In the rip-roaring days of North Queensland journalism, there was an adventurous editor who stood out in more ways than one- he was 6ft. 7in. tall , could have been the heir to a Scottish estate, and in 1883 was massacred in the South Pacific while black birding, recruiting islanders, called Kanakas, for work on Queensland plantations.
While mainly known as William Stedman, he was also said to be Steadman and Steedman . On seeing Steedman, we instanty thought of Pete Steedman , of Melbourne , and rang him.
No, he did not know the guy,who had worked in Townsville and Mackay, but he had been told that there was a Scottish side to his family. It would be nice, however, to have a baronial estate in the Highlands on which to grow thistles.
The editor , said to have graduated from Glasgow University, came to this blog's attention when Darwin resident , Bob White , kindly sent the above 1982 book, by James Manion , published by the North Queensland Newspaper Company ,Townsville . No sooner had we read the interesting book, than another copy turned up in Townsville.
