For many years, I have had two foolscap pages of old yellowing print text. The text is a copy, and it was made using some form of copying process which was available in the early 1900s. Glued to this text are two original illustrations.

A number of years ago I discovered the text and illustrations had been published as an article in the The Queenslander in August 1907. The Queenslander was the weekly newspaper of the Brisbane Courier which had news and feature articles geared to rural readers. The article’s title was ‘Relics of Early Explorers’ and covered two, what they termed, ‘relics’ of early Queensland explorers, one a tree and the other a man’s grave.^[1]

View of ‘Investigator’ tree of Captain Flinders from sketch in 1867 on Sweers Island .

The first ‘relic’ was entitled The Investigator Tree and was about a tree on Sweers Island off the coast of what is now Burketown on the Gulf of Carpentaria.  The article described six markings on the trunk of this tree made by visitors to the island. The article claimed the first marking in 1781 was from a Dutch exploring vessel commanded by Captain Tasman (Abel Tasman actually visited the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1644) and the sixth marking was made by Captain Norman who came from Melbourne in 1861 to meet Burke and Wills on their ill-fated expedition.  One of the other markings was Investigator, the name of Mathew Flinders’s ship and made when Flinders visited the island in 1802 during his circumnavigation of Australia; hence the tree became named The Investigator Tree. The trunk of the Investigator Tree was moved to the Queensland Museum in 1887 because it was deteriorating.

The copy of the article that I have includes two original illustrations, the first one entitled View of the Investigator Tree. This illustration had been drawn by a Mr B Barker for the article and was copied from a drawing done in 1867 by John Graham Macdonald, F.R.G.S. (Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society). The article explains that the illustration was drawn by ‘Mr B Barker from the original hand sketches in Mr Macdonald’s pocket book’. However Mr Barker’s illustration was not an exact copy as he added a cottage which had been erected near the tree since the original 1867 Macdonald drawing. Did that mean Mr Barker visited the island before completing his illustration?

John Graham Macdonald was considered one of the early explorers and pastoralists in Queensland. He made a number of expeditions into the interior of Queensland as well as two to the Gulf country. His second expedition to the Gulf was at the time William Landsborough, Police Magistrate and Land Commissioner, was visiting Sweers Island to consider it as a possible site to take the place of Burketown which was riddled with disease. John Macdonald accompanied Landsborough on this journey in 1867, which is when he drew The Investigator Tree.  I haven’t been able to find any information on Mr B Barker who copied Macdonald’s illustration for the 1907 article.

The Explorer’s Grave. Frederick Walker died 16 Nov 1866 from sketch taken 1867.

The second ‘Relic’ was entitled ‘The Explorer’s Grave’ and included information about Frederick Walker who had died at Floraville Station on the Leichhardt River on 16 November aged 47. This information is accompanied by an original illustration of his grave. Once again, the illustration is done by a ‘Mr B Barker from the original hand sketches in Mr Macdonald’s pocket book’.

The article describes Frederick Walker as ‘A witty muscular capable man, a good bushman well and favourably known in Central and Northern Queensland in the early days, having for some years been in charge of the Native Police and subsequently conducted an expedition in search of Burke and Will in 1862 …’.

What this article doesn’t say, is that Frederick Walker had been appointed by the Governor of NSW Charles Augustus FitzRoy in 1848 to command a new force, the Native Police. The aim of this force was to patrol the northern area of NSW (later Queensland) and provide protection for settlers on the frontier and move Aboriginal people off the land. The Native Police force had a brutal impact on Aboriginal people throughout what became Queensland. Frederick Walker commanded this force for about six years and ended up being sacked in 1854 after complaints by settlers, magistrates, and members of the Native Police that he was a drunk and abusive to his officers. At the time of Walker’s death he was marking the overland telegraph line from Cardwell to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Why did my family have a copy of the text and Mr Barker’s illustrations for the article in The Queenslander in 1907? Where is the pocket book which contained Macdonald’s original sketches?

I have no idea why my family have a copy of this article and the original illustrations by Mr Barker. I do know that my great uncle, Joshua Thomas Bell, did initiate and collect reminiscences from various people around this time which are in the Fryer Library, University of Queensland. One of these reminiscences is a letter from F.R.A Rickards to J.T Bell, with the heading ‘Recollections of the Darling Downs – 45 years ago’. On this letter is a cover note, written by Rickards on 2 Nov 1909, stating that Joshua Thomas Bell had asked Rickards to write to him with his recollections of the Darlings Downs. The letter is just over a foolscap page of typescript and Rickards mentions various towns, farming stations, and people of the area. Perhaps the article that I have is one of these reminiscences.^[2]

The article explains that Mr B Barker copied the illustrations from Macdonald’s pocket book so it existed in 1907. There is a folder on John Graham Macdonald in the John Oxley Library, but it does not include the pocketbook, so it is unclear where it is now.

The lesson for me is do not throw away old yellowing texts, photos, or illustrations until you have thoroughly researched their history. You may find very little during your research or you may discover something that is of significance to someone else. While writing this blog I was reading David Marr’s book Killing for Country. In this book he writes extensively about the Native Police and, in particular, about Frederick Walker, the commander of the force. I thought he may be interested in seeing the final resting place of Frederick Walker, so I sent a photo of the illustration to him through his publisher. He was glad to receive it as he did not know where he had died and felt it closed the chapter on what was a rather inglorious life.

^[1] EXPLORER. (1907, August 31). The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 – 1939), p. 42. Retrieved January 14, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22272993
^[2] https://manuscripts.library.uq.edu.au/index.php/uqfl79-series-f-subseries-2-file-7