well

Italians have literally shaped the landscape through sugarcane plantations. They built up the North and impacted more broadly on the state’s economic, social and cultural fabric and space. At the same time, they have been embroiled in labour and racial debates. Regional and homeland origins have defined the identities and loyalties of Italians. However, from the start, Italianness as a heritage and feeling has infused the Queensland countryside, towns and cities. Tracing the story mirrors several trajectories from colonial to state, and helps define Queensland’s position within the global and transnational movements. Escaping la miseria (poverty) Italians left Europe in search of work. By 1859 some Italians were already working in Queensland building railways, as miners, wood-cutters, sugarcane farmers, and priests (the latter on Stradbroke Island and at Warwick). The largest proportion remained in Ingham in the Hinchinbrook Shire. Their presence from 1891 generated heated debate in parliament and the press about their capacity to assimilate. By 1907, racist rhetoric was being used by the Bulletin newspaper, for instance, to question the racial hygiene of Italians, calling them ‘bucolic’, ‘dull-witted’, ‘primitive’ and ‘impoverished’. Such attacks provide a backdrop to the 1924 Royal Commission into alien labour in north Queensland. The Worker, among other newspapers, complained that the Federal Government was allowing ‘Mediterranean scum’ to invade the sugar planations. Until the 1970s Italians were considered less preferable than British and Northern Europeans in Queensland. In Ingham and across North Queensland, Italians were labelled ‘black’ because of the association of the sugar fields with non-white labour. The economic success of Ingham’s Italian community proved toxic despite the support of local police and many Anglo-Australians. Italians became ‘enemy aliens’ with the 1939 National Security Act, especially when Mussolini declared war in 1940. About 15% of Australia’s Italians were rounded-up for internment, including women and children. What can only be described as a ‘social war’ ensued, led by the Returned Services League. After World War II more Italian families arrived in Queensland. The era of the canecutter was over by 1972. At this time Italianness experienced a renaissance not only in Queensland but across Australia. By the 1970s, Italian names were found in the strata of business, politics and society, and Italian words - spaghetti, pasta, zucchini, pizza, gelato, cappuccino, vino - were integrated into the everyday experience of Queenslanders. Source: www.qhatlas.com.au/content/italians-queensland

Streetview: www.google.ie/maps/@53.3955873,-7.7211348,3a,47y,110.37h,... 25" map: maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,618571,738401,12,9

In Rory's Streetview, I see a celtic cross at right, which I think would be visible if present. The NIAH dates it at 1925.

I don't see a Blackburn Draper in Moate in the 1911 census, but Frank Blackburn is 24, living in Athlone with his parents and is a Commercial Clerk in the Woollen trade.

Not finding much info online about MORGANOL MOTOR OIL SOLD HERE

I see Carburine Motor Spirit references from the 1910s/20s.

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/51979177@N02] Thanks for linking this record to the ADB entry on Voss. Impressive man.

Hillcrest Hospital and the Voss Family Hillcrest Hospital Rockhampton 1912 The story of Rockhampton’s Hillcrest Hospital is inextricably linked to that of the Voss family. Dr Francis Henry Vivian Voss (1860-1940) arrived in Rockhampton via Bowen around in 1886 to work as a locum tenens for Dr William French Thurston. He had undertaken his medical education at London Hospital taking the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1885. He held an internship at London Hospital before working for a year in the Whitechapel Infirmary. Dr Voss established himself quickly in Rockhampton. In 1887 he was the assistant immigration agent in the quarantine area and was then appointed Government Medical Officer, a post which he held from 1888 until 1927.[1, 2] Source: achha.org.au/hillcrest.php

Great moustache! Handlebar moustache?