Even though distracting , it is pleasing to unexpectedly come across unrelated interesting material when you are researching another subject . While regularly haunting the Special Collections reading room at the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library, James Cook University , Townsville , treasures galore are regularly spotted or surface.
Recently perusing the personal papers of a noted New Zealand born artist who died in Townsville , a surprise find was a small album of photographs dealing with early Russian settlers in North Queensland which resulted in a productive follow up .
By Peter Simon
I was aware of Russian involvement in the development of the Northern Territory but had little knowledge of their part in North Queensland . Russians had helped build the railway bridge at Katherine in the Northern Territory in the l920s and some of them became peanut farmers on the banks of the Katherine River . Some Russians had been stranded in Darwin after the sudden closure of Vestey's meatworks in 1920 .
One of the many colourful oldtimers I met in the Northern Territory in 1976 was Russian Alex Gory , 95, "still interested in pretty girls," who lived in the mining town of Pine Creek , with a large garden .
He had left Russia in 1906 , went to South America and arrived in Australia as a member of a Cossack troupe . Following a pay dispute, he left and made his way to Cairns , Queensland, where he cut cane and later worked in the Mangana mine. Arriving in Darwin by ship, he found it was more of a Chinese settlement than a European outpost .
Involved in construction of the railway line to Katherine , he also went droving , mined wolfram at Wauchope, which was carted by camel to Oodnadatta in South Australia , and had a square mile peanut farm at Claravale .
My interest in matters Russian developed over the years due to such things as interviewing police officer Sergeant Greg Ryall whose photo was flashed round the world when he put an arm bar on the throat of one of the armed Russian heavies at Darwin Airport who were attempting to force Mrs Petrov out of the country , obtaining a detailed account of that dramatic Petrov affair from New Zealand journalist Ross Annabell , scrutiny of expensive Russian religious icons in an interesting Adelaide arcade shop and reading Hansard and ASIO reports about Communists / Russians in the NT while researching the life of crusading editor James Frederick Bowditch . The Darwin residence of Communist activist Brian Manning in Darwin had once been known locally as "The Kremlin ."
Some drinks , not vodka, had also been consumed with a reporter from Pravda , based in Sydney, who came to Darwin and stayed in the Green Dwarf Motel near the airport .
Some drinks , not vodka, had also been consumed with a reporter from Pravda , based in Sydney, who came to Darwin and stayed in the Green Dwarf Motel near the airport .
Therefore , the opportunity to peruse the Russian album in the university library was eagerly taken up . It came with an index providing brief details of 23 photographs , which included a number of Kodak postcards. The subjects were identified as: Tim Kolan (Kolanski) on Cardwell Range , 1913-1926; Russian canecutters for period 1913-1927; Russian workers 1912-1925; Russian settlers 1912-1929 ,with a view of a makeshift humpy , part tent , logs used, and a man wearing a cap ; Inkerman (sugar) Mill , Home Hill . The Battle of Inkerman in the Crimean War broke the Imperial Russian Army , so the Russian canecutters must have been intrigued to see this mill named after it in far away Australia .
One view appears to be of a railway station or rail setup at a sugar mill with the comment that there had been an inscription on the back in Russian . No sign of that inscription . Mention of there being negatives.
The album had been donated by Dr J. Breinl , described as having practiced in Townsville, with an interest in North Queensland history . A subsequent , quick check turned up an interesting family story . John was one of three sons, including a set of twins, all of whom became doctors, of Dr Anton Breinl ( 1880-1944) , born Vienna , a medical scientist and practitioner , who took a medical degree at Prague University.
The Dictionary of Australian Biography states that at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in Britain Anton Breinl had worked under Sir Ronald Ross, discoverer of the malarial life cycle. In 1905 he was in Brazil studying yellow fever and was wrecked at the mouth of the Amazon, losing all his research paper, instruments and other possessions . Bitten by an infected laboratory rat during research , he was the first European to be cured of sleeping sickness.
In 1909 he was appointed director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville , which he established the next year in the converted wardsmen's quarters at Townsville Hospital . There he carried out pioneering work into the physiology and biochemistry of Europeans living in the tropics . His research took him to Thursday Island , the Northern Territory in 1911 and Papua New Guinea in 1912 and 1913 where he travelled about on foot and canoe .
During WW1, because his parents had come from the German part of Bohemia , despite having been naturalised in 1914 , his native tongue German, but he also spoke English and French and had a command of Portuguese and Italian , he was subjected to criticism from what was described as ultra nationalists .
In 1919 he married nurse Nellie Doriel Lambton in Townsville .They were both musical , he a polished violin player , his wife a pianist . During that year he also jointly published with W. J. Young Tropical Australia and its Settlement, one of 22 scientific papers produced during his time at the institute .
His son , John, born Townsville , came from Sydney and set up as a doctor in Townsville after the death of his father. He became deeply involved in community affairs-deputy mayor in 1952, a captain in the ambulance unit of the 11 Infantry Brigade , president of the Bush Children's Health Scheme . Patron of the Townsville Orchid Society, his eight-year-old daughter , Robyn, presented the Queen with a bouquet of orchids at a civic reception . He died September 18 , 2013.
Today Dr Anton Breinl is still a force through the Anton Breinl Research Centre for Health Systems Strengthening , James Cook University , which aims to improve health equity in rural, remote, Indigenous and tropical communities .
