Exploring Antipodean Outcomes in an American Mirror:
Railway Development and the Shaping of Queensland
Society, 1880-1901
Bradley Bowden
Griffith University
The township of Duaringa boasts a commanding location. Sitting on the crest of the Great Divide, it is
the gateway between the port city of Rockhampton and Queensland’s Central Highlands - an area
today dotted with coal mines but which in the nineteenth century was claimed by some of Australia’s
largest sheep barons. When Queensland’s central trunk railway reached Duaringa in 1876, much was
expected. Officials laid out a street grid that mirrored that of Brisbane, the colony’s capital. Not only
were the streets named after the same royal princesses, they even advanced in the same order
(Anne, Adelaide, Queen, Charlotte, Mary, Margaret, Alice). However, rather than boosting Duaringa’s
fortunes, the railway curtailed them. Travellers no longer rested stock animals, and body and soul, at
the Range’s crest. Instead, they whirled past in the comfort of a railway carriage. Today, only the
ubiquitous railway hotel and a few forlorn houses mark Duaringa’s pretentions. Duaringa was not
alone in suffering perverse effects from railway development. Perhaps nowhere was this more evident
than in Dalby, the southern trunk line’s original terminus. Located in the heart of the fertile Darling
Downs, Dalby initially flourished. By 1876, when the southern trunk line recommenced its westward
march, the town had 1,870 inhabitants. However, after Dalby lost its position as a terminus its
progress faltered. Increasingly, it was converted into a town of merchants who acted as purveyors of
imported goods to local farmers. Whereas Dalby was home to 17 skilled metal tradespeople in 1886,
by 1901 only eight remained. Employment in food and drink manufacture, life’s staples, fell from 28 to
ten. With jobs lost in manufacturing, there was less need for local carters, the employment of whom
fell from 27 in 1886 to 12 in 1901. As jobs disappeared, the population shrank. By 1901, only 1,406
1
remained. Even those towns that became the main western hubs for Queensland’s southern, central
and northern trunk lines received surprisingly little direct benefit. In 1901 the engine crews at
Charleville, Emerald and Hughenden, numbered 13, 12 and 14 respectively. In total, this amounted to
2
6.1 per cent of Queensland’s engine crew labour force of 637.
Over the last few decades Australian labour historians have paid considerable attention to
communities where the railways figured prominently in employment: Ipswich and Rockhampton in
Queensland, Midland in Western Australia, and Lithgow and the Sydney suburbs adjacent to the
3
Eveleigh workshops in New South Wales (NSW). Such research has been supplemented by
1
Queensland Government, Seventh Census of Queensland, 1886 (Queensland Government Printer,
Brisbane, 1887), 39-40; Queensland Government, Ninth Census of Queensland, 1901
(Queensland Government Printer, Brisbane, 1902) 258-277.
2
Queensland Government, Census of 1901, 264-265.
3
Bradley Bowden, “’Some mysterious terror’: the relationship between capital and labour in Ipswich,
1861-96”, Labour History, no. 72, (May 1997), 77-100; Bradley Bowden, “A ‘time the like of which
was never before experienced’: changing community loyalties in Ipswich, 1900-12”, Labour
History, no. 78 (May 2000), 71-93; Barbara Webster, “A ‘cosy relationship’ if you had it:
Queensland Labor’s arbitration system and union organising strategies in Rockhampton, 1916-57”,
Labour History, no. 83 (November 2002), 89-106; Patrick Bertola and Bobbie Oliver (eds.), The
Workshops: A History of the Midland Government Railway Workshops (Crawley: University of
Western Australia Press, 2006); Greg Patmore, “Localism and labour: Lithgow 1869-1932”, Labour
History, no. 78 (May 2000), 53-70; Lucy Taksa, “‘All a matter of timing’: managerial innovation and
workplace culture in the New South Wales railways and tramways prior to 1921.” Australian
1|Page
institutional studies, the most significant of which is Hearn’s history of the Australian Railways Union
4
in NSW. Others have highlighted the importance of the railway vote in sustaining Labor’s rural
5
support. Missing from this body of research, however, is an appraisal of the overall impact of the
railways on Australian society. Also absent is an analysis of the ways in which railroad development
forged different types of communities along its path; communities that responded in varying ways to
trade unionism and industrial militancy. Admittedly, these broader questions have long been
considered by United States (US) labour historians, most notably Herbert Gutman and Shelton
Stromquist. Whereas Gutman believed most “small railroad towns” were supportive of labour
6
militancy, Stromquist identified “two basic types of communities” inhabited by nineteenth century
railway workers. The first were “market towns” dominated by commercial interests. In such towns,
there was little sympathy for strikes. Counter-posed to these were “railway towns” that were
7
supportive of labour militancy due to the numerical dominance of railroad workers. We need,
however, to be wary of transposing such theoretical frameworks to Australia without first outlining how
Antipodean railway development and subsequent social formation corresponded with, or differed
from, the US.
Given the above issues, this study seeks to initiate an assessment of the social impact of
Australian railway development through an analysis of the Queensland experience between 1880 and
1901. In doing so, this study locates Queensland’s circumstance within a wider national and global
narrative, paying particular to the situation in the American West (defined as the area west of the
Mississippi and including the Pacific territories but excluding Louisiana and Arkansas, both of which
were socially part of the Old South). The reasons for this approach are two-fold. First, nineteenth
century railway development was a global phenomenon. Railways not only competed for investment
capital, they also provided the sinews of an emergent global market. Perhaps more importantly, if we
are to draw, as this study does, on an extant US labour history literature, than we need to consider
whether the Australian experience was aberrant, thereby rendering unsuited any US schema. In the
case of Queensland this indeed is the case, this article finding that there were no “railroad towns” in
the sense Stromquist discussed, i.e. towns that owed their existence to rail and in which railway
workers were a hegemonic social force. Instead, by truncating economic development in districts
located along the network, Queensland’s railways restricted social diversification. In agricultural
areas, there were farmers, merchants and not much else. In mining areas, there were miners,
merchants and not much else. Even in the eastern “railway towns” the number of merchants rose at a
faster rate than that for railroad workers. These outcomes reinforced an inherent tendency in
Queensland society, in which rural and commercial interests predominated at the expense of
industrial concerns.
Historical Studies, no. 110 (1998), 1-26; Lucy Taksa, “Politics, industrial heritage and working life
at Eveleigh”, Labour History, no. 85 (November 2003), 65-88.
4
Mark Hearn, Working Lives: A History of the Australian Railways Union - NSW Branch (Sydney:
Hale & Iremonger, 1990); Greg Patmore, “The Origins of the National Union of Railwaymen”,
Labour History, no. 43 (November 1982), 44-52.
5
Geoff Robinson, When the Labor Party Dreams: Class, Politics and Policy in NSW 1930-32,
(Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publication, 2008); Jim Hagan and Ken Turner, A History of the
Labor Party in New South Wales 1891-1991 (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1991).
6
Herbert Gutman, “Trouble of the railroads in 1873-74: prelude to the 1877 crisis?” Labor History, vol.
2, no. 2 (1961), 215. Also, Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America,
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1976).
7
Shelton Stromquist, “Enginemen and shopmen: technological change and the organization of labor
in an era of railroad expansion”, Labor History, vol. 24, no. 2 (1983), 485-499; Shelton Stromquist,
A Generation of Boomers: the Pattern of Railroad Labor Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987).
2|Page
Railroads and Place
The study of railway workers and their communities has assumed significant proportions in labour
history. In the United States, much of this research has been directed towards understanding the
social underpinnings of the great railroad strikes of 1873-74 and, more particularly, 1893-94 (the
Pullman Boycott). In exploring this phenomenon, Gutman, Stromquist, Salvatore and others have
8
emphasised the importance of geographical variation. As Stromquist observed, railroad conflict was
9
most manifest in ‘the upper Midwest, the southern Great Plains, and in the northern Mountain states.’
