Carl Feilberg

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Carl Adolph Feilberg
refer to caption
Carl Feilberg (c. 1884
Born(1844-08-21)21 August 1844
Copenhagen, Denmark
Died25 October 1887(1887-10-25) (aged 43)
South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Resting placeToowong Cemetery, Brisbane
Other namesOld Harry; Carolus, C.F.; Carl Adolf Feilberg
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • newspaper propietor
  • newspaper editor
  • political commentator
Years active1870–1887
EmployerBrisbane Newspaper Company
Known forIndigenous Australian human rights activism
SpouseClara Smith (married 1872)
Children5
Signature

Carl Adolph Feilberg (21 August 1844 – 25 October 1887), also spelt Carl Adolf Feilberg, was a Danish-born Australian journalist, newspaper editor, general political commentator, and Indigenous rights activist.

He lived and worked mainly in the colony of Queensland, and in his editorials and columns criticised many aspects of the colonial government policy towards Aboriginal Australians in the colony, in particular the use of the Native Police. After a major campaign in The Queenslander in 1880 and the publication of a pamphlet titled The Way We Civilise: Black and White: The Native Police, he suffered personal and political fallout, and had to move to Melbourne for some time. After becoming ill there and moving back to Brisbane, he died at the age of 43.

Although widely cited, his work was not lauded for most of a century after his death, but towards the 21st century, his reputation as a journalist and historian has been recognised.

He also wrote short stories, novellas, and a novel.

Early life and education[edit]

Carl Feilberg was born on 21 August 1844 in a small apartment at 1 Bredgade in Copenhagen, Denmark.[1] He was the first born and only son of Danish Royal Navy lieutenant Christen Schifter Feilberg and Louise Adelaide Feilberg, the daughter of a planter on the island of St. Croix in the then Danish West Indies. Following the early death of both parents, Feilberg was placed in foster care with Danish relatives, his aunt Louise Stegman (née Brummer) and her husband greengrocer Conrad Stegmann, at the time living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Feilberg received his formal education in Scotland, followed by a year at a college in Saint-Omer in France. After graduation he moved to Lincolnshire, England, and was then employed by shipping broker Lloyd's of London.[2][3]

Feilberg's second name was spelled Adolph in his birth record and on most contemporary publications for public use, but he frequently used "Adolf" as his personal signature.[a]

Move to Australia (1867)[edit]

Suffering from a serious case of tuberculosis, Feilberg was advised to migrate to Australia where time spent in the dry interior might mitigate some of the symptoms and provide a chance for survival.[4]

He arrived in Sydney from London on the Aberdeen vessel Sir John Lawrence on 18 June 1867, travelling onto Rockhampton carrying a letter of introduction to Archibald Berdmore Buchanan, a Scottish squatter. He then gained "colonial experience", working as a shepherd, store and bookkeeper, predominantly at Buchanan's properties. The first six months at Cardbeign station in Springsure district, the remaining time in the Barcoo district on Greendale and possibly other stations in the central west.[5]

The knowledge he gained in the outback, including his experiences with the Native Police and the darker sides of the colony's frontier policies, would later influence his work as a journalist, political commentator, and author.[6]

Journalism career[edit]

Queensland Native Police (1864)

After being naturalised at Rockhampton Court House on 21 June 1870, Feilberg chose to settle in Maryborough, where in August 1870 he commenced a career in journalism, initially assisting Ebenezer Thorne on his newly launched three-weekly Wide Bay and Burnett News.[7] In November 1870, after a series of libel cases and family issues, Thorne sold his share in the journal to Feilberg, who became the sole editor and proprietor.[8] Feilberg as editor supported the struggle for manhood suffrage, his success in breaking the press monopoly of William Henry Walsh.[9] He was owner-editor of the Wide Bay and Burnett News from November 1870 to about 1875.

Feilberg's journalism covered a wide range of subjects, in which parliamentary business, railway and settlement policy, finance and economic policy, and Indigenous rights took a prominent position. Beyond being additionally a harsh critic of the Kanaka (blackbirding) trade, he was an eager advocate for settlements in the interior and railway schemes supporting this; he questioned the uncontrolled Chinese immigration (during the great mining rush in the far north); and he was a strong advocate of laws to combat the threat to the environment of uncontrolled logging and deforestation, and securing a policy of sustainable foresting.

