You just about need to be as low as a snake's duodenum to read this slightly above ground level Heritage Trail sign surrounded by unsightly black spots on an uncomfortable concrete seat in the Flinders Street CBD. Standing erect, especially if you are as tall as was Malcolm , you will not be able to read the information . If you get down on your stomach ,with a magnifying glass or lorgnette , you will discover that the plaque relates to general merchants , Cummins and Campbell Limited , formed in Townsville 1899 , a dynamic partnership between John Cummins and Alymer Campbell .
It had branches in the booming mining town of Charters Towers ( where Campbell died soon after ) , Cairns, Bowen, Innisfail and Ingham ; agencies in Hughenden , Yungaburra, Cloncurry , with a depot in the mining town of Mount Isa , the latter dealing with Territorians as well.
An important aspect of Cummins and Campbell is that it also produced a monthly magazine jampacked with interesting articles and photographs about the early Queensland mining towns , items of information about people who had been involved in various Northern Territory ventures and even extensive pieces on New Zealand subjects, including the 1932 Napier earthquake .
Bound in copies of the magazine dating from the l930s through to the l950s are held in the great treasure house of invaluable information - Special Collections at the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library, James Cook University , Townsville .
That Cummins and Campbell was a large business playing an important part in northern commerce is shown by the above flashlight photograph of its staff dance in the Townsville School of Arts , May 1931 . The tall, white-haired man at the front , near the centre, is almost certainly John Cummins, described as big and bluff , who allocated shares in the company to employees.
A member and chairman of the Townsville Harbour Board , president of the Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the Turf Club , Cummins was said to enjoy " ebullient companionability" in later years . Flags flew at half mast in Townsville when he died August 1,1934.
Browsing through the company's monthly magazines , described in the Australian Dictionary of Biography as having been the sole repository of writings on North Queensland at one stage , is like scanning Glenville Pike's North Australian Monthly which kicked off in the 1950s , published in Townsville , and covered the top of Australia from WA through the Territory to Queensland .