Initially, these western workers benefited from labour shortages, only to suffer curtailed fortune as
railroads slipped towards bankruptcy in the 1890s. Australian studies of the interrelationship between
community and labour organisation in “railway towns” have had a narrower focus. Whereas US
historians have explored social variance across the rail network, Australian studies have focused on
individual communities. Even if we look to the wider body of Australian research, the only study that
locates labour conflict within a framework of industry-wide social variation is Merritt’s The Making of
the AWU; a work which revealed how variance in the behaviour of different rural groups effectively
10
confined pastoral unionism to districts dominated by itinerant workers.
On a wider canvas, study of the link between community and labour relations has generated
interest in how place-based relations are forged in the first instance. Increasingly, labour historians
and social geographers have come to regard community relationships as contested, shaped by
11
market relationships and managerial strategies as well as by personal bonds. Particularly relevant to
this article are the seminal studies of David Harvey, who emphasised a fundamental contradiction that
stems from the way in which new technologies (rail, air travel, telecommunications) bring about “timespace compression”. On the one hand, such technologies breach barriers imposed by physical
distance. However, they can only do this through the “creation of a transport network that is immobile
12
in space.” The problems this causes have long been understood by railroad researchers. Writing in
1850, one study observed that the principal “duty” of railroad managers was one of maintaining in
working order “the entire property, fixed and moveable”. Unfortunately, this study concluded, railway
13
income was almost always fell short of the sums needed for this task. Such insights were extended
in a much cited analysis in 1875 by Albert Fink, the President of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad.
Reflecting on the fact that most railroad expenses were “fixed or inevitable”, Fink noted that railroads
universally responded to this problem in ways that exacerbated their woes. First, they accepted
business that gave only the most marginal return rather idle capacity. Second, they increased traffic
14
through competition with rivals, a strategy that drove rates lower whilst adding to capital costs. In
8
Gutman, “Trouble on the railroads”; Stromquist, Generation of Boomers; Nick Salvatore, “Railroad
workers and the Great Strike of 1877: the view from a small Midwestern city”, Labor History, no. 21
(Fall 1980), 522-545; David Papke, The Pullman Case: the Clash of Capital and Labor in Industrial
America (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1991); Richard Schneirov, Shelton Stromquist
and Nick Salvatore (eds), The Pullman Strike and the Crisis of the 1890s (Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1991).
9
Stromquist, Generation of Boomers, p. 30.
10
John Merritt, The Making of the AWU (Melbourne: Oxford University Press).
11
Andrew Herod, Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscape of Capitalism (New York: Guilford
Press, 2001); Andrew Herod, “Workers as geographic actors”, Labor History 53, no. 3 (2012), 335353; Bradon Ellem and John Shields, “Rethinking ‘regional industrial relations’: space, place and
the social relations at work”, Journal of Industrial Relations 41, no. 4 (1999): 536-560; Bradon
Ellem and Susan McGrath-Champ, “Labor geography and labor history: insights and outcomes
from a decade of cross-disciplinary dialogue”, Labor History 53, no. 3 (2012), 355-372.
12
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 240; David Harvey, The
Limits of Capital, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 386.
13
Dionysius Lardner, Railway Economy in Europe and America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1850),
116-117, 264-265.
14
Albert Fink, Cost of Railroad Transportation (Louisville: John Norton & Co, 1875), 19, 34. Fink’s
insights are reproduced, with or without elaboration, in a host of studies, including: William Ripley,
Railroads: Rates & Regulation (New York: Long, Green & Co., 1913); Albert Fishlow, American
3|Page
identifying factors behind management’s assault on railroad working conditions, US labour historians
have given most weight to excess competition, Stromquist noting that railroad financial troubles were
15
“a by-product” of “competitive overbuilding.” Australian economic historians have also pointed to
over-building and the adverse effects of intercolonial competition in this country. Such circumstances,
16
Butlin concluded, produced “a highly inefficient and wasteful transport system”.
If excess competition posed difficulties, a bigger problem for the railroads of both Australia
and the American West stemmed from the need to maintain railway infrastructure no matter what the
traffic. On this front, Australia’s government-owned railways - which acted as monopoly providers
within their colonial borders - faced identical problems to those experienced by their privately-owned
US counterparts. Not only were traffic volumes thinner in Australia and the American West than in the
more heavily settled districts of the American north-east and Europe, the commodities that they
shipped were also subject to price deflation. As Harley notes in his study of the global wheat trade,
exports from Australia, the US, Canada and the Ukraine soon drove down receipts in an oversupplied
global market. Farm-gate prices for Iowa wheat, for example, fell by 31.8 per cent to 0.56 cents per
17
bushel between 1880-84 and 1895-99. While the price obtained for Australian wool is much
debated, Svensen’s definitive analysis indicates that the weighted average price fell from 13 pence
18
per pound (454 grams) in 1882 to less than ten pence in 1893. In short, while railway development
may have compressed relative time and space for rural producers, the physical landscapes upon
which this infrastructure was built left the railways so created in a precarious financial situation. Also
left exposed were the communities that were tied, through the railways, to commercial exchanges on
far-distant markets.
Reckless Gambles: Locating Queensland’s Experience
In examining the circumstances surrounding the birth of America’s first transcontinental railway, the
Union Pacific, Maury Klein observed that it “amounted to a reckless gamble for high stakes at long
19
odds”. Australia’s railways were, similarly, immense speculative ventures. In Queensland, the £17.6
million invested in the colony’s railways between 1864 and 1890 exceeded the combined private
sector investment in agriculture, the pastoral sector, mining, manufacturing and non-residential
construction (£15.9 million). A similar situation prevailed in Victoria. Measured in per capita terms
(current US dollars), Australia’s investment effort rose from US$577 in 1870 to a peak of US$4,032 in
1890. Queensland, with its sparse population, exceeded this Australia norm, per capita investment
20
rising from US$851 in 1870 to US$5,432 in 1890. Such investments produced a system that was
disproportionately large relative to the population. Whereas Britain boasted 0.5 miles of track per
21
thousand inhabitants in 1900, Australia claimed 3.6 miles. Extraordinary as was Australia’s
Railroads and the Ante-Bellum Economy (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1965);
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr, “The railroads: pioneers in modern corporate management”, Business
History Review, vol. 39 (1965), 16-40; Alfred D. Chander, Jr., The visible hand: the managerial
revolution in American business (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1977).
15
Stromquist, Generation of Boomers, 12. Also, Stromquist, “Enginemen and Shopman”, 487;
Stromquist’s analysis draws on, Julius Grodinsky, The Iowa Pool: A Study in Railroad Competition
1870-84 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
16
N.G. Butlin, Investment in Australian Economic Development 1861-1900 (Canberra: ANU Press,
1972), 360. Similar conclusions are found in, Edward Shann, An Economic History of Australia
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,1930), 291.
17
C. Knick Harley, “Transportation, the world wheat trade and the Kuznets cycle 1850-1913”, Journal
of Economic History, vol. 17 (1980), 220.
18
Stuart Svensen, The Shearers’ War: the Story of the 1891 Shearers’ Strike (St Lucia: UQ Press,
1989), 27-28.
19
Maury Klein, Union Pacific, 1860-1893. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 34.
20
Calculated from G.J. R. Linge, A Geography of Australian Manufacturing 1788 to 1890 (Canberra:
ANU Press, 1979), 210-211, 415-416, 594-595, 676-677. Also, C.H. Knibbs, Commonwealth of
Australia Yearbook, 1919 (Melbourne: Commonwealth Printer, 1919), 98.
21
Knibbs, Australia Yearbook, 1919, 634.
4|Page
investment, it paled both in relative as well as absolute terms when compared with that which
occurred in the American West. By 1890, the nominal value of the railroads in the Trans-Mississippi
West (excluding Louisiana and Arkansas) was US$3.17 billion (current US$79.4 billion), more than a
quarter of the national total of US$11.5 billion. In per capita terms, this amounted to US$7840 (current
22
US dollars). Measured in terms of per capita investment, Queensland’s experience thus sits above
the Australian norm but below that found in the American West.