He was freelance correspondent and occasional editorial writer for the Brisbane Courier its weekly, The Queenslander, as well as for other journals, and also editor of the Cooktown Courier from September 1876 to June 1877. He was a Hansard shorthand writer from July to October 1877, and part-proprietor and editor of the Queensland Patriot / Daily News from March 1878 to early January 1879.[b][citation needed]

After leaving Maryborough, he was employed by the Brisbane Courier as a political commentator, leader writer, and as editor of The Queenslander, from January 1879 to December 1880.[12] In the nine months from during March to December 1880 Feilberg utilised The Queenslander as a platform to launch a series of powerfully-worded editorials and articles demanding a Royal Commission and a change of policy with regard to Indigenous Australians. Although unsuccessful, he managed to trigger two large parliamentary debates, as well as the biggest public debate of its kind ever conducted by an Australian newspaper, on this subject.[citation needed]

A change in the proprietorship of the Brisbane Newspaper Company in late December 1880 caused Feilberg to endure a year of being gradually relegated to steadily more subordinate positions on the journal. On 23 September 1882, in a private letter in reply to Sir Arthur Gordon, the former Governor and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, Feilberg wrote: "I despair of doing much good for the blacks, and I have incurred enough personal ill-will myself by writing on their behalf during my residence in Queensland".[13][14]

The personal and political fallout following the campaign of The Queenslander in 1880 subsequently caused Feilberg to accept a position as sub-editor on the then leading Victorian journal The Argus, based in Melbourne, in June 1882.[15] It was noted in the contemporary press that Feilberg "has had very definite political opinions, and, in labouring unremittingly to impress them upon the public mind, has suffered at various times from the misrepresentation and obloquy which every active politician is fated to encounter".[16]

He was sub-editor on The Argus from June 1882 to June 1883, and then returned to Brisbane to became editor-in-chief of the Brisbane Courier and The Queenslander from September 1883 to October 1887.

Human and Indigenous rights[edit]

Kanaka workers in a sugar cane plantation in Queensland, late 19th century

Feilberg authored a great number of articles on the issue of human rights abuses towards Pacific Islanders and Indigenous people in Queensland. The issue of the so-called Kanaka trade or blackbirding – the use of Melanesian labour on Queensland sugar plantations – was high on his agenda from the late 1870 onwards; he and his journal were instrumental in bringing about the conviction of the captain of the recruiting schooner Jason in 1871.

Feilberg's contribution to the history of colonial Queensland, included editorials written for the Brisbane Courier from 1874 to 1878, and later in the Cooktown Courier during January to March 1877.

Feilberg ran two campaigns for the rights of Aboriginal Australians, critical of the Queensland Government's policies. The first was in 1878, when he was editor of the Queensland Patriot. This angered John Douglas, then Premier of Queensland, as well as other co-proprietors of the paper,[17] although the Patriot was an independent liberal journal. The move was daring but ultimately unsuccessful, although it triggered a parliamentary debate on 10 July 1878.

The blueprint for the Queensland Patriot campaign was reused, commissioned by the managing editor of the Brisbane Newspaper Company, Gresley Lukin, on a much larger scale in the Brisbane Courier (the leading Queensland journal; now The Courier-Mail) two years later. In the nine months from during March to December 1880 Feilberg utilised its weekly, The Queenslander, as a platform to launch a series of powerfully-worded editorials and articles demanding a Royal Commission and a change of policy. Despite being unsuccessful, his campaign triggered two large parliamentary debates and the biggest public debate of its kind ever conducted by an Australian newspaper on this subject.[citation needed]

Feilberg outlined some of his deeper feelings in an editorial printed in the Queenslander on 19 January 1878, saying amongst other things that the "...complacent blindness which induces the natives of Europe to regard their own customs and institutions as excellent above compare, and their adoption as a certain remedy and advantageous substitute for all other manners of living, even to the most simple and Arcadian, has served as excuse for enormities at the contemplation of which humanity revolts...".[18]

His opening lines to the campaign of the Queenslander on 1 May 1880, in his best known and most frequently cited editorial headed The Way We Civilise, it famously outlined Queensland's policy towards Aboriginal people in the following manner:

This, in plain language, is how we deal with the aborigines: On occupying new territory the aboriginal inhabitants are treated exactly in the same way as the wild beasts or birds the settlers may find there. Their lives and their property, the nets, canoes, and weapons which represent as much labour to them as the stock and buildings of the white settler, are held by the Europeans as being at their absolute disposal. Their goods are taken, their children forcibly stolen, their women carried away, entirely at the caprice of the white men. The least show of resistance is answered by a rifle bullet; in fact, the first introduction between blacks and whites is often marked by the unprovoked murder of some of the former – in order to make a commencement of the work of "civilising" them.[19][20][21][22]

His pamphlet The Way We Civilise: Black and White: The Native Police (published in Brisbane, December 1880), which was characterised by historian Henry Reynolds as "one of the most influential political tracts in Australian history", was a collection of articles and letters formerly published in The Queenslander.[23][17][21]

Other activities[edit]

Feilberg also wrote many short stories and sketches reflecting the life and dreams of many of his fellow colonists.

