Unpacking a Legend

Part two Discoveries Discovering and telling a story UNPACKING A LEGEND Margaret Cook and Annabel Lloyd Legends are part of Australian folklore — the bush, adventure and a heroic ability to take a risk are all key elements of the stories elevated from a factual base that deine our popular culture. Ask people in South East Queensland about the 1893 lood and many will tell you the ‘legend of Billy Mateer’. It is the story of stockman Billy Mateer, who rode a horse over swollen rivers for Henry Plantagenet Somerset, to warn Brisbane of approaching lood. Mentioned at a Commission of Inquiry in 1927 and in newspaper articles, the legendary or mythical status remained unresolved. In September 2016 Brisbane City Council archivist, Annabel Lloyd, uncovered a single ile that revealed new evidence. In unpacking and exploring the back story of a single archive ile, we offer an insight into the intersection of archival and historical practice. The status of the legend was conirmed — a classic story of heroism against the elements. ‘Discovering’ an 80-year-old file Over 120 years after the 1893 floods devastated South East Queensland, one legend endures – that of stockman Billy Mateer and his heroic efforts to warn Brisbane of coming floods. The story has resurfaced in a 1927 Commission of Inquiry, newspaper articles, a twenty-first century film Deluge and most recently in blogs and Wikipedia, some suggesting the ride is equivalent to Australia’s iconic tale of the ‘Man from Snowy River’.1 Mateer’s ride has been the subject of at least 12 poems and a painting.2 Different versions of the tale exist, with little known of the hero, Mateer. An unprepossessing file in the Brisbane City Archives (BCA) and the combined efforts of an archivist and a historian helps shed some light on this intriguing tale, while exposing some of the challenges historians face in our work. Amongst the backlog of un-accessioned files at the BCA lay five remaining boxes of an original 40, all with the uninformative label ‘WSS pre-1940s’. They had been transferred to the custody of the BCA from the council’s secondary storage records area along with many others, about 15 years ago. They had been boxed up originally by the Water Supply and Sewerage Department in about 1971 when space problems forced the department to reorganise its files. They lay untouched for some 45 years. There were few markings and no transfer lists to help with provenance or contents and, with the material physically stable, no particular priority was assigned to its processing other than noting it would require time and a task for completion by the Brisbane City Council archivist, Annabel Lloyd. For an archivist or historian, un-accessioned records can hold the promise of a wrapped gift. In this case it was the second last box to be appraised that was to provide the biggest surprise. Crammed into the box with water supply related material lay a single file, marked with ‘313’ circled in the left hand corner and offering no clues as to its content. The file contained 54 well-preserved pages, including newspaper clippings, hand-written and typed letters and sketches (one converted to a blue print). Inside the back cover was a faded typed label: ‘H. P. Somerset Description of the 1893 flood file’. Joyously, it was discovered that many of pages were written by Henry Plantagenet Somerset and Billy Mateer, their signatures confirming authorship. The pages held clues to the Somerset and Mateer legend. When initially telling council colleagues about her find, Annabel encountered a common response –‘where did you find that’? – as if, after 20-odd years of being the Brisbane City archivist, she should have discovered it by now. The reality is that, by necessity, archivists must prioritise their work resources. Appraisal, particularly of material without any control systems, is a slow and meticulous task that takes time and focus, despite the increasing pace and demands of the archival work environment and the expectation that digitalisation will somehow make it faster and simpler. Appraisal is arguably the most skilled and rewarding aspect of an archivist’s job. Annabel reflected on what she might have done with the file had she ‘discovered’ it 20 years ago when both she and the archives were very new, and she lacked the depth of knowledge about the functions and activities of the