Chapter 6.4
Archibald Frederick Mosman 1846-1918
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| Archibald Frederick Mosman (c. Mosman Library) |
While Archibald Frederick Mosman (AFM) was raised by Archibald and Harriet Mosman, his biological mother was Harriet’s cousin Charlotte Farquharson (see Chapter 4.1).
He was given the same education as elder brother Hugh at The King’s School, Parramatta. They were probably boarders together. AFM was 15 when his father died. In 1865 when he was 17 he sailed on the 700 ton screw steamer Boomerang from Sydney to Maryborough to start a new life in North Queensland.
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| SS Boomerang |
During the next few years he worked at various properties around the north of Queensland. He was an excellent horseman and probably worked as a jackeroo or even an overseer as in 1877 he was advertising for a married stockman for Hamilton Station inland from Mackay. in 1879 was working as a drover at Connors Run, St Lawrence near Mackay.
In 1883 AFM probably wanted a change from droving work and decided to ask his brother in law Sir Thomas McIlraith, then Premier of Queensland, to help him to get a job with the Native Mounted Police(NMP) in the Lake Nash area.
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| First page of letter |
Boulia
August 17th 1883
Sir T McIlwraith
Brisbane
Dear Sir
August 17th 1883
Sir T McIlwraith
Brisbane
Dear Sir
I have been informed that you have directed that a Native Police Station should be formed at Lake Nash—I would be greatly obliged if you would give me the appointment of Sub Inspector in charge.
I have had a good deal of experience in Western Queensland and am thoroughly acquainted with the country on both sides of the border in the neighbourhood of Lake Nash.
Should you favor my application I will endeavour by strict attention to my duties to how my appreciation of your confidence.
I have known Mr Murray Inspector of Police at Blackall for some years and by so refer you to him as to my fitness for the appointment.
With kind regards to Mrs McIlwraith and self
I beg to remain
Yours obdly
A F Mosman
The approach worked and by December 1883 AFR had been appointed Sub-Inspector in charge of Burke River (Boulia) Camp when Sub-Inspector Earnest Eglington was on leave. Over the next 17 years until 1890 AFM was in charge of several NMP patrols at camps in north west Queensland.
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| A typical NMP patrol One white officer and several armed native troopers |
From the late 1840’s to the end of the century the Queensland Native Mounted Police provided protection to settlers on the frontier against local natives. It was governed by white officers who commanded detachments of about six or seven armed indigenous troopers. It was notorious for moving Aboriginal people off the land by whatever means necessary to ensure European colonisation could take place.
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| Camps where AFR was posted |
The native police districts were extremely large, 200 miles and even more in length and width. For each district one patrol party consisted usually of one European officer with six native troopers, provided with arms and ammunition, besides 12 to 14 pack and saddle horses. Troopers were recruited from other areas to avoid family problems with local aborigines.
A camp needed to be established with sufficient feed area for the horses, adequate water for stock and staff, some form of shelter and protected storage for supplies.
In 1888 AFM was moved south from Toby’s Creek to set up a camp at Moonah Creek on the Northern Territory border near Lake Nash at the centre of an area where the natives had been causing trouble.
Although the camp had been placed on a waterhole on Moonah Creek considered to be both large and permanent, Mosman's predictions of water shortages (“there is no surface water consequently there would be a well required"), came to pass in 1889 when a well had to be sunk when the Georgina River ran dry. Parts of the area were even known for some time as Little Mosman's Waterhole and Mosman's Well.
With the 1890 drought and few current problems with the local natives, NMP administration decided to close the Moonah Creek camp. AFM learned that he was probably being transferred to the north of Cape York about 1,000 km away.
When AFM was at Moonah Creek he had met 19 years old Meridah (Kitty) Guachamp, a full blood Aboriginal young woman who had been born in Lake Nash. Kitty was to become his long term partner. Because of the move to an area he didn't know and his special relationship with Kitty he decided to resign. He was 46.
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| A rare photo of Kitty |
For several years Archibald and Kitty lived at “White Hills“ a remote cattle station on the Leichhardt River 150 km north of Cloncurry in far North Queensland. Between 1895 and 1991 they had four girls; May, Aprilla, Norah and Junella Mosman. They all had the middle name Carlton, derivation unknown. AFM was 48 when his first daughter was born.
In 1911 Archibald married Kitty and a current law allowed him to legitimise his daughters’ births. By this his daughters were able eventually to benefit from the residual trust in Hugh Mosman’s will long after Hugh’s death.
Some time around the turn of the century Archibald Jnr. met Laurence Theodore Kenny, a stockman who had worked as Manager at nearby Headlingly Station. Their family and business interests soon became intertwined.
Kenny’s grandfather was a master mariner who settled in Maitland in the 1850’s. Laurence was born around 1860 and when he was an adult he appears to have travelled from Maitland to Queensland with the new owner of Headlingly Station to be a stockman. He met his wife Angelina Merridah, an Aboriginal woman, at the station, and they had eight children.
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| May Carlton Kenny née Mosman |
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| Laurence Kenny jnr |
Laurence junior and Michael Kenny married Archibald’s daughters May and Aprilla Mosman, thus cementing the family relationship.
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| Alsace Station |
Excavation of abandoned NMP camps mainly unearthed two relics, spent cartridges and fragments of bottles of wine and spirits. Alcohol was used by European officers to compensate for the loneliness of such remote living.
It is therefore not a surprise that in 1919 Archibald Frederick Mosman is reported to have died alone at Cloncurry Hospital when he was 71 from acute alcoholism. This is a sad ending to a frequently very lonely life. Laurence Junior, his son in law and husband of his daughter May, was executor of his will. Kitty outlived him by 20 years and died in Townsville in 1938.
White Hills Station prospered and grew to cover 655 square kilometres in 1966 when the lessees were Archibald’s daughter Nora and two sons and one daughter. It was sold 15 years later and possibly amalgamated into an even larger property as it can no longer be found on the map.
Footnote
There are some unanswered questions:
- While there is a lot of information about AFM’s life there is little evidence about why he made different life choices to the rest of his family.
- Why did a well educated and connected young man decide to spend years of his life controlling the Aboriginal community and then spend the rest of his life with an Aboriginal woman and have four daughters with her?
- Why did he choose to live in one of the most remote areas of the country?
- Did he keep in contact with his other siblings or was he treated as the black sheep of the family?
We will probably never fully know the answers to most of these questions. There may be a partial answer to the last question in the challenges by residual beneficiaries of Hugh Mosman’s will, made by descendants of Sir Arthur Palmer and Cecilia Mosman, to the rights of AFM’s four daughters to be beneficiaries of the residual trust fund of the will because of the circumstances of their birth. This suggests that AFM’s family may not have been fully acknowledged by the rest of his family.
Next Chapter - 6.5 Adam Mosman 1848-1884