If we turn to mileage a similar picture presents itself. Queensland mileage grew from nothing
in 1865, when the first line linking Ipswich with nearby Grandchester was opened, to 2904 miles in
1901. At Federation, therefore, Queensland possessed slightly more than a fifth of the Australian
total, which stood at 13,551 miles. While the latter total almost equalled that operated by Great Britain
in 1901, it was dwarfed by the USA. Between 1860 and 1900, US mileage advanced from 30,626 to
240,439 miles. A more meaningful comparison, however, is found by contrasting Australian (and
Queensland mileage) with that laid down in the US beyond the Trans-Mississippi-Missouri River line
(this includes the Dakotas and the Pacific territories but not Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Arkansas and
Louisiana). Beyond this line, which represented the limits of American rail extension at the time of the
Civil War, mileage rose from 300 miles in 1860 to 79,349 miles in 1900. Significantly, greater
expansion in the American West did not reflect a much larger population. Thus, whereas the West’s
population of 4.8 million in 1890 was only 50 per cent greater than Australia’s (3.2 million, of whom
392,116 were Queenslanders), its 49,896 miles of track was almost five times the Antipodean total
(10,123 miles). This disparity is highlighted when we compare in Figure 1, the per capita mileage (or
to be more exact, miles per thousand inhabitants) of Australia and the US in total, as well as
Queensland, Victoria and the American West. This indicates that whereas Victoria, Australia and the
US were all within a narrow band in 1890-91 (Victoria 2.4 miles, US 2.6 miles, Australia 3.2 miles), the
23
American West (10.4 miles) and Queensland (5.6 miles) were both outliers.
Figure 1: Com parative M ileage – Australia, United States, Am erican
W est, Queensland & Victoria, 1870-71 to 1900-01
Railway miles per 1,000 popula2on 12.00 10.00 Australia 8.00 US 6.00 West US 4.00 Queensland 2.00 Vic 0.00 1870-­‐71 1880-­‐81 1890-­‐91 1900-­‐01 (Source: US Department of Commerce and Labor, Statistical Abstract, 504; Poor, Manual, vii-vii, I;
Knibbs, Yearbook, 634.)
22
23
Calculated from Henry Varnum Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States, 1896 (New
York: V.H. and H.V Poor, 1897), xii. The population of the Trans-Mississippi West was 10.67
million. Conversion to current dollars was done via, http://www.measuringworth.com/
Figures calculated from US Department of Commerce and Labor, Statistical Abstract, 504; Henry
Varnum Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States, 1902 (New York: V.H. and H.V Poor,
1903), vii-vii, I; Knibbs, Yearbook, 634.
5|Page
The large amount of mileage relative to population found in both the American West and
Queensland meant that that these regions faced in acute form the problem confronted by all railroads
– the need to maintain mileage whether the traffic was light or heavy. Admittedly, as Butlin observed
in the case of Queensland, their primary purpose was seen as “developmental”, it being expected that
24
custom would follow behind the laid track. To what extent was this hope borne out? In Figure 2 we
explore this question by comparing per mile operating earnings of Queensland, measured in terms of
25
the US dollar values then applying, between 1885 and 1895 with five US regions. Two of these
regions, New England (Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and
Connecticut) and the Mid-Atlantic (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of
Columbia) were heavily industrialised. The other three - the Mid-West (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,
Illinois, Wisconsin), the Northern Plains (Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Minnesota,
Iowa) and the South-West (New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri) – were predominately
agricultural. Of these three regions, the Northern Plains and the South-West, with thinly-populated
landscapes, most resembled Queensland. As can be seen in Figure 2, these six regions fall into two
broad groups – the high-earning industrialized earners (New England and the Mid-Atlantic) and the
low-earning commodity-based regions (the rest). Among the low-earning regions, Queensland’s
performance was by far the worst, gross per mile receipts falling from US$2510 in 1885 to US$1869
26
in 1895. The worst performing US regions were the Northern Plains and the South-West.
Figure2: Com parative Earnings per M ile, 1885-1895 – Queensland, New
England, M id-Atlantic, M id-W est, Northern Plains, US South -W est
Earnings per 100,000 miles Gross freight income in $ per mile 16000 14000 12000 NE 10000 Mid-­‐A MW 8000 SW 6000 NP 4000 Qld 2000 0 1885 1890 1895 (Source: Poor, Manual, 1886, 1892, 1896; Queensland Railway Commissioners’ Reports,
1886-1896; Victorian Railway Commissioners’ Reports, 1886-1896.)
The precarious nature of Queensland railway finances can be ascertained by reference to the
situation that prevailed in 1892, at the end of a decade of rapid expansion, when gross revenues of
24
Butlin, Investment in Australian Economic Development, 296.
The conversion from sterling to US dollars is done via, http://www.measuringworth.com/
26
Calculated from Annual Reports of the Queensland Railways Department; Poor’s Manual of the
Railroads of the United States.
25
6|Page
£1,022,677 comfortably exceeded working expenses of £638,889. However, the interest on
27
Queensland’s railway borrowings in this year amounted to £1,312,931. In short, income received fall
far short of the sum needed to service capital, let alone cover operating costs. How did management
deal with this quandary? The answer to this question, in part at least, is suggested in Figure 3, where
we compare the railway working expenses of Queensland with those of the US for the period 18801901. In interpreting the associated figures, working expenses that are much above 60 per cent are
typically indicative of financial distress. As Figure 3 indicates, working expenses in both the US and
Queensland rose sharply in the 1880s and remained above 65 per cent until the early 1890s. By
1893, however, a sharp divergence is apparent. Whereas US ratios remained high, Queensland ratios
fell sharply. While this outcome is discussed further below, it is prima facie evidence that Queensland
managers were more ruthless in reducing costs than their US cousins.
FIG URE 3: Ratio of W orking Expenses to Gross Revenues in Queensland
and the United States, 1880-1901
85 80 75 70 65 Qld 60 US 55 50 45 (Source: Queensland Railway Commissioners’ Reports, 1881-1901; US Department of Commerce and Labor,
Statistical Abstract, 555)
To sum up the above evidence, Queensland provides an exemplar of a society in which
railways were disproportionately large relative to population. In terms of earnings and per capita
mileage, Queensland closely resembled the western plains and mountain states of the US; regions
that were the focus of Stromquist’s seminal studies of western labour conflict. The comparative size of
Queensland’s railways, relative to population, would also logically suggest that the railways must have
played a disproportionately significant role in the colony’s development. There is, however, an
anomaly. Why, given the significance of Queensland’s railways, was the labour force so quiescent?
To answer this question we explore both the distribution of railway workforce as well as rail’s overall
effect on Queensland society.
Operating Queensland Rail, 1881-1901
In operating Queensland’s railways, management faced four main problems. First, Queensland in
1890 suffered from having thirteen disconnected systems. Of these, only the foundations for the
southern, central and northern trunk systems – which terminated at Charleville, Longreach and
27
John Mathieson, Robert Gray and A. Johnston, “Report of the Queensland Railway Commissioners
for 1892-93”, Queensland Votes & Proceedings (QVP), 1893, vol. 3, 742.
7|Page
Hughenden in 1892 – were laid down before 1880. Unlike the trunk systems, the eight “local”
networks established after 1880 were ill-regarded by management, the Railway Commissioner
28
advising Parliament in 1886 that “the Branch lines have not been financially remunerative”. Of these
“branch” lines, that based upon the river port towns of Maryborough and Bundaberg - and servicing
the Wide Bay region with its gold fields (Gympie, Mount Perry), coal mines (Howard) and sugar
plantations - was most significant. Other standalone systems connected Cairns and Kuranda,
Normanton and Croydon, and Cooktown and Laura. A second (but related) problem that stemmed
from disconnected networks is that the subsequent linking of these systems added to unremunerative
mileage. This tendency was the hallmark of the 1880s, when mileage increased by 276 per cent to
2,195 miles. Most of this expansion benefited Brisbane, Ipswich and Toowoomba, which were linked
29
to Gympie in the north, Southport to the south and Wallangarra on the NSW border. Such expansion
was underpinned by the view that Queensland was best served by settling the land with yeoman
farmers; an objective written into law in 1888 when the Parliament mandated that the railways be
30
worked “as will best conduce … the promotion of settlement.”