Brisbane City Council that she has now. Of course, the file would have been retained. The fact that its subject matter was floods — specifically Brisbane River — and that the file includes handwritten correspondence are significant retention ‘triggers’ in their own right. Finding the file when she did, however, meant that Annabel knew exactly who Somerset and Mateer were, the legend the file related to, and its importance. It was certainly a eureka moment. A critical success factor in developing the BCA has been building UNPACKING A LEGEND MARGARET COOK AND ANNABEL LLOYD 21 Henry Plantagenet and Katherine Somerset at Cressbrook; undated, State Library of Queensland, accession number 6029 stakeholder relationships. Importantly Annabel knew who to share the find with — someone who would not only share her excitement, but would also make use of, and help disseminate, the valuable knowledge within the pages: historian, Margaret Cook. Like any historian looking at an archival file for the first time, Margaret came with cultural baggage, hers perhaps a little heavier than usual. She had been studying Brisbane floods for the past 18 months so knew of the 1893 floods and the legend. As archivist and historian worked together, bringing the characters and events to light, neither realised what an enjoyable journey unpacking the legend would become! Henry Plantagenet Somerset Henry Plantagenet Somerset was a firmly established member of the pastoral elite who claimed forfeiture of a British peerage, and a direct descendent of the Plantagenet line of British kings. Henry was born in 1852 at Fort Armstrong, South Africa, while his father, Colonel Charles Somerset, served as governor-general of the Cape Colony. The Somerset family relocated to India where Charles Somerset served with the 72nd Highlanders in the Indian Mutiny, later dying in England from his wounds. Following the mutiny, Henry’s mother and four children fled to England, where Henry was educated at St Mary’s Hall Naval School, St Paul’s Naval School and Wellington College, succeeding both academically and in the sporting arenas. On holidays in Europe in 1870, Henry was imprisoned in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. In 1871 he abandoned his intended military career and migrated to Australia on 22 the ship Polmaise.3 In Australia he found employment and gained his early pastoral training on David McConnel’s property, Cressbrook, near Esk. His natural aptitude brought reward when he became manager of McConnel’s property Mt Marlowe, while he invested £1000 in bullocks and horses. On 7 July 1878 he married the eldest McConnel daughter, Katherine Rose, in Berne, Switzerland (Figure 1).4 Henry and Katherine returned to Queensland in 1880 and until 1885 Henry managed Ramornie Station on the Clarence River, New South Wales, then Gordon Brook until 1888. He exchanged a lease of 10,000 acres at Mt Stanley he had held for 20 years, for 5000 acres at Caboonbah, roughly 4.8 km below the junction of the Stanley and Upper Brisbane rivers (Figure 2). He built his family home, well above the cliff, in 1889/1890. Somerset continued to prosper, and such was his wealth he suffered the considerable loss of £11,000 worth of stock in the 1893 floods.5 He owned several pastoral properties, including Caboonbah and Kobada at Mt Bepo, Toogoolawah, by 1930.6 Somerset served as the Conservative member for Stanley in the Legislative Assembly (upper house) for 16 years. First elected in 1904, he served until 1920, not seeking re-election. He declined the portfolio of agriculture minister but successfully advocated the extension of the railway and tramway in his local area7 A long-term advocate of damming the Stanley River for flood mitigation, when the government consented in 1935, the dam and associated village were named Somerset in his honour. Katherine Somerset died in CIRCA THE JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS. ISSUE SIX 2018 February 1935. Henry Somerset died after a six-week illness on 11 April 1936, aged 84, at ‘Telkawarra’, Caboonbah, the home of his daughter Doris and her husband Richard Waite. He was survived by one son and five daughters. Somerset’s fame includes warning Brisbane of impending floods in 1893. The 1893 floods The summer of 1892–93 had been exceptionally hot in much of the Queensland colony, with drought in the western part of the