He served several terms as president for Brisbane's famed literary Johnsonian Club.[24] Other chairmen over time were noted Queenslanders such as jurist Sir Samuel Griffith, politician John Douglas, poet James Brunton Stephens, and journalist William Senior the principal shorthand writer also known as "Red Spinner". The latter three in particular were known to be close friends of Feilberg.

The Liberal Premier John Douglas appointed Feilberg as government envoy for New Guinea during the New Guinea gold rush in early 1878, and New Guinea was later a frequent subject for his numerous editorials,[citation needed] including in the The Argus, the Brisbane Courier, and The Times (London). He was of the opinion New Guinea should be made a British protectorate, as if another power colonised it, it could pose a security risk to Australia in the future.[17]

Later life, death and legacy[edit]

He "was never physically a robust man", as one obituary stated.[25] The illness that brought him to Australia in the first place remained dormant and the move to Melbourne proved fatal for him.[26] What started out as a cold was to revive his old ailment and he was quite ill by mid-1883.

He gave in to an offer and returned to Brisbane in July to take on the position of editor-in-chief of the Brisbane Newspaper Company (Brisbane Courier) in September same year. He remained fully active in this position until a few weeks before his death.[27]

He died at his home "Claraville" in Cordelia Street, South Brisbane,[citation needed] on 25 October 1887. The immediate cause of death was reported to be "failure of the heart", but he had been suffering from spasmodic asthma and lung disease for months previously.[27]

The announcement of Feilberg's death triggered a quite unprecedented reaction in the contemporary press.[3][2][28] The coverage and wording of these articles by far exceeds those honouring the passing of any of his contemporary and in many cases more famous colleagues.[c] His funeral at Brisbane's Toowong Cemetery was attended by a wide range of friends, journalists and several high-ranking politicians from both sides of Queensland politics, including the former Premier, Sir Thomas McIlwraith.[29] A eulogy was authored by poet Francis Adams.[30][31]

Feilberg was arguably the most prominent political commentator and newspaper editor in Queensland in his time, but he was certainly equally well known in the other Australian colonies. His death in October 1887 was received with an amount of strongly worded obituaries and expressions of grief, which was to remain extraordinary as well as unprecedented for any Queensland journalist of his era.[3][2][28][d]

His most lasting legacy became the numerous articles he wrote dealing with the most painful issue of all – Queensland's frontier Indigenous policy, Native Police system, and what he continually argued was an urgent need for the government to reform and move to protect the fundamental rights of Indigenous people.[citation needed]

The memory of this crucial part of Feilberg's writings, however, was to remain victim to the "veil of silence" which covered all issues related to the treatment of Indigenous people in the colonial era for the most part of a century. To the extent Feilberg's name was remembered at all, it was for his advocacy of some restrictions being put on Chinese immigration and for him being an early opponent of the Kanaka labour-trade; issues which were clearly viewed as more acceptable by early nineteenth-century Australian historians and record keepers. Yet Feilberg's commitment to human rights was hinted at in various ways by some of his obituary writers and close friends.

Feilberg is one of the most notable and frequently cited advocate of Indigenous human rights in the history of colonial Queensland.[e] Almost all Indigenous policy critical articles, editorial comments and editorials printed in the Brisbane Courier and its weekly The Queenslander between 1874 and 1886 were authored by Feilberg. Additionally he conducted two lengthy campaigns, one in the Queensland Patriot in 1878[f] and the other and most notable in The Queenslander in 1880,[g] both of them (but the latter, in particular), triggering significant public and parliamentary debates centred around the issue of the colony's Native Police Force and frontier Indigenous policy.[citation needed]

Legacy of a pamphlet[edit]

Front page of The Way We Civilise (1880)

Feilberg's 1880 pamphlet, The Way We Civilise, played a crucial behind the scene role in the British Government move to nullify Queensland's unilateral annexation of New Guinea in April 1883. It was actively used by Sir Arthur Gordon, the Aborigines Protection Society, and others, as evidence to persuade the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and his Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Derby, that Queensland was utterly unfit for the task of ruling New Guinea.[32]

Feilberg's pamphlet and opponents of the views expressed in it are frequently cited in many books, articles, studies, and documentaries up to the present day.[h] The satirical title The Way We Civilise was eventually re-used in 1997 as a title for Rosalind Kidd's study on Queensland's institutionalised policy towards Aboriginal people from the 1880s onwards. Feilberg's pamphlet is equally cited in the highly profiled Bringing Them Home (1997), which reported on the Stolen Generations (Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families to be brought up in institutions during the twentieth century), and in Ben Kiernan's Blood and Soil: A World History of Genocide and Extermination (2008).[i][citation needed]

Personal tributes[edit]

