The Birdsville Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut, Courthouse and Police Complex, comprises a Courthouse (1890) with an extension for Police and Customs Quarters (1896), an Aboriginal Tracker’s Hut (1948) and a Lock-up (1958). Located within the small town of Birdsville, in far western Queensland, this judiciary complex was the administrative centre for police and border customs along a major stock route from 1890. The site remained in use until the 1980s, and in police ownership until 2021.
The area encompassing Birdsville (Wirrarri) and extending into what is now South Australia is part of the traditional land of the Wangkangurru and Yarluyandi (or Jeljendi) people. Life in the country, subject to cycles of drought and flood, was based around mikiri (desert wells) in the dry times, with travel when water was plentiful. The Wangkangurru and Yarlunyandi people hold knowledge of the mikiri and the Dreaming tracks that cross the desert, and retain connections and duties to care for country.
Wirrarri was also a meeting place, exchange centre and distribution area for pituri, a hallucinogenic plant containing high levels of nicotine. The country between the Georgina and Mulligan rivers, just north of Wirrarri, was the primary source of pituri, which was used in hunting, ceremonies, and recreationally, and carried in traditional pituri bags. This placed Wirrarri near the centre of an important trade route, with people travelling hundreds of kilometres to the area to exchange high quality stone axes from Cloncurry and Mount Isa, medicines, and seashells for pituri. The route was also important for social and ritual trade, where songs, ceremonies, and knowledge were exchanged.
Non-Indigenous expeditions traversed the trade routes across the area that became the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s. European pastoralists took up large holdings in the semi-arid region from 1876, driving cattle along the traditional trade route. Roads were built on the trade routes, and homesteads and stockyards were often built on Aboriginal campsites. By the late 1870s a store and hotel were reportedly erected at the site of the present town of Birdsville to serve passing travellers, teamsters and drovers, and the pastoral stations in the region. The site was located adjacent to a permanent waterhole on the Diamantina River.
In 1881 a four square mile (1036ha) township reserve was gazetted on the Boundary and Boundary East runs on the Diamantina River. The township, which became known as Birdsville, was officially surveyed in 1885. Land sales in Birdsville town were held in 1886, and the Diamantina Divisional Board was established and based in Birdsville. By 1889 Birdsville boasted a population of 110, with two general stores, three hotels, two blacksmith shops, two bakers, a cordial manufacturer, bootmaker, saddler, auctioneer and commission agent, and a number of residences. The town also managed to raise nearly £200 prize money for its inaugural race day in 1882, reflecting the success of the surrounding pastoral areas.
Positioned halfway along the stock route which served stations between the Gulf of Carpentaria and Adelaide, Birdsville became an important marshalling point. Drovers paused for refreshments or waited out poor weather while moving cattle south to Adelaide markets, as Afghan cameleers carried goods north from the Marree railway station in central South Australia to Birdsville, along what quickly became known as the Birdsville Track. In 1883 a customs post was opened at Birdsville, the westernmost of 14 border posts established in Queensland before Federation to maintain tariff walls between the colonies. Located just 11 kilometres north of the border with South Australia, along the busy stock route, the Birdsville post was an important administrative centre for border customs. A customs officer was officially appointed in 1885.
Following violent clashes between Indigenous people and pastoralists in the region in the 1870s, the Queensland Government prioritised the establishment of a police force at the remote Birdsville settlement. The first purpose-built police station and gaol was built in 1884, and a sergeant, two constables, and an Aboriginal tracker were despatched to Birdsville in September 1884. A five-acre (2.02ha) police reserve at the western boundary of the town, surrounded by Macdonald, Adelaide and Graham Streets, was gazetted in December 1885.
While crime levels in Birdsville were generally low, serious offenders like horse thieves had to be transported for trial to Winton, more than 600km away. Civil matters and misdemeanours required attention at the nearest court of petty sessions, located more than 300km north in Boulia. After complaints from residents, the situation was partially resolved in 1884, when Birdsville was gazetted as a place where courts of petty sessions could be held. Police Sergeant McDonald was appointed as the acting court clerk. A police magistrate was appointed in January 1885, and in later years the role was coupled with clerk of petty sessions or customs officer.