state. The drought broke in 1893, as Brisbane experienced extreme rainfall with 1025.9mm falling at the Brisbane Regional Office in February.8 Caboonbah afforded Somerset a bird’s eye view of the floodwaters as they poured down the Stanley River. He had witnessed floods in 1890, when water submerged his house to shingle height.9 As the 1893 flood waters passed this earlier flood height, on 2 February Somerset sent a telegraph from nearby Esk to Brisbane, informing John McDonnell, the Under Secretary for the Post Office: ‘Prepare at once for flood. River here within 10 ft of 1890 flood, and rising fast; still raining’.10 Within days Brisbane was inundated; floodwaters peaked at the Brisbane Port Office gauge on 6 February, reaching 8.35 metres. Brisbane then experienced a second, smaller flood which peaked on 13 February. Heavy rain brought a third flood to Caboonbah on 16 and 17 February. Somerset again tried to warn Brisbane of the imminent flood, but with lines washed away, telegraphs from Esk were no longer possible.11 He then reputedly sent horseman Billy Mateer over the D’Aguilar Range to North Pine (now Petrie) to telegraph a flood warning to Brisbane, where the floodwaters reached 8.09 metres at the Port Office gauge on 19 February. The Mateer legend appears to have come to light in 1927 at a Commission of Inquiry into the Brisbane Water Supply held by A. Gordon Gutteridge. The full transcript is held in the BCA. Henry Somerset was called as an expert witness and recounted his tale of the 1893 floods. Somerset informed the Commissioner, ‘I heard a tremendous roar like a train coming out of a tunnel… I looked up the river and saw a wall of water coming down 50 feet high’. Undoubtedly the tale had become over-dramatised in 40 years of telling, but nevertheless Somerset realised the extreme localised rainfall would produce a major flood. He sent his men home to their families and telegraphed the postmaster general, Mr Unmack, to warn Brisbane but, Somerset claimed, all but Harry Baynes ignored it. When a third flood came a fortnight later Somerset ‘sent a good man with two horses over the range into North Pine’. The last horse got bogged and the rider walked. Consequently, the warning arrived too late, ‘about the same time as the river’.12 The story revealed Here these archival pages bring the legend to life, recording both the drama of the events as well as the practical responses to the floods. The file opens on 18 April 1932 when Somerset wrote a lengthy letter to Walter Bush, with a fulsome account of his recollections of the flood events of 1893. Walter Ernest Bush (1875–1950) eventually became Chief Engineer of the Brisbane Water Supply and Sewerage Department in February 1929. After initial training and working as an engineer in England he migrated to New Zealand in 1905. In 1906 Bush became Auckland City Engineer where his involvement in the city’s planning included both social and engineering considerations, becoming highly regarded for his work. In Brisbane, his first task had been to furnish council with a report on Brisbane water supply and flood mitigation needs in 1930, in which he recommended construction of a dam on the Brisbane River near the present site of Wivenhoe Dam. Unique amongst council officers of the time he engaged in what today would be termed community consultation. In 1931 he followed up his initial report with a visit to the Stanley River area, visiting Caboonbah and Somerset. Bush was a devout Baptist, becoming a lay preacher and church secretary for the Main City Tabernacle in Brisbane. A big thinker, he took his Christian duty to improve the condition of his ‘fellow man’ seriously.13 Somerset, it appears was pleased to find someone who would help him impress upon local and state governments the need for future flood monitoring. Somerset seemingly enthusiastically shared his story with Bush, even carefully hand-drawing a map of the events which Bush had his staff turn into a printed map. Bush, it seems, fell afoul of council politics. In the political and financial turmoil facing the new Jones Labor administration after the 1934 council elections, his position was terminated in May 1934, one month shy of the completion of his five-year contract. Thus, the last letter on the file, dated December 1934, a reply Somerset’s annotated map in ile showing the location of Caboonbah (marked