William Henry Traill, journalist and Feilberg's predecessor as editor of The Queenslander, who was later the editor of The Sydney Mail, owner-editor of the famed weekly magazine The Bulletin and a NSW politician, was the only one of Feilberg's friends who dared to mention Feilberg's feelings on the question of Indigenous rights (possibly because Traill was living in Sydney at the time), saying:

As a journalist he was an untiring worker, few newspapers in Australia have not been benefited by his pen, and few writers on all subjects were more appreciated by the public, he never wrote himself out, and his style was always fresh and free from any touch of respective sameness...Poor Feilberg! There were two subjects on which one could always rouse his righteous indignation – the treatment of the blacks, and the seizure of the Danish fleet by Nelson; his love of fair play was too strongly appealed to in both.[33]

Somewhat a political opponent, yet nonetheless a close personal friend, Walter John Morley, editor-in-chief of the Brisbane Evening Observer,[j] wrote about Feilberg that he was "a man whom it was impossible to regard with indifference", adding that Feilberg, "in his working days", was

... one of the most voluminous and valued of Australian writers... As a Press writer Mr. Feilberg was without a rival in the colony, and had few equals on the continent. His style was clear, crisp, and trenchant, and withal somewhat cynical; he could detect at once the weak spot of an argument, and understood thoroughly the worth of ridicule and the power of satire. His writings exhibit a perfect knowledge of the country, and of country life, and betray a sympathy with human nature for which those who saw only his other writings would never credit him... His views were naturally extreme, for he was intense, as such men always are, and this extremeness, with the vigour of his enunciation, caused him to make many and bitter enemies. Probably there were few men in the colony more bitterly hated by political and social opponents, yet there was certainly no man more beloved by those whose privilege it was to know him intimately. For underneath all his cynicism and his apparent vindictiveness beat a heart that overflowed with all that makes humanity noble and good. He never saw distress without wishing to relieve it...[36]

Francis Adams, poet and socialist activist, wrote:

He was a soldier in the army of Letters and of light of whom his comrades can be proud. He fixed his eyes on the abiding truth of human life – on justice and on mercy, on trust and on love – and clung to them. He felt, as so many of us feel, that the old symbols see no new ones in the world of thought and feeling of his time.[30][37]

"Bobby" Byrne, or John Edgar Byrne, a Londoner turned bushman and pioneer during the Gulf country rush in the 1860s, later journalist and owner-editor of the Queensland Figaro and Punch, simply stated:[k]

Carl was a mate of mine of some 16 years' standing. The Brisbane dailies supply full particulars of his life, and it is not for me to gush about his virtues. He was my mate, and I always found him "white."[l] I first met him in Maryborough, when he had just come back from the Barcoo, where he had been jackarooing. Some of the best yarns that ever appeared in Punch and Figaro I learned from Carl Feilberg...[39]

Recognition[edit]

After much of his most controversial work had conveniently forgotten about in the generations to follow, subsequent research has shown that the scale of killings of Aboriginal people in what has subsequently been dubbed the Australian frontier wars was far greater than commonly reported, with some researchers suggesting that around 60,000 lives were taken in Queensland alone. Historian Henry Reynolds in particular has played a big part in publicising Feilberg's work.[37]

Feilberg started gaining more recognition for his work in the 21st century, and in 2018 he was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.[37]

Works[edit]

Feilberg's main strength was his work as a political commentator and leader-writer, for, among others, the Wide Bay and Burnett News (c. October 1870 to 1875), Cooktown Courier (from September 1876 to June 1877), the Queensland Patriot (from February 1878 to January 1879), The Brisbane Courier and its weekly The Queenslander (sporadically in the period 1875 – February 1878, intensively from January 1879– January 1881 & July 1883– September 1887) and Melbourne Argus (Brisbane correspondent from 1880 to 1882, sub-editor on amongst others the subject of Queensland & New Guinea from July 1882 – June 1883). He was the author behind the parliamentary column of the "Political Froth" by "the Abstainer" and the column "Specialities" in The Queenslander from January 1879 – to May 1882, and political commentaries such as "The future of North-Eastern Australia".[40]

In his spare time Feilberg wrote fiction and several sketches, romantic short stories, and also a small adventure novel, A Strange Exploring Trip, which some contemporaries viewed as having a curious resemblance with Henry Rider Haggard's later King Solomon's Mines (from 1885). He used personal experiences in several of his stories from the outer Barcoo and early Rockhampton in the late 1860s, and from Cooktown and the Palmer gold field in the 1870s. His short stories were very popular in his own time. Some of these sketches and stories were signed "CF", but several were not signed at all, his authorship being revealed in writings by various contemporaries. These works include:[41]