While Parliament favoured agricultural lines, it was the three trunk systems that long provided
the bulk of the revenues. In 1890, income from these lines totalled £795,346. The rest of the network
31
earned £113,358. This produced a third problem as reliance on trunk line income exposed the
system to the vagaries of climate and distant markets. Wool, the mainstay of 1890, provided
Queensland Rail with less than fifteen per cent of its receipts (£159,463 in a total of £1.1 million) in
32
1895 as the pastoral sector suffered from drought and falling prices. By 1901, wool’s contribution
(£78,028) represented barely five per cent of total income (£1.5 million). The mining sector’s
contribution was also inconsequential by 1901, providing a mere £71,326 as long-established fields
declined. Reflecting the growth of Brisbane’s suburban system, passenger carriage became the
principal source of revenue, providing 23.8 per cent of receipts (£349,217) at the start of the twentieth
33
century. Only the shipment of general merchandise (£331,599) made a comparable contribution.
As difficult as the above problems were for management, it was the organisation and
distribution of the railway workforce which presented the gravest challenge. On this front, Queensland
Rail confronted three distinct staffing issues: recruitment of navvies to build the initial track; gaining
access to a mechanical workforce capable of maintaining rolling stock; and, finally, the organisation of
a traffic workforce of engine-drivers, guards, station-masters as well as fettlers (for maintaining the
permanent way). The perils involved in the first of these tasks became obvious at the dawn of
Queensland’s rail. Like most railroads, Queensland’s outsourced recruitment and supervision of
navvies. When the first line was constructed between Ipswich and Toowoomba the contract went to
the British firm of Peto, Brassey & Betts. Problems soon ensued. In 1864, the navvies unsuccessfully
struck work for the eight-hour day already won by Amalgamated Society of Engineer (ASE) members
34
at Ipswich’s state-owned Workshops. Worse followed when, in 1866, Peto, Brassy & Betts and the
Agra & Masterman bank (the government’s main lender) both failed. Unpaid, navvies marched on
35
Brisbane where they initiated the “Bread or Blood” street riots of 11 September 1866. The
recruitment of navvies subsequently remained problematic in the sparsely-settled north and west.
Here, management continued to access overseas-recruited labour. On the Cairns-Kuranda railroad,
28
F. Curnow, “Report of the Queensland Railway Commissioner, 1886”, QVP, vol. 3, (1887), 234-235.
The best depiction of this expansion is found in Linge, Industrial Awakening, 670.
30
Queensland Parliamentary Debates (QPD), vol. 55, (1888), 133.
31
John Mathieson, Robert Gray and A. Johnston, “Report of the Queensland Railway
Commissioners. 1890”, QVP, 1891, vol. 4, 402, 418.
32
Robert Gray, “Report of Queensland’s Railway Commissioner, 1895-96”, QVP, vol. 4 (1896), 316317.
33
Robert Gray, “Report of Queensland’s Railway Commissioner, 1901-02”, QVP, 1901, vol. 4 (1902),
698-699.
34
John Kerr, Triumph of the Narrow Gauge: a History of Queensland’s Railways (Brisbane:
Boolarong, 1990), 14.
35
Queenslander, 29 September 1866.
29
8|Page
constructed between 1886 and 1891, most labour was Italian, indentured via a treaty with the Italian
36
government. Such stratagems, however, did not guarantee workforce docility. By 1890, unionisation
of navvies was commonplace. In the pastoral districts, they came within the Queensland Labourers
Union’s orbit. In Brisbane, the Navvies and Draymen’s Union sought to enrol all those in “South
37
Queensland”. Despite such developments, however, navvies caused management ever fewer
concerns. As Table 1 reveals, even in the heyday of the mid-1880s most navvies worked in one of the
eastern rail hubs, the agricultural south-east or in Brisbane. In these locations, labour was easily
found. In 1889, for example, 400 unemployed navvies were reported at Caboolture [on Brisbane’s
38
outskirts], “waiting for another section of the Gympie line to be started.” In such an environment,
unions such as the Navvies and Draymen’s Union proved short-lived.
Table 1: Regional Distribution of Railway Navvy W orkforce, 1886-1901
Western Pastoral Districts
Mining Districts (Burke, Croydon, Etheridge,
Herberton, Kennedy, Mt Morgan, Gympie,
Stanthorpe & Woothakata census districts)
Darling Downs & South-East Agricultural
Eastern Rail Hubs (Ipswich, Toowoomba,
Maryborough, Rockhampton, Townsville)*
Brisbane (including East Moreton)
Sugar Districts (Cairns, Cardwell, Cook, Bundaberg,
Tiaro, Wide Bay, Mackay & Logan census districts)
Total
1886
1891
1901
632
704
136
350
226
590
529
109
29
723
711
583
727
490
457
698
756
412
3659
2971
1617
(Source: Queensland Censes 1888, 1891, 1901) *Note: Ipswich includes West Moreton & Oxley.
Brisbane includes Caboolture until 1901 census, when urban areas added to Brisbane.
In 1879, Queensland’s Parliament also decided that the manufacture and repair of rolling
stock manufacture and repair should be privatised wherever possible. In the ensuing two decades, W.
Porrit and Co. (Toowomba), Burns and Twigg (Rockhampton), Shillito & Son, Springall & Frost
(Ipswich), the Queensland Carriage Company (Brisbane) and, above all, Maryborough’s Walker and
39
Co., all obtained large-scale contracts. This outsourcing had a number of long-term effects. First, it
distributed manufacturing in accordance with the disconnected rail systems that then existed. Despite
subsequent network changes, the towns victorious in winning contracts in the 1880s retained their
status as rail hubs. The consequence of this can be ascertained by the fact that in 1901 Ipswich and
Maryborough, with populations of 15,246 and 12,900 respectively, boasted disproportionate numbers
of metal workers, the former claiming 685 and the latter 562. By contrast, Brisbane, with 119,428
40
inhabitants, possessed 1,393. The family firms obtaining rail contracts also benefited from increased
prestige and power. This was seen most clearly in Ipswich, where the Shillitos and the Frosts intermarried with the dominant merchant families, the Cribbs and Footes, forming an elite with a pervasive
36
Glenda Machonachie, “Blood on the rails: the Cairns-Kuranda railway construction and the
Queensland Employers’ Liability Act”, Labour History 73 (November 1997), 77-92.
37
Boomerang, 17 November 1888, 15 December 1888.
38
Boomerang, 17 November 1888, 19 January 1889.
39
A. O. Herbert, “Memo on rolling-stock ordered on Queensland Railways since 1879”, QVP, 1883,
vo. 4,1761-1762.
40
Queensland Census of 1901, x, 268-269.
9|Page
41
local influence. Outsourcing also spread craft unionism from its Ipswich base as employers recruited
redundant government tradespeople. The main benefactor of this was the ASE, whose presence was
42
reported in Brisbane, Maryborough and Toowoomba firms as early as 1879.
Although the Railways Department reported in 1883 that rolling stock manufacture had been
43
“wholly abandoned in the [state-owned] shops”, most private firms lacked the capital necessary for
expansion. In the early twentieth century, the Ipswich firms of Barbat & Sons (formerly Springall &
44
Frost) and Shillito & Son employed 150 and 50 workers respectively – the same number as in 1888.
Such outcomes allowed a growth in government employment that rode in the face of official policy.