by star); BCA ile. UNPACKING A LEGEND MARGARET COOK AND ANNABEL LLOYD 23 to Somerset’s request for a copy of his memories, is from the business manager of the Water Supply and Sewerage Department. The file was then closed, stored and forgotten. Bush remained in Brisbane after he left council and worked as a consulting engineer. He maintained his strong community ties, becoming increasingly active in the Baptist Church and secretary of the Queensland Town Planning Association. He was also a key player in the establishment of the Montrose Home for Crippled Children at Corinda (now a major Queensland disability support services provider) and remained on its board until his death. Later he and his wife moved to Moorooka, coincidentally the same suburb in where his file lay forgotten in the archives. Bush died in January 1950. Somerset’s letters to Bush are extremely detailed in some areas (Figure 3). In his initial letter we learn of the roar of the water, the speed at which it rose beyond the 1890 mark, of Somerset moving stock, sending his employees home to their families and sending a telegraph to the postmaster general, warning of imminent floods in Brisbane. Somerset repeats his belief that his warning was ignored during the first flood. In his own hand, Somerset explains how, with the telegraph lines washed away in the first flood, when the third flood approached he instructed a ‘good game stockman from Mr W. Kent’s station Dalgangal’ who ‘happened to be’ at Caboonbah, to take two horses and cross the swollen river and the D’Aguilar Range to North Pine (now Petrie) to warn Brisbane of a second approaching flood. Somerset cannot recall the stockman’s name but as a grazier, is certain of the pedigree of the two horses, ‘Orphan’ by ‘Oakwood’ and ‘Lunatic’ by ‘Gostwyck’. He recalled that ‘Lunatic’ got bogged in the scrub at the head of that river, and the stockman had to travel on by foot, Somerset’s annotated map in ile showing the location of Caboonbah (marked by star); BCA ile 24 Billy Mateer to Henry Somerset; BCA File;. arriving too late to warn the city. Somerset lamented the loss of a ‘valuable horse’, taking some comfort that he had done his best.14. Nine days later, on 27 April 1932, Somerset wrote again to Bush in great excitement. He had been trying to recall the name of the stockman ‘as he deserves most honourable mention for such a feat in such weather’. Somerset’s letter reveals an extraordinary coincidence worth repeating. Somerset was standing on a corner of Queen Street where, he writes, A stout florid man said good day to me, good day said I (while scanning his face). You know me and I know you, but I don’t remember your name, who are you? Billy Mateer said he, the chap who rode ‘Lunatic’ when ‘Oracle’ broke away. Somerset marvelled at the coincidence and asked that Bush add Billy Mateer’s name to his previous account of the story. He wrote that Mateer now worked for the Tramways Department at the Brisbane City Council. Mateer’s account raised discrepancies (Figure 4). The one which concerned both Bush and Somerset were the horses, prompting Somerset to write to Mateer for clarification. Somerset himself was convinced that ‘Lunatic’ had become bogged in the scrub beyond the range and sought clarification from Mateer as to how he returned to Caboonbah. Billy Mateer replied: I took the wires to North Pine. I swam Reid Creek and Beck Creek at head of the Pine. Went to Brisbane with main by train and returned to North Pine by train. Had to swim same creeks on way back. I left Oracle in Beck Paddock and rode Lunatic to the pine it was when I was returning from the cattle I got bogged and had to walk. I think that is about all. CIRCA THE JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS. ISSUE SIX 2018 Somerset seeks further clarification with a set of questions. He appears to be dissatisfied with the response, telling Bush that either Billy ‘has been drinking or he has somehow become confused’. The horse details seem to preoccupy Somerset and he sets great value on his own account, disputing the discrepancies between his and Billy Mateer’s stories as the result of Billy’s memory loss or alcohol consumption. The file reveals the problem of memory. Created almost 40 years after the flood, Somerset was now an elderly man. His own memory is fallible as he insisted his telegraph from the first flood was