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About Keith Hamilton Wilson
Keith ('Pop' or 'Ike') H. Wilson was the 7th child in a family of 10 - Euphemia, Alma, Veronica, George, Wilfred, James, Keith, Kenneth, Eric and Colin - and from an early age he learned to share with siblings, and to appreciate family. His father George had emigrated to the Moreton Bay settlement as a free settler from Lanarkshire, Scotland arriving on the sailing ship 'Otago' on 24th May 1884 after a 4 month trip from Glascow (It seems there were 4 Wilsons on this voyage to Australia - Alexander aged 31, George aged 25, William aged 23 and James aged 21. I suspect that Alexander, William and James went on to NZ where they established farms in the South Isle after the gold rushes, but I am yet to confirm this). The Wilson name is common in SE Scotland, and is derived from the Viking invaders. The family crest is a red werewolf. It's likely that George Wilson's family were small farmers or miners / blacksmiths displaced by the Great Land Reforms. Keith's mother Christina ('Tina') Celilie Marie Hansen, a midwife, came from Sonderjylland, Denmark (where the thatched Hansen farmhouse still stands), arriving in Queensland with her parents Rasmus and Sinnet Hansen (nee Tychsen) and her twin brother Frederick as free settlers in same year on the 'Chybassa'. Apparently, Keith's "Pop" Rasmus didn't speak much English, but having been conscripted 5 times on opposing sides in various European wars, he had certainly developed a very keen sense of the futility of militarism, and so he wanted his family to grow up in a more peaceful country. Like many outback kids of his generation, Keith didn't get much formal schooling - just 3 or 4 years at the Haigslea frontier elementary school, and it was quite a long bike or pony ride from 'Mango Grove', the family farm. There was a strong Danish contingent at that little school, including Johannes (later Sir Joh) Bjelke-Peterson. It was a hard life, and when his mother Tina was pregnant with twins Eric and Colin, Keith was sent away to live with older sister Euphemia. He had no recollection at all that his mother had also given birth to baby Elizabeth who died at birth on 26 January 1894. At about 13 years of age, Keith left home to help his older brother Bill (Wilfred) work his selection at 'Eugene Vale', near Mt.Eugene station in the Callide Valley. For years, the homestead at Eugene Vale was little more than a rough slab hut with a beaten ant-bed floor, but gradually the brothers ring-barked and cleared the scrub, planting corn, pumpkins and potatoes which grew pretty well in the ashes where stumps had once been. As opportunities for generating off-farm income were scarce, Keith also hunted possums, roos and koala bear for the fur trade in Rockhampton, and split railway sleepers for the expanding railway-line west of Westwood. He used his profits from these enterprises to pay for 9 land ballot applications of himself, and for 2 of his younger brothers Ken and Eric (Ken successfully drawing 'Carinya'), and to buy a block for himself downstream from 'Eugene Vale' that he called 'Glenike', in honour of the glens of his father's home country and his beloved grey gelding racehorse named 'Ike'. Only after he'd secured his own place and begun work on a new homestead on 'Glenike', with help from Bill and his twin brothers who'd newly arrived from Murgon, did he feel confident to propose marriage to Edna, the Wilson's vivacious young governess at 'Eugene Vale'. It was characteristic of Keith that he always worked hard, often in very difficult circumstances to secure and provide for all his family, and he was resourceful and fiercely self-sufficient when times were tough. Keith had an extraordinary rapport with animals, whether he was mustering the cattle, raising orphaned joeys, hand-feeding kookaburras after breakfast or breaking in wild horses. He will be remembered as a raconteur and as a skilled water-diviner, having sunk more than 30 bores in the back paddocks with an old percussion rig. In the early days, he drove his store cattle through Mount Morgan and down the hazardous Razerback Range to the Rockhampton meatworks, or over the Calliope Range to Gladstone, using disused Cobb & Co routes and being away from home for a week or so at a time. Despite only a few years schooling, Keith continued to self-educate by reading widely and, for all his 88 years, he never lost his appreciation of literature, his taste for lengthy and convoluted political debates, or his love of horse-racing. He was Secretary of the Jambin Horse-racing Club which ran country race meetings on the native plains behind the cemetery, and he was thrilled when his grand-daughter Paula became a fully-fledged jockey.
References:
Hansen Des 1980 "Himmelen Uden Skyer - a history of the descendents of Rasmus and Sinnet Hansen in Australia"
Wilson John R 2004 "Ike's Hut - Iris Farm Private Nature Reserve, Tasmania"
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Keith Hamilton Wilson's Timeline
| 1910 |
September 16, 1910
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Glenmorgan Vale, Queensland, Australia, Glamorganvale, Queensland, Australia
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| 1939 |
June 8, 1939
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Mount Morgan, Queensland, Australia, Mount Morgan, Queensland, Australia
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| 1940 |
September 18, 1940
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Mount Morgan, Queensland, Australia, Mount Morgan, Australia
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| 1998 |
September 28, 1998
Age 88
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Jambin, Queensland, Australia, Biloela, Queensland, Australia
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September 30, 1998
Age 88
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Jambin, Queensland, Australia
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