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MEMOIRS OF THE

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'A GOOD SHOW': COLONIAL QUEENSLAND AT INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

J M. McKAY

McKay, J.M. 1997 04 20: 'A good show': Colonial Queensland at international exhibitions.Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Cultural Heritage Series 1(2): 175-343. Brisbane.ISSN 1440-4788.

Colonial Queensland was an active participant in international exhibitions, cultural mile-stones of the late 19th century. In the years between separation (1859) and federation (1901)Queensland took part in 16 international exhibitions as an official exhibitor (that is, with offi-cial displays and officially appointed representatives) and in another 15 as an unofficialexhibitor. This study examines various aspects of Queensland's involvement in these eventsand covers new ground as little has been known of Queensland as a world exhibitor.First the motives for exhibiting are examined, by comparing the wholehearted support forBritish exhibitions with the sparing support for Australian exhibitions, including the oneheld on home ground in 1897. Of the 16 exhibitions in which Queensland participatedofficially, in 10 it exhibited as part of a British colonial group, at British request. Moreover, 8of these 16 exhibitions were held in Great Britain, including 7 in London. This support forBritain and British interests at exhibitions reflected the colony's economic dependence,which increased as the century progressed. Exhibitions effectively chart the course of thisdependence, and also of Queensland' s more ambiguous relationship with its sister colonies.Then the mode of exhibiting is examined — the selection, presentation and handling ofexhibits. These exhibits were dominated by economic concerns rather than a desire to repre-sent colonial life fully. Exhibition commissioners, the selectors of exhibits, were drawn fromQueensland's economic elite and their exhibits reflected its varying needs for Britishinvestment in the major productive industries: agriculture, pastoral and mining. The present-ation and handling of exhibits were unadventurous and amateurish by world or even Austral-ian standards. Yet Queensland could be relied upon to put on 'a good show', and will beremembered for its pioneering use of photography and for adding the mercury fountain to the'novelties' devised especially for exhibitions.In the next five chapters, the major section of the study, the exhibits are examined moreclosely to construct a microcosm of Queensland environmental, cultural and economichistory. The flora and fauna exhibits illustrate both the exploitative view of nature that wascentral to Western civilisation and the interest in natural history so keen in the 19th century.Likewise the Aboriginal (including human) exhibits show the racial attitudes of the time andprovide insight into race relations in the colony. The mineral and mining exhibits portray ingilded splendour a materialism and a pride in technological achievement, while the agricul-tural and pastoral exhibits show the great optimism in the future of the colony as 'an earthlyparadise for the farmer'. Other exhibits, such as maps, newspapers and educational exhibits,plotted the advance of Western civilisation in Queensland.Finally the impact of Queensland's involvement in exhibitions is examined. In general,exhibitions did not fulfil their stated goals of attracting investment and population into thecolony, nor did they extend its trade. Moreover, exhibitions brought few cultural benefits andno substantial legacy in buildings or public collections. They were, however, 'a first-classadvertisement' for the colony and helped to shape its image at home and abroad. Ei Interna-tional exhibitions, exhibitions, Queensland, British imperialism, Australian colonies.

Judith Marilyn McKay, Queensland Museum, PO Box 3300, South Brisbane, Queensland4101, Australia; received 14 October 1997.

176^ MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM

CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY ^

176INTRODUCTION

^176

CHAPTER 1 'ONE WITH BRITAIN HEART AND SOUL!' ^

182CHAPTER 2 'RAW PRODUCTS OF NATURE IN BULK'

^200

CHAPTER 3 'THE BOUNTIES OF NATURE' ^

217CHAPTER 4 'FINE SPECIMENS' OF ABORIGINES

^232

CHAPTERS 'A MOUNTAIN OF GOLD' ^

246CHAPTER 6 'FIELDS WITH PLENTY'

^264

CHAPTER 7 'THE MARCH OF CIVILISATION' ^

278CHAPTER 8 THE IMPACT: 'BENEFICIAL' OR 'USELESS'?

^283

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ^

293SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

^294

ENDNOTES^

309APPENDIX 1 WORLD EXHIBITIONS 1851-1901

^324

APPENDIX 2 QUEENSLAND OFFICIAL PARTICIPATION IN EXHIBITIONS^

326APPENDIX 3 QUEENSLAND EXHIBITION COMMISSIONERS

^328

APPENDIX 4 MAP OF QUEENSLAND ^

343

ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY

QSA=Queensland State Archives; JOL=JohnOxley Library; ADB=Australian Dictionary ofBiography; QPD=Queensland ParliamentaryDebates; V&P of the QLA=Votes and Proceed-ings of the Queensland Legislative Assembly.

Full names of exhibitions are given in Appen-dix 1; abbreviated names are used elsewhere. TheEnglish term 'exhibition' is generally used inpreference to the French 'exposition' or theAmerican `world's fair'. Unless otherwise stated,'exhibition' refers to an international exhibitionrather than an intercolonial or local exhibition.

INTRODUCTION

The Great Exhibition of 1851 heralded a newera, in which a series of grandiose 'UniversalExhibitions' or 'World's Fairs' would mark the'progress' of Western civilisation, not only inEurope and North America but also in colonialoutposts. The significance of these self-congratulatory events was recognised at the time,as the popular newspaper the Australian Townand Countty Journal wrote in 1870:

... in the history of human progress when com-prehensively written, the series of internationalgatherings commenced in 1851, will occupy animportant place among the causes which arecontributing to the onward movement of thenineteenth century. I

The theme of progress underlies exhibition rheto-ric, for each exhibition marked civilisation'sadvance since the previous world's gathering,

and the scale and cost of exhibitions also steadilyprogressed as each strove to be 'the greatest' theworld had ever seen. An essay on exhibitionsbegan: 'Progress is the law of life, and Exhibi-tions ... the outcome and the forebears of thatvery progress'. 2 Progress in the 19th centurymeant a quest to excel, to be productive, to makegrand discoveries, to control the forces of nature,to conquer the globe and transplant advancedcivilisation to its farthest reaches. Implicit in thisdoctrine of continuous progress was a trust intechnological and material advance as the key tosuch progress, and an unquestioned assumptionof the earth's ability to sustain its onslaughts.International exhibitions lost much of theirimpulse after the Great War when world opti-mism was damaged by the destructive capacity ofadvanced technology, and many began to ques-tion the benefits of progress.

Although a history of exhibitions might beginwith the Old Testament story of King Ahasueruswho `shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom... even a hundred and four-score days' and thentrace their evolution through the trade fairs of theMiddle Ages, the exhibitions studied here werean invention of the industrial civilisation of the19th century. They provided a medium for adver-tising a nation's wares and for 'showing off thetechnological and scientific, and to a lesserextent, cultural achievements of the era. Exhibi-tions also facilitated comparison of nations andraces, giving visible reality to the triumph ofWestern civilisation over indigenous races in anera of unprecedented imperial expansion.

COLONIAL QUEENSLAND AT INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS^

177

FIG. 1. The state opening of the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, London, on 1 May 1851, 'a sight the like ofwhich has never happened before'. (National Library of Australia)

This is a study of how colonial Queensland, aBritish outpost at the antipodes, showed its 'pro-gress' to the outside world at exhibitions. For ayoung colony looking for population and capitalto develop its vast and varied resources, the proofof progress was a fact of survival and largelyshaped the colonists' image of their adopted land.The ultimate proof of progress was to play host toan international exhibition, but Queensland didnot join the race until relatively late, in 1897. 4

Hence I focus mainly on Queensland's courts (asthe various national or thematic sections of exhi-bitions were called) at international exhibitionselsewhere, and on the propaganda that accom-panied these courts. Besides the official exhibitsshown within courts, I also look at exhibitionamusements organised by private entrepreneursoperating within the sphere of popular entertain-ment.

Exhibitions are a microcosm of the world, andconversely, as an apologist for Melbourne's firstgreat event claimed, 'the world itself is anenlarged edition of the Exhibition'. 5 Exhibitionsoffer insights into the larger world of colonial

Queensland — into the political, economic,social and cultural fabric of a frontier colony.Moreover, exhibitions played a part in attractingcolonists and investment to Queensland, promot-ing trade, shaping cultural identity and, moreremarkably, pre-empting official policy on indi-genous people at a national level. And leadingplayers on Queensland's historical stage,acknowledged for their contributions to politics,economic development, science, immigrationand Aboriginal welfare, were also enterprisingexhibitors: among them Richard Daintree, JamesGarrick, Frederick Manson Bailey, Robert LoganJack, George Randall and Archibald Meston.

Yet little has been known of Queensland'sinvolvement in exhibitions. Geoffrey Bolton, IanSanker and Peter Quartermaine have looked atthe photographic enterprise of Richard Daintree(Fig. 2) and his work as Queensland's Agent-General in London,' but these studies underesti-mate the extent of his exhibition work spanning atotal of six exhibitions and (in my view) his great-est achievement in erecting Australia's firstexhibition building in London. The only otherpublished research on Queensland at internat-


ional exhibitions is a paper by Marc Rothenbergand Peter Hoffenberg on all the Australian colo-nies at Philadelphia in 1876 and my brief accountof a painting shown by Queensland at the firstMelbourne exhibition. In addition, studies onmining, investment and agriculture inQueensland make passing mention of its spec-tacular mineral exhibits at London in 1886 and ofits later agricultural exhibits,' while a thesis byPeter Schlencker on the National Agriculturaland Industrial Association of Queensland out-lines the (limited) role of that body in organisingQueensland's contributions to internationalexhibitions in the years 1879-81. 9 SinceQueensland's involvement in exhibitions hasbeen neglected as a field of enquiry, my studycovers new ground. The field proved so rich that Ihad to limit my study to the colonial era (to 1901)and to international, as distinct from intercolonialexhibitions which warrant further studies. Thechapters on the exhibits, in particular, are basedon primary sources hitherto unexplored byQueensland historians.

A 19th-century observer saw exhibitions as a'real and forcible' tool for education and propa-ganda: ... for they are in the nature of an oculardemonstration ... in a sceptical age like thispeople only believe what they see'.' 9 Contempo-raries often referred to exhibitions as 'objectlessons', a means of instructing the massesthrough their eyes at a time when the masses wereonly partly literate. Exhibitions, like the publicmuseums that also developed in the late 19th cen-tury, are proof of this faith in visual instruction.But people drew sharp distinctions between exhi-bitions and museums: museums were'unattractive', even 'dry-as-dust'; whereas exhi-bitions were topical, competitive, 'showy' andabove all, ephemeral. Their blend of entertain-ment, education and spectacle gave exhibitions apowerful advantage over museums in shapingpublic perception. Contemporaries also notedthat visitors went to exhibitions more to beamused than instructed, as Victoria's ExecutiveCommissioner for the Colonial and Indian Exhi-bition warned: 'take away the show element andyou largely take away the interest of the Exhibi-tion'."

The profitability too, he might have added, forthe commissioners for Melbourne's later centen-nial exhibition found that only by addingamusements 'of a trivial nature' could they hopeto cut their rising deficit,' and by the 1890s it wasaccepted that no exhibition could succeed with-

FIG. 2. Richard Daintree, Queensland's Agent-General,who oversaw the colony's displays at sixinternational exhibitions. (Australasian Sketcher, 17May 1873)

out a range of amusements and 'novelties'. Mystudy records the 'showy' and sensational side ofexhibitions, as well as their more sober offerings,for the sensational exhibits offer perhaps themost revealing insights into contemporary soci-ety. I dust off the era's opulent and ofteningenious display devices — the trophies, obe-lisks, models, dioramas, panoramas and tableaux— which so attracted exhibition-goers. The vis-ual excitement of these exhibitions has beenunderplayed by recent commentators and the19th-century craft of exhibiting all but forgotten.

It was during the 19th century that printed andvisual materials became accessible for mass cir-culation, hence exhibitions have left behind avast stock of literature, from catalogues and juryreports to propaganda pamphlets and commemo-rative volumes. A major task of my study hasbeen locating the more relevant items, which arewidely scattered—even some of Queensland'sexhibition publications are held only in interstate

COLONIAL QUEENSLAND AT INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS^179

and overseas libraries. There is also a sizeablequantity of recent literature, for since the 1970sthere has been an upsurge of interest in exhibi-tions. But, as Robert Rydell warns in his excellenthistoriographical essay in The Books' of the Fairs(on which I draw here), 'the quantity is deceptiveand the quality uneven'. 13

Particularly useful as compendiums of worldexhibition activity during the 19th century areJohn Findling and Kimberly PeIle's HistoricalDictionary of World's Fairs and Expositions"and the bibliography cited above, The Books ofthe Fairs, both published within the last decade.These list many of the lesser known exhibitionsin which Queensland was invited to participatebut which are missing from earlier accounts,apart from George Collins Levey's remarkablycomprehensive entry in the 11th edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica (1910). Levey, whobegan his career as a professional exhibitionorganiser in Australia, also provides informationon organisational aspects of exhibitions, drawingfrom his own experience.' The best book-lengthhistorical survey is John Allwood's The GreatExhibitions (1977), I6 although this continues the19th-century tradition of descriptive and celebra-tory writing about exhibitions.

