The Mayne Inheritance by Rosamond Siemon

reflected on the Executive Council. Six months after the announcement of his nomination to the temporary Board of Education, the Government Gazette published a new list: the name of Patrick Mayne was missing.

5
In and Out of Council
    The municipality of Brisbane under the first Council’s charge consisted of several settlements. North Brisbane was centred on Queen Street, which, with its houses, shops, and banana plantation, was a convenient thoroughfare to the eastern settlements of Fortitude Valley, Nundah and Sandgate. The area of North Brisbane also included Adelaide, George, and Elizabeth Streets and adjoining areas with residences dotted here and there. A ferry ride across the river were North Brisbane’s two rivals, South Brisbane and Kangaroo Point; but the Point, with eighty or ninety houses and some industry, was no longer a real threat to Queen Street. That hope had been picked up by Fortitude Valley, which was strengthened by J.D. Lang’s migrant scheme, and saw itself making a strong challenge.
    The mainstream religions had claimed their hallowed patches a stone’s throw from some of the central hotels and a brewery. Four banks eased the earlier difficulty of circulating cash for trading, and the new hospital in George Street and the new gaol on Petrie Terrace catered to the needs of the area’s 5,000 people. Thanks to astute and civic-minded men such as Cribb and Mayne, a few substantial business premises stood out, but for the most part the public buildings were mean and unimpressive. Everything was deplorably neglected. Sanitation conditions were primitive; there were open sewers, and their effluent, dumped near houses on the river bank, was a menace to health. Depending on the weather, the rough streets could be dusty and rutted or else deep bogs interspersed with uncrossable muddy pools. In the rainy season, adroit shopkeepers were known to keep trade coming their way by spanning a street pool with a plank. It was not uncommon to hear cries for help from a pedestrian bogged in the mud. In Adelaide, Elizabeth, and Charlotte Streets, in reality only rough passages between allotments, whole areas could be isolated by deep, unbridged water-filled culverts. The so-called ‘‘reservoir’’ was an unfenced, dammed-up waterhole lying between George and Roma Streets. In drought it dried up and water had to be carted from Breakfast Creek. People bathed and swam in it and washed their clothes there and dogs and cattle drank from it. Its creek, often a chain of waterholes, meandered across the site of the present City Hall and the intersection of Adelaide and Albert Streets, then swept in a wide curvethrough what are now the two Queen Street blocks separated by Edward Street. It turned north to cross Creek Street at its corner with Adelaide Street, then made a wide down-curve through the next block, crossing what is now Eagle Lane, returning in a series of loops to Creek Street at its junction with Elizabeth Street. After a large, boggy circular loop at the rear of the site of St Stephen’s Cathedral, it entered the Brisbane River near the junction of Mary, Creek, and Charlotte Streets. For some it was still known as Wheat Creek and much of the surrounding area continued to be used for agriculture.
    The task ahead of the first councillors was enormous. Lacking a Council building, their first meeting was held in the Queen Street police barracks, with the Police Magistrate supplying their furniture, before they were given a temporary office at the Court House. Their first year’s budget was expected to be £1,000—that alone was needed for the reservoir and drainage. The municipality was in urgent need of the energy and practical commonsense of its nine aldermen.
    In politics, as in life generally, Mayne was always determined to have his say on everything. He was quick to nominate people and projects, and to second other people’s ideas. He immediately and successfully