Wednesday Lunchtime Lecture: The Aboriginal Workers who Bred Horses for the Queensland Police: 1909-1935. + BOOK LAUNCH

In 1909, the Queensland government opened a unique pastoral station in the Central Highlands. Instead of buying horses to provide transport for its network of police stations, it got Queensland Police to breed them on a property near Carnarvon Gorge Nature Reserve. A white constable and two Aboriginal men called ‘Trackers’ established the herd, with policeman John Campbell in charge of the stud.

The government manned Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station with constables and an Aboriginal workforce of stockmen for its 25 years of operation. Besides supplying the Police Force with steeds, it also ran cattle and supplied beef to state butcheries or meatworks.

While the names and details of the horses are meticulously recorded, the Aboriginal workers were barely documented and the workforce of trackers’ wives (called only ‘gins’) and children were not noted at all. By the late 1920s, the government favoured motors over horses. In 1933, Campbell was accused of defrauding the Taxation Department and charged, convicted, and dismissed. In 1934 the government closed Rewan Station after 25 years of operation, and sold the property. An Aboriginal workforce from Woorabinda Settlement proved indispensable in the closure operation.

With painstaking research of archives and memoirs, Lesley Synge reconstructs the life of the stud, and gives biographical sketches of key Aboriginal workers such as Rob, Prince Albert, Boolboora-Leo Freeman and Splinter, so we can at last ‘know their names’. She intends to publish her findings in a book, Know Their Names.

Lesley Synge an award-winning writer of Central Queensland history who has presented a number of Lunchtime Talks to the Society. She is the co-author of the life story, Wharfie, and author of three poetry collections, two novels and many reviews. Her earlier teaching career took her all over Queensland, to the UK and South Korea. She has an MA from UQ.