The following is an excerpt from an account I wrote on several ancestors, including Matthew Charles Thomson, or better known as Charlie. He arrived in Queensland, Australia from Kilmarnock, Scotland in the 1860s. This excerpt is from his later years.
While W & M C Thomson operated, Charlie was also involved in other ventures. About 1876 Charlie bought the lease for Bonnie Doon, a run west of Rockhampton on the Mackenzie River ‘and made a cattle station of it’.[1] In 1881 he then purchased half the interest in Malvern Downs station from Andrew Rowan – Messrs Rowan and Thomson. He managed Malvern through a long period of drought ‘during which time he worked harder . . . than he had ever done before. And Charlie was at all times an active and able worker’.[2] The store in Springsure is still referred to as his store in 1882.
At the close of his business with William in 1886 Charlie became Managing Director of Lakes Creek Meat Preserving Works in Rockhampton. Lakes Creek was owned by the Central Queensland Meat Export Company Limited, established in 1880, which, by 1885, Charlie was a shareholder. However, the company came into financial trouble mainly due to a fire at Lakes Creek in 1883 and was acquired by a syndicate which included Charlie, who also acted as their representative in Rockhampton.
[1] Nisbet, Reminiscences of Pioneering Days in Queensland, 68.
[2] Nisbet, Reminiscences of Pioneering Days in Queensland, 106.
M C Thomson takes possession of Lakes Creek. Australasian (Melbourne, Vic.), Saturday 4 September 1886, 27
Sir Thomas McIlwraith announced his return to politics in March 1888, campaigning in several towns. In Emerald, Charlie chaired the rally meeting held in the Court House. A few days later, at McIlwraith’s speech to the residents of Rockhampton, Charlie, along with several gentlemen, accompanied McIlwraith on stage. After the election in June, McIlwraith was again Premier only to resign at the end of November due to poor health. He and Lady McIlwraith immediately embarked on a holiday to China and Japan with a small family group and Charlie. Their first stop was at Batavia [Jakarta] spending a few days in Java. The party travelled onto Singapore, staying at the Grand Hotel de l’Europe, having Christmas there before continuing to their destination of Yokohama, Japan via the ports of Saigon, Shanghai and Hong Kong. In Japan they took in the sights of Kobe, Yokohama, Tokyo, Nikko, Miyanoshita, Nagoya, Kyoto and Nagasaki. On their return to Australia, they stopped in Hong Kong where Charlie left the group to continue the journey home in March 1889.
McIlwraith had publicly stated his support for the Queensland meat export trade.
The latest movement which has received Sir Thomas’ hearty support is that of forming extensive meat export works : a project of vital importance to Queensland, as the squatting industry is languishing for want of a market for the large surplus of cattle that cannot at present be sold.[3]
[3] “Sir Thomas McIlwraith”, Illustrated Sydney News (NSW), Saturday 19 July 1890, 13.
M C Thomson’s envoy from Rockhampton. Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld.), Tuesday 28 November 1893, 7
Late 1893 Charlie set out for an extensive trip to Britain, Canada and USA on behalf of the Central Queensland Meat Export Company to investigate the frozen and chilled meat trade, and the cause of the fall in the meat market for Queensland particularly. While in Britain in January 1895 he joined the board of Nelson Brothers Limited, a New Zealand meat processing and importing company incorporated in London in 1883. In the early 1890s Charlie had been visiting New Zealand. Later the same year The Colonial Consignment and Distributing Company Limited listed and Charlie retired from Nelson Brothers to take up a position on this board.
This is the company which is being formed to take over the English business of Messrs Nelson Bros., Limited . . . It is intended that the operations of the Company shall consist almost entirely of the storage and sale on commission of colonial produce.[1]
Charlie was also the company’s representative in Australia. Its purpose was to address ‘a long felt want by bringing the colonial producer into close connection with consumers in largely populated centres’.[2] While in London 1895, Charlie gave evidence regarding pastoral matters in Queensland and Australia, at the Royal Commission into their agricultural depression, its causes and possible remedies. On his return to Australia early 1896 he set up an office in Pitt Street, Sydney.
[1] “Mr Ward’s Company”, Wairarapa Daily Times, (New Zealand), 9 September 1895.
[2] “Views of a Pastoralits”, [sic], 3.
M C Thomson address. Brisbane Courier (Qld.), Friday 17 April 1896, 6
Returning to Queensland he was asked to address the Qld Stockbreeders & Graziers’ Association in Brisbane ‘respecting his experiences in connection with the meat trade generally in America and in England’.[1] He spoke to a large audience which included representatives of the Bank of NSW, Dalgety’s and Queensland politicians.
