A complete guide to Barcaldine, Qld
Barcaldine, affectionately nicknamed ‘Barcy’ by locals, is a hugely important and symbolic town in the history of working people in Australia.
It was here in 1891 that shearers, confronted with the prospect of lower pay, famously went on strike. They joined together in a camp outside of town and held meetings under the ‘Tree of Knowledge’ – a 10m-tall ghost gum near the railway station.
These meetings played an important role in the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
Today, the town commemorates its historic radicalism through the Australian Workers Heritage Centre (a tribute to Australia’s male and female workers), the heritage-listed Shearers’ Strike Camp Site, and a beautifully recreated sculpture representing the Tree of Knowledge.
Barcaldine boasts a few unusual attractions such as the historic Masonic Lodge, which looks like an ancient stone temple but is actually built out of timber and corrugated iron.
On Oak Street, there are some amusing musical instruments – including a marimba and thongophone – that can be played by visitors.
The town is strategically located at the junction of the Capricorn and Landsborough highways. It’s a key service centre for the region (the Barcaldine Regional Council covers an area of 53,677sq.km) and smaller towns such as Alpha, Jericho, Aramac and Muttaburra. In 2021 it had a population of 1540.
Origin of name: In 1863 an early settler called Donald Charles Cameron took up land in the district and named his property after Barcaldine in Argyll, Scotland.
Places of interest
1. Australian Workers Heritage Centre
This award-winning museum celebrates “the lives and proud heritage of ordinary working people – telling the stories of the railway workers and blacksmiths, the farmers, nurses and teachers who shaped the nation”. It was created to complement the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame at Longreach.
The museum is spread across two hectares on the former grounds of the old Barcaldine State School. The school structures were renovated and incorporated into the exhibition space.
2. Tree of Knowledge Memorial
In October 2006 the Tree of Knowledge, a 10m-tall ghost gum, was poisoned with Roundup. The culprit was never caught or identified. This heritage-listed tree had symbolic importance in the history of Australia’s industrial and labour movements because it was the meeting place for shearers during the 1891 shearers’ strike.
To commemorate this history, an architect-designed Tree of Knowledge Memorial was constructed at the original site, retaining the dead tree trunk. It opened in May 2009 and features a striking 18m-high cube and 4000 suspended timbers of varying length to represent the tree canopy.
The sculpture is particularly impressive at night, when it’s lit by coloured lights.
3. Barcaldine and District Historical Museum
The town’s folk museum, which is housed in the old National Bank building, is full of memorabilia donated by locals. Notable displays include a rare Edison phonograph (gramophone) dating from 1900, barbed wire dating from the 1870s, and a 1923 ticket issued by Qantas.
The grounds around the museum have historic farm machinery as well as the town’s first motorised fire engine.
4. Barcaldine Masonic Lodge
The Masonic Lodge is one of the most remarkable buildings in Queensland. It’s a simple two-storey timber-framed structure with a corrugated iron roof, but the boards on the front of the building are painted to mimic ashlar masonry. The gable facing the front features scalloped barge boards and finials. The ingenious design blends humble materials with the grandeur of classical architecture.
5. Murals and musical instruments
Recently, Barcaldine enriched its streets with striking and unusual artworks. On the Landsborough Highway, just west of the Tree of Knowledge Memorial, is a mural of a sand goanna painted by d’Arcy Doyle. On Oak Street there’s an amusing thongophone and marimba that was constructed as part of a public artworks program.
History
Before European settlement, the area was home to the Iningai First Nations people.
In 1846 Sir Thomas Mitchell became the first European to pass through the Barcaldine area. He described the region as “the finest region I have seen in Australia”.
The explorer Augustus Gregory passed through the region in 1858.
In 1863 Donald Cameron overlanded sheep from the New England area and settled
on a 64km frontage along the Alice River, which he named Barcaldine Station after his family’s property in Scotland.
In the 1880s there were violent frontier wars in the region. The Iningai population shrank from about 700 people to 136 in 1886.
Town lots were sold in 1885. The following year, the town was gazetted when it became the western terminus for the railway line from Rockhampton.
On 1 May 1891, 1300 shearers held a protest march in Barcaldine.
On 20 May 1891, 13 leaders
of the shearers’ union were sentenced to three years’ hard labour at Moreton Bay.
T. J. Ryan, from Barcaldine Shire, became the first representative of Australian labouring people when he was elected to the Queensland Parliament in 1892.
The Tree of Knowledge was vandalised and poisoned in October 2006.
In 2009 the Tree of Knowledge Memorial was unveiled at
Oak Street.
