Some No Tes On Freemasonry In Australasia.– –(Continued).

Some Notes on Freemasonry in Australasia . – –( Continued ) .

By Bro . W . F . LAMOXHV , P . D . G . M . of Victoria , and P . A . G . D . C . of England . OUEENSLAND .

QUEENSLAND embraces an immense area of the northeastern part of Australia , and the first settlement therein _ dates from 1824 . It was then geographically known as Moreton Bay , and named thus by Captain Cook in 1770 , in honour of the Earl of Moreton , President of the Royal Society . The progress of the future important colony ,

however , was very slow , and in 18 45 , Brisbane , the capital , numbered some 800 souls only . Up to 18 59 part of New-South Wales , in that year it was separated and proclaimed the Colony of Queensland , with Sir George Ferguson Bowen as the lirst Governor . For many years before and after the

year mentioned the country had provided interesting studies for intrepid explorers , one of the leaders of whom was the late veteran and only District Grand Master Queensland had ever had under the English Constitution , namely , R . W . Bro . the Hon . Sir Augustus Charles Gregory , M . L . C ,

K . C . M . G ., who in 1903 was honoured with the dignity of knighthood , in recognition of his Sovereign ' s appreciation of his great services in opening out the colony for settlement . Sir A . C . Gregory was a native of Nottinghamshire , a son of Lieutenant J . Gregory , of the 78 th Highlanders ,

and arrived in Western Australia as far back as 1829 , whence , after a quarter of a century ' s experience , partly in the Government service , he removed to Moreton Bay . This was in 1855 , and thereafter ( 1858 ) his exploration labours in the north of Australia earned him the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society . In 18 75 he was created a C . M . G .,

and in 1882 he became a member of the Upper House of the colony , a position which he deservedly held till the close of his long , arduous and useful life , in June , 1905 .

The following extracts from an obituary notice in the Sydney Morning Herald may be here appropriately quoted : —

"What may well be called ( lie old school of explorers has lost ils last representative in the death of Sir Augustus C . Gregory . In the Western Australian field of exploration he was a young contemporary of such men as Roe , Austin and Eyre at the lime when , in the east of the continent , Stint , Mitchell , Kennedy and Leichhardt were doing llieir best and most brilliant work . He helped to direct the footsteps of the toddling baby giant further afield into new outlets and open wider surroundings for its

ample growth . Leaving the further continuance of the work to his brother Frank , he transferred his perse 11 a ! activity to the northern and central portions of ( hen unknown Australia , and by his work ( here made his name more widely known than by his earlier expeditions . " He served his apprenticeship at exploration in what was , perhaps , the roughest in Australia ; where a man had lo depend on his horse lo

carry out his work in a country where feed and water was of the scantiest and most uncertain . If amongst hostile natives , his means of defence then was a flint musket and a double barrelled pistol , not nearly as unci ring as the native ' s spear . The use of the canvas waterbag wss unknown , and a supplv of the element was carried in a tin canteen , from which as much evaporated as was drunk . These were the surroundings of his youthful

days , and no wonder that he turned out hardy and self-reliant , Ihe very type of man lo lead the van of Ihe pioneers of a new world . In his time the explorer who started into the unknown had no haven of refuge to make for at his journey ' s end ; there was no succouring line of telegraph stations across ( he centre of Australia , no ring of settlement on the coast . For every toilsome step that he made in advance he had lo retrace one

more toilsome still , with weakened horses and failing provisions . When he left the settled districts he irust live or die unaided ; lie must look only to himself . This is the difference that existed between the explorer of the old school and the more modern one .

"What a change has come over the land that he once gazed on , then a primitive wilderness ! On Start ' s Creek where he and his companion explorer and botanist , good old and respected Ferdi-and von Mueller , stood and ga / . ed at Ihe sail lake and the looming desert lo the south , stations have long been formed . The locomotive shrieks as il approaches the river Thomson , where he turned back from its head waters when in search of Leichhardt . And in Western Australia the changes have even

been more complete and wonderful . Xo man in Australia ever saw such a transformation as he saw during his long lifetime . Others have lived far beyond the allotted span and seen villages grow into thriving cities , but not to behold Ihe whole of Ihe lifeless wilderness that then covered so much of Australia wake as il by magic to the hum and throb of civilisation . lie was privileged to behold the land where he first broke the great silence of ils solitudes with the footfalls ol his horses , blossom into the vigorous and teeming life of an ambitious young nation . "

But it was our venerated brother ' s association with Masonry that most concerns us at the present . He was initiated in the Sydney Samaritan Lodge , No . 578 , under the English Constitution , in 1855 , which lodge in nineteen years became extinct . The earliest lodge in Queensland , and that an English one ( the North Australian , at Brisbane ) was

warranted in 1 8 59 , the year the colony was proclaimed , and it is interesting to note that its lirst Master , Bro . James Watkin Jackson , was actually the lirst initiate in the Cambrian Lodge of Australia , No . 6 5 6 , Sydney [ see page 4 6 ] . Bro . Jackson was therefore the founder of the Craft in Queensland ,

as shown on his tombstone , now reproduced . He was also the first P . G . Registrar under the English Constitution . Subsequently a chapter was opened in connection with the loclge . In 1862 Sir A . C . Gregory , 33 ° , was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Queensland , and in 1891 Grand

Superinten-THI-: LATK SIR A . (' . ( UtlUiOIt V , K . C . M . C , IHSTHICT ( IRAXI ) MASTKlt OF OUEI-LNSLANI ) , K . C . dent of the Royal Arch . It will suffice to say that he was still in harness as chief of English Masonry in Queensland , up to the year of hisdeath , and enjoyed the distinction of being the Senior

District Grand Master under the English Constitution . Up to his eighty-eighth year he still took the liveliest interest in the Craft , and any one who had had the opportunity of perusing the verbatim quarterly reports would at once perceive that the then doven of English Masonry in Australia was truly the personification of the suaviler in modo and of the fort iter in re .

Commencing forty-three years ago with a constituency of but four lodges under his rule , Sir A . C . Gregory ' s District Grand Lodge of Queensland finally numbered sixty-live lodges , scattered over an immense tract of country . He was presented with his portrait , painted by a leading Australian artist , nearly twenty years ago , as a token of the warm esteem in which he was held b y the fraternity , and in other ways his brethren had frequently testified their affection