Category: Queensland State Archives’ Photostream About Fortitude Valley

Mr Mick Busuttin coming down Coconut Palm head-first, Brampton Island, c 1931

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Barrier Miner
Sat 28 Jan 1933

Tourists to Great Barrier Reef
Dr Macgillivray Relates His Experiences

[…] Mr Busuttin, a Maltese, has two married sons who are very hardy specimens, especially Mick, the elder. Mick was engaged at one time in capturing crocodiles for the various zoological gardens in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. It is nothing for him to defend himself single handed against a shark and kill it with a knife.

He knows all passages and the islands intimately and ran with consumate ease barefooted over the sharp rocks and stone and coral reef. He is stall, strong, and wiry and climbs a coconut tree with his hands and feet and can come down head first. Some little time ago an airman who was engaged in an aerial survey on the Barrier Reef tried to emulate him. He climbed the tree all right, but came down head first

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Messrs J W Davidson, Commissioner of Railways and Hastings Deering of Sydney, show a fine catch of fish, Carlisle Island, c 1931

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The Central Queensland Herald
Thursday 9 March 1939

Death of Mr J. W. Davidson
48 Years in Service

Exactly a year after his retirement from the position of Commisioner for Railways, which he held for 19 years, Mr James Walker Davidson died at his home tonight after a long spell of ill health. He had been an inmate of a private hospital for several weeks. He returned home a few days ago, but suffered a fatal relapse.

Mr Davidson was born in Glasgow and came to Australia as a youth in 1890. He entered the railway service as a junior clerk and made rapid progress through the service under Commisioners Thallon and Evans, and on the retirement of Commissioner Evans was appointed to the head of the service. He was regarded as one of the most able railway administrators in Australia.

Speaking from Mackay tongiht, the Premier (Mr Smith) expressed

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Messrs Davidson and Deering and two men from Lindeman Island who went spearing turtles, c 1931

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

One of the most fearsome Chelonians around is the alligator snapping turtle, Macroclemys temminckii, which is the biggest freshwater turtle in North America. It can grow to 2.5 feet long, can weigh as much as 200 pounds, and has powerful jaws, a sharply-hooked beak, nasty bearlike claws and a muscular tail. The alligator snapping turtle does eat some aquatic plants, but it’s mostly a carnivore that dines on a variety of smaller creatures — fish, frogs, snakes, worms, clams, crayfish and even other turtles.

The alligator snapping turtle catches prey by way of a fiendishly clever evolutionary adaptation: an appendage to its tongue that, when wriggled, looks an awful lot like a worm, according to the Saint Louis Zoo. A fish who gets fooled by the turtle’s tongue will swim right into range of the hungry predator’s jaws.

Queensland State Archives Image ID 928

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Queen Street, Brisbane c1985

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Extract courtesy of The Fashion Archives

“George Arthur Bayard (1866–1933) was a drapery salesman who became a prominent businessman, creating the Bayards department store chain. In his later years, he was member of the Brisbane Chamber of Commerce and Queensland Chamber of Manufacturers, and at one stage, a Stephens Shire Councillor. His four sons were all involved in running the business, and took the reins of Bayards after George Bayard died in the 1930s. They passed on the responsibilities to the next generation of Bayards, with three grandsons of George Bayard carrying on the business up until it closed.”

Queensland State Archives Item ID 436356

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Preparing fish to photograph, Goldsmith Island, c 1931

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Goldsmith is the largest island in a group of continental islands off Mackay. Goldsmith has 674 hectares of National Park, low open woodlands and eucalypt forest, with brush box, wattles and grass trees form a backdrop to the rocky coastline. There are long sandy beaches on the northern and western side of the island lined with casuarinas and pandanus.

Queensland State Archives Image ID 933

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Messrs Davidson and Deering proceeding to view Turtle Spearing Demonstration near Lindeman Island, c 1931

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The first European to explore the area was Captain James Cook who travelled through the area on his journey up the eastern coast of Australia in 1770. He passed through Whitsunday passage, a narrow channel which lies between the mainland coast, South Molle and Daydream Islands to the west and Dent, Whitsunday, Hook and Hayman Islands to the east, on Sunday 4 June which happened to be Whit Sunday (the seventh Sunday after easter) – hence the name of the area.

Cook probably sighted Lindeman but he certainly didn’t name it. It wasn’t until the 1870s that Captain Bedwell, charting the Whitsunday waters in the Royal Navy HMS Virago, named the island after his sub-lieutenant, George Sidney Lindeman. Although other islands in the Whitsundays were settled during the 19th century, Lindeman remained unsettled because the local Aborigines saw it as a vital part of their fishing

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View of the roof of the Government Printer Building, with the Brisbane River in the background – Brisbane, January 1974

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Can you make out the stone devils perched at the top of the Government Printing Building? A historical symbol of the printing industry, there are seven devils on the facade of the building, and one statue hidden away inside.

There are some unsual – and some far-reaching – theories to explain the notorious “printer’s devils”…

The Seven Devils of George Street

…A ‘printer’s devil’ was a nickname given to printer’s apprentices, who performed such tasks as mixing ink and fetching type. These apprentices invariably stained themselves with black ink and – as black was associated with the ‘black arts’ – the nickname ‘devil’ took hold…

…A further association with the devil in printing is the name of the hellbox, which was a box that worn and broken lead type was thrown into, and which the printer’s devil (apprentice) then took to the furnace for melting and recasting.

Yet another link

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