The return of manhood suffrage to Queensland, 1863-1872

In 1859, Queensland was separated from New South Wales as an independent colony. At this time the new Governor conspired to ensure the citizens did not inherit the old colonies system of full male suffrage. This was not returned until the Elections Act of 1872. However, the extended franchise was not a result of either democratic values or other ideological intentions. This article will analyse parliamentary debates to show that the revision to full suffrage was a result of administrative expediency driven by an inability to prevent abuse of the limited franchise.

Judge George W Paul's Japanese house : a case study

In the late 1880s a pre-fabricated Japanese house was shipped from Kobe, Japan, to Brisbane, Australia, and erected in the up-market suburb of New Farm by Japanese tradesmen. This paper is developed from a broader project researching the life of G W Paul, the man who had the house built and subsequently lived in it for the remainder of his life. Paul’s motivation in importing the house represented a unique, but unfulfilled effort to develop a future, hybrid culture for Queensland. This effort took the form of a commercial venture to construct Japanese houses as desirable and climatically suitable dwellings. Against the backdrop of this ambition, this paper presents new research to elucidate and extend previous knowledge, assesses the reception of the house by its nineteenth century Brisbane audience, and considers possible reasons for the limited response which signalled the cancellation of the commercial venture.

The noblest of professions : schoolmasters at Hastings 1872-1894

The Noblest of Professions: Schoolmasters at Hastings 1872-1894 is a skilfully developed study of educational developments outside the Australian metropolises and in a small, but significant, pioneering rural community in the late colonial period. It is an important contribution to the formerly neglected field of local and regional history in Australia. It extends our knowledge of the life experiences of the schoolmaster in an isolated community and the regard local people had for him, together with the significant and varied social and leadership roles he played regularly and occasionally in rural affairs. The rural schoolmaster and his concerns are vividly brought to life in a compelling portrayal in this book. In all a very significant contribution to Australian history and to the history of education in its regional and local context.

Et tu, George? Campaign journalism and the politics of compromise

There is a category of film about journalism in which journalism is not the star, but the supporting player, and journalists not the protagonists but the Greek chorus, commenting on and also changing the realities they report. In such films the news media are a structuring presence driving the plot, shaping the narrative, constructing what we might think of as a pseudo-reality. Like Daniel Boorstin’s notion of the pseudo-event (introduced in his still-relevant book The Image, 1962), this pseudo-reality is so-named because it would not exist were it not for the demands of the news media’s hunger for stories, and knowledge of the damage they can do with those stories, on the calculations and actions of the key actors. Pseudo-realities form as responses to what political actors think journalists and their organisations need and want, or as efforts to shape journalistic accounts in ways favourable to themselves. Films about politics often feature pseudorealities of this kind, in which the events and actions driving the plot have only a tenuous relationship with important things going on in the everyday world beyond the political arena. Everything we see is about image, perception, appearance.

Cultural relativity as exchange : J.W. Lindt’s 'bush character and Aboriginal' from 'The Grafton Album', circa 1872

J.W.Lindt’s Colonial man and Aborigine image from the GRAFTON ALBUM: “On chemistry and optics all does not depend, art must with these in triple union blend” (text from J.W. Lindt’s photographic backing card) In this paper, I follow an argument that Lindt held a position in his particular colonial environment where he was simultaneously both an insider and an outsider and that such a position may be considered prerequisite in stimulating exchange. A study of the transition of J.W. Lindt in Grafton, N.S.W. in the 1860s from a traveller to a migrant and subsequently to a professional photographer, as well as Lindt’s photographic career, which evolved through strategic action and technical approaches to photography, bears witness to his cultural relativity. One untitled photograph from this period of work constructs a unique commentary of Australian colonial life that illustrates a non-hegemonic position, particularly as it was included in one of the first albums of photographs of Aborigines that Lindt gifted to an illustrious person (in this case the Mayor of Grafton). As in his other studio constructions, props and backdrops were arranged and sitters were positioned with care, but this photograph is the only one in the album that includes a non-Aborigine in a relationship to an Aborigine. An analysis of the props, technical details of the album and the image suggests a reconciliatory aspect that thwarts the predominant attitudes towards Aborigines in the area at that time.

An afternoon with Chopin and George Sand

An original edutainment piece written by Caroline Heim and Christian Heim. Frederic Chopin and George Sands' turbulent and fraught relationship is dramatised through Chopin's music and Sand's writings.

The Catlin Seaview Survey – kilometre-scale seascape assessment, and monitoring of coral reef ecosystems

1.Marine ecosystems provide critically important goods and services to society, and hence their accelerated degradation underpins an urgent need to take rapid, ambitious and informed decisions regarding their conservation and management. 2.The capacity, however, to generate the detailed field data required to inform conservation planning at appropriate scales is limited by time and resource consuming methods for collecting and analysing field data at the large scales required. 3.The ‘Catlin Seaview Survey’, described here, introduces a novel framework for large-scale monitoring of coral reefs using high-definition underwater imagery collected using customized underwater vehicles in combination with computer vision and machine learning. This enables quantitative and geo-referenced outputs of coral reef features such as habitat types, benthic composition, and structural complexity (rugosity) to be generated across multiple kilometre-scale transects with a spatial resolution ranging from 2 to 6 m2. 4.The novel application of technology described here has enormous potential to contribute to our understanding of coral reefs and associated impacts by underpinning management decisions with kilometre-scale measurements of reef health. 5.Imagery datasets from an initial survey of 500 km of seascape are freely available through an online tool called the Catlin Global Reef Record. Outputs from the image analysis using the technologies described here will be updated on the online repository as work progresses on each dataset. 6.Case studies illustrate the utility of outputs as well as their potential to link to information from remote sensing. The potential implications of the innovative technologies on marine resource management and conservation are also discussed, along with the accuracy and efficiency of the methodologies deployed.

Cultural relativity as exchange : J.W. Lindt’s bush character and Aboriginal from The Grafton Album (circa 1872)

J.W.Lindt’s Colonial man and Aborigine image from the GRAFTON ALBUM: “On chemistry and optics all does not depend, art must with these in triple union blend” (text from J.W. Lindt’s photographic backing card)...