Since this book was published a new school ofmore analytical writing has emerged which seesexhibitions not as 'glittering occasions' but asrecorders and shapers of late 19th-century soci-ety and its attendant materialism, racism andinequalities. Robert Rydell and others havefocussed on the racist underpinnings of exhibi-tions and how non-whites were represented tolegitimise imperial and white rule" — I seek toplace these studies in a local context in Chapter 4.Some have focussed on other themes, such as therole of women in exhibitions,' the genesis ofmodern consumer culture in exhibitions,' or theparallels between exhibitions, museums anddepartment stores,' while Paul Greenhalgh inEphemeral Vistas (1988) takes a broad thematicview of exhibitions.' Indeed the scope for the-matic studies is as 'universal' as the exhibitionsthemselves. In addition, there are many recentstudies on individual exhibitions (these are listedin Section B of the bibliography), but they con-centrate on the largest exhibitions, in whichQueensland took little or no part.

Recent writing has other significant gaps formy purposes. Most of it is European orAmerican-centred and has little to say about theinvolvement of colonies (particularly white col-

on ies) in exhibitions; as Rydell says, 'systematicinquiries into colonial expositions can be countedon one hand'.' John Mackenzie in Propagandaand Empire has looked at the involvement ofcolonies in the British imperial exhibitions,which began with the Colonial and Indian Exhib-ition of 1886," but the contribution of colonies toearlier events has not been fully explored. Itshould be noted that the expectations of imperialpowers (usually the exhibition organisers) andcolonies at exhibitions were quite different.Imperial powers used exhibitions to maintaintheir domination of world trade, while colonieswere expected to show 'useful' natural productsripe for exploitation. Exhibitions reflected theinter-dependence of the world economy, overwhich the imperial powers held the purse strings.For imperial powers exhibitions were a show ofnational prestige, but for colonies likeQueensland they were a drain on alreadystretched treasuries — the price they paid fortheir progress to be underwritten by Europe.

Also absent from recent writing on exhibitionsis an investigation of their display techniques,'though the devices they borrowed from earlierforms of popular entertainment are recorded byRichard Altick in The Shows of London and byMimi Colligan in a thesis on Australian pano-ramas and waxworks.' This lack of interest inexhibition techniques is puzzling in view of therecent interest in late 19th-century shop displayand the central importance of hi-tech display totoday's exhibitions. My study offers insights intothese neglected aspects of exhibitions.

The international exhibitions held within Aus-tralia have not received the attention theydeserve. Of the nine Australian exhibitions heldduring the colonial era, six have been studied tosome degree, notably the Sydney exhibition of1879-80 which is the subject of a MA thesis byLinda Young."Graeme Davison has assessed thesignificance of Australia's 'Big Show', the Mel-bourne centennial exhibition of 1888-89 (Fig. 3),recording the intense intercolonial rivalry thatunderlay its planning as a national celebration.Davison has also placed the major Australianexhibitions in a world context," but as yet there isno survey of all the Australian exhibitions, nor ofthe (fiercely independent) involvement of theAustralian colonies in overseas exhibitions.Given the current international interest in the rac-ist underpinnings of exhibitions, it is surprisingthat the role — or lack of role — of AustralianAboriginal people in exhibitions has been over-

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FIG. 3. The opening of Australia's 'Big Show', the Centennial International Exhibition, in Melbourne'sExhibition Building, on 1 August 1888. (Graphic, 15 Sept. 1888)


looked, apart from a recently-published paper byValda Rigg on the representation of Aboriginalculture in colonial New South Wales.' Most sur-prising is that both historians and anthropologistshave failed to study the pioneering ethnologicalcourt at the Sydney exhibition, which precededthe famous ethnological displays at the Chicagoexhibition of 1893 by over a decade.

The use of exhibitions to promote mining inAustralia has also been overlooked, though Rich-ard Aitken has looked at the celebration of goldmining in Victoria.' Yet the Australian coloniesmounted some of the world's most spectaculardisplays of mineral wealth, and two of the nineAustralian exhibitions of the colonial era wereheld in gold-mining centres: Coolgardie in 1899and Ballarat in 1900-01, followed in 1901-2 byBendigo's Victorian Gold Jubilee Exhibitioncommemorating the discovery of gold there in1851. Here I begin to fill in some of these gaps inour knowledge of Australians as world exhibi-tors, and I call attention to Australia'sextraordinary Aboriginal and mineral exhibits.And I make a belated visit to the QueenslandInternational Exhibition of 1897, perhaps the mostneglected of all the Australian exhibitions. Over-shadowed by the larger exhibitions in the south,Queensland's own show was relegated to historyas soon as it closed and hardly rated a mention atthe time of its recent successor, World Expo '88. 30

In the following chapters I examine variousaspects of colonial Queensland's involvement ininternational exhibitions. In the first chapter Ilook at the priorities that determined involvementin exhibitions, comparing the varying degrees ofsupport for events held overseas, in sister colo-nies and on home ground. In the second chapter Ilook at the selection of exhibits to show what sig-nified colonial progress at exhibitions, and Iassess the presentation and handling of exhibits.In the next five chapters, the major section of thestudy, I focus more closely on the exhibits and onattitudes, issues and events surrounding theexhibits. These exhibits are dealt with by type:the third chapter deals with flora and fauna exhib-its; the fourth chapter with Aboriginal (includinghuman) exhibits; the fifth chapter with mineraland mining exhibits; the sixth chapter with agri-cultural and pastoral exhibits; and the seventhchapter with exhibits that marked the triumph ofWestern civilisation. The representation of Abo-riginal culture underscores the whole thesis sincethe march of progress was heightened by show-ing its very antithesis by adding a glimpse of

'barbarism'. In the eighth chapter I assess theeconomic and cultural impact of Queensland'sinvolvement in exhibitions, while in the appendi-ces I set out the facts of that involvement, drawingon a multitude of official and other sources.

EXHIBITION ADMINISTRATION. Someexplanation of the mechanism of involvement inexhibitions is a necessary preamble to this study.For London's exhibition of 1862, whenQueensland showed for the first time as a sepa-rate colony, the policy and mechanism forgovernment involvement in exhibitions wereestablished, to be followed by administrations ofall political persuasion throughout the colonialera. First the government would decide whetherto participate officially in an exhibition, usuallyafter an exchange of cables with sister colonies,then commissioners would be appointed to col-lect and despatch exhibits and to oversee theinterests of the colony at exhibitions. There weretwo categories of commissioners: local and over-seas. Local commissioners, as the selectors ofexhibits, had greater impact on exhibitions,whereas overseas commissioners (in 1899-1901called 'honorary representatives') were generallyappointed later in the planning process and actedmore as publicists for the colony — as a contem-porary observed, their duties were more 'of anominal and ornamental nature'. 31

For the exhibitions at Paris in 1878, Sydney in1879-80 and Melbourne in 1880-81 the govern-ment appointed the newly-formed NationalAgricultural and Industrial Association ofQueensland as local commissioners. (TheNational Association organised Brisbane's FirstIntercolonial Exhibition of 1876 and its succeed-ing annual agricultural exhibitions.) In turn theNational Association appointed a committee foreach of these exhibitions from its council mem-bers. However, the Colonial Secretary held theright of veto over expenditure, which led to fric-tion and eventually the abandonment of thisarrangement. Commissioners and executive com-missioners were mostly unpaid but had the serv-ices of a paid secretary, from 1879 to 1881 thesecretary of the National Association. Exceptionsto the rule were Richard Daintree and AngusMackay, both paid for their exhibition work in the1870s, and the salaried public servants who tookover exhibition organising from the 1890s.

Commissioners could claim 'reasonable' exhi-bition expenses, which at times became a matterof controversy. The commissioners advertisedwidely in newspapers (Fig. 4) and the Queensland


CENTENNIAL INTERNATIONALEXHIBITION.

MELBOURNE, 1888.

QUEENSLAND COMMISSION.The Commissioners earnestly eall attention

to the great imputative of a full display ofQueensland Products—Manufactured or Raw.

The Exhibition OPENS 1st August, 18SS,and CLoSES 31st January, 1889. Last Dayfor Entries, 23rd May, 18SS.

Intending Exhibitors are requested tosignify their intention wibhout delay.

H. COURTENAY LUCK,Secretary.

Treasury Buildings,Elizabeth-street. Brisbane.

FIG. 4. Calling for exhibits. (Boomerang, 14 Apr. I 888)

Government Gazette, and sent circulars tomunicipalities, divisional boards, chambers ofcommerce, agricultural societies and other likelyexhibitors to seek support throughout the colony.Sometimes local agents or committees were ap-pointed to collect from particular towns or districts,and usually included the district's 'more influen-tial' public servants, such as police magistrates,land commissioners, gold wardens and customsofficials. These agents and committees had noofficial status and, like the commissioners, wereunpaid. Government financial assistance wasintended for transit, rather than purchase, of exhib-its for it was assumed that colonists would have the'spirit of enterprise' to freely contribute exhibitswhich could, if required, be sold on their behalfafter exhibitions. But despite this policy, exhibitsoften had to be purchased or commissioned.

Following the British precedent of partial andindirect government involvement in internationalexhibitions, the Queensland Government did nothold any exhibition under its immediate sanction.Though the Departments of Mines and Agricul-ture oversaw government involvement inexhibitions from the late 1890s, the QueenslandInternational Exhibition of 1897 was initiatedand financed by a public company. If the govern-ment was undecided on the appropriate level ofparticipation, as was the case with the Calcuttaexhibition of 1883-84 and the Adelaide exhibi-tion of 1887-88, notices were placed in theGovernment Gazette and in newspapers to solicitthe interest of colonists. Hence involvement in

exhibitions was an indication of public as well asgovernment priorities.

CHAPTER 1

'ONE WITH BRITAIN HEART AND SOUL!'

In December 1901 Queensland's Agent-General in London, Sir Horace Tozer, was deal-ing with requests for Queensland to take part inthe forthcoming international exhibitions at Lon-don, Cork and St Louis. He had overseenQueensland's displays at the Glasgow exhibitionearlier that year and, in 1899, at the Greater Brit-ain Exhibition. 'Generally there seems to me atendency to overdo these Exhibitions ...', com-mented Tozer, for within the last few yearsQueensland had borne an unfair share of main-taining 'the general Australian advertisement' atsuch events. The time had come, he concluded, tohand over exhibition undertakings to the newCommonwealth of Australia.' During the 50years that elapsed from the Great Exhibition of1851 until the inauguration of the Common-wealth, the colonists of Moreton Bay andQueensland had received formal requests to takepart in no less than 63 international exhibitions,'almost half of them in the 1880s when worldexhibition activity reached its peak (see Appen-dix 1). It was not feasible for a young colony farremoved from the centres of civilisation to takepart in more than a selection of these events, andtheir relative merits had to be assessed 'in thelight of business'.'

A large proportion of the funds that Queens-land could spend on exhibitions was taken inpacking, freight and insurance, even more costlyfor exhibits brought from remote parts of the col-ony. Since this precluded sending custodianswith the exhibits until the 1870s, exhibits con-signed to earlier exhibitions were often'neglected' or 'mislaid'. Moreover, there wasconsiderable risk of loss or damage during transitover such long distances, damage from mould or(in the case of cereals) weevils being oftenencountered, and on two occasions (on voyagesto London in 1871 and 1872) exhibits were lost inshipwrecks. Also, the time available to prepareexhibits was restricted by the months lost in com-munications and transit by sea, taking from one tothree months between Australia and Europe dur-ing the years in question. In this chapter I look atthe priorities that determined Queensland'sinvolvement in exhibitions, comparing the vary-ing degrees of support for exhibitions held


FIG. 5. 'Colonial produce' at the Great Exhibition of 1851, including copper specimens from South Australia'sBurra Burra mine (lower left). (Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851)

overseas, in sister colonies and on home ground. Icontend that economic dependence on Britaindetermined where Queensland exhibited and (as Iargue in Chapter 2) what was exhibited. I alsorecord the intercolonial jealousies that thwartedunited Australian effort at exhibitions.