[The Chairman Mr T de M Murray-Prior said in his introduction] It was not every day that they had amongst them one of themselves who had travelled across the world, and could tell them of what he had seen with his own eyes. They were all more or less interested in the price of meat, and they all knew that for the past few years the meat trade had been carried on at a loss. If there was not a rise in the price of meat, and that soon, most of those engaged in the industry would, find themselves practically bankrupt. They had been going the wrong way to work, and had not realised their true position. Mr. Thomson was a man of thirty years’ colonial experience, and he was sure they would learn a great deal from what he had to say to them.[2]
[1] “Our Industries”, Brisbane Courier (Qld.), Friday 17 April 1896, 6.
[2] “Our Industries”, 6. Note: Thomas de Montmorency Murray-Prior was the son of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior.
Rockhampton leading citizens ca. 1890s, with M C Thomson. Capricornia CQ Collection, CQ University Library
Returning home to Rockhampton, Charlie gave an extensive interview on his overseas visit regarding markets, distribution and the English trade. Charlie was dividing his time between Queensland and Sydney with meetings as a member of the Australian Frozen Meat Association. He was also part of a ‘committee formed to arrange for sending the donation of frozen meat from Australia [for] the poor of Great Britain’.[1]
Despite his absences he maintained his ties with local affairs as a leading citizen of Rockhampton. In May 1896 there was meeting of Scottish residents of Rockhampton. He still appears on the magistrate roster for Rockhampton Police Court in 1898.
After 1899 Charlie’s visits to the UK are more frequent though he continues to share his knowledge as a contributor to the Australian Pastoralists’ Review.
The company expanded with a new building in Manchester and Charlie showed a reporter around the facility.
Both Manchester and Liverpool have now direct steamship connection with Australasia, and Mr Thomson is going to see whether it is possible to induce colonial shippers to make a bold bid for the trade of the North of England.[2]
[1] “Record Reign”, Evening News (Sydney, NSW), Thursday 13 May 1897, 6.
[2] “Personal”, New Zealand Times, (NZ), 23 March 1900.
The Queensland Dinner, London 1907. M C Thomson is listed as seated at the second table. Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld), Saturday 7 September 1907, 21
In 1903 Charlie sells his land in Springsure. By 1906 Charlie was spending more time in London with his good friend William K D’Arcy and his family. They both regularly attended the annual dinner of Queenslanders in London from at least 1907 to 1909.
From 1887 Queensland’s returned “pioneers” also gathered in London for the Annual Queensland Dinners at which they toasted “The Queen and a United Empire” and savoured the annual musical rendition of “The Old Bullock Dray”.[1]
Charlie had written to a friend, seemingly bemused, that he was ‘ “getting quite into the dress circle of society” ’.[2] Charlie continued to expand his ventures. In 1909 he was one of the original Directors of Bovril Australian Estate along with Sidney Kidman. In early 1910 he was planning a visit to Australia in connection with his Bovril interests. Charlie ‘was on the road to competence and leisured ease when somewhat untimely and quite unexpectedly he passed to the great Majority’.[3]
It was the 10 January 1910 when Charlie died at home in Mayfair, London. He had undergone surgery for cancer which had spread from his lips to his neck but died post-recovery. The informant on his death certificate was his great niece Nöel Farquharson. His death was widely reported in obituaries in Australia and New Zealand.
[1] J. M. McKay, “A good show: Colonial Queensland at international exhibitions”, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, Culture Vol 1, Part 1 of Part 2, (1998): 189 – 190.
[2] Nisbet, Reminiscences of Pioneering Days in Queensland, 160.
[3] Nisbet, Reminiscences of Pioneering Days in Queensland, 69.
One of the best known men in Anglo-Australian business circles (particularly in the wool and meat and produce section) was Mr. M. C. Thomson, who, died this week.[1]
Forty-five years ago Mr. M. C. Thomson was a stalwart, robust looking, and handsomely featured young Scotchman, apparently fit to go anywhere or do anything.[2]
Charlie never married, and as the last surviving Thomson sibling, he left all his real and personal estate to be sold with the proceeds to be divided equally among all the children of all his deceased siblings, Robert, William, Agnes and John. When he wrote his will in 1902 it was worth nearly £3000, substantially more than at the time of probate when it was valued at under £300. Much of his financial losses were attributed to Bonnie Doon ‘not the least being from ticks and the fixing of an arbitrary tick boundary along the Tropic of Capricorn.’[3]
[He] eventually gave it [Bonnie Doon] up, coming out with the loss of nearly all he had. However Charlie had always a brave front wherewith to meet misfortune and . . . it would have been an unusual sort of trouble that he did not counter with a smile if not a laugh or a joke. He was like a cat in always falling on his feet! . . . His vitality was simply phenomenal.[4]
[1] “Our London Letter”, West Australian (Perth, WA), Tuesday 15 February 1910, 2.
[2] “Retrospect of Squatting Pioneers”, Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld.), Saturday 22 January 1910, 9.
[3] “Obituary: Mr M C Thomson”, Pastoralists’ Review 19, no. 12 (15 February 1910): 1301.
[4] Nisbet, Reminiscences of Pioneering Days in Queensland, 68 – 69.