Some Early History of Howard and the surrounding district.
Snippets from the Early History of the Burrum River & Howard and its connection with what was to become the Australian Light Horse Brigade. By ‘China’ Johnson.
I recently read an article in a magazine explaining the origin of the emu plumes worn in the slouch hats of the Australian Light Horse Brigade. The name of one of the two men mentioned in the story, Bill Leishman and Terry Rogers, rang a bell. Bill Leishman was actually the son of an early Howard coal mining pioneer.
As members of the Gympie troop of the Queensland Mounted Infantry (QMI), these two men were credited with starting the fad of wearing Emu plumes in the puggarees of their slouch hats.
The troop was part of a force of special constables deployed to outback towns during the Great Shearers Strike of 1891......see here for further information.
These flightless birds could be easily run down by an accomplished rider on a good horse and the feathers plucked from their tails.
The fad became so popular that the Queensland Government of the day officially recognised the plume as part of the uniform of the QMI.
When the Second Light Horse Brigade arrived in Egypt at the beginning of WW1, they wore this very same emblem.
Trooper of the Australian Light Horse
Photo courtesy Victoria Barracks Museum, Brisbane
The Leishman family, William Snr. with his wife Margaret and their three young children, arrived on the Burrum River as part of the ‘Joss Syndicate’ to mine coal on the upper reaches of the river in early 1867.
One day William Snr. was travelling from his home on the river to Maryborough, to arrange the sale of coal already mined, as a stroke of luck, he was to meet up with the brother of James Nash, the man who had just discovered Gold at Gympie. On the spur of the moment he travelled to the field and was one of the first to file a claim.
He was to send word to his wife, at home on the Burrum River, of what he had done and as a result she gathered her family together, obtained a lift into Maryborough and then begged a ride on a dray loaded with the essentials for an expected mining community.
She remembered the date of this journey vividly, as her son William (Bill), was to celebrate his fourth birthday, (21 Oct.1867), during the trip.
She is recognised as being the first white woman on the field and her little brood as the first children.
So here was ‘Bill’ Leishman some 24 years later being credited with the honour of redesigning the quintessential Australian Slouch hat that many Light Horsemen have worn with pride to this very day.
China Johnson 2011.
Further reading on the connection between the Slouch Hat & Emu Plumes can be found :
Here ;