After two minor appearances as part of NewSouth Wales (in 1851 and 1855), Queenslandwas invited to take part in another 61 interna-tional exhibitions in the years between separation(1859) and 1901. But these exhibitions, of which33 were held in Great Britain, Ireland, India orBritish colonies, were just a British-biased sam-pling of world activity, for John Findling andKimberly Pelle's Historical Dictionary ofWorld's Fairs and Expositions lists 204 exhibi-tions for these years, of which only 60 were heldon British soil.' Queensland was further biasedtowards Britain and British interests in selectingfrom the exhibitions on offer (see Appendix 2).Of the 16 international exhibitions in which colo-nial Queensland participated officially (that is,with official courts and officially appointed com-missioners): in 10 Queensland exhibited as part

of a British colonial group administered by a'Royal Commission' and indirectly by the BritishColonial Office; 8 were held in Great Britain,including 7 in London, 'at the heart of theEmpire', and one in Glasgow, the second city ofthe Empire; and only 4 were held in Australia —and participating in the one on home ground wasobligatory. In addition, of the 15 internationalexhibitions in which Queensland participatedunofficially (that is, without official courts): 10were held on British soil, including 4 in Londonand only 3 in Australia. In comparing overseasand Australian exhibitions, it should be noted thatparticipation in the former incurred much greaterexpenses, risks and difficulties than did participa-tion in the relatively few events held in Australia.

What could Queensland gain from these exhi-bitions? Reporting on its first display, at Londonin 1862, the commissioner Matthew HenryMarsh wrote:

I think the Exhibition has done wonders inbringing the Colony into notice. Within myknowledge, it has induced great numbers to emi-grate to Queensland, many of them with consid-erable capital...36


FIG. 6. The western entrance of the Palace of Industry at the Vienna exhibition of 1873. Queensland's court wasin a transept of the vast western nave. (Queensland State Archives, COL/76, 1873/1843, reproduced courtesy ofthe Dept of the Premier and Cabinet)

The goals of attracting investment capital andpopulation at exhibitions were voiced throughoutthe colonial era, until at the Glasgow exhibitionAgent-General Tozer appealed to the capitalistsand 'unfettered sons of the British Isles ... toassist in the further development of Queensland'sunoccupied and unexplored millions of acres'. 37

It was assumed that most of the capital wanted inthe colony would come from London and thepopulation from the British Isles — except forindentured labourers from the Pacific Islands andIndia, and Chinese miners who needed no induce-ment from exhibitions. Queensland also soughtnew markets for its products at exhibitions, butuntil the 1890s exhibition propaganda focussedon the need for 'labour' and 'capital' to developthe export industries of the future. With its vasttracts of 'unsettled' land, Queensland still wantedpopulation after other Australian colonies hadended assisted immigration, and the cost of open-ing up its remote territory was comparatively high.

In his recent study British Imperialism andAustralian Nationalism, Luke Trainor shows thateconomic dependence underlay the relationshipbetween Britain and the Australian colonies.'International exhibitions provided a means ofextending the economic ties, by promoting tradeand emigration and presenting new opportunitiesfor investment in the colonies. It can be no coinci-dence that exhibition activity throughout theBritish Empire quickened in the 1880s as Britainsought to 'consolidate' its domains into a self-sufficient economic and political unit. In initiat-ing the first of the British imperial exhibitions,the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886, thePrince of Wales sought to strengthen the 'Bond of

Union between ... all parts of the Empire'. 39 Thisexhibition was planned as a necessary 'first steptowards ... federating the Empire', and came at a'fortunate' time when the movement for imperialfederation held currency in Britain. The exhibi-tion ode, written by the Poet Laureate, LordTennyson, called on the 'sons' of Britain to:

... be welded each and all,Into one Imperial whole,One with Britain heart and soul!One life, one flag, one fleet, one throne!

Though the proposed federation of the Empirewas opposed in Australia and eventually shelved,the imperial economic nexus was consolidated toa degree which, Trainor argues, largely deter-mined the course of Australian politics in thedepressed years of the 1890s. Significantly, itwas at this time that Queensland made itsgrandest-ever display for another imperial show,the Greater Britain Exhibition. The prospectusfor this exhibition stressed the economic advan-tages of the Empire (and the exhibition), remind-ing the colonies that 'trade always follows theflag'. As John Mackenzie records, imperial exhi-bitions continued to be held in Britain until themid-20th century, and their propagandist contentbecame more overt."

The British colonies were poorly represented atLondon's Great Exhibition of 1851: 'The noticegiven was too short; the undertaking was hurried;the project was quite new, and not thoroughlyunderstood' . 4 ' Within the meagre showing by theAustralian colonies (Fig. 5), the Moreton Baydistrict was represented only by a sample of tim-ber from Wide Bay and by some cotton woveninto muslin. The colonies had more chance to

FIG. 7. The Prince of Wales presenting British and colonial commissionersto Marshal MacMahon, the French President, outside the Prince's Pavilionat the Paris exhibition of 1878. Arthur Hodgson, representing Queensland,was among the commissioners presented. (Graphic, I I May 1878)


respond for the Paris exhibition of 1855, and inMarch 1854 the New South Wales commission-ers resolved to appoint collectors for MoretonBay. In the following October, when their exhib-its were forwarded to Sydney, the local collectorscomplained that:

... not-withstanding the general mortificationthat was felt at the non-representation of More-ton Bay at the London Exposition in 1851, thenorthern squatters have been equally neglectfulon this occasion. 42

The London exhibition of 1862 featured the Brit-ish colonies for the first time 'in their true propor-tions' and Queensland, the youngest colony, nowbecame a world exhibitor in its own right."

Thereafter, the mother coun-try made many calls on thecolonies to offer 'worthy' or'suitable' displays at exhibi-tions. Queensland contributedcourts at Paris in 1867 and1878, Vienna in 1873 andPhiladelphia in 1876, wherethe British colonies exhibitedas a large block. In securingspace at the Vienna exhibition(Fig. 6), the Agent-GeneralRichard Daintree urged that

if Queensland is to be rep-resented ... at all, it should bein the most worthy mannerpossible'." But Queensland,like other Australian colonies,was barely able to fill its spaceat Vienna, where the Austra-lians' bags of wool and cansof beef and mutton were made'standing jests' by Germannewspaper correspondentsintent on discouraging theircountrymen from cm igrat-ing. 45 At the Philadelphiaexhibition, which marked thecentenary of the Americanvictory over British domina-tion, the British Empire madeits grandest display yet shownoutside Britain, to teach therecalcitrant Americans thatthe Empire was 'now firmlyjoined in the closest bonds offriendship' ." The Empire wasthe single largest foreignexhibitor, occupying half theMain Building. Here a thirdof the space for the British

colonies was taken by the Australian courts, ofwhich Queensland's was said to have attractedthe 'largest share of attention and admiration'."At Paris in 1878 the British Empire occupiednearly a third of the space reserved for foreign-ers, putting on a 'magnificent' show for thePrince of Wales who personally directed the Brit-ish block and lent his priceless gifts from India(Fig. 7). Recalling this exhibition, Queensland'scommissioner Arthur Hodgson wrote that theAustralian colonies 'made a display of whichEngland might well be proud', contributing tothe show of 'Anglo-Saxon energy ... industryand skill'."

FIG. 8. The Queensland annexe at London's annual international exhibitions,here in 1872. Timber exhibits filled the western end of the annexe, while inthe foreground is a model of the emigrant ship, the Polonaise (centre), andcorals (right). (John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland)


By participating in theseevents could Queenslandexpect population or capital toflow from Europe or America?According to the well-knowncommentator on colonial lifeand sometime exhibition organ-iser, R.E.N. Twopeny, theAustralian courts at theseexhibitions were but'insignificant atoms in theInternational molecule,passed over unnoticed bymany' and brought none ofthe benefits of a London exhi-bition (such as he wasproposing). 49 Queensland'semigration scheme from Ger-many had proved so difficultto operate in the face ofPrussian obstruction and un-scrupulous shipping agentsthat it was temporarily sus-pended in February 1874,soon after the Vienna exhibi-tion. By this time emigrationfrom France was also seen asimpractical and Queensland failed to gain a firmfooting in the emigration trade from ContinentalEurope in succeeding decades. Besides, the tideof emigrants from America had long ended by the1870s and they had gone to the Victorian gold-fields, not to Queensland. Britain, on the otherhand, could gain both prestige and trade fromimpressive shows of the British group in Europeand America. The Vienna exhibition, forinstance, offered British industrialists a chance to'acquaint' Eastern Europe with their machines,railways and bridges.' But what could a displayof raw products from Queensland achieve atVienna? Queensland's most tangible gain fromthe Philadelphia exhibition was a much-criticisedcollection of labour-saving machinery broughtback by commissioner Angus Mackay to showlocal colonists the wonders of American technol-ogy. Clearly, Queensland's courts at theseexhibitions were less of direct benefit to the col-ony than the price it paid for its progress to beunderwritten by Britain. Arguing in favour ofQueensland's participation at Paris in 1867, theparliamentarian Robert Herbert cautioned:

... if this colony should make a bad show besidethe other colonies, at the Paris Exhibition, itwould cause a bad impression on the minds of allEnglishmen, who are sure to be there. 5I

Queensland's grandest displays were reservedfor London. In September 1870 the governmenttook up an offer from Richard Daintree,' theformer Government Geologist of NorthernQueensland, to show his minerals and photo-graphs at the forthcoming London exhibition of1871. By April 1872, when he was appointedQueensland's Agent-General, Daintree wasalready mounting 'a full display' of the colony'sresources for the next London exhibition, and athis urging a special annexe was erected in theexhibition grounds in 1872 (Fig. 8). Queensland'sannexe, a simple timber pavilion situated in theEastern Annexe ground at South Kensington,was Australia's first exhibition building to beerected in London." It was maintained in 1873and 1874, giving Queensland the most conspicu-ous presence of all the British colonies atLondon's series of annual international exhibi-tions.' (Queensland was the only British colonyto erect and maintain its own building at theseevents.) Here in the imperial capital, wrote Dam-tree, therethere could be 'no better or cheaper method'for publicising Queensland.' He presented theannexe as a portfolio of investment opportunitiesfor the emigrant and the capitalist and in 1873published his illustrated guide, Queensland, Aus-tralia,' for the use of intending emigrants' . 56 As


FIG. 9. The state opening of the Colonial and IndianExhibition in the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 4May 1886. The opening ceremony, witnessed bysubjects from all over the Empire, was described as 'afeast of Imperial unity'. (Graphic, 8 May 1886)

early as October 1871, before Queensland builtits annexe, Daintree had lobbied for a 'joint Aus-tralian Court' in London,' but the other colonieswere unable to agree on united action before theseries of exhibitions were discontinued in 1874.

Daintree's pioneering displays were surpassedin 1886 when Queensland took part in the Colo-nial and Indian Exhibition, a showcase in Londonfor the products and resources of the BritishEmpire (Fig. 9). Queensland appointed commis-sioners as early as January 1885 and their effortswere spurred on by a warning from the Agent-General, James Garrick, that 'much' was'expected of the Colony' at this event 58 (Fig. 10).Here the Australian colonies strove to out-do oneanother in the splendour of their courts and later

FIG. 10. Sir James Garrick, Queensland's Agent-Generaland Executive Commissioner for the Colonial andIndian Exhibition. He and other colonial com-missioners were knighted for their services to theexhibition. An able and popular Agent-General, Garrickwas said to be Queensland's 'best exhibit' in London.(John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland)

Garrick, as Queensland's Executive Commis-sioner, reported that his court was 'as muchadmired as any' for 'no effort was spared to dojustice to the Colony' . 59 Besides the court, boast-ing the largest collection of exhibits yet shown bythe colony, Queensland set up a full-sized goldbattery in a special enclosure in the exhibition'sSouth Promenade to convince British investors ofits mineral wealth. This was in turn surpassed in1899 by the colony's 'magnificent' display at theGreater Britain Exhibition, so important that theDepartments of Mines and Agriculture wereappointed as its organisers, instead of local corn-m issioners. Queensland's court at this exhibitionfilled the Queen's Palace building, taking up aspace of 30,000 square feet (Fig. 11). Its collec-tion of 'unlimited' resources was intended as an'object lesson' for 'Imperialists and Little Eng-landers' alike:' to restore confidence in the


FIG. 11. The Queen's Court at the Greater Britain Exhibition of 1899. At left is the 'bold Oriental facade' of theQueen's Palace where Queensland's court was located. (State Library of Victoria)

colony as a field for investment following theeconomic difficulties of recent years. The colonywas, it was claimed, now on a more steady path ofprogress, and its loyalty was blazoned by hun-dreds of Union Jacks suspended from the roof ofthe court and by a portrait of Queen Victoriawhich took 'the place of honour' at the entrance.'Queensland's display was applauded as 'one ofthe finest' ever shown by an Australian colony.'

The considerable costs of these displays inLondon were never seriously questioned, for itwas assumed they were of great benefit to the col-ony and would 'recompense the Governmentabundantly'.' When Executive CommissionerGarrick far exceeded his budget for the Colonialand Indian Exhibition, which eventually costQueensland up to £15,000,' he was forgiven, forhis government colleagues agreed that 'moneywas never more properly expended'.' Likewisethe government agreed that the colony 'got excel-lent value' for the £17,484 spent later on theGreater Britain Exhibition, which included £758for exhibiting space alone since this was acommercially-run event.' Expenditure on exhi-bitions elsewhere was, however, not sounanimously applauded and reached nothing like

the levels spent in the imperial capital. I focusmore closely on these London exhibitions in laterchapters.