  • "Some Queensland Pioneers", a series of ten articles by "CF" (30 December 1882 to 30 June 1883) in The Australasian (weekly Melbourne Argus)
  • "A Strange Exploring Trip" – Chapter I-XVIII by "Old Harry", a small serialised novel in the Saturday edition of the Brisbane Courier (and The Queenslander) onwards from 15 April to 7 October 1876.
  • "To The Red Barcoo" by "* * *" Queenslander Supplement, 24 February 1877, pp. 1d-4a.
  • "Miami – A Tale told by the Sea" by "CF", Queenslander Christmas Supplement,' 22 December 1877, pp. 10–11.
  • "Dividing Mates" by "CF" Queenslander Christmas Supplement, 14 December 1878.
  • "Jeannie" by "CF" Queenslander Christmas Supplement, 20 December 1879, pp. 1–3.
  • "Drift" by "CF" Queenslander Christmas Supplement, 25 December 1880, pp. 10–12.
  • "Our Friend the Captain" by "CF" – a story about a charming Central Queensland bushranger Queenslander "Christmas Supplement" 19 December 1885, pp. 7–8.
  • "A Curl of a Woman"s Hair" by Carl Feilberg, Illustrated Sydney News, Christmas Edition, December 1886.
  • "My Mate"s Locket" by Carl A. Feilberg, about the life of a Danish migrant (fiction), the only story actually printed in book-form. It appears in Turner, Charles (illustrator): Australian Stories in Prose and Verse, Melbourne (Cameron, Laing) 1882, 105 pages, ill., an anthology of fourteen stories by (cit.) "leading Australian writers, viz Frank Morley, Henry Kendall, Marcus Clarke, N. Walter Swan, R. P. Whitworth, Donald Cameron, Carl A. Feilberg, Charles Turner, and Janet Carrol."

A few stories, in some cases half finished, were later sold from Feilberg's estate and printed after his death in the radical journal the The Boomerang, they were:[41]

  • "Camp Fire Yarns", 3 December 1887.
  • "Attacked by the Blacks", 17 December 1887.
  • "The Evil Eye", 24 December 1887 and 7 January 1888.
  • "His Colonial Experience", 4 February 1888 and 11 March 1888.

Personal life[edit]

On 15 May 1872 Feilberg married Clara Smith (1851-1932) at the Presbyterian Church in Maryborough.[42] She was the daughter of the engineer and proprietor of Kilkivan Mine, Scotsman Walter Smith (c. 1821-1903[43]), and Clara Susannah Smith.[citation needed] Walter Smith was one of the early settlers in Adelaide, in the colony of South Australia, and Clara was born there in 1851. The family moved to Queensland, where Walter first built a sawmill on the Logan River. When it was burnt down, they moved to Maryborough[44] in the 1860s.[43][45]

Carl and Clara had two sons and three daughters, who survived Clara's death in 1932, and lived in Brisbane.[44]

Footnotes[edit]

