Chapter 1: The Beginning

Like most folk named Hollister, Henry Hollister came from Somerset. More precisely, from Taunton, Not intellectual, but industrious, Henry would have remained a labourer had he not at the age of twelve won a scholarship from the Board School to the Endowed School. He owed his triumph to a sly trick, rather than learning, and to chance rather than design. On the second day of the examination he arrived ten minutes early for the afternoon part. He wandered about the place exercising his curiosity, and reached the examiner’s desk. On the desk was a tabulated form with names of candidates and the number of marks achieved by each in each subject of the previous day. He had done badly in geography, and saw seven in the geographical column, out of a possible thirty. The figures had been written in pencil. The pencil lay on the desk. He picked it up, glanced at the door and at the rows of empty desks, and placed a neat “2“ in front of the 7; then he strolled out innocently and came back a few minutes later.

His trick ought to have been found out—the odds were against him—but it was not found out. Of course it was dishonest. But Henry wasn’t vicious. Every schoolboy is dishonest, by adult standards. All’s fair between schoolboys and schoolmasters.

This dazzling feat seemed to influence not only Henry’s career but also his character. He gradually came to believe that he had won the scholarship by genuine merit, and that he was a remarkable boy and destined to great ends.

He may not have known much geography, but he did well in mathematics and geometry. And he was skilful with his hands.

Nearly four years later, at sixteen, he apprenticed to the West Somerset Railway, which had just been purchased by the Great Western Railway. Henry’s first “assignment” was as a “helper” at Stogumber, where the station platform was being extended. Six months later he was re-assigned as an “assistant gang-master,” as GWR continued to improve the WSR, though the latter wasn’t incorporated into the whole system.

It was then that fortune struck. Henry was sent to “survey” the single platform at Blue Anchor, on the southern shore of the Bristol Channel. And there he spotted a placard advertising “Good Pay for Railroaders!” in a place called Queensland. His geography still wasn’t quite up to snuff, but Henry noted the address to call, which was in Taunton near the station.

Several days later, Henry visited the office of the Queensland Railroad and filled out a form in his neatest hand only to discover that the road under construction would run from Brisbane to Kingaroy in Australia! As it was a nearly six-month journey, his passage would be borne by the Company and he would be under a two-year contract at the annual salary of two hundred pounds, plus found and twenty pounds for wardrobe in advance. He would also receive a second-class ticket to Southampton, whence the P&O ship would depart. He was (just) eighteen, and legally independent.

Two days later, Henry gave notice to the Great Western and signed on with the Queensland Railroad. A week later, the Great Western delivered him to Southampton. He had but a small suitcase with a change of clothes, a battered works of Shakespeare, his American Mechanic’s Handbook, and a copy of the Bible, pressed upon him by a teary mother, who claimed he’d be the death of her. He promised to write.

The Indian mail service was inaugurated in the autumn of 1842 by P&O’s purpose-built, 1,800 tons, wooden paddle steamer Hindostan. Additional mail contracts followed and by the end of 1844, P&O was operating a regular mail service extending from England to Alexandria and from Suez to Ceylon, Madras and Calcutta, with a further extension from Ceylon to Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong opened in 1845, and onwards to Shanghai in 1849. Steam communication with Australia was inaugurated in 1852 by means of an extension of the line from Singapore

After losing several pounds at cards, Henry learned to avoid the gaming tables on his voyage out. And by the time they docked at Madeira, he had encountered a youngish widow on her way to Singapore, where she would be employed in Sir John Anderson’s establishment. Henry entertained her several evenings each week as they slowly sailed and steamed to the east via the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. Henry also read both his Shakespeare and his Bible.

After Singapore, where Henry did indeed post an uninformative note to his mother, he kept track of his location: the Java Sea, the Banda Sea, the Arafura Sea. Then, a first sighting of Australia! The northern tip of the Cape York Peninsula. Then south through the Coral Sea and, at last, Brisbane.

Henry Hollister cleared customs, located the Railroad’s “factor” and was advised to take a room for a few days in the Brunswick, a pub near the waterfront, “an’ come to the office tomorrer.”

A week later, Henry was a hundred miles north of Brisbane. Together with a few dozen English and Irish laborers, a surveying crew, and about a hundred aboriginals, they were laying a line to Kingaroy, a post office fully 120 miles from Brisbane in flat country where sheep grazed. The line was a narrower gauge than the one used by the GWR, but that didn’t matter to Henry, who caught the eye of a lubra to cook his dinner, wash his clothes and warm his bed. He “paid” her a shilling a week. Unlike most English he drank no “sheep water” [raw hard grain liquor] and stayed out of the camp brawls. After six months, he was summoned back to Brisbane and re-stationed in Toowoombra, 75 miles west of Brisbane. Several lines branched out from there.

Henry entered into a second two-year contract at the exalted salary of 300 pound pA.

[The initial section of the Western Line was built from Toowoomba to Dalby, opening 16 April 1868. From Dalby the line was extended to Roma beginning in 1877, opening on 16 September 1880. The rail was extended to Mitchell in 1885 and to Charleville on 1 March 1888. With the opening of the rail to the west, the train became an important transport link for both passengers and freight. it was then extended to Charleville, opening on 1 March 1888. There were a number of factors that contributed to Charleville’s importance as a rail terminus, not least its location on the Warrego River. The line was later extended in a southerly direction, following the Warrego, to Cunnamulla, opening on 10 October 1898.]

Henry’s experience with narrow gauge, limited as it was, now proved advantageous. After only a few months, now just past twenty, he was sent to Roma and assigned a gang, an aboriginal crew with an Irish gang-master, an engine and a work flatcar (which “lived” on a siding). Six months later, he (and the crew and equipment) were re-stationed thirty miles further west, to Muckadilla where he was assigned a house at the station.

There were under a dozen European families within the town’s bailiwick, but there was a school, attended by the offspring of the further dozen families which had squatted on lands in the extended area and, for the most part, raised sheep. The school, supervised by a Reverend Forsythe and taught by him and his teen-aged daughter Alice, was also attended by Aborigines from a band encamped along Muckadilla Creek, just west of town.

[The January 1888 timetable labelled the train the ‘Western Mail’, and when the line opened to Charleville later that year the train was extended once per week, reaching the new terminus at 6.30am Sunday. It departed for Brisbane at 10pm Sundays, taking 24 hours for the return journey. Compared to a weeks’ journey by stage coach, this was high speed travel for the day.

By the time the Cunnamulla extension opened, the Western Mail was running twice a week to Charleville, with one service per week continuing on to the terminus. Second class sleepers were introduced at this time.]

From Roma to Cunnamulla and Quilpie the line had been constructed with light rail (21 kg/m, 42 lb/yard), all timber sleepers, 10 tonne axle load, minimal earthworks and a line speed of 40 mph. The slope to the west was quite gentle and Henry soon established a routine of running his engine and flatcar the 150 miles to Charleville every Tuesday, turning about in the rail yard, and returning to Muckadilla on the Wednesday. He thus avoided any conflict with the Western Mail. Once a month he would venture the additional 125 miles to Cunnamulla, which entailed reversing the single narrow gauge until his crew built a loop several years later, when Henry embarked on his third two-year contract with a further raise in his (ahem!) emolument. He was nearly 23.