1860s: the birth of Queensland law

The newly appointed Attorney-General, Ratcliffe Pring, QC, was responsible for giving the citizens of the new colony access to law that, for the first time, would be administered by Queenslanders for Queenslanders. Complicating the task, Queensland faced many difficulties in its first decade as a separate colony, with an apparent abandonment of Queen Victoria’s interest in her empire after the death of her husband, Prince Albert in 1861. More significantly, the American Civil War polarised the opinions of Australian colonists. Queensland, with its infant plantation society, expressed some sympathies for the south and for an established rural elite ruling without reference to its populace. The more liberal in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, pushing a democratic libertarian agenda, were destined to march to victory with the union forces of the north.

Domestically, Burke and Wills had failed to find an overland route from south to north, through far western Queensland. Following encouragement from the squatters of western Victoria and New South Wales to go to Queensland to become “Lord of all that he sees…” and independent of “the torrent of democracy”, Queensland’s population rose from 34,367 in 1861 to 121,742 in 1871.

The first sitting of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and some nominees of the Queensland Legislative Council was held on 22 May 1860; 90 years to the day after Captain Cook sailed into and named Moreton Bay. Robert George Wyndham Herbert, as Colonial Secretary (Premier), was elected unopposed to the seat of Leichhardt and Ratcliffe Pring, QC, as Attorney-General, was elected unopposed for Eastern Downs. Treasurer RR Mackenzie became the member for the seat of Burnett and Charles Lilley, was chosen as the representative for the electorate of Fortitude Valley.

The Attorney-General in the first Parliament was responsible for the drafting of all the legislation to go before the House, similar to the role of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel today. He also had a major role in the courtroom. The Attorney-General prosecuted all his own appeal matters as well as being ‘Government Counsel’ across the board. Other departmental responsibilities that are taken for granted today, such as courts, fell within the bailiwick of the Colonial Secretary, who was also responsible for the ‘remission and execution of sentences’.

In 1865, Pring, a gifted lawyer with an often violent temper, resigned in disgrace after a drunken scene in the House. The position of Attorney-General was offered to John Bramston, a close personal friend of the Colonial Secretary. Bramston was appointed and, within a fortnight, declined when he discovered that the privilege of private practice would be withdrawn from the position. Charles Lilley was then invited to take up the position.

Lilley’s appointment as Attorney-General and Pring’s retreat to private practice meant the two were destined to encounter each other professionally and they became frequently and notoriously opposed to each other. Lilley believed that governments should interfere as little as possible in people’s lives and instead allow them to get on with their business. Pring was more to the thinking of modern times, with an attitude of providing a law for all occasions. Lilley eventually became Colonial Secretary in the 1868 election after the defeat of Mackenzie, but also retained the office of Attorney-General.

Queensland was expanding throughout the whole period and government offices were built to support the local communities and to provide services. Townsville, declared a municipality in 1864, had its first courthouse built three years later. Further north, Cardwell was a rapidly expanding community, with nearby Port Hinchinbrook established as a ‘port of entry and clearance’ and Cardwell itself as a ‘place for holding Courts of Petty Sessions’. Cardwell’s Police Magistrate, Roger Beckwith Leafe was appointed in 1864 and later that year reported to the Colonial Secretary that ‘substantial government infrastructure was established in Cardwell’.

A post office was built in Cardwell in 1864, as the colony of Queensland had control over its own mail system until Federation. The first post master also officiated as district registrar, sub-collector of customs and clerk of petty sessions. The police magistrate was a jack-of-all-trades with duties including sub-collector of customs; registrar of births, deaths and marriages; land agent; and inspector of kanaka labour.

During this time, the areas around Brisbane continued to grow. Ipswich had long been a major centre in the south-east and had a legal presence before 1859. The first Court of Petty Sessions was held in Ipswich on 4 July 1847 in the Queens Arms Hotel in Brisbane Street, where onlookers were obliged to stand on the footpath to watch proceedings. This was replaced in the 1850s by a rough timber building to hold court sessions, erected where the Ipswich Post Office now stands in Brisbane Street. Eventually, the original Ipswich Courthouse, constructed with sandstone from Woogaroo, near Goodna and situated on the corner of East and Roderick Streets, was finished in 1859 and used for the election of the first aldermen of Ipswich in 1860.