  1. ^ See signature on this page and compare with his printed records. (Ph and f, v and w, ch and k, etc. were regarded as synonymous in many Germanic languages in this period, and people were generally not very particular about the spelling of names in the period prior to the 1890s.
  2. ^ The Queensland Patriot was published weekly on Saturdays from 7 October 1876[10] (v. 1, no. 1) until 30 September 1878 (v. 4, no. 267,[11] when it was renamed the Daily News, which was published from 1 October 1878 (v. 5, no. 268) until 18 January 1879 (v. 5, no. 358).
  3. ^ One only need to compare with the obituaries of contemporary Qld journalists such as G. Lukin, W. O'Carroll, C. H. Buzacott or W. H. Traill. (WP:OR? [citation needed])
  4. ^ No contemporary Queensland journalist was honoured with this level of attention, in particular not anything as strong worded as these obituaries. Indeed hardly any contemporary Premier of Queensland received this level of contemporary attention.[original research?]
  5. ^ Some may argue that Archibald Meston was as significant. Yet Meston only entered this cause when it became opportunistic to do so as the last genuine frontier had evaporated and some of his key political friends underwent a rather drastic change of attitude. Prior to the 1890s he was indeed known primarily as a man who frequently spoke about Aborigines he had personally shot in punitive expedition (more about Meston in Ørsted-Jensen: Frontier History Revisited (2011), p.141, and in general 112pp). Being a 'Queenslander' (Q., by all account, carrying the single largest pre-contact population of any state and territory of Australia)and a modern thinking and secular minded person some may even argue that Feilberg, although his name was almost completely forgotten, is by far more interesting and significant in this field than the mainly Tasmania operating humanitarian George Augustus Robinson. [original research?]
  6. ^ Queensland Patriot, 29 June – 23 July 1878. The campaign successfully aimed at the Police estimates which was tabled in parliament in July. The Premier (John Douglas), who was also the original instigator and co-proprietor of the Patriot, had not approved of this campaign and he clearly was furious when the issue was forced on him and the parliament. Yet this brief campaign, and the fact that he was willing to cross the very man who had employed him added to Feilberg's reputation amongst fellow journalist in particular.[citation needed]
  7. ^ The Queenslander / Brisbane Courier campaign for Indigenous rights in 1880, remains the largest of its kind ever produced by a leading Australian newspaper. It lasted from March to December that year, and included a great number of more or less anonymously publicised letters from what clearly was a great number of leading frontier settlers of the day. It included a total of 9 articles, 12 editorials and a follow-up newspaper debate in which 37 settlers contributed with 48 letters.[citation needed]
  8. ^ Often lengthy quotes and other references to Feilberg's work are found in books dealing generally with Queensland's colonial history, such as Ross Fitzgerald's From the Dreaming to 1915 (1982); William Ross Johnston's A Documentary History of Queensland (1988); and in a variety of studies, books, documentaries, and articles dealing generally with race relations in colonial Australia, including Henry Reynolds' The Other Side of the Frontier (1981); Sharman Stone's documentary Aborigines in White Australia (1974); and journalist Bruce Elder's Blood on the Wattle (1988). Studies dealing specifically with Queensland's race relations' history, such as Raymond Evans in Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination (Brisbane 1975), the Reynolds-edited Race Relations in North Queensland (1978), Noel Loos' Invasion and Resistance (1982); and Pamela Lukin Watson's Frontier Lands & Pioneer Legends (1998). It was cited in Judith Wright's The Cry for the Dead (1981) and in Roslyn Poignant's Professional Savages (2004). Gordon Reid's That Unhappy Race, (Melbourne 2006), p. 115-16, 125–127, 230.
  9. ^ Many of these writers believed, wrongly as it is, that the author of the articles was Gresley Lukin, the then part proprietor of the Brisbane Newspaper Co., but Lukin was 'only' the part proprietor and 'managing editor' he wrote articles only on rare occasions and the de facto editor of the Courier at the time was in fact not Lukin but William Augustine O'Carroll. All of this was partly revealed by Henry Reynolds in This Whispering in Our Hearts (see above), and it is further detailed and substantiated by Ørsted-Jensen in The Right to Live: The Politics of Race and the Troubled Conscience of an Australian Journalist chapter one The Resurgence....[citation needed]
  10. ^ The Evening Observer was published from around 1887 until 1907,[34] and was renamed Observer and Evening Brisbane Courier (1907–1926?).[35]
  11. ^ Note use of given name, highly unusual for this period.
  12. ^ For an Australian "bushman" to call another man "white" was the greatest honour in those days, equivalent of saying that he was something like a plain, genuine and upright man of the highest personal integrity. It was used even on black people at times, one example is the black Danish West Indian, turned Australian heavy weight boxer, Peter Jackson (boxer) (1861–1901) who was called a "real whiteman".[38]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Minister book, Holmens Kirke, Copenhagen, 13 December 1844
  2. ^ a b c Evening Observer (Brisbane), 25 October 1887, Obituary by Walter John Morley.
  3. ^ a b c "The late Mr. C. A. Feilberg". The Brisbane Courier. Vol. XLIV, no. 9, 292. 26 October 1887. p. 5. Retrieved 4 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ^ Queenslander 22 November 1879, p652d-653a 'Life in the Bush' by 'CF';Wide Bay News 27 October 1887
  5. ^ North Queensland Telegraph (Townsville) 26 October 1887; Brisbane Courier 22 June 1926, p.2
  6. ^ The Way We Civilise: Black and White: The Native Police/articles from the Brisbane Courier/Queenslander March–Sept 1880, Brisbane 1880; see also bibliography below