ignored, although it was published in several newspapers.15 He possibly confused the two major floods. Somerset suggests that if the story is to be published in newspapers, as Bush wishes, then the Mateer story should end with his arrival at Petrie.16 Such an account appeared in the Brisbane Courier on 6 May 1932 (Figure 5). The story reappeared in the Daily Mail on 10 June 1932, with neither the number or names of horses mentioned and ending with Billy Mateer getting the telegraph through safely (Figure 6). Somerset was clearly impressed with his account as he requested reproductions and a sketch map from the council business manager so that he could send a copy to HRH The Duke of Gloucester and the Premier, William Forgan Smith. The business manager tactfully suggested that ‘no good purpose can be served’ by furnishing a copy to the Duke.17 Here the file ends, on 19 December 1934. Daily Mail, 10 June 1932; clipping in BCA ile. The file gives some clues about Billy Mateer but required expansion with historical research. William (Billy) Mateer was born on 28 January 1870, eldest child of David and Elizabeth Mateer (née Kennedy), near Taroom in central Queensland. By 1893 Billy had employment as a stockman at Dalgangal station. On 4 July 1902 he married Johanna Jardine and, by 1903, still listed in electoral rolls as a stockman, had moved to Castlemaine Street, Paddington in Brisbane. Annabel Lloyd then had another archival breakthrough, following Somerset’s clue. As a tramway employee, Billy Mateer had a Brisbane City Countil staff card (Figure 7). Billy Mateer staff card; BCA In 1917 William Mateer had joined what was then the Brisbane Tramways Company as a carrier — driving a horse cart around the depots. In December 1921, probably when trucks took over the carrying trade, he moved to the Electrical Laboratory, most likely employed as a general labourer, where he remained. In September 1931, as happened to most council employees, his hours were reduced as a result of the Depression. It would appear he was still employed when he died on 23 November 1934, as noted on his card. He had moved to 126 Kitchener Road, Ascot, not far from Somerset’s city address, 110 Yabba Street, Ascot. When called on to give his version of events, Mateer was, as Somerset states, ‘greatly altered in 39 years’. Even when Bush met Mateer in 1932 to clarify his version of the events, he seemed surprised to find Brisbane Courier, 6 May 1932, p. 10 UNPACKING A LEGEND MARGARET COOK AND ANNABEL LLOYD 25 Funeral notice, Telegraph, 23 November 1934, 8 an old man. He informed Somerset, ‘I was interested in seeing Mateer, and told him he must have had the spirit of adventure highly developed at time, but he has altered considerably since’. Somerset put it more bluntly: ‘stout’ and ‘florid’. Mateer died soon after on 23 November 1934, leaving a wife and sons, William and Jack (Figure 8).19 The file reveals much of Somerset — a grazier concerned about his stock and his staff. From the correspondence we learn that Somerset tried to save his cows and horses, until leaving them to ‘their fate’. He recalls that his warning saved a friend £3000. Somerset recalled that he lost 350 prime bullocks just sold to Baynes Brothers at £5.10 per head, 281 fat bullocks from Hereford Paddock and another 379 for the Meat Works in the Mt Esk Pocket Paddock, all of which ‘washed away to past the Eagle Farm Wharf alive on their way to Moreton Bay’. He lost £9 per head in addition to ‘other horses and cattle swept from other paddocks’. A notation in the margin estimates losses of £11,000, with a second pencil notation adding that he had 1650 prime fat bullocks and had hoped to gain a £600 profit that year. What is missing from the file is just as interesting as the contents. Somerset’s own family members remain shadowy figures. There are minor references to taking the family (except his wife) to Sapphire Gully to view the floodwaters and his mother-in-law home returning to Cressbrook. A small pencil annotation at the bottom of a typed page records that Katherine Somerset had given birth to their daughter Doris during the floods. Perhaps the female archivist and historian viewing the file were more prone to a sense of injustice, that post-partem Katherine was virtually absent from the file. There is a mention that Somerset looked out of his wife’s window at the rising floodwaters, but no mention that Katherine was in bed recovering from childbirth, left with the baby as others fled to safety. In a subsequent letter on file Somerset again makes a passing reference to Doris, telling Bush ‘Wife has it that Doris was born 12 February’. Little wonder then that an official birth notice for Doris could not be found in the newspapers, as there had been for his previous children. 