Kin, fictive kin and strategic movement: working class heritage of the Upper Burnett

Abstract

The Upper Burnett district of southeast Queensland, Australia is a landscape of working class resilience in the face of natural and institutional oppression. The Upper Burnett was the site of numerous small goldmining towns throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Physically, most of these towns now survive only as archaeological remnants, yet both the tangible heritage elements and the intangible forms of labour heritage, such as stories in the landscape and of movement between places, contribute to the shared and continued attachment of the Burnett community to its mining history. Historical archaeological, sociological and landscape studies, including long-term projects working with descendents of the mining families, have provided detailed insight into the palimpsest of meanings applied to the social landscape of the working class inhabitants. Oral history, documentary and archaeological research have been conducted on the townships of Paradise, Mount Shamrock, Monal and Cania. The cultural landscape of these towns can be seen as a complex heritage of working class pastimes, networks of labour through kin and fictive kin relationships, strategic movement across the region and the interaction between communities. Although the local museums tend to memorialise the physical heritage of the goldmining through collecting and displaying the impressive material culture (such as stampers, berdan pans, mine wheels, etc.), it is the stories, meanings, diaries, and the continued attachments to these places today that play the larger role in the remembering of the working class past.

Keywords:

• labour
• working class
• Queensland
• Australia
• intangible heritage
• gold mining

Notes

1. These monuments all represent elements of Queensland’s labour heritage. The Tree of Knowledge, a large gumtree located in Barcaldine in central western Queensland, was the meeting place for shearers striking in 1891. It has come to be regarded as the place where the Labour Party in Queensland was started. Despite being poisoned in 2006, the tree still represents the political development of the labour movement. The Jackie Howe statue and the Longreach Hall of Fame similarly commemorate the achievements of working people on the land in Queensland.

2. For example, Fassifern Kent at Mount Shamrock and James McGhie at Paradise worked closely with the mine wardens (Prangnell et al. 2005; Mate 2010). At Paradise township, the mining warden, W.R.O. Hill, and mine owner, James McGhie, were good friends and close colleagues. When workers challenged McGhie in the Mine Warden’s Court, Hill always found for McGhie (Prangnell et al. 2005). Similarly, when workers were unpaid by McGhie for extended periods of time and accrued debts at local traders, it was McGhie, as local magistrate, who heard the cases (Prangnell et al. 2005; Mate 2010).