  7. ^ The Queenslander 11 June 1870, p.2&p.325; The Queenslander 10 June 1870, p10c (Wide Bay News was Launched on 2 July 1870); See more in Feilberg's obituaries and BC 21 January 1871 (Public meeting at M'boro's Oddfellows Hall Wednesday evening 11 January 1971).
  8. ^ Maryborough Chronicle 9 March 1871, p2g (Feilberg testify in a libel case against the previous proprietor); other libel cases see:Libel against the Editor of the Wide Bay News: Maryborough Chronicle 10 September 1870 (Walsh allegedly defamed); Brisbane Courier 13 October 1870 (Libel), p.3e; Brisbane Courier 20 October 1870, p2c; Maryborough Chronicle 29 October 1870; Maryborough Chronicle 1 November 1870, p5f-g.; Brisbane Courier 5 November 1870, p5f.
  9. ^ Denis Cryle: The Press in Colonial Queensland, chapter 6 & 8, and p.124-27
  10. ^ Pugh's Queensland Almanac, Law Calendar, Directory, and Coast Guide. Thorne and Greenwell. 1877. p. 138. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  11. ^ "Queensland patriot [microform]". National Library of Australia Catalogue. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  12. ^ Browne, R.S.: A journalist's Memories (1927), p.57, 71,77, 167, 184, 259, 277, 283. Browne explains the period during which firstly Traill, then Feilberg and himself, functioned as "The Abstainer", the anonymous writer of the political satirical column "Political Froth".
  13. ^ Anti-Slavery Society Papers S22, C135/107
  14. ^ Henry Reynolds This Whispering in our Hearts (Sydney 1998) p.260, 108–158
  15. ^ Rockhampton Bulletin 30 May 1882, p2d;Brisbane Courier 5 June 1882, p2f; South Australian Advertiser 5 June 1882, p5f.
  16. ^ The Queenslander 10 June 1882. p712 (reprint from Brisbane Courier Mon. 5 June 1882, p2g)
  17. ^ a b c "Carl Feilberg". The Australian Media Hall of Fame. Melbourne Press Club. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  18. ^ Queenslander 19 January 1878, editorial & Browne, R.S.: "A Journalist's Memories" p.55-59
  19. ^ "The way we civilise". The Queenslander. Vol. XVII, no. 246. Queensland, Australia. 1 May 1880. p. 560. Retrieved 5 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  20. ^ Brisbane Courier, 8 May 1880, p.2e-f, editorial. (Not found on Trove)
  21. ^ a b Feilberg, Carl Adolph. (1880), "57 pages ; 22 cm.", The way we civilise : black and white, the native police, Hallstrom Pacific Collection., Brisbane: G. and J. Black, nla.obj-52760287, retrieved 4 November 2023 – via Trove
  22. ^ Rusden, G. W. History of Australia, Vol. 3. pp.146–56 & 235
  23. ^ Henry Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts, 1998 p108; Reynolds, H.: An Indelible Stain?, 2001 chapter 7.
  24. ^ "The Johnsonian Club: Its Birth and Downfall". Queensland Figaro and Punch. Queensland, Australia. 15 October 1887. p. 11 (The lady supplement to Queensland Figaro). Retrieved 21 April 2020 – via Trove.
  25. ^ Wide Bay News 27 October 1887
  26. ^ Queenslander, Vol XXXII.-No. 630, Brisbane Saturday, 29 October 1887
  27. ^ a b "Death of Mr. Carl Feilberg". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 12, 901. Victoria, Australia. 26 October 1887. p. 8. Retrieved 4 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  28. ^ a b Notes, memorials and other obituaries: Trove search of newspapers shows 59 results, some of which follow: Sydney Morning Herald 26 October 1887, p.10a; Argus (Melbourne) 26 October 1887, p7g & 8e; Age (Melbourne) 26 October 1887 p6; Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania) 29 October 1887, p3e-f; South Australian Advertiser 26 October 1887, p5a; Evening Observer (Brisbane) 25 October 1887; The Boomerang 3 December 1887 (drawing/portrait); Sydney Quarterly Magazine Vol IV, No 4, 1887, p379-80; Brisbane Telegraph 25 October 1887, p.5b.; Queenslander 29 October 1887; Wide Bay News 27 October 1887; Gympie Times 27 October 1887, p3c (John Flood); North Queensland Telegraph (Townsville) 26 October 1887; Queensland Figaro 29 October 1887, p687 (John Edgar Byrne).
  29. ^ Brisbane Courier 27 October 1887, p5d, Feilberg's funeral at Toowong Cemetery.
  30. ^ a b Eulogy by Francis Adams, in The Boomerang 19 November 1887, p.13
  31. ^ Obituary Wide Bay and Burnett News, 25 October 1887; Funeral, Brisbane Courier 27 October 1887, p5d; (Ørsted-Jensen, R.; The Right to Live: The Politics of Race...).
  32. ^ This Whispering in Our Hearts, Chapter 6: The Crusade of the Queenslander.
  33. ^ An old Queenslander (December 1887), "In memoriam: Carl Feilberg", Sydney Quarterly Magazine, vol. IV, no. 4, Sydney, N.S.W., p. 379-80, nla.obj-3070655175, retrieved 5 November 2023 – via Trove
  34. ^ "Evening Observer". National Library of Australia Catalogue. Retrieved 3 November 2023. Former Title: Daily observer (Ipswich, Qld.); Life dates: Ceased in 1907, Vol. 5, no. 1260 (1 Aug. 1887)- ; Later Title: Observer and evening Brisbane courier
  35. ^ "Observer and evening Brisbane courier [microform]". National Library of Australia Catalogue. Retrieved 3 November 2023.
  36. ^ Brisbane Evening Observer, Brisbane, Tuesday, 25 October 1887
  37. ^ a b c Daley, Paul (21 September 2018). "'Wholesale massacre': Carl Feilberg exposed the ugly truth of the Australian frontier". The Guardian.
  38. ^ "Jackson, Peter (1861–1901)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  39. ^ Queensland Figaro 29 October 1887 p.687
  40. ^ The Victorian Review. Melbourne. vpl. 1, March 1880, pp. 699–711.
  41. ^ a b "Carl Feilberg: Works by". AustLit. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  42. ^ Qld BDM 1872/C365
  43. ^ a b "Personal". The Brisbane Courier. Vol. LX, no. 14, 247. Queensland, Australia. 11 September 1903. p. 5. Retrieved 4 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  44. ^ a b "Mrs. Clara Feilberg". The Brisbane Courier. No. 23, 210. Queensland, Australia. 20 June 1932. p. 13. Retrieved 4 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.
  45. ^ "Carl Feilberg". AustLit. 25 October 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2023.

