Engineers Australia and Engineering Heritage Australia - Queensland
Engineering Heritage Ceremony, Gairloch Bridge, Ingham
Speech by Her Excellency Ms Penelope Wensley AC, Governor of Queensland 18th March,
2014
Minister for Natural Resources and Mines, The Honourable Andrew Cripps MP,
Hinchinbrook Shire Council Mayor, Councillor Rodger Bow,
Deputy Mayor, Councillor Patrick Lynch,
Councillors, David Carr, Lawrence Molachino, Wallis Skinner and Marc Tack,
Chief Executive Officer, Ms Leanne Mash,
Executive Manager, Development and Planning, Ms Rosemary Pennisi, and other Council officers
and staff,
Engineers Australia Queensland Division President, Mr Blake Harvey,
Townsville Regional Group Chairman, Mr Greg Elkins,
General Manager, Mr Ian McEwan,
Engineering Heritage Australia - Queensland Chairman, Mr Andrew Barnes, and Panel Member, Mr
Brian McGrath PSM,
President, Hinchinbrook Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Ms Mary Brown,
Members of Engineering Australia, Engineering Heritage Australia and more generally, of the
engineering fraternity,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am delighted, once again, to be in Ingham, in far happier circumstances than when we visited after
Cyclone Yasi - and, once again, to be attending an engineering heritage ceremony. I thank Andrew
Barnes and Mayor Bow for their introduction, and thank Uncle Billy Morganson for his warm welcome
to the traditional lands of the Warragamay, Njawayji and Bandyyin people of this lush valley.
This is the ninth occasion since June 2010 that I have been the guest of Engineers Australia at events
celebrating the contribution that engineers and engineering have made to the history and
development of Queensland, from the Water Tower in Barcaldine to McKay's Minimum Energy Loss
Culvert in Redcliffe, from Somerset Dam to Hay Point Jetty Number Two, via many points between,
the marvellous Engineering Heritage Recognition Program has taken me all over Queensland, to sites
which epitomise the enterprise and innovation of the engineers who have confronted the myriad
challenges posed by the geography and climate of this vast State.
Standing here in this comfortable, well-equipped and beautifully air-conditioned centre, it takes a leap
of the imagination to return to Ingham in 1891, just twenty years after the Reverend William
Mackenzie established his sugar plantation and mill on the banks of the Herbert River and named
them both after Gairloch, the ancestral homelands of the Mackenzie clan in Scotland.
But fortunately, tucked away in the vast online store of newspapers held by the National Library of
Australia, there is a wonderful report, published in The Brisbane Courier on the 21st of September
that year, which gives us immediate insight into life as it was in this community and in nearby
communities a hundred and twenty years ago.
The report, the Courier proudly announces in its headline, is "from our own correspondent" and
contains a highly varied collection of news items. The Herbert River Jockey Club, for instance, had
excitedly announced plans for a race meeting, and further down in his report, the correspondent notes
that "The Reverend F.B. Clive got together a party of sixteen ladies and gentlemen to go overland to
Cardwell ... to give a theatrical entertainment in aid of the church funds there."
"Unfortunately for the visitors", he continues "the School Committee was divided against itself and
there was some difficulty in obtaining the school building, which is the only one in the town available
for the required purpose; but the Chairman, with his casting vote, decided in favour of the visitors, and
the fact of the citizens attending the performance en masse proved that they thoroughly concurred
with the decision."
And then, right at the very end of the article, there is a single sentence of just nineteen words: "The
bridge at Gairloch Crossing is nearly finished and will probably be ready for use before next wet
season."
As everyone here today knows, the bridge was indeed finished and opened to traffic, barely six weeks
later, on the 4th of November, 1891, giving cane farmers north of the river much-needed access to
the sea port south of the river. I was interested to read that, with cane being grown on both sides of
northern and southern banks of the river and no bridge, cane grown on the north side had had to be
transported to the Gairloch Mill by a steel wire ‘flying fox' arrangement (yet another example of
engineering ingenuity!)
But the structure today is more than a link between the two banks of the river; it's a fine metaphor for
the resilient, enduring community the bridge was established to serve, from the strong, practical
materials used in its construction, to a design which accepted and took into account the inevitability of
regular wet-season floods. Indeed it came as no surprise to me to learn that Gairloch has become so
much a part of life in Ingham that one only has to hear "It's six metres at Gairloch" to know precisely
how high the river has risen during a flood.
Since the Australian Historic Engineering Plaquing Program was established by Engineers Australia
in 1984, it has brought public recognition to scores of engineering works of historic or heritage
significance, and to the engineers who created them, and I congratulate the members of the
Queensland Interest Group on their concerted efforts which have seen no fewer than thirteen works in
this State added to the national register, as either National Engineering Heritage Landmarks or
Engineering Heritage Markers, in just over a decade. As Andrew has indicated, there is an enormous
amount of work involved - extensive research, careful checking of facts and figures, then the
preparation of detailed submissions addressing the strict criteria, to be considered and assessed by
the relevant Committees. It's an exacting process - and it's all done by volunteers. So that's a very
impressive record for our Queensland engineers and I am looking forward immensely to unveiling the
latest addition to the tally for this State, the historic Woolscour in Blackall, later this year.
Those who have been present when I have unveiled other plaques, markers and panels, will know
that the Engineering Heritage Awards are close to my heart, because of my love of history and special
interest in Queensland history and heritage, and because there have been many engineers in my
family, spanning several generations, including my brother and Father - both chemical engineers, and
three of my great uncles, one of whom, Alf McCulloch, a mechanical and electrical engineer, has
been recognised as ‘a Queensland engineering great'.
Raised on enthusiastic talk around the dinner table about the intricacies of building Bailey bridges and
the like did not lead me to become an engineer, but it did create in me a great respect for engineers
and for what seems to me one of the great hallmarks of the profession - their appetite and capacity for
practical problem-solving; a respect which has only deepened further during my term as Governor,
seeing the great contribution engineers have made - and continue to make - to the development of
our State.
But there was yet another reason which encouraged my acceptance of the invitation to be here today
- a connection with one of my very early predecessors as Governor of Queensland, His Excellency,
the Marquis of Normanby, who travelled to Ingham in 1872 to perform the official opening of the very
first mill in North Queensland to crush cane commercially.
I always enjoy these encounters with what I call the ‘ghosts of Governors past' as I travel around the
State but, of course, like the engineering plaques and markers of this wonderful program, the imprints
of former Governors - cairns, plaques, foundation stones, signatures in visitors books, newspaper
records - are all significant pointers to Queensland's history and to important aspects of the State's
economic and social development.
For His Excellency to have made such an epic journey, in 1872, well before the township of Ingham
was surveyed (six years later, in 1878), is proof of just how importantly this industry was viewed, but
neither the Governor nor the pioneer cane farmers who gathered on that day could have imagined
what this fledgling industry would become, or have dreamed that, within a decade, a bridge would be
built which would ensure sugar's future as a mainstay of the economy of this region into the twentyfirst century.
It is a wonderful thing to contemplate and in that spirit of admiration and appreciation, it now gives me
great pleasure to invite Mayor Rodger Bow and Mr Blake Harvey to join me on the podium, to unveil,
officially, the Gairloch Bridge Engineering Heritage Plaque and a replica of the Interpretative Panel to
be located at the Bridge.
Downloaded on 22 Jan 2015 from
http://wensley.govhouse.qld.gov.au/the_governor/140318_gairloch_bridge_spch.aspx