then. As now, it acted as a communal centre for the township hosting social events, meetings and polling booths. A close look at the current Beerburrum school reveals the original school structure erected in 1918. Long gone is the hospital that was perched on the slopes of Mt. Beerburrum looking down over the Settlement – but the locals will tell you that after the bush has been burnt back you can still see the stumps upon which it was built. The cemetery still remains at the base of Mt Beerburrum and contains graves of some of the settlers. It is now unofficially cared for by the school community who each year conduct a re-dedication ceremony. This maintains a strong link between the school, the community and local RSL Sub-Branches who also attend the annual event.
Before the Settlement the only ‘road’ in the area was the Gympie road that ran to the west of Mt. Beerburrum. Mr Muntz took great effort to survey and plan roads and tracks that criss-crossed the Settlement providing access to the farms. Many still exist today and can be easily plotted on a map. Many of the settlers’ names live on in the names of these roads: Rapkins, Johnston, Ramm, Barr, Logie, Eaton to name but a few. Even the road from Beerburrum to Donnybrook has its roots in the Settlement and was one of the first roads constructed by the newly created Main Roads Board in 1925. It wasn’t just the roads that were built for the Settlement, so too were the bridges to cross the numerous creeks. Throughout the life of the settlement much energy was expended to make the creeks traversable for the settlers and their descendants.
Today, however, the most significant, though perhaps least obvious, reminder of the Settlement is the simple fact that the town of Beerburrum with a population of over 600 even exists. Prior to the Settlement there was no township of Beerburrum. It was merely a siding on the North Coast Line between Caboolture and the established towns of Beerwah, Glasshouse and Landsborough. Its existence then was to enable stone to be removed from the nearby quarry and afford day trippers from Brisbane the opportunity to climb to the peak of Mt. Beerburrum. The land around Beerburrum at the time was unsettled and virgin forest and there was little interest for it to be otherwise. The establishment of the settlement laid out the town and created a role for itself; it brought commerce to the area and made the land (relatively) productive; it created traditions and gave it a history. In essence it created a community that is still there today.
Many descendants of the original settlers still live in and around Beerburrum today – Evans, Moffat, Fullerton, Gilchrist, Milburn, McClean, Eaton, Proctor, Pritchard. Even those settlers who left Beerburrum when they could no longer maintain themselves there, left a legacy of the place with their families – some good and some bad. To this day descendants of some of the settlers are aware of the sense of family shame that their ancestor ‘failed’ in Beerburrum whilst others can look back fondly at the stories of the ‘good times’ in Beerburrum. Many of the ex-servicemen would have agreed with the sentiments of Ernest Coghlan, an artilleryman who served through 1918 on the Western Front when he wrote to the Brisbane Courier “Beerburrum has done what the Prussian Guard could not do – it has beaten the Digger. It has done what cold and wet and mud, the shells and gas and bombs could not do – it has broken the spirit of the Digger”. xlii
i SCOTT, Ernest Australia During The War (7th Edition), 1941 Appendix 3
ii EVANS, Raymond A History of Queensland, 2007 p.147 ff
iii EVANS, Raymond A History of Queensland, 2007 p.154-155
iv Truth (Victoria)Saturday 16 January 1915 p.1
v The Land (NSW)Friday 5 March 1915 p.6; The West Australian Wednesday 5 May 1915 p.
vi Chronicle (South Australia) Saturday 13 March 1915 p.42
vii The Register (South Australia) Thursday 27 May 1915 p.8; The Returned Soldier Settlement Act, 1915 enacted by the Government of South Australia 23 December 1915
viii Queensland State Archives Item ID314693, Minutes, 8 October 1915
ix Ibid
x ibid
xi Queensland State Archives Item ID314693, Minutes, 18 October 1915
xii The Queenslander, Saturday 3 January 1914 p.37
xiii Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, (MUP), 1990
xiv Brisbane Courier Friday 9 July 1915 p.8
xv Queensland State Archives Item ID314693, Minutes, 15 November 1915
xvi ibid
xvii Brisbane Courier Thursday 23 December 1915 p.10
xviii Queensland State Archives Item ID314693, Minutes, 1 November 1915 & 8 November 1915
xix Brisbane Courier Monday 21 February 1916 p.10
xx Queensland State Archives Item ID314693, Minutes 13 March 1916
xxi Brisbane Courier Friday 24 March 1916 p.8; Queensland State Archives Item ID314693, Minutes
27 March 1916
xxii Queensland State Archives Item ID101707, Correspondence – inwards
xxiii ibid
xxiv Queensland State Archives Item ID314693, Minutes July 1916
xxv Brisbane Courier Wednesday 9 August 1916 p.7
xxvi Brisbane Courier Friday 29 September 1916 p.6
xxvii National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier Ernest George Bridge
xxviii National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier Robert Henry Searle
xxix National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier Alec Stephens
xxx National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier Alfred John Alcock
xxxi National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier John Smith Scargill; Queensland State Archives Series ID 14050, Dead Farm Files ID 71366; Ancestry.com UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960
xxxii National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier Richard Derby Robertson
xxxiii National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier John Robertson Munro; Queensland State Archives Series ID 14050, Dead Farm Files ID 71368
xxxiv National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier Clarence Blurton Newman.
xxxv National Archives of Australia Series A1336, 8808
xxxvi National Archives of Australia Series B2455 Personnel dossier Thomas O’Malley
xxxvii Brisbane Courier Friday 12 January 1917 p.8
xxxviii 7 Geo V. No.32 The Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act of 1917, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, Queensland State Library, Brisbane
xxxix Report by the Under Secretary for the Public Lands under the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act of 1917 – July 1917 page 2, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, Queensland State Library, Brisbane
xl Report by the Under Secretary for the Public Lands under the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act of 1917 – June 1918 page 3, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, Queensland State Library, Brisbane
xli Queensland Post Office Directory 1915-1916, H. Wise & Co.; Pugh’s (Queensland) Official Almanac and Directory 1919; Pugh’s (Queensland) Official Almanac and Directory 1923,
xlii Brisbane Courier Wednesday 11 June 1924 p.19