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| thomas_de_montmorenci_murray-prior [2025/05/09 22:02] – judith | thomas_de_montmorenci_murray-prior [2025/05/09 22:04] (current) – judith |
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| Ledgers for //Maroon// shows that Tom was employed as manager on 1 January 1866 just before his 18th birthday. He was paid an 'allowance' of £50 pa for his first year but his allowance for first 6 months in 1867 was halved to £25 pa. He was paid £80 pa from September 1867.((MLMSS3117/box 8 & 9)) \\ | Ledgers for //Maroon// shows that Tom was employed as manager on 1 January 1866 just before his 18th birthday. He was paid an 'allowance' of £50 pa for his first year but his allowance for first 6 months in 1867 was halved to £25 pa. He was paid £80 pa from September 1867.((MLMSS3117/box 8 & 9)) \\ |
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| The younger Tom was adventurous and by July 1874, for a short period he left working on //Maroon// to become a miner in the harsh [[wp>Palmer_River#Palmer_goldfields|Palmer River goldfields]]. It is not for nothing that an account of life on the Palmer goldfields was entitled 'shattered dreams'.((Gordon Grimwade and Christine Grimwade, 'Shattered dreams: Recollections of the Palmer Goldrush 1874-1875', //Queensland History Journal//23:7, November 2017.)) Tom's dreams were also shattered as he contacted 'gulf fever' (typhoid or malaria) and nearly died.((Jane Black (compiled), North Queensland Pioneers, Country Women's Association, Townsville, ?1932.)) His brother Morres wrote in a [[letter]] that, after Thomas returned from the Palmer in ill-health, he remained on //Maroon// while Morres had to leave, presumably because the property could not support them both. An newspaper latter claimed that when Tom returned from the goldfields he was 'about the guantest six-foot-three of skin and bones ever seen, and then went squatting our Bully Creek way.'((unidentified newspaper clipping, 31 December 1992 in Rosa Praed Papers, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, MSOM64-01, Box 23/5/1))\\ | The younger Tom was adventurous and probably irked by his father's autocratic manner. By July 1874, Tom left working on //Maroon// to become a miner in the harsh [[wp>Palmer_River#Palmer_goldfields|Palmer River goldfields]]. He did not last long. It is not for nothing that an account of life on the Palmer goldfields was entitled 'shattered dreams'.((Gordon Grimwade and Christine Grimwade, 'Shattered dreams: Recollections of the Palmer Goldrush 1874-1875', //Queensland History Journal//23:7, November 2017.)) Tom's dreams were also shattered as he contacted 'gulf fever' (typhoid or malaria) and nearly died.((Jane Black (compiled), North Queensland Pioneers, Country Women's Association, Townsville, ?1932.)) An newspaper latter claimed that when Tom returned from the goldfields he was 'about the guantest six-foot-three of skin and bones ever seen, and then went squatting our Bully Creek way.'((unidentified newspaper clipping, 31 December 1992 in Rosa Praed Papers, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, MSOM64-01, Box 23/5/1)) His brother Morres wrote in a [[letter]] that, after Thomas returned from the Palmer in ill-health, he remained on //Maroon// while Morres had to leave, presumably because the property could not support them both.\\ |
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| In later life Tom, like his father, bought a considerable amount of property in Queensland: Darbyshire lists nine purchases between March 1877 and January 1881, at Melcombe (Maroon), Telemon((//The Brisbane Courier//, 8 October 1873, cited in Darbyshire, described it as 640 acres of second class pastoral land)) and Mogill.((Andrew Darbyshire, 'A Fair Slice of St Lucia', p.123)) At some stage Thomas de M. M-P owned, with his brother Hugh, Annie Vale station.((D. Waterson, //A Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929//, Canberra: ANU Press, 1972, p.135.)) In 1880, he was listed as being at Moonbago, South Kennedy, Bully Creek.((H. Mortimer Franklyn, A glance at Australia in 1880, p. xlvii.)) //Pugh's Almanac and Queensland Directory// (1889, p.525) lists him after his father as 'Prior Thomas T. de M. M.[,] J.P. Maroon Ipswich'.\\ | In later life Tom, like his father, bought a considerable amount of property in Queensland: Darbyshire lists nine purchases between March 1877 and January 1881, at Melcombe (Maroon), Telemon((//The Brisbane Courier//, 8 October 1873, cited in Darbyshire, described it as 640 acres of second class pastoral land)) and Mogill.((Andrew Darbyshire, 'A Fair Slice of St Lucia', p.123)) At some stage Thomas de M. M-P owned, with his brother Hugh, Annie Vale station.((D. Waterson, //A Biographical Register of the Queensland Parliament 1860-1929//, Canberra: ANU Press, 1972, p.135.)) In 1880, he was listed as being at Moonbago, South Kennedy, Bully Creek.((H. Mortimer Franklyn, A glance at Australia in 1880, p. xlvii.)) //Pugh's Almanac and Queensland Directory// (1889, p.525) lists him after his father as 'Prior Thomas T. de M. M.[,] J.P. Maroon Ipswich'.\\ |