Hinterland towns have always welcomed a police presence

There has been much talk recently about the creation of a police presence in local town centres.

The plan is to make the community safer for all by deterring would-be offenders. It’s just like the awareness of radar along the highway makes even the best of us slow down.

A police presence was the plan in the 1890s when the building of our first tramways and trainlines needed policing.

The last section of the Brisbane-to- Gympie railway line to be completed was a 12-mile (19.3km) section between Cooroy and Yandina. A construction camp known as ‘Main Camp’ at Mount Eerwah was established in 1888 and grew to accommodate 1000 men, hundreds of horses, bullock teams and drays.

The thick scrub had been difficult to clear, while the heaviest work was the ascent of the Eumundi Range.

With so many navvies (labourers) employed, a police presence was meant to deter any illegal activities at the camps, maintain order and curb drunkenness.

A problem was sly grogging: the illegal sale and transport of alcohol, which could be set up in unlicensed shanties and disappear quickly with the whisper of law enforcement about.

This “disgraceful trafficking of liquors” included homemade grog and was responsible for causing ‘the horrors’. Revenue officers needed to make sure of excise duty on alcohol and licences.

Mounted Constable George Sutton was in charge of a newly-established police station in 1890 at Yandina. The police were stationed there to be far enough from the temptations of the camp, but close enough to make raids.

Constable Sutton reported a successful raid by himself, another constable, two revenue constables and Inspector McMahon with Constable Walsh, from Gympie. They seized eight large hogsheads (a hogshead was a large cask of 243 litres) of beer and one keg of cider which were conveyed by wagon to Yandina.

They also seized a great quantity of liquor at Poverty Gully, a quarry half-way between Nambour and Yandina. Their haul included one barrel of beer, five-and-a-half bottles of whiskey, four bottles of port wine and one bottle of brandy – all removed to the police station.

Constable J Johnston followed him and was accommodated in the unused Telegraph Office, a kilometre out of town.

That did not please the townspeople because they wanted a police presence in the CBD. In 1894, the police station was closed.

The building of the Palmwoods-to-Buderim tramway also resulted in a police presence.

Palmwoods farmers wrote to their member of parliament: “The tramway to Buderim Mountain is being constructed from here and consequently a great number of navies are working here, which in itself should be sufficient need to station a constable here.

“Drunken men lay about the streets on Sunday and every other day and the language is not English.

“After 6pm, this town is cut off from Nambour by telephone.”

Constable Wilson arrived with his troop horse Ecuador and settled down to business in January 1914. The station operated only while the tramway was being built. It closed on January 16, 1915.

 Audienne Blyth is a member of the Nambour Historical Museum, open 1-4pm Wednesdays to Fridays, and 10am-3pm on Saturdays.