Sanz, K.

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337 
The Queensland Years of Robert Burgess 
by Ken Sanz 
The larger country newspapers have their histories fairly well 
documented. Over the years many smaller pubUcations have appeared 
and vanished with Uttle interest shown in them, even if they have been 
a valuable source of local history. 
Robert Burgess was one of those early press pioneers who moved 
about the smaller towns, starting or taking over existing newspapers 
as the opportunity presented itself. He was born in WoUongong, and 
apprenticed to Thomas Garrett's Illawarra Mercury. He moved to 
Bega, where he met and married Harriett Read whilst working on 
the Bega Gazette. 
Burgess moved to Bombala and started his first newspaper, the 
Bombala Times which is stUl being published under its original title. 
From Bombala he moved to Bega, bought the Gazette, sold it and 
moved to Singleton. There he purchased the Singleton Times, an older 
newspaper that at one stage had been a daily. The railhead moved 
on and so did the trade. Robert removed his press from there to 
Murrurrundi where he began the Murrurrundi Times in December 
1871. He remained there until 1874 when he moved north to take over 
the Tenterfield Star. 
As a result of problems there he lost control of the Star but his 
brother started the Tenterfield Independent which Robert eventually 
took over. After a libel case with John E. KeUy of the Sydney based 
radical newspaper The Stockwhip in which Robert was awarded 
damages of £250, he sold it back to brother Christopher. 
There is a period where his movements have eluded me, but in 1878 
he started the Milton and Ulladulla Times and a little later the Moruya 
Liberal. 
Robert first came to Queensland after leaving Tenterfield and 
delivered the plant to the new Normanton Herald in 1882. He did 
not start this paper for some reason, but returned to Queensland in 
the mid 1880s. 
In December 1880, William Peel Mellifont started the Gladstone 
Observer, reviving the title of its long-defunct predecessor. The 
premises were burnt to the ground in June 1884. It was Robert who 
deUvered the replacement plant for the Observer. MelUfont had moved 
to Brisbane in April 1883 to establish the weekly Queensland Leader 
and relinquished his interest in this Brisbane paper in 1884.' 
Ken Sanz was formerly a compositor with John Fairfax Limited in Sydney. He has 
developed an interest in Australian newspaper history and is manager of Pindari, a 
Salvation Army hostel for homeless men. 
338 
Burgess stayed in Gladstone for a few months before moving to 
Rockhampton where he became editor for the Rockhampton 
Temperance Advocate, the first issue of which was dated 3 July 1885. 
It was issued from an office in Kent Street as an eight-page paper 
half-way between a broadsheet and a tabloid, curiously the size 
adopted by the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin between 1959 and 
1980.2 
With the seventh issue the Advocate was renamed the North 
Rockhampton Times, incorporating the old title. Kent Street remained 
the editorial address, with Francis Hopkins, bookseller of WUUam 
Street handling advertisements. He and his brother William were 
members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), rival booksellers and 
foundation members of the YMCA in that city.' 
In the first issue as the Times, Robert commented that each week 
a section of the paper would be devoted to temperance issues. He then 
went on to extol the virtues of North Rockhampton, free of the 
restrictions of a single purpose paper. Within a few weeks he found 
himself the proprietor. The printers, the Northern Daily Argus, owned 
by Lyons and Brown, refused to print the Times on 10 September as 
Dr MacDonald had been threatening it with libel over the 'Maltese 
Lace Question', a libel which Robert maintained had been committed 
by the Argus itself. 
After missing four issues. Burgess set up his own printing plant, 
but he sold the Times soon after, probably to J.R. Thackeray. 
The 'Maltese Lace Question' centred around a box of that article 
which had been given to the resident surgeon, Dr MacDonald, by a 
priest returning home, to be sold at a bazaar to raise funds for the 
Sick Children's Hospital. MacDonald had been questioned as to what 
had been done with it in a letter written by Father McDonough, 
printed in the Argus.'^ The issue occupied many columns in the 
Times until in the issue of 17 October it was announced that the doctor 
had admitted to receiving the gift. 
