Jonathan Richards
Griffith University, Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Department Member
- Frontier History, Policing colonial violence, Family history, Intercolonial history, Inter-empire history, Trans-empire history, and 12 moreTrans-colonial history, Cultural Geography, Queensland history, New Caledonia, Police History, Tragedy, Queensland Frontier, ScandalTragedy, Frontier Violence, Gender Studies, Colonial Secretary correspondence related to Moreton Bay, and History of New Zealandedit
- Jonathan Richards researches and writes about Australian (mostly Queensland) history, particularly colonial and frontier policing and violence.edit
In his 2021 book ‘Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement’, Henry Reynolds called for an inquiry into the historical record of Samuel Walker Griffith, Federation ‘father’ and first Chief Justice of the High Court of... more
In his 2021 book ‘Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement’, Henry Reynolds called for an inquiry into the historical record of Samuel Walker Griffith, Federation ‘father’ and first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. Reynolds’ iconoclasm targeted a historical figure whose name is memorialised in a Riverina town, a Canberra suburb and a Queensland university. Reynolds charged that Griffith was morally and politically responsible for the violence carried out by an agency of the Queensland government, the Native Police. This historically grounded allegation relates to Griffith's pre-Federation Queensland political career, 1874–93, when he served intermittently as Premier, Attorney-General and Colonial Secretary. In this article we consider the historical record of S.W. Griffith as law-maker and ministerial decision-maker, asking what elements of fact and context may be brought to the important work of reckoning with a violent colonial past and its memorialisation in the present.
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Volume 12 NOTE Papers published in this volume and in all previous volumes of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum may be reproduced for scientific research, individual study or other educational purposes. Properly acknowledged quotations... more
Volume 12 NOTE Papers published in this volume and in all previous volumes of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum may be reproduced for scientific research, individual study or other educational purposes. Properly acknowledged quotations may be made but queries regarding the republication of any papers should be addressed to the Series Editor. Copies of the journal can be purchased from the Queensland Museum Shop. A Guide to Authors is displayed on the Queensland Museum website qm.qld.gov.au
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A history of Queensland's main mental health facility, published by the West Moreton Hospital and Health Service, 2017
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Review(s) of: Warrior: A legendary leader's dramatic life and violent death on the Colonial Frontier, by Libby Connors, xii + 268 pp., Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2015, ISBN 9781760110482 (pbk), $32.99.
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Research Interests: Sociology and Criminology
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Betty Cosgrove, Shoalwater Bay: Settlers in a Queensland Wilderness, Central Queensland University Press, 1996, 108 pages - Ray Blackwood, The Whitsunday Islands: An Historical Dictionary, Central Queensland University Press, 1997, 283... more
Betty Cosgrove, Shoalwater Bay: Settlers in a Queensland Wilderness, Central Queensland University Press, 1996, 108 pages - Ray Blackwood, The Whitsunday Islands: An Historical Dictionary, Central Queensland University Press, 1997, 283 pages
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Anything we can learn about murder-suicides that can aid comprehension of these rare occurrences is worthwhile. As Rosemary Gartner and Bill McCarthy demonstrate in their contribution to this volume, abundant research initiatives have... more
Anything we can learn about murder-suicides that can aid comprehension of these rare occurrences is worthwhile. As Rosemary Gartner and Bill McCarthy demonstrate in their contribution to this volume, abundant research initiatives have applied quantitative methods and assembled remarkable data sets to make sense of these disturbing cases, which so often involve attacks of men on women. There are certainly patterns in the gender of assailants and victims that remain consistent across a number of English-speaking jurisdictions. However, the act of forming data sets from scratch, in order to study a notoriously difficult topic such as murder-suicide, can lead· to scepticism about the depth of understanding that is achievable through quantification. Faith in numbers has had a good run, but we should occasionally look deeper and as Gartner and .McCarthy have done, read the documents and newspaper stories that supplied the numbers. When cases must be assigned to categories for analysis, problems intervene. Silences in the primary sources may frustrate efforts to reach understanding, although challenging too is the task of sorting through layers within a well-documented incident. With the complication·of multiplicity especially in mind, this probe of murder-suicides emphasizes the value of qualitative information and appeals for a decomposition of categories and more discussion of cases within quantified studies. This entreaty originates from a respectful understanding of quantification, since statistics have produced the subject's important core observations, some of which are repeated and affirmed in this account.