Exhibitions often came at times when Queens-land could ill afford to participate. In 1866, as thecolony prepared exhibits for the forthcomingParis exhibition, it faced a financial crisis due tothe involvement of government finances with thefailed Agra and Masterman's bank, and a crip-pling drought lasting from 1865 brought tradealmost to a standstill. William Thorpe has shownthat despite the euphoria that followed the firstmajor gold strike at Gympie in 1867, Queens-land's economy remained depressed until late1872, when the colony was already maintainingits own annexe at London's annual exhibitions.Late in 1875, as more exhibits were prepared forthe Philadelphia exhibition, another severedrought began and the cotton crop 'failed utterly'.This was followed by a commercial recession andtrade remained depressed until early 1880, bywhich time Queensland had taken part in exhibi-tions at Paris in 1878 and Sydney in 1879-80 —exhibitions, it seemed, were 'pretty well playedout'." Thorpe has further shown that the 1880s,generally regarded as a boom time in Australia,


were not unbroken years of prosperity in Queens-land. In 1883, 1884 and 1887 unemployed'mechanics' demonstrated for restrictions onimmigration, while in 1884 a depression in northQueensland gave impetus to the northern separa-tion movement. In 1885, as more exhibits wereprepared for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition,another drought caused widespread stock lossesand disrupted goldfields, wool prices fell sharplyand an industrial depression brought furtherunemployment." Moreover, the perceived pros-perity of the 1880s was artificially maintained byextensive public borrowing which by the end ofthe decade gave Queensland the highest per cap-ita public debt of any British colony.

By 1891 British investors were losing faith in acolony where progress had been pushed forwardwith 'unwise haste'. The withdrawal of credit fol-lowed a series of bad seasons and in 1892, whencalled on to participate in the forthcoming Chi-cago exhibition, Queensland entered its mostserious depression ever, culminating the follow-ing year in a banking crisis after its worst floodsever recorded. In April 1892 the government wasforced, 'reluctantly', to withdraw from officialparticipation at Chicago.' The economy was stillfar from buoyant and the annual debt interestrepayment had risen to more than £1 million by1899 when the colony sent its grandest-ever dis-play to the Greater Britain Exhibition. This wason the eve of the devastating drought at the turn ofthe century which caused a deficit of £500,000 by1901 and was still not over when Queenslandtook part in the Glasgow exhibition. Such werethe vicissitudes of life in a colony troubled bydrought, deluge and debt. Despite the perennialinconvenience of exhibitions, only once, at Chi-cago, did colonial Queensland withdraw from anexhibition for economic reasons.

The demands made on the colony for exhibi-tions were paralleled at a personal level by thedeeds of its exhibition commissioners, of whom80% were 'Anglo-Colonials' born in Great Brit-ain or Ireland (see Appendix 3). 70 Many of theoverseas commissioners were returned colonists:men who had typically gone out to the colonyyoung, made good, then retreated 'home' to Brit-ain to lives of gentility; or former colonialadministrators for whom the return to Londonwas inevitable. 71 The first category were mostlyabsentee pastoral ists, merchants and miningmagnates, some representing banks, millingcompanies and other financial enterprises operat-ing in Queensland. The best known of these

FIG. 12. Arthur Hodgson, Queensland's long-timeexhibition commissioner, in 1868. He was laterknighted for his services to the Colonial and IndianExhibition. (John Oxley Library, State Library ofQueensland)

'absentees' was the Mount Morgan gold million-aire (`Croesus') William Knox D'Arcy, one ofthe original shareholders in the famous MountMorgan syndicate, whose princely lifestyle kepthim in the London social columns. 72 Also in thiscategory were agents-general, mostly former par-liamentarians, whose presence in London wasspecifically to represent the colony's interests.The second category included former governorsand Queensland's first Premier, Sir Robert Her-bert, who on return became Permanent UnderSecretary of the Colonial Office from 1871 to1892 and together with his second cousin, thefourth Earl of Carnarvon, is identified with theimperial expansion of those years. 73

The regular haunt of such men was the RoyalColonial Institute in central London, 'the recog-nised common gathering-ground for thoughtfulBritish colonists from every point of the com-pass', where the proposal for imperial federationwas hatched in 1884. OfQueensland's 163 exhib-ition commissioners, at least 60 were 'Fellows'(either resident or overseas) of the Royal Colo-nial Institute (see Appendix 3). From 1887


FIG. 13. The architect T.E. Colcutt's design for the Imperial Institute,London, opened in 1893. (Illustrated London News, 9 July 1887)

Queensland's returned 'pioneers' also gatheredin London for the Annual Queensland Dinners atwhich they toasted 'The Queen and a UnitedEmpire' and savoured the annual musical rendi-tion of 'The Old Bullock Dray'. The doyen ofthese 'pioneers' was Sir Arthur Hodgson (Fig.12), a well set up Darling Downs pastoralist andadvocate for Queensland from pre-separationdays, who was a commissioner for the colony atno less than seven overseas exhibitions." In 1886Hodgson was knighted for his services as a RoyalCommissioner and as general secretary to theReception (official entertainments) Committeeof the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, of whichhe was also a guarantor. Though well respected inEnglish society (his daughters married into thearistocracy), Hodgson was less popular in

Queensland when he com-mented on colonial matters. 'Itis not worth while wastingpaper on this dotardly PureMerino', wrote the outspoken-ly anti-imperial newspaper,the Boomerang, in response toHodgson's patriotic ram-blings read at the ColonialInstitute. There were mixedfeelings about opinionated,anti-democratic 'absentees' whohad 'made money by pickingQueensland's eyes out'."

Besides contributing toexhibitions, the British colo-nies were drawn into ahigh-flown scheme to bring'The Empire under one Roof'in a permanent museum (Fig.13). Following several earlierunsuccessful proposals toestablish a colonial museumin London from exhibitioncollections," the Prince ofWales revived the idea inmid-1886 during the Colonialand Indian Exhibition, lest itstreasures also be dispersed,and fixed on an Imperial Insti-tute as the principalfund-raising project for theQueen's golden jubilee. Hisassumption that the colonieswould leave their exhibits inLondon for the proposed insti-tute and contribute to itsfoundation and maintenance

costs met with a cautious response. By January1887, when the public appeal for funds waslaunched throughout the Empire, the institutewas to be, in the Prince's words, 'an emblem ofthe unity of the Empire' 77 and was to house Brit-ish as well as colonial exhibits. Officiallypromoted as an intelligence bureau for colonialemigration and trade, the institute was seen withsome scepticism in Australia as another steptowards imperial federation and 'a businessarrangement ... for making the colonies dumpinggrounds for British manufactures'." WhenQueensland's contribution of £2,029 to the Impe-rial Institute was finally approved by Parliamentin December 1887 the leader of the Opposition,Boyd Morehead, a native-born Australian,objected to colonial taxpayers having to pay 'one


farthing' to 'another fad of Imperialism' and sug-gested that 'Her Majesty might have put herhand in her own pocket ... to commemorate herJubilee'. The public appeal throughout the col-ony raised a mere £68/8/6 for the Prince's petproject.

For colonists like William Brookes, the non-conformist member for North Brisbane, theinstitute was just a remote 'brick warehouse'whose benefits were 'so indistinct' that they'could not see them at air.' Further, it was to berun by the same clique who had managed therecent exhibition, the Prince's friends or 'SouthKensington gang'. The Boomerang found theirundignified grab for funds and exhibits for theinstitute a disgrace to England and added: 'We'revery sorry Queensland is in it' . 8° Most ofQueensland's exhibits from the Colonial andIndian Exhibition were stored in London until theinstitute was officially opened in 1893 at SouthKensington, though some of the exhibits wereborrowed for Melbourne's exhibition of 1888-89.Queensland's court at the institute was main-tained with little enthusiasm, as a colonial visitorobserved: 'It was the most forlorn and God-forsaken portion of the Institute'.' Its contentshad become obsolete 'museum specimens' by1903 when Agent-General Tozer reported thatthe court was 'hardly ... worthwhile maintain-ing'. 82 Lacking popular support and vastlyover-scaled, the institute itself became, as JohnMacKenzie puts it, 'a mausoleum of imperialhopes, an expensive liability'. 83 By 1899 theinstitute was in such financial collapse that theBritish Government had to take it over.

Colonial loyalties were sometimes sorelytested at exhibitions. At Paris in 1855, the Austra-lians were disappointed to find that the Britishofficials had relegated their exhibits to a meagrecorner in a dim gallery. Again at Paris in 1867,the colonies were aggrieved enough by the 'inju-stice' of their treatment by the British officials tosend a memorial to the Colonial Office." AtPhiladelphia in 1876, it was reported that an 'ins-olent air of superiority ... marked all the relationsof the British Commissioners ... to their colonialconfreres'. Commissioner Angus Mackayarrived at Philadelphia to find that Richard Dain-tree's approved plan for the Queensland courthad been altered 'by no means for the better' toallow English carpets to be hung on the walls.Mackay, who succeeded in removing this 'un-sightly' intrusion, complained that ProfessorThomas C. Archer, the British Joint Executive

Commissioner for the exhibition, showed himself'totally oblivious of the existence of Australia,and indeed all the colonies'."

At the Colonial and Indian Exhibition the Aus-tralians considered that their wines did notreceive fair treatment from the British exhibitionofficials. In particular, Australian wine-growerswere aggrieved by a monopoly over the supply oftheir wines to the exhibition's refreshment con-tractors, the lack of a dining room sellingexclusively colonial wines and inadequate sam-pling facilities in the exhibition's bars. Thisdispute intensified colonial mistrust of the so-called 'South Kensington gang' who managedthis and the preceding London exhibitions, a mis-trust widely shared in London as newspapersmade allegations ofthe gang's 'princely hospital-ity', self indulgence and improper connectionswith exhibition contractors.' In October 1886,following public calls for a 'clean sweep' of theSouth Kensington officials, Sir Philip Cunliffe-Owen, the focus of colonial resentment, wasforced to resign from the management of theImperial Institute.' While the Australian colo-nies kept up a show of untroubled loyalty at theexhibition they were alarmed by the French inva-sion of the New Hebrides and by Britishacquiescence in the crisis. This invasion broughtnot only a stronger French presence in the Pacific,but also deported French criminals. The imperialgovernment's failure to defend the rights of itscolonial subjects in the Pacific sparked Austra-lian protests at the Colonial Conference held inLondon in 1887.

By 1888 when the centennial exhibitionopened in Melbourne, Queensland was seen asthe most radical of the Australian colonies overits refusal to share in maintaining an imperialnaval squadron in Australian waters. (Queenslandwas the last of the Australian colonies to ratify theimperial naval defence agreement made at thepreviously mentioned Colonial Conference, notratifying the agreement until 1891.) Morerecently, Queensland had rejected the imperialGovernor-nominee Sir Henry Arthur Blake,notorious for his 'pacification' work in Ireland(Fig. 14). This had followed a series of show-downs between the Nationalist Premier, SirThomas McIlwraith, and the Governor, SirAnthony Musgrave, culminating in Musgrave'ssudden death in October 1888. Queensland'sdefiance was still an issue of 'national' debatewhen Thomas MacDonald-Paterson, one of thecolony's executive commissioners at the exhibit-

li11111f5I111 11111111111111111: , ;

QU (NY,


FIG. 14. How the Boomerang newspaper saw an 'Exhibition of 1898', illustrating the tensions betweenQueensland and Britain at the time of Melbourne's centennial exhibition of 1888-89. In the large display caseare (right to left): 'The last imported Governor' — an embattled Sir Anthony Musgrave; 'This cow died ofdrought' — a victim of the current drought; 'An Imperial bribe' — the knighthood received by the formerPremier, Samuel Griffith, thereafter seen as an imperialist; and 'Embalmed Chinaman' — an unwantedimmigrant whose exclusion from Australia was opposed by Britain. (Boomerang, 18 Aug. 1888)

ion and a member ofthe Opposition, addressed anexhibition luncheon in Melbourne on 29 Novem-ber 1888, the day after the Victorian Parliamenthad condemned the actions of its sister colony. Inhis speech MacDonald-Paterson could not resistan opportunity to applaud Victoria's 'loyal'stand, and added that he believed most

Queenslanders were 'in complete sympathy'with Victoria. When news of the speech reachedthe north, MacDonald-Paterson was promptlyasked to resign his exhibition appointment: 'suchpublic utterances' were 'incompatible' with hisofficial post." Despite his protests, his appoint-ment was cancelled on 12 December. TheBoomerang of 22 December gleefully corn-


mented on the incident in a poem entitled 'To aQueensland Commissioner'(p. 8):

You have earned the 'sack' Mr. MacDonald-P.You have failed to perceive how the 'National' tideSets — hourly stronger, more deep and wide —A blunder is worse than a crime, don't you see?So get off the stage, Mr. MacDonald-P.