Employment at the Ipswich Workshops rose from 212 in 1877 to 260 in 1887. By the latter date,
Maryborough’s workshop engaged 36. The workshops of Rockhampton and Townsville employed 76
and 56 respectively. Outside of these major hubs, only skeleton forces were maintained. In 1887, the
45
workshops at Bundaberg and Mackay both housed four. Small though many workshops were, they
nevertheless ensured continuing state involvement in manufacture and maintenance.
As one would expect in a highly decentralised system, the metropolis was a modest
contributor to employment. In 1886, Brisbane housed only 12.1 per cent of the traffic workforce and
13.1 per cent of engine-crews. At Federation, it still housed only a quarter of the traffic and engineroom workforces. Nevertheless, the railways were in job terms an increasingly urban phenomenon.
This is demonstrated in Tables 1 and 2 where, by utilising census returns, we trace the location of the
traffic workforce for 1886, 1891 and 1901. Particular emphasis is given to engine-crew placement, as
this is a prime indicator of train starting and finishing points. Queensland’s railways expanded the
traffic workforce was also increasingly associated with five eastern rail hubs. In 1886, workers
residing in either Brisbane or one of the five eastern hubs - Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maryborough,
Rockhampton and Townsville - comprised 45.6 per cent of the traffic workforce and 52 per cent of
engine-crew employees. By 1901, 60.6 per cent of the traffic workforce and 68.8 per cent of enginecrews resided in these centres. Moreover, as elucidated in Table 2, the expansion of the mining
district’s share held was due entirely to Charters Towers, then Queensland’s second city.
Table 2: Regional Distribution of Traffic W orkforce (Engine-Crew
num bers in Parentheses), 1886-1901
Western Pastoral Districts
Mining Districts (Burke, Croydon, Etheridge,
Herberton, Kennedy, Mt Morgan, Gympie,
Stanthorpe & Woothakata census districts)
Darling Downs & South-East Agricultural
Eastern Rail Hubs (Ipswich, Toowoomba,
Maryborough, Rockhampton, Townsville)*
Brisbane (including East Moreton)
Sugar Districts (Cairns, Cardwell, Cook, Bundaberg,
1886
1891
1901
409 (68)
508 (40)
821 (75)
132 (13)
220 (18)
637 (64)
190 (19)
366 (10)
323 (28)
566 (98)
711 (125)
1397 (294)
200 (33)
490 (43)
1043 (161)
166 (21)
369 (35)
445 (79)
41
Bowden, “Changing community loyalties in Ipswich, 1900-12”, 74-76.
See employer testimony in, ““Minutes of Evidence of Select Committee on the Railway Workshops”,
QVP, vol. 2 (1879), ?-???.
43
Herbert, “Memo on rolling-stock”, 1761.
44
Bowden, “Changing community loyalties in Ipswich, 1900-12”, 80.
45
“Report of the Select Committee into the management of the Southern and Western Railway”, QVP,
vol. 2 (1877), 476; F, Curnow, “Report of the Queensland Railway Commissioner for 1886”,
QVP, vol. 3 (1887), 1008-09.
42
10 | P a g e
Tiaro, Wide Bay, Mackay & Logan census districts)
1673 (252)
Total
2664 (271)
4029 (637)
(Source: Queensland Censes 1888, 1891, 1901) *Note: Ipswich includes West Moreton & Oxley;
Brisbane includes Caboolture until 1901 census, when urban areas added to Brisbane.
Between 1886 and 1901 the main beneficiaries of westward railway expansion were the
eastern hubs of Toowoomba, Rockhampton and Townsville. By contrast, western hubs such as
Roma, Charleville and Emerald employed relatively few rail workers. Among the eastern hubs,
Toowoomba’s advance is particularly striking, the town employing a larger engine-crew workforce
than any other regional centre by 1901. Geography was the key to this success. Atop the Main
Range, Toowoomba was ideally placed as a distribution point, linking southern coastal towns to not
only the Darling Downs, the Maranoa and the Warrego regions to the west but also Warwick,
Stanthorpe and the NSW border to the south. Toowoomba also benefited from improved technology,
the Railway Commissioners reporting the introduction “of a much heavier type” of locomotive on trunk
46
lines during 1889-90 (older machines were reallocated to Brisbane’s suburban service). These new
locomotives reduced the need for western crew changes. Similar outcomes are apparent in Central
Queensland where Rockhampton was the main beneficiary of the system’s westward advance to
Barcaldine (1886) and Longreach (1892). By 1901, Rockhampton’s engine-crew workforce was
almost four times bigger than 1886. Its traffic workforce was more than two and a half times larger. By
contrast, the combined engine-crew workforce of the two western hubs, Emerald and Longreach, was
less than that possessed by Emerald alone in 1886. Even the expansion of overall traffic force
numbers in the western census districts is a misleading indicator of industrial weight, as more than
half of western navvies were gangers and fettlers who would have been sparsely spread along the
47
permanent way. A variant of the same theme is found on the northern trunk system, which reached
Hughenden in 1887. The main employment beneficiaries of this expansion were Charters Towers
and, more particularly, Townsville. By 1901, the latter rivalled Ipswich in terms of both traffic
employment and engine-crew numbers. Away from the trunk lines, Maryborough was the main
beneficiary of expansion, being linked to Bundaberg (1882), Mount Perry (1884) and Brisbane (1891).
Table 3: Railw ay Hubs - Traffic W orkforce (Engine-Crew num bers in
Parentheses), 1886-1901
Maranoa (Roma)
Charleville
Clermont (Emerald)
Aramac (Longreach)
Hughenden
Kennedy (Charters Towers)
Ipswich
Toowoomba
46
47
1886
1891
1901
112 (5)
96 (10)
163 (16)
-
39 (0)
88 (13)
119 (24)
129 (14)
143 (12)
-
-
58 (10)
-
21 (2)
64 (14)
99 (10)
105 (8)
347 (36)
270 (34)
321 (46)
362 (64)
86 (23)
132 (40)
286 (69)
46 (9)
77 (20)
146 (44)
Mathieson, Gray and Johnston, “Report for 1890”, 481.
Queensland Government, Queensland Census of 1891 (Brisbane: Queensland Government
Printer, 1892), 188-189.
11 | P a g e
Maryborough
Rockhampton
Townsville
95 (15)
111 (12)
265 (56)
69 (17)
70 (7)
338 (61)
(Source: Queensland Censes 1888, 1891, 1901) *Note: Ipswich includes West Moreton & Oxley; Brisbane
includes Caboolture until 1901 census, when urban areas added to Brisbane
An attempted tally in 1901 of winners and losers in terms of traffic employment would clearly
place Brisbane, Toowoomba, Ipswich, Maryborough, Rockhampton, Townsville and, to a lesser
degree, Charters Towers in the former category. Significantly, four of these towns (Brisbane,
Toowoomba, Ipswich, Maryborough) were found in Queensland’s south-east. Estimating losers is
more problematic. The Roma and Emerald districts both boasted more traffic staff in 1901 than in
1886. Longreach and Hughenden benefited in 1901 from the presence of a railway workforce that did
not exist in earlier years. The pattern of railway activity, however, permanently condemned western
towns to a subsidiary status, wherein surprisingly few local railway jobs were generated.
The Railways and Queensland’s Social Structure, 1880-1901
Even before the railways were constructed, the peculiar contours of Queensland society were already
evident as economic activity revolved around western pastoralism, northern mining, coastal sugargrowing and agriculture. Railroad development nevertheless had profound, if often perverse, effects.
Positively, the railways nullified many of the effects of distance. The most obvious beneficiary of this
was the rural population of the Darling Downs and the well-watered south-east; an area that saw
farming numbers treble (from 2918 to 8978) between 1886 and 1901 as branch lines radiated out.
However, while the railways reduced the cost of shipping primary commodities “down the line”, they
also lowered the cost of moving people and merchandise “up the line”. The medium to long-term
effect of this was the stultification of local manufacturing and even financial capacity as goods and
services were increasingly obtained from either coastal towns or from outside Queensland.