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In his 2021 book ‘Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement’, Henry Reynolds called for an inquiry into the historical record of Samuel Walker Griffith, Federation ‘father’ and first Chief Justice of the High Court of... more
In his 2021 book ‘Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement’, Henry Reynolds called for an inquiry into the historical record of Samuel Walker Griffith, Federation ‘father’ and first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. Reynolds’ iconoclasm targeted a historical figure whose name is memorialised in a Riverina town, a Canberra suburb and a Queensland university. Reynolds charged that Griffith was morally and politically responsible for the violence carried out by an agency of the Queensland government, the Native Police. This historically grounded allegation relates to Griffith's pre-Federation Queensland political career, 1874–93, when he served intermittently as Premier, Attorney-General and Colonial Secretary. In this article we consider the historical record of S.W. Griffith as law-maker and ministerial decision-maker, asking what elements of fact and context may be brought to the important work of reckoning with a violent colonial past and its memorialisation in the present.
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Archives and libraries, the places which safely store historical documents and records, are great sources of historical information about people, places and events. Different archives and libraries store different kinds of files and... more
Archives and libraries, the places which safely store historical documents and records, are great sources of historical information about people, places and events. Different archives and libraries store different kinds of files and records, and the Queensland State Archives (QSA) at Runcorn, in Brisbane, is the main storage facility for official documents created by Queensland Government agencies and departments. There are no private records or letters at QSA.
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The naming of China Camp in North Queensland intrigued me when I first researched and wrote on this topic in 1999. As I spent more time in the archives and libraries I better understood the part that Robert Baird played in the naming and... more
The naming of China Camp in North Queensland intrigued me when I first researched and wrote on this topic in 1999. As I spent more time in the archives and libraries I better understood the part that Robert Baird played in the naming and development of this remote mining field. This is an update of my original paper, written for Baird family descendants and others.
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Paper contribution to the Moreton Bay (Quandamooka) & Catchment eBook available on www.moretonbayfoundation.org.
Review(s) of: Forgotten war, by Henry Reynolds, 280 pp, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2013, ISBN 9781742233925 (pbk), $27.95.
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European hunger for resources, particularly land, led to the denial of Indigenous sovereignty and culture with the expansion of European colonialism. This was the most important ecological, economic, and political upheaval to affect the... more
European hunger for resources, particularly land, led to the denial of Indigenous sovereignty and culture with the expansion of European colonialism. This was the most important ecological, economic, and political upheaval to affect the modern world. Records created during this violent rush of land-hunting and flag-planting can help us to understand how Western empires carved up “new” worlds into tributary states and discrete spheres. In Australia, persistent Indigenous resistance to European rule led to the establishment of the Native Police – an armed, mobile paramilitary force – consisting of Aboriginal troopers led by European officers. The sole purpose of the Native Police was to crush this resistance. Drawing upon historical documents and maps from the European invasion and annexation of territory, this article discusses the “names of places” project, which involves the mapping of colonial massacres and frontier violence in Queensland, Australia, including the mapping of the a...
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An authoritative and groundbreaking contribution to the study of Australian colonial history, this record reveals little-known information about a brutal police force of Aborigines that operated under the command of white officers on the... more
An authoritative and groundbreaking contribution to the study of Australian colonial history, this record reveals little-known information about a brutal police force of Aborigines that operated under the command of white officers on the Queensland frontier during the 19th century. Arguing that these native patrols-which are charged with killing large numbers of indigenous people in Australia-were a key part of a colonizing tactic used successfully across the the British Empire, this examination exposes native involvement in the white settlement of Australia, the cover-up of the murders by the native police forces, and the approval of the killings by government officials of the time.
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Criminal justice records reveal much about the lives and deaths of people in Queensland, and a small number allow us to gain useful insights into Italian communities in North Queensland. This paper uses police and court records to... more
Criminal justice records reveal much about the lives and deaths of people in Queensland, and a small number allow us to gain useful insights into Italian communities in North Queensland. This paper uses police and court records to illustrate the racial ...
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First published 2008 by University of Queensland Press PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia www.uqp.uq.edu.au ©Jonathan Richards 2008 This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as... more
First published 2008 by University of Queensland Press PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia www.uqp.uq.edu.au ©Jonathan Richards 2008 This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no ...
