1880s: the transformation begins

Britain took over the administration of the Egyptian Government and the Suez Canal in 1882, cutting the sailing time to the Australian colonies by more than one-third. Other European powers were expanding into Africa—with the French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and, finally, the Belgians and Italians seizing huge tracts of the continent, driven by the desire to acquire and control new markets and to obtain raw materials.In the colonies of Australia, the new sense of ‘Australian-ness’ began to find its political voice and the path towards nationhood began. The man who epitomised the decade was Alfred Deakin, destined to become the second Prime Minister of Australia and the chief mover of the nationalist movement.

Deakin started the decade as a journalist for The Age newspaper in Melbourne, and was one of the official media witnesses to the hanging of Ned Kelly in Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880. He was elected to the Victorian Parliament and famously refused a knighthood at the Queen’s Jubilee in 1887 on the grounds that he was not worthy of such an honour. By the end of the decade he was the popular and logical choice as the Victorian delegate to the Australasian National Convention.

Driven by gold, Queensland experienced rapid growth in almost every respect. The population rose from about 210,000 at the start of the decade to more than 390,000 by its end. From the sevenpence ha’penny in the Treasury in 1859, Queensland was servicing loans of more than £1,650,000 a mere 20 years later, and building infrastructure that was to serve it for many years to come. However, Queensland’s plantations were still using Pacific Island labour - abducting islanders from their homes for slave labour in the cane fields. For those seeking nationhood, such practices were abhorrent and somewhat alienated Queensland from the rest of the colonies.

Sir Samuel Walker Griffith assumed the leadership of the Liberal Party and served as Colonial Secretary (Premier) for five years. During this time he also took over the drafting role of the Attorney-General and continued to prepare, present and amend legislation to the House. In 1886, he drafted and presented the Justices Act 1886. It was a leap forward in the consolidation and codification of the various laws and practices based upon centuries of English common law. Griffith was to use this consolidation process as the basis for his later drafting of the Queensland Criminal Code.

During the decade the judiciary of Queensland continued to grow with the appointment of Ratcliffe Pring, Pope Alexander Cooper, Charles Mein and Charles Chubb to the Supreme Court Bench. The courthouse network was expanded, bringing the administration of justice to isolated areas by means of small courthouses attached to police stations and served by visiting magistrates, often travelling luxuriously on board the yacht Lucinda.

The township of Cloncurry was officially declared a country post office in 1871, gaining a general store and a hotel in 1872. The police contingent of four men and an inspector, stationed in tents at Cloncurry from 1870, was eventually enhanced by the appointment of a permanent clerk of petty sessions in 1880. Cloncurry’s first Police Magistrate, Robert Moran, was appointed in 1882. There were no permanent police quarters until 1885 when a timber building was completed for £1588 14s to serve as a courthouse, police quarters and lock-up. Cloncurry was designated a District Court area in 1889.

During the summer and autumn of 1880–81, a series of cyclones caused widespread damage to the north Queensland coast including damage to government buildings and local infrastructure. The Supreme Court at Bowen, the first to be built outside Brisbane, was severely damaged and repairs cost a further £1000. In Charters Towers, the centre of the gold rush and of considerable economic significance to Queensland, the older courthouse was superseded by the stone and brick building that still serves the community today.

Griffith, spurred by the atrocities perpetrated on south sea islanders through indentured labour, prepared amendments to the Pacific Island Labourers Act to halt the process of ‘blackbirding’ by 1890. He relied on support generated by the case of the Hopeful, a ‘recruiting’ vessel whose master, boatswain, government recruiter and some sailors were convicted of kidnapping and murdering the islanders under their control.

Once the Pacific Islander trade was removed, Queensland was in a better position to become part of the nationhood process. By the end of the 1880s, the proportion of its labour force involved in farming and other rural industries had been reduced from 45 per cent to 30 per cent. The mining sector had more than doubled to about nine per cent, with secondary industry and transportation absorbing 30 per cent of the workforce.

With the rights of property becoming a smaller part of the Queensland ethos, and with the commensurate rise in the rights of the working class, the inevitable clash was looming as the decade came to a close. Queensland was preparing to take its place in the new world and make the leap out of its colonial status into that of an independent state.