South Sea Islander Wall

South Sea Islander Wall
South Sea Islander Wall
	South Sea Islander Wall, 2009
Location	Grange Road, Mon Repos, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia
Coordinates	24°48′06″S152°26′17″E / 24.8016°S 152.4381°E Coordinates: 24°48′06″S152°26′17″E / 24.8016°S 152.4381°E
Design period	1870s - 1890s (late 19th century)
Built	circa 1884
Queensland Heritage Register
	Official name: South Sea Islander Wall
Type	state heritage (built)
Designated	1 October 2001
Reference no.	602230
Significant period	1880s (fabric); 1880s-1900s early (historical)
Builders	South Sea Islander labour
	Location of South Sea Islander Wall in Queensland South Sea Islander Wall (Australia)

Last updated February 23, 2019

South Sea Islander Wall is a heritage-listed plantation at Grange Road, Mon Repos, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built circa 1884 by South Sea Islander labour. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 1 October 2001.^[1]

A plantation is the large-scale estate meant for farming that specializes in cash crops. The crops that are grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, rubber trees, and fruits. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations were located.

Mon Repos is a coastal locality in the Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. It has a low population.

The Bundaberg Region is a local government area in the Wide Bay–Burnett region of Queensland, Australia, about 360 kilometres (220 mi) north of Brisbane, the state capital. It is centred on the city of Bundaberg, and also contains a significant rural area surrounding the city. It was created in 2008 from a merger of the City of Bundaberg with the Shires of Burnett, Isis and Kolan.

History

The South Sea Islander Wall at Mon Repos was constructed in the c. 1884 probably using South Sea Islander labour.^[1]

Mon Repos Sugar Plantation was established in 1884. By 1887 Mon Repos was Millaquin Refinery's major juice supplier. A relative latecomer to Bundaberg's sugar boom, Mon Repos Plantation was owned by Augustus Purling Barton. Barton was born into upper class English society in 1834 and arrived in Melbourne in 1855. In 1863 Barton had taken up Moolboolaman station in the Kolan district. Barton led the life of a squatter for about twenty years. Then, in the early 1880s, he acquired a stake in the Woongarra district. He constructed a large home which he intended as a coastal retreat or town house, where his family could get away occasionally from station life. He named the home "Mon Repos" (French for 'My Rest').^[1]

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Its name refers to an urban agglomeration of 9,992.5 km² (3,858.1 sq mi), comprising a metropolitan area with 31 municipalities, and is also the common name for its city centre. The city occupies much of the coastline of Port Phillip bay and spreads into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of approximately 4.9 million, and its inhabitants are referred to as "Melburnians".

The Kolan River is a river located in Central Queensland, Australia.

Woongarra is a locality in the Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia.

The first cane from Mon Repos plantation was harvested in 1882 and crushed at neighbouring mills. By 1884, Barton was operating his own juice mill. Over the years, he expanded his plant. During 1886, Barton had acquired Drynie, a small mill in the Burdekin district and re-erected it with additions in the Woongarra. Mon Repos plantation soon absorbed its neighbour Duncraggan. In 1887, Barton's juice mill was one of Millaquin refinery's major suppliers of juice. Mon Repos juice mill was converted to a complete sugar mill in 1887-88 and Barton continued to expand. Summerville mill and plantation were acquired in 1892, with the mill closing and the cane from the plantation crushed at Mon Repos. Two years later, Barton absorbed The Grange plantation.^[1]

In 1896, the Queensland National Bank gained control over the Millaquin refinery. In 1899, the negotiations began between Barton and the Queensland National Bank, an agreement was reached, and the Bank purchased Mon Repos mill and plantation. The name Mon Repos was changed to Qunaba (from QUeensland NAtional BAnk). Bundaberg Sugar Pty still owns a parcel of land on which the wall is located.^[1]

The Queensland National Bank is a former bank in Queensland, Australia.

Barton was very much in favour of using South Sea Islander labour. The Woongarra area was covered with rocks, which were gathered and stone walls built around the cane fields. South Sea Islanders had been working on other sugar plantations in the Bundaberg district from at least the mid-1870s. They were not brought directly to Bundaberg until 1879, but prior to this planters obtained Islanders via Maryborough, whose sugar industry had been established in the late 1860s.^[1]

Maryborough is a city and a suburb in the Fraser Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It is located on the Mary River in Queensland, Australia, approximately 255 kilometres (160 mi) north of the state capital, Brisbane. The city is served by the Bruce Highway. It is closely tied to its neighbour city Hervey Bay which is approximately 30 kilometres (20 mi) northeast. Together they form part of the area known as the Fraser Coast. At June 2015 Maryborough had an estimated urban population of 27,846. The city was the location for the 2013 Australian Scout Jamboree.