Sources[edit]

  • Browne, Reginald Spencer: A Journalist's Memories, Read Press, Brisbane 1927.
  • Cryle, Denis: The Press In Colonial Queensland: A Social and Political History 1845–1875, Brisbane 1995.
  • Davies, Alfred G.: Queensland's Pioneer Journals and Journalists, Historical Society of Queensland Journal (RHSQ) vol 3, No 4, 1936–47, p265-283.
  • Evans, Raymond: A History of Queensland, Cambridge 2007, 321 pages, ill.
  • Feilberg, Carl Adolph: Prize essay on Queensland: Queensland, its resources and prospects. Pamphlet published by National Association of Queensland, Brisbane 1879, 25 pages.
  • Feilberg, Carl Adolph: The Colony of Queensland, 24 pages essay written for the ‘Catalogue of the Queensland Court of the International Exhibition’, Melbourne 1880, enclosed statistics and a thorough description of the Queensland stand (Mitchell Library DSM/ 042/ P176).
  • Feilberg, Carl Adolph (anonymous): The Way We Civilise; Black and White; The Native Police: – A series of articles and letters reprinted from the ‘Queenslander’ (Brisbane, December 1880)
  • Mennell, Philip Dearman: The Dictionary of Australasian Biography, comprising notice of eminent colonists from the inauguration of responsible government down to the present time 1855–1892. London 1892.
  • Ørsted-Jensen, Robert (2011). The Right to Live: The Politics of Race and the Troubled Conscience of an Australian Journalist., Vol I-II (main biographical reference)
  • Ørsted-Jensen, Robert: Frontier History Revisited: Colonial Queensland and the 'History War', Brisbane 2011, 284 pages, ill. ISBN 978-1-4663-8682-2
  • Reynolds, Henry: This Whispering In Our Hearts, Sydney 1998, chapter 6, "The Crusade of the Queenslander".
  • Reynolds, Henry (2018). "Chapter 6: "The Crusade of the Queenslander"". This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited. NewSouth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-74224-431-0.
  • Reynolds, Henry: An Indelible Stain?, Sydney 2001, chapter 7, Dispersing the Blacks.
  • Rusden, G.W.: History of Australia, vol 1–3, second edition Melbourne 1897, Vol 3 pp. 146–56 & 235.
  • Thorne, Ebenezer (2018). The Queen of the Colonies, Or Queensland as I Knew It: An Eight Years' Resident (Classic Reprint). 1kg Limited. ISBN 978-0-267-51294-2. (originally publ. Sampson & Low London, 1876, 352 pages.)

Further reading[edit]

  • Evans, R., Saunders, K. and Cronin, K.: Race Relations in Colonial Queensland: A History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Extermination, third edition Brisbane 1993 (first edition publ. Sydney, 1975), 456 pages, ill.
  • Johnston, Anna (2 June 2023). "History and Fiction: Mapping Frontier Violence in Colonial Queensland Writing". State Library Of Queensland.
  • Loos, Noel Anthony: Invasion And Resistance: Aboriginal-European Relations On The North Queensland Frontier 1861–1897, Canberra 1982, 323 pages, ill.
  • Reid, Gordon: A Nest of Hornets: The Massacre of the Fraser family at Hornet Bank Station, Central Queensland, 1857, and related events, Melbourne 1982, 235 pages ill. (notes, but not indexed).
  • Stanner, W.E.H.: The Dreaming & other Essays, Melbourne 2009, 290 pages, a collection of Essays (which includes the 1968 Boyer Lecture); introduction by Robert Manne.
  • Wright, Judith Arundell: The Cry For The Dead, Melbourne 1981, 303 pages.

External links[edit]

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