Burgess next appears at Bundaberg where he worked as a journalist 
for the Bundaberg Mail. He was in Eidsvold in September 1887, 
reporting on gold mining for the owner, Andrew Mackie Goodwin.^ 
The Bundaberg Reporter first appeared on Saturday 23 July 1887, 
founded by John Glanville Druery and his brother and printed at 
William Calder Aikens' Caxton Printing Works. Druery had been on 
the foundation staff of both the Rockhampton Bulletin and the Peak 
Downs Telegram at Clermont. William Throsby Stuart entered into 
partnership with John Druery in October and it was they who sold 
it to Robert Burgess on 1 November He maintained its tabloid format 
until mid December.^ 
From his first issue he penned a column headed '"The Owl' by 
'an Old Bird'". In one issue, under the heading "Blackley plucks 'The 
Owl'", is a libeUous account of a meeting of the Blue Ribbon Gospel 
339 
Association of which Blackley was president.' The Owl labelled him 
'an undergrown whippersnapper customer who struts about the streets 
adorned with a little round hardhitter squelched on the back of his 
cranium displaying a handsome brow'. 'The Owl' took on John 
Rowland, owner of the rival Star, caUing it the 'Lyre' persistently.* 
He later accused Rowland of lifting news from the previous day's 
Maryborough Chronicle and inserting it in his paper under the 
heading 'Latest Telegrams'. 
In a candid attack on his detractors, 'The Owl' admitted 'my life 
has been free from crime and misdemeanor, excepting over-indulgence 
— and I may have imbibed somewhat heavily in my younger days.'' 
Not surprisingly Rowland and his staff writer, John Loftus, issued 
Ubel writs on WC. Aiken, the printer and publisher, for both civil 
and criminal Ubel. The Reporter did not appear for 7 and 14 January, 
the reason being explained by Robert as 'The Owl': 
Uke unto the proverbial cat, I have nine lives. I thought upon the 
eve of the last pubUcation I had shot my bolt — and so did my 
Christian friends — the Blue Ribbon Army and the Musical Union, 
for whom the prayers of many of the white-chokered gentlemen have 
been fervently offered up — but, as the sequel proves, the prayers 
of the vile hypocrites availeth nothing . . . At six o'clock on Friday 
evening just as the formes were prepared to go to press — in fact 
Robert Burgess 
Courtesy Brian Burgess 
340 
evening just as the formes were prepared to go to press — in fact 
one side had been printed, the gaunt, ill-shaped, and misery stricken 
figure of a man entered the office, and summoned his ill-paid crowd 
of hirelings one by one and told them of his intention — a deep 
laid and well digested plot to gag me at once. Like fawning curs, 
rather than men, they crept away to their homes. It was not however, 
till after 6 o'clock that the printer, with his bland smile . . . quietly 
informed me that he nor no person should print the 
REPORTER . . . next morning I approached Mr White of Young 
and Co., and through his instrumentality — as they are virtually 
the owners of the Caxton Printing Office — I managed to get my 
paper printed by a firm whose name will long be cherished in 
Bundaberg as honourable, just and true friends to the liberty of 
the Press . . . 
Referrring again to his detractors. Burgess adds: 
These mean and contemptible howlers who could not bear the 
smarting pain of fair criticism, must seek through a lawyer (who 
is as equally well known as he is trusted in Bundaberg) have had 
their revenge by stopping my publication . . . Like the immortal 
Phoenix the Owl rises from its ashes and will continue to warble 
his dismal notes . . . 
In most issues, there were comments, mostly uncomplimentary, on 
the Salvation Army, which was fairly new at the time. When De Fraine, 
Secretary of the Musical Union, was sacked, Robert exulted. In 
February 1888 the price of the Reporter was dropped from threepence 
to twopence and from the next issue it came out Tuesdays, Thursdays 
and Saturdays. This was not a success and in early March it went back 
to twice a week. By this time, with John Loftus Irving now the editor 
of the Bundaberg Tribune, Bundaberg had four newspapers!'" 
In the Burgess family records is a prospectus for an Eidsvold 
Newspaper Company. The company was to take over the plant of the 
Eidsvold Miner, established two months earlier, guaranteeing the 
former proprietor a year's employment at £ 5 per week as manager 
and editor. From 1 May 1888 the masthead was altered to Bundaberg 
Reporter and Eidsvold Miner, with a Mr Marks its Eidsvold 
representative." The issue of 22 May was the last published in 
Bundaberg. 
The first issue of the Reporter, Eidsvold Miner and Mount Perry 
Independent came out on Thursday 14 June, the transition having 
taken four weeks. It was a broadsheet, well filled with advertising. 