Herbert Turner later wrote of the work of South Sea Islanders in clearing the land on Woongarra farms:^[1]^[2]

. . . a large portion of the Woongarra land contained more or less loose rocks. After the tree stumps had been collected in heaps and burnt, the next job was to deal with the stones. Where possible they would be broken into convenient size for handling, loaded onto drays, and carted to the farm boundary lines, and there built up as stone wall boundary fences averaging five feet in height and four feet in width. A number of these stone walls are still in existence. The large stones would either be drilled and blasted with dynamite to a convenient handling size, or snigged by horse team to the boundary line.

Local tradition also records that:^[1]

Wooden sleds, pulled by draught horses, followed around the paddocks as the land was being cleared. Rocks unearthed during this process were placed on the sled. Big rocks which would not fit on the sled would be broken up with spalling hammers. These pieces would then be placed on corn bags, an Islander on each corner, which would then be carried to the sled. When full, the sleds were taken to the end of the paddock where they were unloaded.

The dry-rubble boundary walls were constructed in layers, with larger stones placed around the outside and smaller stones used for the infill. This seems to have been a common construction method in the Woongarra, but the origin of the technique has yet to be established.^[1]

Description

The South Sea Islander Wall at Mon Repos, is approximately 1,580 metres (5,180 ft) in length, of which 307 metres (1,007 ft) is within the Mon Repos Conservation Park. Approximately 20 metres (66 ft) of the eastern or seaward end of the wall has been covered by drifting sand. A gap of 88 metres (289 ft) exists in the wall near its midpoint, with no obvious evidence that a wall previously existed in the area.^[1]

The wall has an average height of approximately 1.4 metres (4 ft 7 in), an average width of approximately 1.8 metres (5 ft 11 in) at the base and an average width of approximately 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in) at the top surface.^[1]

The wall is of similar construction to that at the former Sunnyside Sugar Plantation on Windermere Road. There are believed to be only 6 similarly intact dry-rubble walls surviving in the Bundaberg district, of which the Mon Repos wall is a good example.^[1]

Heritage listing

The South Sea Islander Wall was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 1 October 2001 having satisfied the following criteria.^[1]

The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history.

The South-Sea Islander Wall survives as important evidence of the enormous contribution made by South Sea Islanders to the establishment of a viable sugar industry in Queensland. In particular, it remains as testament to their contribution to the development of the sugar industry in the Bundaberg region, one of the most affluent sugar districts in the state. The wall is also important physical evidence of the manual nature of this contribution, for without the availability of indentured labour, Woongarra Scrub farmers could not have converted their lands to an activity as initially labour-intensive as sugar growing.^[1]

The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.

The boundary wall, which is over one and a half kilometres metres in length, survives as one of the longest, most intact examples of its type in the Bundaberg district, which around the turn-of-the-century was chequered with such structures. Further, the South Sea Islander Wall, Mon Repos is significant for its rarity.^[1]

The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland's history.

The place is significant also for its potential to contribute to further study, and better understanding, of the role of South Sea Islanders in Queensland history.^[1]

The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.

Although diminished in length, what survives is substantially intact, and provides a good example of dry-rubble wall construction employed in the Bundaberg district in the late 19th century.^[1]

The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

Importantly, it has a strong association for the present local South Sea Islander community with the experiences of their ancestors in Queensland.^[1]

The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.

The place has an important association with the exploitation of the large South Sea Islands workforce employed in the Bundaberg district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[1]

Related Research Articles

Mon Repos Conservation Park is a national park containing an important turtle rookery located at Mon Repos, Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) east of Bundaberg. Mon Repos hosts the largest concentration of nesting marine turtles on the eastern Australian mainland and supports the most significant nesting population of the endangered loggerhead turtle in the South Pacific Ocean. Successful breeding here is critical if the loggerhead species is to survive. In far smaller numbers the Flatback and Green turtles and, intermittently, the Leatherback turtle also nest along the Bundaberg coast.

Bargara is a coastal town and suburb in the Bundaberg Region, Queensland, Australia. The town lies 384 kilometres (239 mi) north of the state capital Brisbane and just 13 kilometres (8 mi) east of Bundaberg. Bargara is considered to be a satellite suburb of Bundaberg, with only sugar cane fields separating the two centres. Between 1912 and 1948, a railway connected the two centres. At the 2011 census, Bargara had a population of 6,893.

Frederick Lancelot Nott was a politician in Queensland, Australia and a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1920 to 1927.

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 "South Sea Islander Wall (entry 602230)". Queensland Heritage Register . Queensland Heritage Council. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
↑ Turner, Herbert (1955). Rural life in sunny Queensland (1st ed.). Retrieved 7 April 2017.

Attribution

This Wikipedia article was originally based on "The Queensland heritage register" published by the State of Queensland under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 7 July 2014, archived on 8 October 2014). The geo-coordinates were originally computed from the "Queensland heritage register boundaries" published by the State of Queensland under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 5 September 2014, archived on 15 October 2014).

External links

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[qhr-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 "South Sea Islander Wall (entry 602230)". Queensland Heritage Register . Queensland Heritage Council. Retrieved 1 August 2014.

[2] Turner, Herbert (1955). Rural life in sunny Queensland (1st ed.). Retrieved 7 April 2017.