The tide of discontent did not turn until after thearrival of a more popular Governor, Sir HenryNorman, in May 1889. In 1899, whenQueensland mounted another show of loyalty atthe Greater Britain Exhibition and despatchedtroops to fight an imperial war in South Africa, itssugar industry faced ruin as a result of trade trea-ties between Great Britain and Continentalcountries which favoured European bounty-fedbeet sugar. Ironically, the exhibition purported topromote trade and strengthen the bonds of 'goodfeeling' within the Empire. While showing itssugars at the exhibition Queensland was activelysupporting the Anti-Bounty League to urge Brit-ain to remove the 'objectionable' bounties soadverse to colonial interests.

Queensland was less ready to cooperate withits sister colonies at exhibitions. Of the nine inter-national exhibitions held in Australia during thecolonial era, Queensland participated officiallyin only four (including one on home ground) andunofficially in three. Queensland had little optionin joining with its sister colonies at Australia'sfirst international exhibition, held in Sydney in1879-80. This exhibition marked Australia'sentry into the 'race of progress among thenations' and directed world attention to civilisat-ion's advances at the antipodes. Queensland'scourt was declared a 'grand success' and wonextra points for its 'energetic' Executive Com-missioner, Gresley Lukin (Fig. 15), as the firstcourt to be completed in time for the exhibition'sopening on 17 September 1879." Lukin, a well-known Brisbane journalist and a founder of theNational Agricultural and Industrial Associationof Queensland, had laboured hard for the court'ssuccess since his appointment in February 1879.Already by September, however, there had beengrumblings in Parliament about the probable costof the exhibition, particularly from members ofthe government 'sub-section' angered by Lukin'sjournalistic activities.' In February 1880 Lukinhad to resign from his official post due to insol-vency, but this did not stop an outcry over hisexpenditure when the exhibition closed. Thoughunpaid for his labours (which no doubt contrib-uted to his financial plight), Lukin's personalexpenses as a commissioner were considerable,

.gREPL,EY^UKIN,^Q.FROM A PO00000•911 IT W. MR1fIrMTT, RPISM•YM.

QUEENSLAND'S COMMISSIONER DOING THE HONORS.

FIG. 15. Gresley Lukin, Queensland's ExecutiveCommissioner for the Sydney exhibition of 1879-80,later criticised for his extravagance. (QueenslandPunch, 1 Nov. 1879)

including six trips to Sydney and over fourmonths' stay, sometimes accompanied by hisfamily, at a Sydney hotel. The government con-sidered his £650 claim for personal expenses farfrom 'moderate' and criticised him for havingpurchased or commissioned most of his exhibits


FIG. 16. The Central Avenue of the Melbourne exhibition of 1880-81, looking south. The entrance to Queensland'scourt is in the left foreground, recognisable by its huge pearl-shell trophy. (Australasian Sketcher, 23 Oct. 1880)


with public funds instead of borrowing themfrom public-spirited colonists.' The completeexhibition accounts were tabled in Parliament inJuly 1880, following scrutiny by the Auditor-General who found that Lukin had exceeded theparliamentary vote for the exhibition by some£2,000." Yet the total £8,777 spent on the Syd-ney exhibition was but a fraction of what thecolony spent on London exhibitions, for whichexhibits too had to be purchased.

Such parsimony towards Australian exhibitionscaused Queensland to vacillate over participationin Melbourne's event opening later in 1880, eventhough most of the Sydney exhibits could be (andlater were) sent on to Melbourne at relatively lit-tle cost. Maybe there were feelings of resentmenttowards Melbourne, as Queensland had proposedto hold its own international exhibition the sameyear but had to abandon the proposal when itbecame apparent that foreign exhibitors wouldnot contribute to both events.' Queensland'sdecision to mount a court at Melbourne in 1880-81 (Fig. 16) was not made until March 1880, lessthan seven months before the exhibition opened.Likewise Queensland's court at Melbourne'scentennial exhibition of 1888-89 was only a last-minute decision. This, the largest internationalexhibition to be held in Australia before Bris-bane's World Expo '88, was the climax ofcelebrations to mark 100 years of British settle-ment: 'a most useful landmark in the march ofAustralian progress '. 94 At first Queenslanddeclined to take part, prompting Victoria to urgeits sister to reconsider its decision and uphold 'thefederal feeling' at such a momentous event. InDecember 1887, following criticism in Parlia-ment of the 'very supine manner' in which thegovernment was treating the exhibition, it wasfinally agreed to mount a court.' By this timemost of the display space was already taken, leav-ing Queensland with a court of only 5,150 squarefeet, less than half the size of Tasmania's.Though Queensland's commissioners managedto secure exhibits within six months, it wasgenerally agreed that the cramped court wasunworthy ofthe colony or even, chipped the Boo-merang, 'a disgrace' 96 (Fig. 17). Additionaldisplay space had to be found elsewhere in theexhibition complex, in the general courts andalso in a separate Queensland conservatory. Eventhen, many of Queensland's exhibits, particularlythe minerals, could not be shown at all and werereturned to Brisbane in their unopened cases.

Queensland was reluctant to contribute to theother international exhibitions held in Australiaduring the colonial era, being only unofficiallyrepresented at Adelaide's jubilee exhibition of1887-88 and Tasmania's exhibitions of 1891-92(at Launceston) and 1894-95 (at Hobart), andtotally absent from Coolgardie's (1899) and Bal-larat's (1900-01) exhibitions (see Appendix 1 forthe official names of these exhibitions). Therewere good reasons, however, for Queensland'slack of enthusiasm for these relatively smallevents. Adelaide's came too soon afterQueensland's costly display at the Colonial andIndian Exhibition and exhibitors were unwillingto lend again, and besides, South Australia hadjust reneged on its share of the Australian upkeepof New Guinea (following the proclaimation of aBritish protectorate in 1884). Tasmania's exhibi-tions came about the time of Queensland's mostserious depression (which also forced its with-drawal from Chicago), Coolgardie's coincidedwith the Greater Britain Exhibition, and the invi-tation to Ballarat's minor affair came 'too late'."Unlike canvassing for population and capital atLondon exhibitions, the events held in sistercolonies could bring no great benefits. TheQueensland Punch noted sceptically:

There is an impression that we get some vagueindirect sort of return for the expense of keepingthe colon' before the public at these Southernshows ...

Nor was Queensland more willing to co-operatewith its sister colonies at exhibitions overseas inorder to intensify the Australian impact andshare the substantial costs of exhibiting.' Therewas no point in cooperating with fellow com-petitors for largesse from London. Victoria, inan attempt to organise a united court at Paris in1867, staged Australia's first intercolonial exhi-bition in Melbourne in 1866-67 as a preview ofthe exhibits bound for Paris. At the Melbourneexhibition, Queensland's exhibits were leftunpacked until the afternoon before the open-ing, when Victoria's Government Botanist,Ferdinand Mueller, came to the rescue and hur-riedly set up the Queensland court out offriendship with an exhibitor from Rockhampton,Anthelme Thozet (a botanical collector for Meul-ler). The Melbourne officials were equallynegligent later in forwarding Queensland'sexhibits on to Paris: they were carelessly packed,exhibitors' names were lost and some exhibitsnever left Melbourne. Consequently, the 'greatdissatisfaction' felt by many Queenslandexhibitors made them wary of exhibiting again


FIG. 17. The cramped Queensland court at the Melbourne exhibition of 1888-89, too small to show all thecolony's exhibits. Flower paintings by Ellis Rowan can be seen on the far wall, behind the mineral exhibits.(National Library of Australia)

and the government would not participate in thenext intercolonial exhibition, held in Sydney in1870 preparatory to the London event of 1871,without a 'guarantee' from New South Wales thatQueensland's exhibits would be safely des-patched to London.'

At Paris in 1867 the Australian colonies made atoken 'facade' of united action, in the form of acolonnade of their wool bales (Fig. 18) making a'unique' entrance to all the Victorian,Queensland and South Australian courts. For thePhiladelphia exhibition of 1876, Victoria againattempted to organise a united court, but onlyTasmania was willing to cooperate overseas inwhat was seen as a scheme of 'aggrandisement'to show Victoria's manufacturing superiorityover its sister colonies.' Along with WesternAustralia, Queensland declined even to take partin the Victorian Intercolonial Exhibition held inMelbourne in 1875 as a 'Colonial rehearsal' forPhiladelphia. The Victorian commissioners

eventually had to abandon their scheme withmuch regret:

... each Australian colony will indulge in a ri-valry with its neighbours, which, althoughfriendly and amicable, may somewhat militateagainst the effect which might have been expect-ed from the efforts of a combined Australia. 102

Queensland would not cooperate later in pro-posals to erect separate Australian pavilions atthe Paris exhibitions of 1878 and 1889, thoughthe colony had no intention of participating in thelatter anyway following an official boycott byBritain (and other European monarchies)because this exhibition marked the centenary ofthe French Revolution. Intercolonial jealousiesagain thwarted a united court at London in 1886.For Chicago's exhibition of 1893 New SouthWales made a valiant stand to 'carry out the spiritof Federation' at an exhibition, proposing that theAustralian colonies exhibit under the 'supremecontrol' of its Executive Commissioner. Finding


197

FIG. 18. The 'unique' entrance to the Australian courts at the Paris exhibition of 1867 — a colonnade of woolbales from three colonies. (Illustrated London News, 8 June 1867)

l ittle support for the proposal, Queensland againopted to act independently until its eventualwithdrawal from Chicago. There New SouthWales, the only Australian colony to exhibit offi-cially, occupied its own pavilion called'Australia House' and assumed its 'proper role,as the mother Colony and the gracious standard-bearer of Australia' 1 ' as news broke of thebank failures in eastern Australia. A plea by Vic-toria for a joint Australian court at Paris in 1900went unheeded when most of the colonies with-drew from the exhibition, leaving only WesternAustralia to exhibit officially. Finally at Glasgowin 1901 the two mining giants, Queensland andWestern Australia, competed fiercely for theattention of British investors. United action atexhibitions, then, was as unattainable as attemptsto establish reciprocal trade agreements amongthe colonies.

Intracolonial jealousies also surfaced at exhibi-tions, particularly the enduring resentment felt bynorth Queensland towards the south. The Rock-hampton district contributed a large assortment

of exhibits for the Paris exhibition of 1867,including about 350 timber samples collected bythe local botanist, Anthelme Thozet. Thozet alsocollected samples of Aboriginal foods to accom-pany a booklet, Roots, Tubers, Bulbs and Fruits,used as Vegetable Foods by the Aborigines ofNorth Queensland, prepared especially for theexhibition. Distressed later to find that someexhibits, including Thozet's booklet, neverreached Paris and that his timber and Aboriginalfood samples were shown under the name of 'aBrisbane pet', Walter Hill, the Rockhamptonexhibitors accused the Queensland commission-ers of 'shabbiness'. Arthur Hodgson, thecommissioner who had set up the court at Paris,responded that the blame more justly lay with theMelbourne exhibition officials who had so shame-fully neglected Queensland's exhibits (though theQueensland commissioners were also to blame fornot making better arrangements there). 104

Another quarrel with the north erupted in 1886when the Townsville Chamber of Commercewanted its pamphlet, Statistics for the Municipal-ity and District of Townsville for the Year 1866


up to the Year 1885, to be distributed in theQueensland court at the Colonial and IndianExhibition. The pamphlet had been written byWilliam Coote, the energetic secretary of theNorthern Separation League, and included aparagraph on the league's current scheme to col-lect 10,000 signatures for a petition to the Queen.Much to the frustration of the separationists,Agent-General Garrick refused to distribute thepamphlet in the court, claiming it lacked govern-ment approval, but this did not deter them fromdespatching their petition to London in July1886, during the exhibition, and campaigning inBritain. In 1887 the Colonial Office rejected theseparationists' case, declaring that the issue hadto be resolved by the Queensland Parliament.'

Finally in 1897 Queensland held its own (anduntil 1988, only) international exhibition. Fromits genesis in a public meeting on 2 September1895, it was clear that this would not be a state-sponsored event. Indeed the initiative came fromthe veteran Australian exhibition organiser, JulesJoubert (Fig. 19), an early champion of the Syd-ney international exhibition and later promoter ofexhibitions in New Zealand, India and morerecently, at Launceston (1891-92) and Hobart(1894-95). His claim to be able run exhibitions'on the soundest of principles' with neither defi-cits nor 'red tape' I " made good sense inQueensland at a time of restraint in governmentspending. With the support of some of Brisbane'sleading businessmen, the Queensland Interna-tional Exhibition Company was formed on 26September I 895 to implement Joubert's scheme.Its capital, of £10,000 in £1 shares, was largelycontributed by Brisbane citizens each holdingone or two shares, but Joubert himself was sensi-ble enough to hold shares only at the company'sformation.' As General Manager of the exhibi-tion Joubert then hired Brisbane's existingExhibition Grounds and Building at Bowen Parkfrom the National Agricultural and IndustrialAssociation of Queensland, and purchased 'te-mporary' annexes from his recent Hobartexhibition. But the success of his Brisbane exhi-bition was soon jeopardised by its lack ofgovernment patronage which proved discourag-ing to outside exhibitors. Moreover, theQueensland Government left it too late to arrangethe appointment of a Royal Commission in Brit-ain to secure international standing and widepublicity for the event, an advantage enjoyed byother Australian exhibitions.