The tendency of railway development to truncate the emergence of a diversified economy is
indicated in Table 4, where in districts directly affected by railroad expansion we trace employment in
four sectors – metal manufacture, food and drink making, financial services, and merchandise trade
(including storekeeping) – between 1886 and 1901. In terms of metal manufacturing, a key indicator
of industrial development, employment either lagged behind or barely kept pace with population
increase in every regional grouping. The worst outcomes, surprisingly, were found in the eastern rail
hubs and Brisbane - towns that boasted the bulk of Queensland’s metal manufacturing workforce.
Despite the combined population of the eastern rail hubs almost doubling to 106,943, and that of
Brisbane and its environs rising by two-thirds to 118,488, the increase in their metal trade labour force
was negligible. This suggests that rather than becoming producers of metal hardware, these towns
increasingly became mere conduits, on-shipping finished goods made elsewhere (Queensland, for
example, imported all its iron and steel rails). Broadly similar trends are evident in terms of food and
drink manufacture, an area of economic activity where – given the perishability of many staples – one
would expect the persistence of a local manufacturing capacity. In every regional grouping, other than
Brisbane and the sugar districts (where much of the workforce was engaged in sugar milling), there
were fewer workers employed in the food and drink sector in 1901 than there were in 1886.
Admittedly, figures for 1886 overstate employment in food and drink manufacture by including those
trading in such goods as well as those manufacturing them. By contrast, later censes only included
manufacturing workers. Even allowing for this, however, it is evident that food and drink making
providing only modest additions to employment in the post-1880 era of railway expansion. By 1901, in
12 | P a g e
every regional grouping other than Brisbane and the sugar districts, even metal manufacture provided
48
more jobs than food and drink making.
.
48
Queensland Census of 1886, 180-193 Queensland Census of 1891, 188-190; Queensland Census
of 1901, 264-266.
13 | P a g e
Table 4: Regional Econom ic Activity, 1886-1901
1886
Western
Districts
Pastoral
Mining Districts
South-East
Districts
Farming
Eastern Rail Hubs
Brisbane (including East
Moreton)
Sugar Districts
1891
1901
Population
Metal Manufacture
Food
&
Drink
Manufacture
Merchants
&
Storekeepers
Finance & Commerce
35,895
290
47,764
404
57,129
340
496
170
309
507
640
1839
140
193
215
Population
Metal Manufacture
Food
&
Drink
Manufacture
Merchants
&
Storekeepers
Finance & Commerce
33,907
372
45,900
355
72,251
794
691
236
498
423
837
3825
266
268
465
Population
Metal Manufacture
Food
&
Drink
Manufacture
Merchants
&
Storekeepers
Finance & Commerce
31,395
151
36,689
178
59,767
292
241
83
251
277
310
1250
143
125
320
Population
Metal Manufacture
Food
&
Drink
Manufacture
Merchants
&
Storekeepers
Finance & Commerce
63,817
1499
97,633
1298
106,943
1562
1693
653
1021
1126
1693
7137
1046
685
885
Population
Metal Manufacture
Food
&
Drink
Manufacture
Merchants
&
Storekeepers
Finance & Commerce
71,000
1333
101,544
1458
118,488
1393
1533
858
2409
1220
2567
7738
1399
1394
887
Population
Metal Manufacture
Food
&
Drink
Manufacture
Merchants
&
Storekeepers
Finance & Commerce
43,804
455
60,051
429
74,403
549
620
335
1122
566
768
2212
231
251
303
(Source: Queensland Censes 1888, 1891, 1901) *Note: Ipswich includes West Moreton
Queensland’s increasing dependence on imported supply is also evident when we turn our
attention to financial services, where a sharp decline in employment occurred in both the eastern rail
hubs and Brisbane; a decline partly offset by increased employment in the rural and mining districts. It
was not, however, simply the distribution of jobs that changed in this field of endeavour, it was also
the very nature of employment. In 1886, financial and commercial services were still largely provided
by local firms and agents. By 1901, this had changed with improved communications allowing banks
14 | P a g e
headquartered outside Queensland to dispense with Brisbane-based offices in favour of ones located
in rural and mining districts. As Lawson observed, Brisbane became a backwater “branch office”
49
city. By contrast, in the Maranoa region, centred on Roma, ten of the 19 residents engaged in
finance work in 1901 were bank employees. Fifteen years earlier, this district had provided work for
only eleven financiers. At Charleville, the western terminus of the southern trunk system, all six of the
town’s finance workers in 1901 were bank employees. Whereas Hughenden, at the western end of
the northern trunk system, had only one person providing financial services in 1886, by 1901 it had
fifteen. Of these, eleven were employed by banks. The major beneficiary of the reorganisation of
financial activity was Toowoomba. Unlike the other eastern hubs, all of which suffered sharp
employment declines (Ipswich, for example, saw finance service employment fall from 388 to 214
50
between 1886 and 1901), Toowoomba’s employment in this field grew from 77 to 215. This growth
cemented Toowoomba’s place as the main source of finance to the pastoral south-west.
The suspicion that railroad development in Queensland facilitated reliance on imported goods
and services is reinforced when we turn our attention to employment as either a merchant or
storekeeper (or employee of such people). In every region touched by the railways, those so engaged
expanded at a far faster rate than any other form of work. In the Darling Downs and south-east
agricultural districts, the number of merchants and storekeepers grew by 351 per cent between 1886
and 1901. In the mining districts, those engaged in such work expanded eight-fold. In both Brisbane
and in the eastern rail hubs, the number engaged as merchants and storekeepers rose by an identical
534 per cent, suggesting a corresponding benefit from railway facilitated market expansion. The
massive increase in the number of merchants and storekeepers, which characterized every regional
grouping, arguably had two major effects. First, the reliance on merchandise so obtained impeded
growth in domestic manufacturing. Even more significantly, the exponential growth in merchant and
storekeeper numbers curtailed social diversity. In the pastoral districts, for example, those employed
as pastoral workers or squatters increased by 35.9 per cent to 8939 between 1886 and 1901 whilst
those working as merchants and storekeepers increased by 270 per cent to 1839. By contrast, the
combined number of those working as railway traffic employees, food and drink makers and metal
workers advanced by only 22.3 per cent to 1450. Industrially, this meant that unions based on these
latter activities would inevitably found themselves in a position of comparative social isolation. The
same tendency is evident in the Darling Downs and south-east agricultural districts. In these districts,
the number of farmers rose by 207 per cent to 8978, whilst those working as merchants /
storekeepers advanced by 351 per cent to 1250. By comparison, the combined number of those
working as railway workers, metal workers and food and drink makers grew by only 48.8 per cent to
866. Even the eastern hubs witnessed a comparative diminution in the share of the workforce
commanded by railway workers, metal workers and food and drink makers. Whereas in 1886 the
number of metal workers alone overshadowed the tally of those working as merchants / storekeepers,
by 1901 the latter grouping easily exceeded the combined number of those employed as railway
51
traffic workers, food and drink makers and metal workers. In other words, railway expansion in
Queensland had the perverse effect of consolidating the status of the eastern rail hubs as “merchant
towns”, i.e. towns where local merchants and storekeepers exerted greater social and industrial
weight than railway workers.
If, by 1901, merchants and storekeepers had become numerically significant in every regional
grouping affected by the railways, the political and social significance of this transformation varied
enormously. In pastoral and mining districts they were swamped by those directly engaged in these
primary pursuits; workers whose sympathies tended to be aligned with the emergent Labor Party.
Conversely, in the south-eastern agricultural districts it was the growth in the farming population,
rather than the numerical expansion of merchants and storekeepers, that was the decisive factor in
these areas becoming conservative strongholds. A similar observation may be made of the coastal
49
Ronald Lawson, Brisbane in the 1890s (St Lucia: Queensland University Press, 1973), 45
Queensland Census of 1901, 258-259.