The population of Birdsville peaked in 1895 at 220. Following Federation, the Birdsville customs depot was closed and the population slowly dwindled to approximately 50 throughout the 1950s. The livestock trade continued to be the primary industry of the town but in the last quarter of 20th century and with the growth in popularity of the Birdsville Races, tourism became the primary economic driver. In 2011 the population had risen to around 280, swelling to around 6000 for the 12 days of the racing carnival, but in 2016 the reported population had dropped to 140.
Introduced to Queensland police stations from 1874, Aboriginal trackers were employed to find missing persons, trace criminals, and search for lost or stolen stock. They could trace paths indistinguishable to Europeans, providing vital services in remote and rural areas. Trackers also carried out tasks around the police station, including caring for police animals; the wives of married trackers undertook domestic work at the station. Trackers had become part of the police forces across Australia after first working for Europeans in the 1820s, and the skills of Queensland trackers were particularly renowned. By 1896, 112 trackers were employed across the colony, though numbers varied from year to year. The number of trackers employed by the Queensland Police peaked at 127 in 1900, had fallen to 68 by 1925, and to only 26 by 1952. The last tracker employed by the Queensland Police retired in 2014, ending the 140-year operation.
An Aboriginal tracker was stationed at Birdsville with the initial contingent of police officers in 1884. Over the following seven decades, between one and three trackers at a time were stationed at Birdsville. The Birdsville trackers undertook a range of tasks – one tracker was charged with the care of the station’s camels, which had arrived in 1886 – while their wives performed ‘domestic duties’ at the station. The longest serving trackers, Tracker Billy (served 1885 - 1905) and Corporal Tommy (served 1905 - 1952), covered almost the duration of trackers stationed at Birdsville.
As part of their employment, trackers were to be provided with wages, food, and accommodation. Wages were well below the average rate (and later well below the minimum wage), and food was supplied by the officer in charge of the station. Trackers’ wives, though expected to work, were not paid. The standard of accommodation provided varied, from a large brick building at Townsville, to bark huts or storage rooms within the police building. Generally, tracker accommodation was rudimentary and located away from the other police station buildings, reflecting the treatment and status of Aboriginal trackers in the police force. The DPW provided plans for tracker accommodation (called ‘huts’) at Burketown (1906), Gilbert River (1908), Emerald (1917), Ingham (1927), Thursday Island (1928 and 1954), Toowoomba (1929), Almaden (1934), Cooktown (1935), and Mount Molloy (1936). None of these buildings are known to survive in 2022.
From 1898 to 1948, the Birdsville trackers were accommodated within a rudimentary hut with mud and stone walls and a galvanised iron roof, located at the rear of the site on the Adelaide Street boundary. In 1948 this was replaced by a simple, timber-framed building, clad on its walls and roof with corrugated metal sheets. The building had a single room 16ft x 11ft (4.8m x 3.3m) with a 2.4m wide awning on the eastern side. It was positioned away from the courthouse and lock-up, outside the fence that enclosed the police site.
Corporal Tommy occupied the new building until his retirement in 1952, 47 years after his engagement with the Birdsville police. In his final year of employment he appeared in the documentary Back of Beyond, filmed in 1952 and released in 1954. He was the last Birdsville tracker.
The Birdsville tracker’s hut is a rare surviving example of accommodation provided for Aboriginal trackers employed by the Queensland Police. Other trackers’ huts extant in Queensland in 2022 include the tracker’s hut at Bedourie, built in 1947 on the police reserve but later moved; and the Normanton trackers’ hut (unknown construction date), on the site of the Normanton Gaol. The Bedourie hut, 200km north of Birdsville, is similar in form and materials to the Birdsville hut, while the Normanton hut is clad on its walls with timber.
In December 1985, a severe storm badly damaged the Birdsville Aboriginal tracker's hut which, at the time, was being used for storage. The small structure lost sections of the wall and roof but these were reinstated.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
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