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1870s: Queensland finds her feet

Benjamin Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone, the only two British Prime Ministers of the decade, were instigating the beginnings of social reform. Numerous Acts regulated the quality of basic shelter and food that the poor could expect, introduced compulsory schooling for the young to provide basic numeracy and literacy and improved the legal position of trade unions. The workers’ movement in the Australian colonies saw in these Acts a way to advance the cause of labour ahead of the rights of property.

After the politically uncertain times of the 1860s when there were five elections in the decade, the 1870s provided a more cohesive and stable environment for Queensland. The population almost doubled, growing from about 120,000 at the start of the decade to more than 210,000 by its end. This was largely brought about by the discovery of gold in the Palmer River and adjacent parts of far north Queensland. The Attorney-General’s Department appointed police magistrates and established courthouses throughout the areas where the population increased.


The Gold Fields Regulations and Gold Fields Act Handwritten in Chinese characters. (Courtesy John Oxley Library negNo 18224)	Sir Samuel Walker Griffith (Courtesy John Oxley Library negNo 10900)

The police magistrate was the senior departmental and governmental officer with whom the public had any regular contact. He was responsible for running the Court of Petty Sessions but had many other diverse duties, from inspector of factories to visiting justice to the local jail. The concept of having a person from the Attorney-General’s Department as the senior state government official in rural and remote Queensland was an article of faith for more than 100 years. It was only when the magisterial role became defined as a ‘judicial officer’ after the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the late 1980s that magistrates relinquished many of these other parts of their duties.

Often the magistrate would have to administer justice under canvas, as the speed with which some remote regions were sent ‘law and order’ precluded the building of any official permanent premises before the arrival of the department’s delegate.

Charters Towers was such a case. With the discovery of gold in abundance on Christmas Eve 1871 and the eventual rush to work the diggings, Ravenshoe based Police Magistrate and Mining Warden Mr Charters decreed that the administrative centre for the diggings was to be at Millchester, now a part of Charters Towers. The city was eventually named in honour of the police magistrate. The first buildings were daub, wattle, stripped bark and canvas but by the end of the decade, when the gold companies came in to exploit the gold, Charters Towers was a thriving town and the community no longer deemed the temporary structures suitable.

Townsville, now the chief city in the north of the state, was in competition for both population and prestige with Bowen, the one-time site for the state’s capital. Its importance can perhaps be measured by the building of its first purpose built courthouse. Built from 1876–77, it was Townsville’s second brick building; the post office being the first. The courthouse is now used as the local museum building and the original cedar witness box takes pride of place in the display.


View of the Supreme Court building standing prominently at the end of Ann Street, Brisbane. (Courtesy John Oxley Library negNo 67740)	Brisbane’s second General Post Office, erected in 1872. (Courtesy John Oxley Library negNo 84907)

While the rural and remote offices of the department were expanding, the 1870s marked the arrival into the government legal service of Samuel Walker Griffith. He entered the Legislative Assembly in November 1871 as part of the sixth Parliament and was made Attorney-General in the Macalister Government in 1874 in his second term. During the first period of his Attorney-Generalship he drafted 22 bills for consideration by the House.

The decade ended with the appointment of Charles Lilley, QC, as the second Chief Justice of the Queensland Supreme Court. This appointment occurred as a result of the death of Mr Justice Cockle, who had been appointed from New South Wales before separation in 1859. Cockle had inherited the judicial seal from the Supreme Court of New South Wales, which was later converted into the seal of the Supreme Court at Moreton Bay. In 1863, he had been the first to wield the power of the Supreme Court of Queensland. Now it was Lilley’s turn.

The strengthening and consolidation that occurred during the 1870s gave the colony a functioning parliamentary system and legal and commercial infrastructure, as well as a burgeoning economy based on agriculture and gold. Queensland had found her feet and was striding towards a promising future.