51
Queensland Census of 1901, 258-259.
50
15 | P a g e
sugar growing areas where, in 1901, the 16,308 planters and farmers were by far the most significant
social group, their predominance ensuring that Queensland’s “coastal littoral” was “firmly
52
conservative” at Federation. Paradoxically, it was in the eastern rail hubs that merchants and
storekeepers exerted most weight. As Table 4 indicates, merchants and storekeepers (and their
employees) were proportionately more important in these districts than elsewhere. In line with this
statistical result, previous studies of nineteenth century Ipswich, Queensland’s first “railway town”,
53
have recounted the extraordinary domination of local society by merchant families. However, while
Ipswich had 1599 merchants and storekeepers in a population of 15,246, this class of work was most
pronounced in Toowoomba. With a population of only 14,078, Toowoomba boasted 1710 merchants
and storekeepers. Most of the other eastern rail hubs closely resembled Ipswich. Rockhampton and
its environs, with 19601 residents, had 1710 merchants and storekeepers. Townsville, with a
population of 15,506, had 1551. Only Maryborough, which had only 635 merchants and storekeepers
in a population of 12,900, avoided the exponential growth of this category of work. Moreover, with a
metal manufacturing workforce of 685, Maryborough also differed from other “railway towns” in that
54
manufacturing work made a more significant contribution to employment than trade and finance. Yet
even here it is difficult to make the case that Maryborough was a “railway town” as delineated by
Stromquist, given that railway work directly employed only 146 Maryborough citizens in 1901.
Perversely, therefore, the greater the contribution of the railways to a town’s economy, the more
closely it resembled a “market town” under the sway of merchants and storekeepers.
Labour Relations Paradoxes
In labour relations, as in other matters, railway development in Queensland had paradoxical effects.
On the one hand it produced in the Queensland Railway Employee Association (QREA) the largest
union in Queensland’s nineteenth century experience. On the other hand, when management
attitudes towards the QREA hardened it collapsed with barely a whimper. In large part, the docility of
the railway workforce was a product of the social circumstances that predominated in Queensland’s
main “railway towns”; towns in which merchants and storekeepers exercised more social weight than
did railway workers.
Trade unionism established an early presence in Queensland’s railways. Even before they
arrived from Britain in 1864, the skilled metal workers engaged to staff Ipswich’s workshops had
55
formed an ASE branch. By 1886, engine-crew workers were also unionised, being represented by
the Locomotive Engine-Drivers, Firemen and Cleaners Association (LEFCA). The main concern of
both the ASE and the LEFCA was one of protecting their members’ craft privileges, a task best
achieved through alliance with management. This conservative orientation was attested at the
LEFCA’s annual meeting in 1886, when it’s Secretary, James Wilkinson, advised that there was not
“anything of trade unionism about the association”. F. Curnow, the Railway Commissioner, who
attended the meeting, similarly declared that “if the society had been conducted on the basis of trade
56
unionism” than he “would not [be] present.” The close ties between Wilkinson and the Railway
Department were extended when the Parliament decided, in passing the Railways Act 1888, to
57
replace ad hoc arrangements with regulated employment. In implementing Parliament’s wishes the
Railway Commissioners actively fostered an all-grades union. In early 1889, just weeks after the
passage of the new act, Wilkinson began a 14 week tour of southern lines, visiting every station and
52
Duncan Waterson, “Conflict, conservation and continuity: Queensland’s Continuous Ministries
1893-1899”, in Joanne Scott and Kay Saunders (eds.), The World’s First Labor Government
(Brisbane: Queensland Royal Historical Association, 2001), 28.
53
Bowden, “Some mysterious terror”; Bowden, “Changing community loyalties”.
54
Queensland Census of 1901, x, xiv, 258-259.
55
James Suett, “Letter to Mr Allen, October 1865”, Monthly Reports of the British ASE, January 1866,
21 (Noel Butlin Archives, Australian National University, Collection S44).
56
Queensland Times, 5 August 1886; also Bowden, “Some mysterious terror”, 90-91.
57
Queensland Government Gazette, 7 November 1888, 861-811.
16 | P a g e
workshop. By tour’s end, 1,400 were recruited with management’s tacit approval. On returning home
to Ipswich, Wilkinson launched the QREA on 28 May 1889, becoming its General Secretary on a
58
weekly salary of £5 – a wage that made him Queensland’s highest paid union official. Moving into
offices in Brisbane’s Town Hall, Wilkinson then began recruitment on the Central and Northern lines.
By late 1889 the QREA claimed more than 3000 members, overshadowing even the Queensland
59
Shearers’ Union. The QREA, however, rejected affiliation with the colony’s peak council, the
Australian Labour Federation; a stance that stemmed from the fact that: “The Railway Commissioners
60
object to railwaymen connecting themselves with any outside labour organisation.”
In redrafting job classifications and pay scales, the Railway Commissioners worked closely
with the QREA leadership. When an initial classification proposal was completed the Commissioners,
as they later advised Parliament, “took the precaution of sending a draft ... to the Council of the
Railway Employees Association, with an invitation to make such suggestions might think necessary.”
61
QREA recommendations were then duly incorporated into railway by-laws.
If, however,
management actively supported the QREA in 1889-1890, its attitude soon changed. When the
Queensland Shearers’ Strike erupted in early 1891 the Railway Commissioners issued a directive that
all employees on the Central line be sworn in as “special constables”. When 30 QREA members at
Emerald refused, they were promptly dismissed. Poignantly, the railway unions either remained mute
or actively endorsed management’s actions, the Railway Commissioners signalling out the LEFCA for
their “commendable action … in publicly enjoining members of their Association to keep aloof from all
62
disputes”. Despite the QREA’s passivity, in August 1891 the Commissioners directed station
63
masters and other senior officers to either resign their QREA membership or their jobs. This action
led to a wholesale union collapse, the QREA disappearing entirely in 1894 when Wilkinson resigned
64
the Secretaryship to enter Parliament as a Labor representative for Ipswich. With Queensland’s
economy slipping into deep recession, and London financiers refusing to buy new Queensland railway
bonds, management also undertook a savage cost-cutting programme in 1891-92. “Economies”,
involving large scale job losses in both public and private sector workshops, reduced maintenance to
65
66
a bare minimum. In 1893, legislation mandated wage cuts of between 15 and 25 per cent.
Management’s cost reductions allowed a dramatic improvement in operating circumstances.
As Figure 3 indicated, working-expense ratios fell from 71.1 per cent in 1890 to 56.7 per cent in 1895.
This outcome was very different to that obtained in the US where, despite management’s victory in
the Pullman Boycott of 1893-94, working expense ratios continued to exceed 70 per cent. To what
can we ascribe the passivity of the Queensland railway workforce in the face of such managerial costcutting; a passivity that sits in marked contrast to that found in US railroads? Part of the explanation is
found in the fact that, following the reforms implemented after the 1888 Act, railway workers were
effectively transformed into public servants. Despite the wage cuts of 1893, circumstances inside the
railways were invariably better than that found elsewhere. As the Minister for Railways observed in
1895, those in railway service were “better paid … They have more regular work … if he behaves
67
himself he is there for life.”
58
Boomerang, 1 June 1889; Worker, 1 April 1890.
Boomerang, 15 June 1889, 18 January 1890, 10 August 1889.
60
Worker, 2 July 1892.
61
John Mathieson, Robert Gray and A. Johnston, “Report of the Commissioners for Railways, 18891890”, QVP, 1890, vol. 3, 481-82.
62
John Mathieson, Robert Gray and A. Johnston, “Report of the Commissioners for Railways, 189192”, QVP, 1892, vol. 3, 409.
63
Brisbane Worker, 8 August 1891.
64
Bowden, “Some mysterious terror”; 91.
65
John Mathieson, Robert Gray and A. Johnston, “Report of the Commissioners for Railways, 189394”, QVP, 1894, vol. 3, 1276.
