|
Booubyjan Homestead is a heritage-listed homestead at Booubyjan Road, Booubyjan, Gympie Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from the 1860s to the 1870s circa. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. == History == Booubyjan Homestead is a complex of timber structures built by the Lawless family at varying times in the nineteenth century as their accommodation needs increased.〔 Booubyjan Homestead has variously been referred to by a number of variations of the spelling of its title in both personal and business correspondence, Government publications and histories of the area. Such variations include Boombyjan, Boonbyjan, Booubijan and Boombagan.〔 The Lawless' occupation of the Booubyjan run began in 1847, when two brothers Paul and Clement Lawless took up three properties in the Burnett River district. The Lawless brothers arrived in Australia from County Cork, Ireland in 1841. After initially establishing themselves on a farm in the Hunter Valley, the brothers moved to the Moreton Bay district, where they took up the Nindooimba run in 1842. With the intention of finding land more suitable for sheep farming, Paul and Clement Lawless joined an expedition travelling to the Brisbane Valley, where they discovered their future home, Booubyjan, named after a near-by large rock.〔 A letter which Clement Lawless wrote to his sister-in-law, Alicia Lawless-Pyne, dated March 1849, provides many details about the early occupation of the Booubyjan run by the Lawless family. Lawless writes of the effects of the low wool prices and the consequent economic hardships which saw the importation and employment of many "Celestials" on the station. The wages books from the station attest to the large proportion of Chinese labourers at Booubyjan, who were, it seems, paid considerably less than their European counterparts. The problems with language were overcome because the Chinese did everything by signs most readily and were excellent at tending sheep.〔 This letter goes on to give details of the early ownership of the station: "We have not got any Title as yet from the Governor to our Station, which is keeping us in hot water, but expect it during the year. A great deal of business has accumulated in the Lands Office in consequence of a change in Squatting regulations; the whole of the country has to be surveyed before they can give Leases, which must occupy a long time."〔 And by 1850, the New South Wales Government Gazette (June 19) published a list of successful tenders for runs in Crown Lands beyond the settled districts. Paul Lawless is listed with Windera and Clement Lawless with "Boombagan". According to early Lands Department Registers the Lawless brothers ran a station called Booubyjan and this comprised three runs, namely Booubyjan, Boonimba and Windera. These Registers indicate that Paul was the sole proprietor of Windera and Clement the sole proprietor of Booubyjan run and both brothers oversaw the Boonimba run.〔 An early Register indicates that a lease was issued for the Booubyjan (therein referred to as Boombagan) and Windera Runs in 1862 for a term of 14 years for an annual rent of £14. However, under Section 55 of the Pastoral Leases Act of 1869, the Lawless' brothers surrendered their leases at both Booubyjan and Windera and were issued with new leases for the two runs in July 1869.〔 Clement Lawless returned to Ireland in about 1860 to marry and remained living in Kilcrone, Ireland until 1869 when he returned to Booubyjan for one year before, again, returning to his country of birth. In 1873 Clement sold his interest in both the Booubyjan station property and another family property, Imbil in the Mary Valley, purchased in 1857, to Ellen Lawless, the wife of his brother Paul.〔 In about 1858 Paul Lawless had also returned to Britain where he married Ellen Nash in Bath, and the young couple set out for Australia in April 1859. Paul and Ellen had three children, and by 1865 it was necessary for the sake of Paul's health to return to Britain where he died shortly after. Ellen, who now held her husband's share in the Australian properties, and her young children spent some years travelling around Europe before returning to Booubyjan in late 1870.〔 After Ellen's death in 1922, the property was bequeathed to her two sons, one of whom, William Burnett Lawless was actually residing at the homestead at the time of his mother's death. William and his wife, Beatrice Muriel Walker, did not have children, and the property was passed on William's death in 1945 to William's nephews, Ivan Desmond Lawless and Burnett Rhys Lawless, who were the sons of John Paul Lawless, then in residence at Windera. Burnett Rhys Lawless continued on at the homestead for many years until his death in 1995, and Booubyjan is now run by Burnett's son, Michael along with his wife and children.〔 It is not possible to date the buildings and structures on the homestead with any degree of certainty. It seems that the oldest building is that known as the Dining Room, which is thought to have been previously used as a nursery. The Queensland Women's Historical Association placed their first "blue plaque" in the state on this building in 1960, giving its approximate age as being from 1860. Photographs dating from the 1870s suggest that the two other principal buildings, referred to as the Homestead and the Cottage, were built either during or before the early 1870s.〔 Early photographs of the head station at Booubyjan indicate that the complex has been subject to many changes, where buildings have been removed or added, and in some instances moved slightly. There is evidence, for example, that an elevated timber building to the south west of the Cottage was removed from the complex of buildings comprising the homestead at Booubyjan.〔 The 1950s saw the destruction of an early kitchen to the rear of the Dining Room, and its replacement with another kitchen built onto the rear of the Homestead.〔 In the 1970s a storm unroofed both the Cottage and the Homestead, and these were replaced, though not in the previous steeply pitched Dutch gabled roof form, but simply with hipped corrugated iron roofs.〔 Photographs taken in 1928 by the travelling photographer of The Queenslander, show the remarkably unchanged state of the buildings from this time, particularly the interiors which retain many pieces of furniture and other items from earlier periods of inhabitancy.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Booubyjan Homestead」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|