FIG. 19. The veteran Australian exhibition organiser,Jules Joubert, who was General Manager of theQueensland International Exhibition of 1897.(Mitchell Library, State Library ofNew South Wales)

What the government did provide were a seriesof three official courts proclaiming the success ofits policies on mining, agriculture and education(the mining court was destined for another show-ing overseas), and Aboriginal amusementsoffering both spectacle and propaganda. Thegovernment also contributed to the costs offreight and display space for district exhibits,especially exhibits from the north. (The Sydneyand Melbourne exhibitions, by contrast, receivedsubstantial government support — for theirbuildings, exhibits and for making-good theirdeficits.) When the Queensland InternationalExhibition opened on 5 May 1897 (Fig. 20), itsChairman of Directors, the Brisbane merchantThomas Finney, could boast that it had beenachieved 'without a penny' of direct governmentsupport and this was why its opening ceremonylacked the 'pomp and circumstance' of the stateopenings of the Sydney and Melbourne events.'"The Brisbane exhibition also lacked much of theusual exhibition rhetoric, being without a cantataor even an ode. With its electric installation latefor the opening (which left exhibits plunged in

FIG. 20. The opening of the Queensland International Exhibition in theconcert hall of the Exhibition Building at Bowen Park, Brisbane, on 5 May1897. The exhibition was opened by Queensland's Governor, LordLamington. (Queenslander, 15 May 1897)


darkness) and many of the overseas exhibits alsolate, the exhibition proved a disappointment tomost visitors, though its mining court andbush-house were acclaimed its best attractions.Exhibits from sister colonies were conspicuousby their absence, with only New Zealand contrib-uting an official court, and in the absence of manyforeign exhibits `the lion's share' of displayspace was taken by British manufacturers (ortheir local agents) who showed everything 'froma needle to a steam engine'.'

Faced with increasing financial problems, thedirectors appealed to the government for belatedsupport to keep the exhibition open after the firstmonth. The government agreed to purchase theannexes for £1,000, a fraction of the £3,500 theexhibition company claimed it had spent onthem," ° and more live entertainments wereoffered. But attendances remained low until thefinal week when Brisbane's annual agriculturalexhibition (held in conjunction with the interna-tional event) brought an influx of country visitorsto town. By the time the international exhibitionclosed on 14 August, the total attendances for itsthree-month duration were only 220,814, ofwhich 72,000 were during the three days of theagricultural exhibition. When one compares themore than a million attendances at Sydney's andMelbourne's exhibitions, including the two

million-odd at the 1888-89exhibition, it is not surprisingthat a contemporary dismissedBrisbane's as a 'ghastlyshow'.'" (Its ratio of atten-dances to the colony'spopulation was 45%, whereasthe ratios for the Sydney andMelbourne exhibitions wereover 150%. It should beconceded, however, thatBrisbane's event was disad-vantaged by its remotenessfrom much of the colony'spopulation and by the decen-tralised railways which do notconverge on Brisbane.) Therewas no ceremony to mark thepassing of Brisbane's exhibi-tion and Joubert seems to haveleft the city quietly, his exhibi-tion career all but over. TheQueensland InternationalExhibition Company wentinto voluntary liquidation inNovember 1897, still owing

rent to the National Association and adding to theassociation's financial troubles, which resulted inits surrender of the Exhibition Building to thegovernment soon afterwards.

In this chapter I have shown how colonialQueensland's involvement in exhibitions variedfrom wholehearted support for London exhibi-tions to more sparing support for Australianexhibitions, including the one on home ground.This support for Britain and British interests atexhibitions was the price that Queensland paidfor economic dependence, which by the end ofthe 1880s produced a huge public debt. But Brit-ish attempts at this time to 'consolidate' theEmpire sparked a nationalist response inQueensland and its defiance became a 'national'issue during the Melbourne exhibition of 1888-89. The economic crisis of the early 1890s, how-ever, tightened the bonds of dependence andsuppressed nationalist sentiment, and at the endof the decade the colony made its grandest-everdisplay in London. Participation in Australianexhibitions brought none of the perceived bene-fits of London exhibitions, while cooperationwith sister colonies at overseas exhibitionsproved unattainable. Hence exhibitions effec-tively chart the course of Queensland'sincreasing dependence on Britain, and also itsmore ambiguous relationship with its sister cob-


FIG. 21. 'A museum of curiosities' — Queensland's court at the Melbourne exhibition of 1880-81. The exhibitsare (left to right): the fibres trophy, the pearl-shell trophy and natural history specimens. Ornamenting the wallsare live staghorn and elkhorn ferns, while littering the floor are macrozamia plants and clam-shells. (La TrobePicture Collection, State Library of Victoria)

flies, finally resolved in 1901 with federation.Thereafter Queensland contributed to joint Aus-tralian exhibits, first at London's Franco-BritishExhibition of 1908 and San Francisco'sPanama-Pacific Exhibition of 1915, and later atthe imperial exhibitions at Wembley in 1924-25and Glasgow in 1938. 1 '

CHAPTER 2

'RAW PRODUCTS OF NATURE IN BULK'

Colonial Queensland soon became identified atexhibitions with its vast storehouse of naturalproducts and the produce of its staple industries.These exhibits were remarkably consistent dur-ing 50 years in the predominance of raw products

over local arts and manufactures. With its tropi-cal exotica and minerals, Queensland's court atMelbourne in 1880-81 was 'a museum ofcuriosities' m (Fig. 21) compared with the otherAustralian courts that could boast a veneer of cul-ture and the products of burgeoningmanufacturing industries. Applying for space forthe colony at the forthcoming Chicago exhibit-ion, the Premier Sir Samuel Griffith wrote that'the exhibits from Queensland will probably con-sist for the most part of raw products of nature inbulk'."" In this chapter I look at the selection ofexhibits to show what signified colonial progressat exhibitions and what was hidden from view.The exhibits provide glimpses of a frontier soci-ety: white, materialistic, masculinist and brash,and economically dependent on Britain. I also


look at the presentation and handling of exhibits,which by world standards were unadventurousand even amateurish. Yet Queensland's courtswere applauded for their distinctiveness befitting'the push and vigour' of a young colony,' andwere never criticised for their want of interest orfor the blatant commercialism (or `shoppiness')that often marred the displays of industrialisednations.

Economic dependence on Britain determinednot only where Queensland exhibited but alsowhat was exhibited. The exhibits reflected thevarying needs for British investment as the cen-tury progressed: cotton was dominant in the1860s; sugar, wool and minerals in the 1870s and1880s; then minerals became increasingly domi-nant so that by the end of the centuryQueensland's contributions to exhibitions wereessentially large collections of minerals. SinceBritish investment in Australia was directed tothe production and transport of raw materials andfoodstuffs for the imperial market, there weregood reasons for showing these rather thanmanufactures that might have been seen as com-peting with British goods.

At the Brisbane preview of Queensland's firstdisplay at London in 1862, Dr William Hobbsexplained that he and his fellow commissionershad aimed chiefly 'to collect those articles ... thatare usually classified as Raw Materials, andmany of which can be produced in this colony inalmost unlimited quantities'." 9 ThereafterQueensland was represented at exhibitions as a'young giant', the youngest of the Australiancolonies by some years, so richly endowed bynature that the colonists were preoccupied with'picking up the riches ... at their feet' and 'brin-ging the raw material into marketable shape'instead of making progress in arts or manufac-tures.' In 1885 Queensland's commissionersfor the Colonial and Indian Exhibition explainedthat their 'chief object' was 'to prove to the worldthe immense metallic, mineral and agriculturalresources' of their colony, adding that 'in themachinery line the colony will probably take aback seat'. Later reporting on Queensland's courtat this event, the commissioners wrote:

To the casual observer the ... court may not beso attractive ... as those of older and morewealthy communities; but it will assuredly dem-onstrate to the capitalist ... the magnitude of ourmineral wealth, and of our unequalled resourcesin almost every field of investment ... and whichnow only await development at their hands. 18

In 1892 Queensland's proposed commissionersfor the Chicago exhibition recommended thattheir exhibits 'eliminate ... all machinery andnearly all manufactured goods' ." 9 Finally atGlasgow in 1901 the British Australasian (thenewspaper read by Australians in Britain)remarked that: 'The Queensland collection ispractically one of minerals; no attempt is made torepresent the various interests of the State as awhole'.' Hence Queensland's displays at exhi-bitions conformed to what was expected of aneconomically dependent and under-developedcolony, unlike Victoria's, which, with their pre-dominance of arts and manufactures, were lik-ened to British displays (Fig. 22).

Queensland's exhibition commissioners wereappointed above all to represent the economicconcerns of the colony. Of the 163 commission-ers appointed throughout the colonial era andoften to successive exhibitions (see Appendix 3):56 had known financial interests in the pastoralindustry, 35 in the mining industry, 16 in agricul-ture, and 35 were involved in business or finance(as company directors, bankers, merchants,agents or accountants). Of the latter category,many were directly involved in the transfer ofBritish capital to public and private enterprise inthe colony. In addition, three of the commission-ers were shipping magnates or agents involved inthe transfer of people and commodities. These'Distinguished Persons', as commissioners weresometimes called, represented the colony's rul-ing class as well as its economic elite: no less than61 were one-time members of Parliament in Aus-tralia (that is, in Queensland or New SouthWales), 34 were one-time senior public servantsin Queensland, 15 were legal practitioners(including judges), and 6 were one-time gover-nors, acting or lieutenant governors or governors'secretaries. The commissioners also representedthe colony's intellectual elite, for many weremembers of its leading scientific societies: thePhilosophical Society and its successor the RoyalSociety, the Acclimatisation Society and the RoyalGeographical Society. Others were trustees oftheQueensland Museum or accredited members oflearned societies overseas. Further, as I havenoted in Chapter 1, 80% of commissioners wereBritish-born and at least 60, as members of theRoyal Colonial Institute, were avowed imperialists.

The selection of commissioners varied onlyaccording to the economic concerns of the day:until the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886commissioners with pastoral interests predomi-


FIG. 22. The Victorian court at the Sydney exhibition of 1879-80, with a predominance of arts and manufactures.(John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland)

nated, but from the Melbourne exhibition of1888-89 the mining men became so numerousthat they took over Queensland's show at theGreater Britain Exhibition and later at Glasgow.Significantly, of the 163 commissioners, only 5were manufacturers, a mere fraction of the bandof manufacturers who ran Victoria's exhibitions.Even scarcer were any commissioners specifi-cally representing cultural concerns, such asartists, writers or architects, as were appointed bysister colonies. Queensland's commissioners,then, represented material progress and rulingvalues. In the words of the commissioners for thePhiladelphia exhibition, they 'carefully avoidedentering into either the political or social aspects'of the colony, but aimed, rather, to promote its'vast avenues ... for the investment of capital andthe employment of labour'. 121 And like MatthewSwinburne, a Darling Downs pastoralistappointed a commissioner for the Greater Britain

Exhibition, they shared a 'boundless faith' in thefuture of the colony and were 'ever ready' to singits praises.'"

By consistently representing a resource-richfrontier, Queensland's commissioners ran therisk of damning their colony as `half-civilised'(asoriental races were often damned at exhibitions),for Michael Adas has shown that technologicaland scientific achievement was central to the19th-century gauge of human progress.'" It wasto the machinery annexes that exhibition-goerswent to see the most striking evidence ofadvanced civilisation. Surveying the mammothsteam engines at the Great Exhibition, QueenVictoria was overcome with admiration for 'thegreatness of man's mind, which can devise ...such wonderful inventions' (Fig. 23). On theother hand the art galleries at exhibitions weretesting-grounds of national taste and cultural

FIG. 23. British blast engines in the industrial department of the Londonexhibition of 1862. Here, wrote the Australian exhibition organiser, JohnGeorge Knight, were machines 'so entirely the creations of intense thought,that they appear almost to think themselves'. (Illustrated London News, 20Sept. 1862)


attainment, especially at Paris exhibitions whereFrench and British artists vied for supremacy.Human achievement was often accorded an offi-cial position of supremacy at exhibitions. AtParis in 1867 the exhibits were arranged in con-centric galleries that 'progressed' from rawproducts in the second outermost gallery to finearts near the central courtyard. Similarly theoriginal classification system at Philadelphiaplaced raw products at the base, with categoriesascending according to the application of humanskill. At Melbourne in 1880-81 gold medals werereserved for arts and exhibits showing the 'appl-ication of new and useful principles' or 'greatskill in manufacture, invention or design', henceraw products, even those that had received a FirstOrder of Merit, were ineligible (much toQueensland's dissatisfaction).