66
QPD, vol. 70, 1894, 122-125.
67
QPD, vol. 74, 1894, 1418.
59
17 | P a g e
While a desire for job security partly explains the workforce’s passivity, social circumstances
were also a factor. Writing of US “merchant towns”, Stromquist observes that they were invariably
dominated by “a self-conscious and well-organized elite” that easily accounted for labour movement
68
militants. Similar comments could be made of any of Queensland’s “railway towns” in the 1880s and
1890s. In Ipswich, as previous studies have indicated, the power of the city’s merchants was all69
pervasive. So great was the power exercised by “the old-established firms of Cribb & Foote,
Macfarlane & Co., and the like”, the Brisbane Courier complained in 1879, that for “a large proportion
of the community, individual liberty has ceased to exist.” The newspaper was particularly worried
about circumstance in the “Railway Works Department”, which it observed, had “almost fallen entirely
70
into the hands” of Ipswich’s leading members. Perhaps nowhere is the pervasive influence of
Ipswich’s merchant families demonstrated than in the career of James Wilkinson, the head of both the
LEFCA and the QREA. Like most in Ipswich, Wilkinson’s advancement required a powerful patron,
who in his case was John Macfarlane, the patriarch of Macfarlane & Co. When, in 1894, Wilkinson
won a parliamentary by-election (as a Labor candidate) to succeed Macfarlane on the latter’s death,
he spent much of his maiden speech outlying his debt to his predecessor, declaring Macfarlane to be
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someone he held in “esteem and almost love.” Splitting from Labor over its opposition to the Boer
War, Wilkinson continued to appeal to Ipswich’s underlying conservatism, defeating a Labor
candidate to secure election to the first Commonwealth Parliament in 1901.
The domination of society by a few great families was typical of Queensland’s “railway towns”.
Merchants, storekeepers and financiers wielded unusual power in Toowoomba. As Duncan Waterson
recounted: “Toowoomba’s history is … one of the great urban bourgeois success stories.” When the
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Labor Party sought a presence in the town in the early 1890s it found few adherents. In
Maryborough, a town in which there were relatively few merchants and storekeepers, power was
concentrated in the hands of John Walker and his partners in Walker and Co - Queensland’s largest
private sector manufacturer of locomotives and rolling stock. In the 1880s and 1890s, both of
Maryborough’s long-term representatives, R.B. Sheridan and John Annear, were closely associated
with Walker and Co., the latter serving as a partner in the company. The election of Sheridan and
Annear, it was observed, rested solely on John Walker’s mobilising of his large workforce behind his
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preferred candidates, adding: “They owe their existence in the House to John Walker and Co.” In
Maryborough, it was a brave employee who took action contrary to the interests of Walker and Co, it
being noted that: “There is no occupation a labouring man can fulfil that there is not an opportunity for
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his being employed by John Walker and Co”.
If Brisbane and the main eastern rail hubs were home to a docile railway workforce during the
1880s and 1890s, this situation was not destined to last indefinitely. Operationally, cost cutting proved
unsustainable. By 1899, the Railway Commissioner was warning Parliament that “safe working” could
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no longer be guaranteed, leading to a spike in both maintenance work and working expenses (see
Figure 3). With railway finances stabilised after a long period of belt tightening, Queensland entered
into another era of railway expansion, much of it directed towards the dairy industry’s needs. Between
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1901 and 1913-14, mileage grew from 2205 to 5214 miles. Employment rose from 5627 to 10,250.
As previous studies of Ipswich and Rockhampton have revealed, this expansion altered social
dynamics in the eastern rail hubs. Unionism also revived in a more militant form. When a General
68
Stomquist, A Generation of Boomers, 145.
Bowden, “Some mysterious terror”; Bowden, “Changing community loyalties”.
70
Brisbane Courier, 3 February 1879.
71
QPD, vol. 71, 1894, 53.
72
Duncan Waterson, Squatter, Selector, and Storekeeper: a History of the Darling Downs 1859-93
(Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1968), 265-268.
73
QPD, vol. 44, 1886, 594.
74
QPD, vol. 44, 1886, 594.
75
Robert Gray, “Report of Queensland’s Railway Commissioner, 1898-99”, QVP, vol. 3 (1899), 13.
76
C.H. Knibbs, Commonwealth of Australia Yearbook, 1914 (Melbourne: Commonwealth Printer,
1915), 639.
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Strike occurred in January 1912, Brisbane and Ipswich’s railway workers participated en masse.
Despite these breaks with the past, however, there remained strong elements of continuity.
Economically, underlying circumstances remained precarious. As Figure 3 indicates, working expense
ratios deteriorated markedly after 1906. By 1917-18, Queensland’s railways were losing money at a
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greater rate, measured as a percentage of capital invested, than any other state. This deterioration
caused management to focus once more on cost reductions; a focus that helped fuel a series of
industrial conflagrations between the Queensland Railways Union and the state Labor government
during the 1920s. More fundamentally, however, these disputes – wherein the railway workforce
suffered resounding defeat - represented a conflict between the two very different worlds of labour
that were cemented in place by railroad development: a rural workforce that came to be represented
by the Australian Workers Union and a much weaker urban working class oriented towards transport
and trade rather than manufacturing.
Conclusion
In Queensland, as elsewhere, the railways transformed not only geographic but also social
landscapes. Queensland’s transformation was, however, at odds with the expectations of those who
had hoped that railway development would prove a fillip to local manufacturing and a more diversified
economy. For in virtually every district that the railways passed through, employment in activities such
as metal manufacture, and food and drink making, either lagged behind population growth or barely
kept pace with it. The same tendency characterised financial services, where Brisbane was relegated
to “branch office” status as southern owned banks located staff closer to rural customers. Arguably,
the social group that benefited most from railway expansion was Queensland’s merchants and
storekeepers, the numbers of which grew disproportionately as the railroads provided an improved
conduit for imported goods. Railway employment also provided work for surprisingly few in most
districts. Even as Queensland’s railways extended westward, railway jobs were increasingly
concentrated in a small number of eastern hubs (Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maryborough, Rockhampton
and Townsville), a process facilitated by the introduction of more powerful locomotives that reduced
the need for western crew changes. In these hubs, railway workers typically found themselves socially
subservient to the merchant and trading families who were the main beneficiaries of railway
development. Thus, whereas Stromquist delineated how westward US railway expansion produced
two types of communities – “merchant towns” dominated by a “self-conscious and well-organised
elite” and “railway towns” within which railway employees and other categories of industrial labour
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exercised social hegemony – Queensland railway development produced only “merchant towns”.
Indeed, perversely, in Queensland it was the case that the greater the railways’ contribution to the
local economy, the more it resembled a “merchant town”. Economic circumstances also placed
Queensland railway workers in an unusually precarious position. As Figure 2 demonstrated, even in
the boom times of the 1880s the per mile earnings of Queensland’s railways were far worse than that
found in the western plains and mountain states of the United States. This tended to make the
Railway Department a truculent employer. In the late 1880s it deliberately fostered a mild-mannered,
all-grades union, the QREA, only to turn on its creation in the early 1890s as management
implemented savage cost-cutting measures. The unsurprising result of this combination of
circumstances was a railway workforce characterised by industrial passivity prior to 1901.
The perverse outcomes that railway development in Queensland produced were, in the final
analysis, an artefact of the colony’s aberrant economy. Although the railways did not create this
aberrant economy, their expansion not only reinforced it but also cemented it in place. As David
Harvey observed, transport and communication infrastructure can only compress time and space
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through the provision of assets that are “fixed and immobile”. In Queensland, railway expansion
77
Knibbs, Commonwealth Yearbook, 1919, 672.
Stromquist, A Generation of Boomers, 144-145.
79
Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity, 234.
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fixed in place not only a vast railway network, it also solidified a set of commercial arrangements that
favoured rural interests, importers and storekeepers over domestic manufacturers and a diversified
economy. Queensland still lives with this legacy.
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