In its first editorial, Robert summarized the then goldfield, comparing 
it with his visit a year before when he worked for the Bundaberg Mail. 
Robert soon moved from Eidsvold, and in August the Warwick 
Examiner and Times reported that the Allora Guardian had been 
341 
resuscitated. It appears on Friday 24 August as an eight-page paper 
printed and pubUshed by Robert Burgess." This was the third 
newspaper at Allora, all three bearing the same name, In his 
introductory leader, Robert stated that these past failures were due to 
the lack of support of the community and laziness on the owners' part. 
The Examiner commented that the three previous editors, P.J. 
McNamara, D.M. Cameron and J.C. Hart, were capable men, so after 
Burgess's outburst they expected to see something 
extraordinary.'2 Within two months the Brisbane Boomerang was 
commenting on the attitude of AUorans to their paper. One half 
applauded it, the rest hated it. By this time Robert had resorted to 
filUng a column with his musings on the local cemetery.'^ In 
November the inevitable writ was issued, this time by William Deacon, 
demanding £ 200. However Robert apologised and the matter never 
went to court.'" Even in Allora he remained anti-Salvationist: 
If there is one thing the editor of the Allora Guardian dislikes beyond 
another it is the canting, self-important hypocrite who nightly 
ascends the platform in the Salvation Army barracks and proclaims 
to the world that he is saved and living without sin.'^  
Little did he know of his fast approaching encounter with the Salvos. 
At the beginning of 1889 Burgess announced that the Guardian would 
be issued twice a week at the end of the current half-year. On 14 
January he sold it to John Christian who appears to have been a 
doctor.'^ 
Robert's final appearance was at Ipswich. He died at the hospital 
there on Sunday 14 April 1889, attended by the medical officer Dr 
The Reporter & Eidsvold Miner office, The Esplanade Eidsvold 
Courtesy Brian Burgess 
342 
Thornton. He had collapsed in the street a few days previously. The 
hospital paid the funeral directors, J.W. Reed, one pound fifteen 
shillings for the burial, and the hospital account was charged one 
pound thirteen extra for trimming the coffin.'^ The funeral service 
was conducted by an officer of the anti-drink Salvation Army, Captain 
George Walker, the following day. Robert Burgess lies in an unmarked 
grave in the Methodist section of Ipswich Cemetery at grave 4069. 
There were no relatives present and he was accorded a pauper's 
funeral. The tropical climate meant there could be little delay with 
burial and communications even then were not good.'^ Robert died 
of vascular heart disease and exhaustion, aged 44.'^ 
The Brisbane Boomerang reporting on his death was quoted in the 
Allora Guardian thus: 
Burgess who recently gave up the ghost at Ipswich, was the Tom 
Stylus of Australia, having established more papers than any other 
pressman in this part of the world. The North Rockhampton Times 
is an offspring of his fertile imagination.^^ 
Burgess was survived by his wife Harriett, aged 45, two sons, Robert 
Horrex aged 20, Alfred Christopher 18, and daughter Eveline 21, all 
the children being trained in the operations of running a newspaper. 
It appears that under the agreement with Henry Marks, he was still 
the nominal editor of the Reporter and continued to perform that 
task while the children ran the production side. Marks eventuaUy sold 
the Reporter to the owners of the Bundaberg Mail but he was stiU 
the owner in July 1897, the last issue preserved. The paper was stiU 
appearing in 1899 as Alfred quoted from an issue in his Gladstone 
Advocate in the 18 November issue. The Reporter office was still in 
Moreton Street, Eidsvold. After it closed Marks went to Bundaberg 
and eventually edited the Mail. 
Robert Horrex, probably with his brother Alfred, produced the pilot 
issue of the Eidsvold Liberal, Mount Perry and Gayndah Advertiser 
on Friday 10 December 1897, Robert as lessee. It consisted of only 
four tabloid pages, printed at the office at Esplanade Street. But for 
legal delay, it was to have been the first issue and it declared 'The 
first number will positively be issued on Friday next, December 
17th . . . This sheet is published for the convenience of advertisers.' 
There is an unconfirmed story that the legal difficulty arose because 
Marks did not have title when he sold the plant to the Mail in 1897. 
How long the Liberal survived is not known. On the first issue on 
fUe at the Mitchell library is written an address and postage is paid 
to Harriett at Hope Cottage, Leichhardt Street, Brisbane' where 
Harriett and Eveline were living after leaving Eidsvold. 
