The University of Queensland Library
skip to end of banner, past navigation to other pages my.UQ skip to UQ Library submenu skip to Services submenu skip to Search submenu skip to Toolkit submenu skip to Research Help submenu skip to I.T. Help submenu skip to Locations submenu
  UQ HOME SEARCH CONTACTS STUDY NEWS EVENTS MAPS LIBRARY
      Hume Family Collection - W.C. Hume
 
 

 

History in Photographs : Images from the Hume Family Collection

W. C. Hume

 
 

Australian Scheme

Walter Cunningham Hume shows himself, in his journals and letters, to be good humoured, with an eye for detail and a belief in the quality of his own judgements. As a teenager Walter went to sea, a career choice forced on him by circumstances when his father died prematurely in 1851. His father, Alexander Hume, a Scottish poet, abandoned his family to travel to America. Walter's mother opened a school, which was eventually housed in Clifton Villa, near Southhampton. This is where he met Katie, and some of her sisters.

Dissatisfaction with his prospects as an officer with the P & O shipping company, led to the development of his 'Australian Scheme'. He arrived in the newly formed colony in January 1863 to train as a surveyor under Frank Gregory. His rise from surveyor on the Darling Downs to Under-Secretary of Lands in Brisbane is evidence of both the success of his venture, and the patronage of the Gregory brothers. In 1866 he was joined by Katie Fowler and they married two weeks after her arrival on the 11th of October 1866. Through his journal Walter gives us an insight into his way of seeing the world. In the following extract he explains why he wanted to go to Australia.

"March 12th, 1861 ...

I have been thinking for more than two years of giving up the sea and trying what I can do in Australia. As yet I had formed no definite plan. My reasons for wishing to give up the sea are as follows; It takes a very long time before a man can become a senior officer in our service. I am considered to have got on well, because after only having been at sea five years and a half, I was made Third Officer. I have now continued to be that for three years and I see no particular chance of promotion at present. When a man has arrived at being Chief Officer, what is the pay? (120 a year. To get this he must at least have been fifteen years at sea. Now I wish to know if after fifteen years of tolerable hard work and moderate attention to business, whatever it might be, that man could not earn more than (120 a year in Australia. I think he could." (Hume, p. 25)

 

 Walter Cunningham Hume Esq. 1871, Photograph Album. Vol. 1, p. 2 (c).
 

Surveyor

Walter worked as a surveyor, after training with Frank Gregory when he first arrived in Australia in January 1863. He was employed by the government except for a brief time when there were severe cutbacks in the Civil Service. Promotions came gradually: the first in 1872 when Walter was appointed Mineral Land Commissioner, Stanthorpe; in 1875 he was appointed Land Commissioner, Darling Downs, and in 1885 Under-Secretary for Lands. With this appointment the family moved to Brisbane where they stayed until Walter retired in 1901. In the following letter to Katie's sisters, Walter thinks he has survived retrenchment but Katie's letter the next month explains that he has after all been dismissed. Private contract work turned out to be financially successful for the Humes but when the opportunity arose Walter returned to government employment as this was 'certain'.

"Australian Tott" ... Augt. 19th 1867

"My dear Five,
... The ministry have gone, a horrid democratic radical mob, & my friends are in (the squatters). Whether they will do much good, yet remains to be proved, inasmuch as they can't get blood out of a stone, or in other words, make money out of nothing. All the contract surveys have been stopped, so that Wash will most likely have to come back to me & resume his berth as 'chainer'. They have dismissed all the Government Surveyors except four, one of whom I am." (Bonnin, p. 78)

 

 W.C. Hume in action. Photograph Album, vol. 14, Folder 6.
Taken during a tour of Western Queensland by W.C. Hume for the Land Court, Item 22

Camp life

Walter's employment as a surveyor meant that he spent a great deal of time away from home. He often addressed his letters from his camp. The entertaining introduction to this letter is typical of Walter's style.

Survey Camp ... (Bachelor's Hall) ... July 2nd,/67

"My dear 'Five',
Having, as in the older days, of the 'Peratic Intelligencer', fortified myself with tea (an Australian one, mind, none of your English slops & bread & butter), & being moreover for the nonce a jolly bachelor (much against my will); consequently not liable to be interrupted by the lawful wife of my bosom, I now intend once more to address you ...

I have got a new tent, better & larger than the last - in it I am sitting at my table, opposite sits my chainer Mr Sam Walter (Wash's successor), smoking. At the entrance burns a Stove!; altogether the aspect is cheerful. Near at hand is the cooking fire, round which the men congregate, talking as is their wont, with much wisdom (& noise). They are all bushmen." (Bonnin, p. 67)

My survey camp. Goomburra, 1880, Photograph album, Vol. 2, p. 47. 

Katie also offers a description of the men's camp in which the detail illustrates, what Walter calls, 'that minuteness peculiar to her (& Alice)'. (Bonnin, p. 177)

Camp, Oakey Creek...Aug. 14th, 1867

"My dear Sisters five,
Here I am, addressing you from the same tent in which Walter has so often indited his Tott letters. I am trying 'camping out' for a few days by way of a change & I can assure you I find it very agreeable .... This tent is 12ft by 10. One can only stand up in the middle, under the ridge pole, where it is 6ft, but it slopes away to 3ft at the sides, but the table at which I am writing is only 2ft from the ground & one sits on the thin mattress 'alongside' so one adjusts oneself to the lowly accommodation.
A small round stove stands at the entrance in front of which Walter has erected an impromtu 'mantelpiece' viz, a sheet of gum bark 2in. thick with a square hole cut out for fireplace. This stands up against the stove, so that we can have the 'doors' let down for privacy, without danger of their catching fire." (Bonnin, p. 73)
 
my.SI-net  |   eLearning/Blackboard  |   Feedback & suggestions
©2009 The University of Queensland, Brisbane Australia
ABN 63 942 912 684
CRICOS Provider Number: 00025B
Authorised by: University Librarian
Maintained by: UQ Library
  Last Updated: 14 August 2009.