By showing raw products over arts and manu-factures at these events, how could Queenslandattest its place in the onward march of progress,especially to prospective investors or immi-grants? These raw product exhibits portrayedQueensland as a land of opportunity withresources to sustain any number of investors orimmigrants — resources enough to 'raise a deadspeculator from his grave', claimed the exhibi-tion propagandist Horace Earle.' 25 But these raw

product exhibits signifiedmore than potential wealth, forthey showed howQueensland's colonists couldexploit its vast resources withthe aid of science and technol-ogy. Other exhibits such asmaps and photographsrecorded civilisation'sadvance by way of towns,artesian bores, railways andtelegraphs, etc., while books,newspapers and educationalexhibits testified to culturalprogress. All these were proofthat colonists were transform-ing 'a land by civilisation'sstep untrod'. Stark contrastswere drawn at exhibitionsbetween the 'barbarism' ofAustralia's first Aboriginalinhabitants deemed incapableof exploiting its resources, andthe civilisation of 'progre-ssive' colonists. I look moreclosely at these exhibits inlater chapters.

This insistence on showing raw products wasmore a conscious choice than a reflection of con-ditions in the colony. The historian GeoffreyBolton asserts that in 1870 when exhibits weresought for the forthcoming London exhibition,Queensland was 'lamentably short' of artists andits 'artistic output was mainly confined to thediscreetly amateurish watercolours of a fewenthusiastic ladies'.' There is no evidence tosupport this assertion. Among those active at thetime were Auschar C. Chauncy and JosephAugustus Clarke, both professionally trained inEurope, and the visiting Sydney artist JosephBackler, portraitist of Governor Blackall. Andamong the so-called 'enthusiastic ladies' wasEliza Hodgson, a pupil of the Sydney artist Con-rad Martens and wife of the long-time exhibitioncommissioner Arthur Hodgson, though her workwas never shown publicly. Of course in lateryears there were many more artists who couldhave represented the colony's cultural progress,yet the only local artists to have a consistent pres-ence at international exhibitions were AnthonyAlder and Oscar Fristroni, the former more in hiscapacity as a taxidermist and artificer. Only once,at Melbourne in 1888-89, did Queensland showenough art works to attract the praise of art critics,

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FIG. 24. Victoria's bush hut and surveyors' camp at the Paris exhibition of 1878. This recreation of colonial lifewas probably the inspiration of George Collins Levey, secretary to Victoria's commissioners for the exhibition.(International Exhibition at Paris, 1878. Report of the Commissioners for Victoria)

but their praise was reserved for the works of avisiting flower painter from Victoria, EllisRowan, already well known to Melbourne audi-ences.'"

Nor did Queensland lack skilled artisans, asproved by its fine exhibits of local joinery andfurniture at international exhibitions, thoughthese were intended to show the beauty ofQueensland's timbers more than the skills of itsartisans. Other Australian colonies, by contrast,were proud to show the work of their artists andartisans at exhibitions. Victoria's court at Viennahad some 'conspicuous' landscapes by Eugenvon Gu6rard, which proved that in its 'haste to getriches' it did not 'ignore ... those pursuits whichhave an educating and refining influence on themind'.'' Later Victoria could boast 'a very cred-itable picture gallery' in its court at the GreaterBritain Exhibition. Queensland's lack of artexhibits could be seen as a tactical oversight, forthe exhibition organiser R.E.N. Twopenyobserved that 'no parts of the International Exhi-bitions were so well attended as the Art Galleries'and these were what caught the eye of Brisbane'sNehemiah Bartley when he visited the Sydneyand Melbourne events.' Public interest in genrepictures was seemingly insatiable and causedheated debate over the awarding of art prizes atthe Melbourne exhibitions.

Likewise, Queensland's constant plea that itsmanufactures were 'of necessity' deficient com-pared with those of its 'elder sisters''' was notentirely accurate, for even country towns had arange of manufacturing industries, from brewer-ies to foundries, which supplemented importedgoods more than is so today. Already by the

1870s Queensland foundries, such as JohnWalker and Company of Maryborough andSmellie and Company of Brisbane, were compet-ing with southern and British firms to supply themassive sugar and mining machinery needed in-creasingly in the colony. Manufacturing expandedrapidly in the 1880s when Queensland's factoryworkforce almost trebled to 16,000, representinga more rapid increase than occurred in the southerncolonies during this decade. The manufacturingsector continued to expand in the 1890s, particu-larly in Brisbane, prompting the introduction offactory legislation in 1896 and 1900.

Also absent from Queensland's courts was abalanced representation of everyday life in thecolony. The domestic domain, the contributionsof women and other disenfranchised groups, andthe colony's simmering inter-racial tensionswere kept peripheral to the march of progress.The photographs of Queensland's pioneeringexhibitor, Richard Daintree, were said to give a'new chum' a foretaste of life in the colony but asIan Sanker notes, the photographs show thatDaintree 'was more interested in "eolo G y , scen-ery and industry, than in people'. 61 Women andchildren are almost totally absent from Dain-tree's record of life in the colony where, he wrote,the evils of English society 'do not obtain' and'pauperism is unknown'.'' Yet other nationsattempted to portray everyday life at exhibitions.Among the most popular exhibits at the GreatExhibition were a series of 'ethnographical' fig-ures 'illustrative of foreign costumes andmanners'. At Paris in 1867 the first of the so-called cultural exhibits were introduced, The His-tory of Labour which traced human labour fromprehistoric times to the present, and a section


FIG. 25. Queensland's pioneer hut at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886. Here a gold battery wasoperated under the supervision of the engineer J.N. Longden (standing in the centre, presumably), and alluvialgold washing was demonstrated by a Queensland miner, Henry Aldridge (standing above). (John OxleyLibrary, State Library of Queensland)

called Social and Moral Problems. Later at Phila-delphia tableaux of the American frontier,including a New England farmer's log-house anda Western hunter's camp, were recreated to showthe progress of American civilisation over thepast century. At Paris in 1878 many nationsoffered tableaux of (albeit idealised) 'peasant'life in their pavilions on the Rue des Nations (aninnovation of this exhibition) and ethnic amuse-ments in association with their kiosks and cafés inthe exhibition's pleasure grounds.

Here Victoria was the first Australian colony touse a full-sized replica of a bush hut and survey-ors' camp to give visitors a 'peep' at colonial life(Fig. 24). Victoria's hut, disguising a cellar ofcolonial wines, had live cockatoos chatteringfrom perches under the eaves and was sur-rounded by a garden of Australian plants. At theMelbourne exhibition of 1880-81 South Austra-lia was the next to recreate a pioneer hut, as partof a more ambitious Australian 'bush scene'

incorporating animals and life-sized figures ofcolonists and Aboriginal people. At the Colonialand Indian Exhibition New South Wales, SouthAustralia and Queensland all had pioneer huts,but Queensland's was an over-sized structuredevoid of any homely props. Instead it housed anoperating gold battery and inside its walls werecovered with plans, maps and photographs of thecolony's goldfields, and its noise level was any-thing but homely (Fig. 25). Significantly, none ofthese pioneer huts made any acknowledgment ofwomen — the 19th-century Australian bush tra-dition was strongly masculinist.

The Colonial and Indian was the only exhibi-tion at which Queensland's commissioners madea concerted attempt to represent (albeit male) pio-neer life. Besides the pioneer hut, they showed aseries of stockmen's saddles, pack-bags, whipsand boots, a bullock dray, a model of a bushman'shut made by the Bowen gardener William Shannand a model of a stockyard made by the Central


Queensland pastoralist Frederick ArchibaldBlackman.' Also at this exhibition, pioneer lifewas described in an essay written especially byPrice Fletcher, the agricultural editor of theQueensZander newspaper, one of a series of 15'popular' essays edited by Fletcher for this event.Titled Hints to Immigrants: A Practical Essayupon Bush-Life in Queensland, Fletcher's essayoffered 'practical' advice on all aspects of colo-nial life from selecting land to making bushfurniture from packing cases and flour bags.(Regrettably, the advice was not accompanied byactual exhibits.) Later at the Queensland Interna-tional Exhibition no attempt was made torepresent colonial life or the early history of thecolony.

Women were conspicuously absent fromQueensland's courts,' yet they were often offi-cially recognised at exhibitions. Philadelphia hadthe first separate women's pavilion to be erectedat an international exhibition, while the Sydneyand Melbourne events had separate 'Ladies'Courts', but all these made only token recogni-tion of women through handicrafts. Moresubstantial recognition came later at the Chicagoexhibition which set up a Board of Lady Manag-ers early in the planning process. Apart fromorganising a Women's Building designed by awoman architect and housing the most extensivewomen's exhibits ever assembled, the LadyManagers planned an International Congress ofRepresentative Women to address such 'greatthemes' as women's suffrage, moral and socialreform, even dress reform. Chicago's Lady Man-agers sought cooperation from all quarters of theglobe and in March 1892 wrote to Queensland torequest that a women's commission be appointedto secure 'a full and representative exhibit of theartistic, industrial, educational and philanthropicwork' of its women." Premier Griffith wasunwilling to grant this request when Queenslandhad already withdrawn from the exhibition,'and the colony's only response was to forwardreports on women's philanthropic work.' (NewSouth Wales, by contrast, appointed a women'scommission and had a court in the Women'sBuilding at Chicago.)

It is hardly surprising that women wereexcluded from Queensland's exhibition displayswhen they were also excluded from its major pro-ductive industries (pastoral, mining and sugar).As Kay Saunders and Katie Spearritt point out,the role of women in Queensland was not as con-tributors to productive wealth, but as contributors

to population increase. Queensland women con-sistently contributed the highest crude birth rateof all the Australian colonies.' There were nowomen among Queensland's 236 exhibitioncommissioner appointments, though femaleexhibition commissioners were not unknownelsewhere, and there is no evidence that women'sorganisations in Queensland were everapproached to collect exhibits. Local womenwere not properly represented at an exhibitionoutside Queensland until the First AustralianExhibition of Women's Work, held in Melbournein 1907. The neglect ofwomen at exhibitions wasa sore point for an anonymous correspondent tothe Queenslander newspaper who enquired inSeptember 1895 whether a women's section, oreven a women's committee, was to be included inthe forthcoming Queensland International Exhi-bition.' A women's committee later ensuredthat a women's court was included, but itscramped space and predictable handicraft exhib-its confirmed the subordinate status ofQueensland's women, outside the male preservesof politics, well-paid employment or even legalprotection.

Moreover, Queensland's courts at overseasexhibitions made no special gestures to womenvisitors throughout the colonial era, despite theconstant demand for young female emigrants tomeet the colony's shortage of domestic labourand to redress the gender imbalance outside thetowns. Given that departing emigrants wererepeatedly assured of 'the husbands waiting forthem in sunny Queensland', one might ask whysome fine representations of colonial manhood— some wax figures — were never shown in thecourts to lure female visitors to greener pastures.Queensland's modest stall at London's Women'sInternational Exhibition of 1900 was not offi-cially planned but the inspiration of an energeticemigration agent, August Larsen, who was laterthreatened with dismissal for his pains when oneof the emigrants recruited at the exhibitionclaimed he had 'misrepresented' her future pros-pects in the colony.'' Larsen's experiment wasnot repeated at the Glasgow exhibition, whichhad a large women's section.

Though Queensland rarely represented cul-tural and domestic life at internationalexhibitions, local agricultural exhibitions oftenincluded classes for fine arts and `Women'sindustries' (or sometimes sewing was subsumedinto 'Clothing' or 'Schools' work') (Fig. 26).Queensland's First Intercolonial Exhibition of


FIG. 26. The south transept of Brisbane's Second Intercolonial Exhibition of 1877. Locally crafted leather frames(foreground) and a patchwork quilt (on the far wall) supplement the displays by local merchants. (John OxleyLibrary, State library of Queensland)

1876 also included a class for 'Apparatus andapplication of liberal arts'. The National Agricul-tural and Industrial Association of Queensland'slater exhibitions in Brisbane had well-contestedclasses for furniture and artisans' work, and in the1880s and 1890s fine arts sections were added,requiring the addition of an art gallery to Bris-bane's (first) Exhibition Building in 1887.Likewise the Queensland International Exhibi-tion had sections for fine and applied arts as wellas the women's court. It seems, then, that suchnon-commodity resources could be acknowl-edged at home, but were not important enough, orgood enough, to be shown elsewhere.