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Copyright in individual works within the repository belongs to their authors or publishers. You may make a print or digital copy of a work for your personal non-commercial use. All other rights are reserved, except for fair dealings or... more
Copyright in individual works within the repository belongs to their authors or publishers. You may make a print or digital copy of a work for your personal non-commercial use. All other rights are reserved, except for fair dealings or other user rights granted by the ...
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Cattle-graziers, miners, missionaries and police brought immense changes to the lives of Aboriginal people in remote parts of North Queensland. Of these groups, police held the greatest power, often removing people to distant missions and... more
Cattle-graziers, miners, missionaries and police brought immense changes to the lives of Aboriginal people in remote parts of North Queensland. Of these groups, police held the greatest power, often removing people to distant missions and reserves as ‘punishment’ for actions that allowed continued survival ‘on country’. In 1933, journalists wrote about removals in the Coen district, drawing the attention of senior police and public servants. When fire destroyed a police building at Coen soon afterwards all three police officers stationed there were quickly transferred. Archival files reveal the full story of this episode.
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Frontier issues are an inevitable part of Australian historiography, and have often been dealt with in either an indifferent or a moralistic manner. Specifically, it has been widely argued that records of officially condoned frontier... more
Frontier issues are an inevitable part of Australian historiography, and have often been dealt with in either an indifferent or a moralistic manner. Specifically, it has been widely argued that records of officially condoned frontier violence have been destroyed or lost. This thesis, which deals with the Native Police in Queensland from 1860 to 1905, attempts to move the discussion on to firmer ground. It is driven by a passionate commitment to the rights of Indigenous Australians, and shows that detailed archival research does not support those who deny the violence that accompanied the colonisation of Australia. Apologists for dispossession will find no comfort in the archival records. The Native Police force was widely reputed to have been the most violent police force on the Australian frontier. Long-standing and widely cited references about the lack of Native Police records have been tied into arguments about the kind of force it was. This dissertation is the first significant...
Research Interests: Cultural Heritage, Political Science, Chinese history (History), Australian Gold Rush, Heritage interpretation, and 11 moreMaori history, Victorian Gold Rushes, California Gold Rush, Community archaeology and heritage interpretation, Chinese-Australian history, Historical Studies, Gold Archaeology, Central Otago Goldfields, Bendigo, Early Chinese in New Zealand, and Gold Rush
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Copyright in individual works within the repository belongs to their authors or publishers. You may make a print or digital copy of a work for your personal non-commercial use. All other rights are reserved, except for fair dealings or... more
Copyright in individual works within the repository belongs to their authors or publishers. You may make a print or digital copy of a work for your personal non-commercial use. All other rights are reserved, except for fair dealings or other user rights granted by the ...
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To cite this article: Richards, Jonathan. Roads in the Wilderness: Development of the Main Road Network in Far North Queensland - the First 100 Years [Book Review] [online]. Queensland Review, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2010: 79-82. Availability:... more
To cite this article: Richards, Jonathan. Roads in the Wilderness: Development of the Main Road Network in Far North Queensland - the First 100 Years [Book Review] [online]. Queensland Review, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2010: 79-82. Availability: <http://search.informit.com.au/ ...
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This chapter deals with state institutions on the later northern frontier, using archival material to examine the role of police in managing the lives of Aboriginal people. Police officers played an important part in the removal of... more
This chapter deals with state institutions on the later northern frontier, using archival material to examine the role of police in managing the lives of Aboriginal people. Police officers played an important part in the removal of thousands of Aboriginal people from their own country to missions, reserves and places of punishment, for which Queensland is so notorious.
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Convicts were sent by Britain to Australia from 1788 until the end of the 19th century, but few Australians are aware that France also established a penal colony, New Caledonia, about the same time that transportation to the Australian... more
Convicts were sent by Britain to Australia from 1788 until the end of the 19th century, but few Australians are aware that France also established a penal colony, New Caledonia, about the same time that transportation to the Australian colonies on the eastern seaboard finally ended. Today, the arrival of boat people in Australia attracts media attention and political grandstanding, but in the final decades of the 19th century, the boat people were often escaped convicts from New Caledonia. Examining this largely forgotten episode draws attention to Australian border control history, imperial rivalries and epic sea voyages, as well as the part the escapees played in Australian history in general.