A piece of jewellery made from the tooth of a crocodile , above, once owned by a woman close to an early adventurous and thirsty North Queensland writer and editor , is on view in the museum on Magnetic Island , off Townsville . .
Thought to have originally been a pendant , later altered and made into a brooch, it includes a Queensland opal .
It is part of an exhibition HER STORY IN HISTORY highlighting the lives of interesting early island women, the late Minnie Hambling , shown below, who owned the brooch , one of them.
Minnie , said to have arrived in Cooktown off a ship in July 1883, later became the housekeeper of pioneering newspaper editor and writer Dodd Smith Clarke, pictured below , who spent some years living on the island in retirement and helped set up the island's first school at Picnic Bay , a street named after him .
There is speculation that the unusual piece of jewellery may have been inspired by the fact Clarke went on one of the expeditions of Scotsman George Dalrymple (1826-1876) , explorer , public servant and politician , who opened up large parts of Queensland .
In 1873, Clarke, described as a government boatman at the time ,was a member of Dalrymple's expedition which with two cutters , Flying Fish and Coquette, set out to report on the uncolonised coastal lands north of Cardwell and assess them for sugar production.
Included in the expedition were Sub-inspector Robert Johnstone, botanist Walter Hill and 13 Native Police troopers .
Aboriginal settlements were encountered , the residents reportedly said to have first been "moved on" or "dispersed" with volleys of gunfire. Expedition camp sites later became Innisfail and Cairns .
On an expedition looking for a port for the Palmer River goldfields, the Johnstone River was named , after the Sub-inspector , which was said to be teeming with crocodiles.
From Manchester , Clarke, with an English university eduction, had been an auctioneer , commission agent and timber merchant who introduced coffee trees and other fruit trees to Cairns .
He become one of three men who founded the Townsville Daily Bulletin in 1881, its editor for 30 years, a position he nearly lost because of his imbibing . He also started an early newspaper in Cairns.
Deeply involved in politics, he backed moves for a separate state in the north.
About 1899 , Clarke retired to Nelly Bay, near Bright Point, Magnetic Island , with Minnie Hambling as his housekeeper. He eventually sold his island land to Hambling who rented out accommodation .
Illness forced Clarke to move back to the mainland where he died in l918. He was described as the finest leader writer in Queensland , a man of great intellect , who in another walk of life could have become a brilliant statesman.
His island residence sold in l913, became the resort My Island Home. Minnie Hambling spent several years in Tully and died in Brisbane aged 83.
(Crocodile. Jewellery. Explorer.)