Manufactures also had a better showing athome than elsewhere. Richard Daintree couldboast that Toowoomba and Drayton's exhibitionof 1873 included 'excellent' agricultural imple-

ments from the Toowoomba Foundry."' Suchlocally-made implements were shown at agricul-tural exhibitions throughout the colony, one ofthe keenest exhibitors in this class being the Bris-bane agricultural implement maker AlexanderMcLean who exhibited from the 1870s until theturn of the century (later as A. McLean and Com-pany). Among the varied displays of localmanufactures at the Queensland InternationalExhibition were food and beverages, clothingand woollen goods, furniture, carriages, pottery,electrical equipment, even white ant extermina-tor. The most impressive of these localmanufactures were shown by John Walker andCompany's foundry and engineering works ofMaryborough. Besides 'a mass' of sugar andmining machinery, the company showed a 56-ton(class B15) goods locomotive, one of its current


FIG. 27. Queensland's court at the Sydney exhibition of 1879-80, looking towards the transept. Here cloths fromthe Queensland Woollen Manufacturing Company can be seen on the stand in the centre and Richard Daintree'sphotographs on the panel on the right. (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales)

contract for 30 locomotives for the.QueenslandRailways. This locomotive, hailed as the 'finestspecimen of a steam engine' in the exhibition,won Walker's a gold medal.' But at exhibitionsoutside Queensland there was nothing to begained by 'invidious comparisons' of localmanufactures (intended for the home market)against those of more industrialised neighboursor suppliers. 143 Such comparisons occurred whenwoollen cloths from the newly-establishedQueensland Woollen Manufacturing Companyof Ipswich were first shown at the Sydney exhi-bition of 1879-80: they were 'not considered bythe judges to have the perfection visible in theexhibits ofthe other colonial courts' ! " (Fig. 27).

Queensland's courts at exhibitions lacked con-sistency of design, achieving a distinctivenessmore from their exhibits. These were generallyarranged with little artistry, as was observed atParis in 1867 (Fig. 28):

... we are content to display our goods ranged inthe most formal manner, as if with a sort of pro-test that they are too good to require any artificial

recommendation ... we are content to be tidyand nothing more. 145

Order and tidiness ruled Queensland's displays atthe London exhibitions of 1872-74 (Fig. 29) andat Vienna in 1873, Philadelphia in 1876 andParis in 1878, where Richard Daintree's strictly'geological' arrangement was used.' Here thecourts were divided into sections for the colony'sdifferent geological formations, each representedby photographs and, in cases beneath the photo-graphs, mineral specimens and typical products,and all neatly captioned. Daintree's captionsmounted onto the walls 'in white letters on ablack ground' served as a catalogue toQueensland's annexe at the London exhibi-tions.' 47 Though lacking in artistry, these dis-plays were readily appreciated by visitors moreaccustomed to 'picturesque confusion' at exhibi-tions. The London Graphic claimed a briefinspection of the annexe 'would afford a betteridea of Queensland than is possessed by manypersons who have lived in that country half theirlives', while the Evening Standard found theannexe 'a perfect model of what such a display


209

FIG. 28. The Queensland court at the Paris exhibition oftidy and nothing more'. (Rare Book Collection, State

should be'.'" Queensland's court at Philadelphiawon an award for its 'systematic arrangement ofexhibits' (Fig. 67).

Recalling Queensland's annexe at the Londonexhibitions, Joseph Beaumont, a resident mem-ber of the Royal Colonial Institute, wrote:

It was so arranged as to attract the attention, notonly of those who were already well-informedor observant, but even of the ignorant ... In theQueensland Exhibition the interest was greatlyhelped by the numerous pictures, drawings, andmaps, which attracted and even commanded theattention. Then, when the mind thus realised notonly where the place was but something of whatit was and what it was like, they had differentproductions presented in something like order,and order which pleased the mind, excited thefancy, and taught people what they did not know.

For Beaumont Queensland's displays were awelcome change from the collections of 'dingyand ill-arranged Colonial produce' so often seenat exhibitions: 'odd lots of dirty cotton, wool ...or bits of ores and stones which one ought toappreciate and cannot'."

1867, described as 'ranged in the most formal manner ...Library of Victoria)

Queensland's later courts lacked the precisionof Daintree's displays but retained their distinct-ive exhibits. Reporting on Queensland's court atSydney in 1879-80, the Sydney Morning Heraldwrote:

The decorations, if we may so style them ... arefew and simple. They call for little remark, forthe objects exhibited are in themselves so pleas-ing, as not to need much embellishment. I ' l

What most impressed the Sydney Mail about thiscourt was its abundance of tropical productswhich gave it a 'distinctiveness' among the Aus-tralian courts.' Later at Melbourne in 1880-81the Argus reporter found the exhibits themselveswere enough to impress:

... see how brightly the pearly mound of shellsshines in the foreground; how impressive andsolid the piles of copper and tin ingots look; howexcellently the leathers adorn the walls, and howluxuriant seem the sheaves of natural grasses - 153

The Queenslander added that here 'little attemptat display' had been made.' The courts at Lon-don in 1886, Melbourne in 1888-89 and Glasgowin 1901 were presented with more finesse due to


FIG. 29. The Queensland annexe at the London exhibition of 1873, showing Richard Daintree's 'geological'arrangement of exhibits. (Queensland Museum)

the involvement of professional decorators,'though their schemes were not always appropri-ate to the exhibits. At Melbourne the decoratorschose a 'Moorish' (or 'Arabesque') facade for thecourt to add a touch of eastern exoticism (Fig.30), causing the Boomerang to complain: 'Thecolony is misrepresented by a hideous copy of thefront of a Moorish mosque — what hasQueensland to do with Moorish mosques?' Worsestill, it continued, this 'abortion' was directly oppo-site the entrance to the 'elaborate and tasteful'German court.' At Glasgow the decorators usedover 140 coloured electric lamps to illuminate the(mostly) mineral exhibits in 'pretty' rainbow col-ours. Some of the minerals were displayed in four'specially-designed' octagonal cases capped bycoloured domes, more befitting a display of lux-ury goods in a department store (Fig. 81). GeorgeCornish, the assistant manager of the court atGlasgow, predicted that visitors would be drawnby the sheer 'beauty' of Queensland's show.'

Of more vital concern to the colony was tosecure its display space in one block. In 1875Richard Daintree advised the Colonial Secretary

that Queensland's participation in the forthcom-ing Philadelphia exhibition should be'conditional' on 'all exhibits being together',otherwise the colony should 'not ... appear atall '. 1s8 George King, Queensland's Executive Com-missioner for the Melbourne event of 1880-81,wrote to the local officials:

Collectively our exhibits will make a very fairshow, scattered however they would convey buta poor impression ... We lay considerable stresson the locality because our exhibits from theirnature cannot be shown everywhere to equal ad-vantage.

Later King advised that Queensland's railwaycarriage (Fig. 55), which had attracted muchattention at the Sydney exhibition, should not besent on to Melbourne because it might not beshown there in a similar position besideQueensland's court. If relegated to the machineryannexe, King argued, 'the interest which attachedto it in Sydney ... would not exist'.' In 1891 alocal committee advising the government onQueensland's participation in the forthcomingChicago exhibition warned that the impact of theexhibits would be 'neutralised' if dispersed


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FIG. 30. The Grand Avenue of Nations of the Melbourne exhibition of 1888-89, with the 'Moorish' facade ofQueensland's court on the left. (National Library of Australia)

amongst the exhibition's various sections, as pro-posed by the Chicago officials, instead of shown'within one roof. . 16° For the Greater BritainExhibition the Agent-General, Sir Horace Tozer,insisted that all Queensland's exhibits be showntogether in one court instead of consigning themineral exhibits to an international mining sec-tion. 161 On only two occasions did Queenslandpermit its exhibits to be dispersed: at Melbournein 1888-89 where the lack of space within its owncourt necessitated an overflow of exhibits intothe general machinery, educational, fisheries andwool courts and a separate conservatory; and atthe Queensland International Exhibition wherethe government contributed three separate min-ing, agricultural and educational courts (seeAppendix 2).

Queensland's display techniques were mostlyunadventurous, making scant use of the era'singenious devices which could achieve won-drous illusions of reality. These devices includedlife-sized figures (modelled in either wax or plas-

ter), dioramas and panoramas,' though the latterwere gradually superseded by photography in thelate 19th century. Dioramas and panoramas werenever used in Queensland's courts, and only oncewas a wax figure used. This figure, shown at Mel-bourne in 1880-81 by the Brisbane experimentalgardener Alexander Macpherson, was dressed insome of his collection of native fibres. ThoughMadame Tussaud's Waxworks had popularisedsuch figures in London and in other Australiancolonies, they were still a novelty in Brisbane by1889 when the new 'Queensland Waxworks andMuseum' claimed to be satisfying 'a long feltwant'. 163 The tropical climate would haverestricted the use of wax figures locally, but thisdoes not explain their absence from exhibits sentelsewhere. Queensland was slow even to use waxmodels of fruit, eventually used in 1897 at theQueensland International Exhibition, whereasother Australian colonies consistently exhibitedwax fruit models from the 1860s.


FIG. 31. Richard Daintree's photographs (hung in tiers on the far panels) in Queensland's court at the Sydneyexhibition of 1879-80. (John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland)

Moreover, only occasionally were other typesof models used, yet models were among the mostprized products of 19th-century craftsmanshipand were always admired at exhibitions. ForQueensland's annexe at London in 1872 RichardDaintree commissioned a series of models show-ing different modes of tin dressing, but hisexample was seldom repeated. Apart from modellighthouses shown by the government at Mel-bourne in 1888-89 and later at the QueenslandInternational Exhibition, the only building mod-els shown by Queensland were the (then)Rockhampton architect Stanley H. Uther's mod-els of a town hall and a hospital, shown at Sydneyand Melbourne in 1879-81. One might ask whymodels of public buildings were never used toshow British investors the results of the colony'smassive expenditure on public works. Automa-tons, arguably the era's most ingenious andadmired display devices, made a brief appear-ance in an 'automatic theatre' shown at Sydneyand Melbourne in 1879-81 and an 'automaticboy' (called the The Successful Beggar) shownonly at Melbourne, both supplied by the Brisbanecabinetmaker Peter Thomle.

Queensland was more adventurous in its pio-neering use of photography which offered morethan just an illusory reality for 'photographs', itwas said, 'cannot lie'. When Richard Daintree'sphotographs were first shown in the early 1870s,photography was a still new medium for propa-ganda and claimed to show the colony's stilllargely unknown scenery with convincing accu-racy. Daintree's photographs became themainstay of Queensland's courts until the Mel-bourne exhibition of 1880-81 (Figs 27, 31), andwere shown on home ground at Brisbane'sannual agricultural exhibition of 1881 and muchlater at the Queensland International Exhibition.Not surprisingly, these photographs were'universally admired' for their novelty, informa-tive content and brilliant colour, and won severalawards at exhibitions: at Vienna in 1873, Phila-delphia in 1876, and posthumously at Paris in1878 and Sydney in 1879-80. 'As effectiveadvertisements of the colony, they are incompa-rable', enthused a reporter at the Sydney event.''Photographs remained a feature of Queensland'scourts, and at the Greater Britain Exhibition of1899 lantern slides were also shown. By this timeQueensland's emigration agents were also using


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FIG. 32. Victoria's court at the Paris exhibition of 1878, showing art works and, in the centre, a trophy withfigures of gold miners, stockdrivers and Aboriginal people. (Graphic, 13 July 1878)

lantern slides and the Queensland Agent-General'soffice was lending slides to schools, etc. in Britain.

Regrettably, Queensland was slow to use theproducts of its boldest-ever experiment in pho-tography at exhibitions. In late 1898, on thepretext of supplying George Randall,Queensland's Emigration Agent and Lecturer inGreat Britain, with 'more interesting and moreinstructive' campaign material, the QueenslandDepartment of Agriculture took up cinemato-graphy using a Lumiere camera. But thedepartment's first series of films did not reachLondon in time for the Greater Britain Exhibitionwhere they would have given Queensland aworld first, as moving pictures were not shown atan international exhibition until a year later, atParis in 1900. The difficulties encountered inoperating a (then obsolescent) Lumiêre projectorensured that the films were not shown in 1901 atthe Glasgow exhibition. In fact George Randall,who managed Queensland's court at Glasgow,was quite unexcited by the film experiment,' so

it was not until the Franco-British Exhibition of1908 that Queensland first showed moving pic-tures at an international exhibition, by which timethey were not such a novelty.

Besides its pioneering use of photography atexhibitions, Queensland was adventurous in theuse of live exhibits sent especially from the col-ony. Live plants gave Queensland's court atMelbourne in 1880-81 'the general appearance... of a museum and conservatory combined'(Fig. 21), while whole conservatories and aviar-ies of live plants and birds were among its 'chiefattractions' at London in 1886 and Melbourne in1888-89 (Figs 40, 42). A Queensland officialexplained that the conservatory and aviary atLondon were a deliberate attempt to avoid the'dulness' of museum displays:

Visitors have enjoyed in these ... a combinationof Kew Gardens and the 'Zoo' — a kind ofgrown-up kindergarten ... not a dull, drearyround of ... stuffed beasts and birds ... [with]long unintelligible Latin names.I67