On 17 March 1899, Robert Horrex started the Clermont Truth from 
an office in Lime Street, the same street address as the long established 
Peak Downs Telegram. At the end of June, Swanwick, editor of the 
343 
Telegram sued him for libel, and on the 29th, secured a verdict in his 
favour, with £50 damages and £10 costs. 
Robert Horrex then moved to Mount Perry and on 31 October 1903 
produced the first issue of the Mount Perry Times and Burnett 
Advocate. He later took to soft drink manufacture there, and as the 
town declined, moved the factory in 1921 to Bundaberg. For some 
years he was manager of the Gordon Club. He died on 28 May 1945 
leaving a wife, two sons and three daughters. 
The Gladstone Advocate started about February 1898, a biweekly, 
its 121st issue being dated 4 April 1899, printed and published by the 
Gladstone Newspaper Company by William Dunne. Alfred was on 
the staff and in May took over as printer and publisher. William 
Manning of the Observer, who was also Alderman on the Town 
Council attacked Alfred stating he should be sacked if he did not do 
as he was told. Alfred let fly for a column and a half, referring to 
Manning as a scissors and paste journaUst and 'unacquainted with 
the management of high class journals, he has never risen above the 
control of a sheet, the whole circulation of which could be printed 
with a teaspooon of lampblack and a little oil.' 
Alfred, Eveline and mother Harriett moved to Byron Bay with their 
plant in 1902, publishing the first issue of the Byron Bay Record on 
6 September, an eight page tabloid in a four page pink cover, similar 
in appearance to the Sydney Bulletin. Here finally was stability. 
Harriett Burgess 
Courtesy Horrey Harvey 
344 
Harriett died suddenly at Byron Bay on 4 February 1922 although 
her health had been faUing for several years. She was buried at the 
family cemetery at Haxtead, Central Tilba, on the New South Wales 
south coast three days later, her 82nd birthday. 
Alfred and EveUne continued to conduct the weekly Record from the 
office next door to their home "Beulah Cottage" in Wordsworth 
Street. On 1 May 1924 they sold the paper to East and McNeU and 
moved to a property at Haxtead, left them by their cousin Horrex 
Read. Alfred ran the property until his death on 3 August 1938, aged 
67. The historian and author William A. Bayley visited Eveline in 
the 1940s, tasted the Rasberry wine and remembered the hall where 
the cobwebs aUowed only room for one person to pass. With the help 
of her nephew, Victor Burgess, Eva continued to live at Haxtead, many 
of her hours spent painting. Some of her paintings remained on the 
property after Victor sold it to Jeff and Dame Zara Bate. Eveline was 
92 when she died in Bega District Hospital on Sunday 10 May, 1959, 
the last of Robert and Harriett's children. 
NOTES 
1. William Peel Mellefont 1841-1887. A.V Mellefont, Killarney. 
2. Rockhampton Temperance Advocate 10 July 1885. 
3. North Rockhamton Times 14 August 1885. 
4. Father Stephen McDonough or McDonagh was a Catholic priest. He later 
served as parish priest at Emerald. He was the first resident priest at both 
Warwick and Longreach (Spanning a City, Rockhampton Diocese, 1982). 
5. Reporter, Eidsvold Miner and Mount Perry Independent, Eidsvold 14 June 
1888 p2. 
6. Bundaberg Reporter 30 July 1887. 
7. ibid 19 November 1887 p.2 
8. ibid 28 November 1887. 
9. ibid 18 February 1888. 
10. ibid 23 March 1888. 
11. Correspondence with Brian Burgess, Lake Burril, 1989. 
12. Warwick Examiner and Times 29 August 1888. 
13. Rod Kirkpatrick, Sworn to no Master, Toowoomba, Darling Downs Institute 
Press, 1984. 
14. Allora Guardian 5 October 1888. 
15. ibid 16 and 23 November 1888. 
16. ibid 2 November 1888 quoted in Kirkpatrick pl83. 
17. Allora Guardian 11 and 18 January 1889. 
18. Death certificate, Robert Burgess. 
19. Letter to author from J. and W. Reed, undertakers, Ipswich, 1971. 
20. Allora Guardian 10 May 1889. 


The Queensland Years of Robert Burgess

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The Queensland Years of Robert Burgess

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