Queanbeyan & District – Land & People
The buttocks of George’s women are beautiful. He really had a love of the human form especially women. The arms, the breasts, every muscle showed his technique and modeling skills as the clay was moved under his caressing hands.
PICTURE:4 The digital photo was taken in December 2001 (146 years after John Gale’s vision) from the lawns of Parliament House, Canberra, during the “Centenary of Federation – Peoplescape Exhibition,” which celebrated 100 years of Federation (1901-2001).
In 1901 the Australian Colonies had federated (joined together) and became the Commonwealth of Australia – this was the reason for a search for a federal capital-site, a place to build a federal capital-city, for the new Federal Government to meet, in a new Federal Parliament House.
William Greg O’Neill founded the Queanbeyan Oddfellows Lodge, or to give it its full title: the Happy Home Lodge of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows, in 1856 and within six months, the head count of Odd Fellows in the Queanbeyan District was at least 60.1
To put it mildly there are still a few odd fellows living in Queanbeyan at the moment, so it is safer to write about the distant past than the present, when referring to the odd men that are part of our town.2
During the great depression of the 1930s four Aussie blokes met on the road and as they walked they kicked rocks and ate the dust that rose from under their feet.
As time passed and the long paddock stretched on and on with no opportunity of bludging a bite to eat, the blokes dropped their swags under an old gum tree and each bloke remembered better times.
Queanbeyan District has always been known for its fine horseflesh so it was not surprising that bushrangers including Ben Hall and Frank Gardiner were attracted here in the 1860s.
A shopping spree for a bushranger was finding wealthy landowners travelling on the roads with their goods and chattels and relieving them of their upmarket possessions – fresh clothes, upmarket armoury and a fast horse that could keep you a furlong in front of the law, were always good investments.
One of the many prominent Australian Aboriginal families who now call Queanbeyan (NSW Australia) home is the Baxter Family led by matriarch Elder Ethel Baxter, who has iconic status, and loves to quote her brother Harold Williams’ famous line:
“if you want respect you have to earn it – black or white”. 1
It often takes someone else to initiate a spoken question to which an answer has never been sought even though the question has silently lurked in the deep recesses of the mind over a long time, “What is the mural on the wall made of”. 1
“Curiouser and curiouser,” like Alice in Wonderland a mini investigation ensured. 2
Our beautiful Queanbeyan River winds around our beautiful town of Queanbeyan and our Central Business District (CBD) but who knows about it?
Colourful tourist signage located at all the Crawford Street intersections directing pedestrians and traffic to the historic Queanbeyan attractions like: Riverside Pioneer Cemetery (1840s), Railway Station(1887), Printing Museum, Historical Museum, City Council Research Library, The Q (live) Theatre, Sporting Gallery, Art Society Gallery, O’Sullivan’s Weir and Suspension (pedestrian) Bridge, 1820s (low level) Aboriginal Crossing, the River Walk with river duck and swan pond, historic homes, historic churches etc would be a good investment and would help grow our town, Queanbeyan, and help grow the Queanbeyan CBD.
Queanbeyan’s working Printing Museum showcases a miniature of John Gale’s first newspaper The Golden Age (1860) being printed on a foot-pedal, hand fed small press that the John Gale family would have used as part of their commercial printing business – as well as other larger printing presses like the cumbersome ‘Chandler & Price, Hand Fed Platen Press’ c1900 and the Linotype Model 14, with its hot metal crucible, which was the heart of the publishing business.
These printing machines are all demonstrated in working order at the Queanbeyan Museum, Farrer Place, Queanbeyan, to fascinate tourism visitors and locals in the art of printing in the 1800 & 1900s before the days of computers.
By 2031 Queanbeyan’s population is predicted to escalate to 68,970 people who will own 46,880 vehicles to clog the Queanbeyan road network.
You will be forgiven if you have ignored this latest Queanbeyan city traffic report, which joins a long list of traffic reports that have been completed over the past thirty years, each promising relief for downtown Monaro Street by sending the traffic on its merry way on a ring road around our town – such a simple concept.
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