26 Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this file, even more surprising than its survival and discovery, is its creation itself. Compiled within a few years between 1932 and 1934 and seemingly prompted by William Bush’s interest in the 1893 floods, the opportunity for its creation was almost lost. Bush had left council employment months before the file was closed. Billy Mateer died the month before the last letter was written in December 1934. Katherine Somerset (never consulted to validate the story) died in 1934 and Henry Somerset died in 1936. The opportunity had almost been lost. Conclusion Unpacking the legend has shed light on the events of the 1893 floods and those involved. It provided further evidence that Billy Mateer’s ride did take place, but the details may be forever lost in conflicting memories. This article reveals the challenges facing historians when dealing with oral history and memory, blurred with the passage of time. Both Mateer and Somerset believed their individual versions, even though Somerset admitted to a failed memory. Discrepancies were dismissed by Somerset as evidence of Mateer’s possible drinking, not his own faded, 40-year-old memories of man now in his 80s. The legend has been strengthened; it is no longer a myth. Inconsistencies remain and readers are still left to draw their own conclusions, but with more documentary evidence and certainly more personal accounts to add colour to the events, the weight of evidence validates the Mateer story. The joint project between Annabel Lloyd and Margaret Cook has shown how the combined professional expertise of archivists and historians can produce a fascinating result. Notes 1 Commission of Inquiry into the Brisbane Water Supply, Report of Evidence, 1927. BCA 0790; Esk Record, 18 June 1932, p. 1; Brisbane Courier (BC), 6 May 1932, p. 10; Daily Mail, 10 June 1932; Courier Mail (CM), 25 November 1958, 2; Erik Eiksen, “Flood Wave Hits”, Australasian RodeoCountry Music, February 1983, 27-29; Brian Eriksen, “Three cylones hit coast in 1893 loods”, QT, 22 September 1982, 7; ‘Deluge: the true story of the Great Brisbane Flood of 1893’. Crystal Pictures presents a ilm by Martin Overson, [Margate, Qld.], Crystal Pictures, c2000; http://blogs.slq.qld. gov.au/jol/2009/05/08/stockman-billy-mateer-saves-the-day/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1893_Brisbane_lood.; “Hopes to rebuild Caboonbah”, Queensland Times (QT), 14 May 2009, https://www.qt.com.au/news/Caboonbah-historic-homeire/227977/ 2 Private correspondence with Tony Hammill 3 CM, 13 April 1936, p. 13; Sunday Mail, 12 April 1936, p. 3; QT, 13 April 1936, p. 6 4 Queenslander, 2 August 1878, p. 129; Telegraph, 11 April 1936, p. 6 5 QT, 13 April 1936, p. 6; Queenslander, 18 July 1929, p. 17 and Somerset lood account. CIRCA THE JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS. ISSUE SIX 2018 6 Worker, 14 April 1936, p. 5. Electoral Roll, Darling Downs, Esk, 1930, p. 34 7 Telegraph, 1 April 1936, p. 5 8 Bureau of Meteorology, Australia Station 040214 (Brisbane regional ofice latitude 27.48 and longitude 153.03) 9 Erik Olaf Eriksen, Cuttings on the 1893 Brisbane River Flood. Fryer Manuscript. 61UQ ALMA 10 BC, 3 February 1893, p. 5 11 Telegraph, 3 February 1893, p. 6 12 Commission of Inquiry, Fifth Day, 19 August 1927. BCC Archives, BCA 0770 13 http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3b61/bush-walterernest, Accessed 3 October 2016 14 Somerset to Bush, 18 April 1932 15 BC, 3 February 1893, 5; QT, 4 February 1893, 5; Queenslander, 11 February 1893, 278. Mater’s telegram was not published 16 Somerset to Bush, 11 May 1932 17 Somerset to the Business Manager, 4 December 1934; Business Manager to Somerset, 19 December 1934 18 Australia, Marriage Index, 1788-1950, [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010; Paddington- Brisbane Division Electoral Roll, 1903, p. 26 19 Telegraph, 23 November 1934, p. 8 UNPACKING A LEGEND MARGARET COOK AND ANNABEL LLOYD 27