4. Charles Harper—A Life

See Crowley (1960), Durack (1967), de Robin (1976), Erickson (1974, 1978), Udell (1979), Stannage (1979, 1981), Battye (1979), de Burgh and de Burgh (1981), Cowan (1988), Sharp and O’Hara (1992), Webb and Webb (1993), Forrest (1996), Brown (1996), Hunt (2000), Bolton (2000, 2008), Erickson and Taylor (2006), de Burgh (2008) and Buchanan and Buchanan (2009).

For religion, society and education, see Hawtrey (1949), Alexander (1963), Stannage (1979), Fletcher (1982), Honniball (1991), White (1996) and Holden (1997).

For politics, see Bolton and Mozley (1961), Cowan (1988), Black and Bolton (1990), Bolton (1991), Black and de Garis (1992), Webb (1993), Black and Mandy (1998), Crowley (2000) and Bolton (2008).

For exploration, see Nairn (1985). Brooker (2006) also described the exploratory expedition undertaken by the Dempster brothers, Clarkson, Harper and Correll in July and August of 1861 but suppresses the importance of Harper’s role somewhat. Admittedly, the incomplete historical record prevents a more significant description from being provided, but the fact remains that Harper is relegated to a supporting role here too.

In relation to development specifically, see Webb (1993).

For agriculture, see Burvill (1979), d’Espeissis (1993) and Abbott (2012).

See, for instance, the diaries reproduced and annotated in Burton and Henn (n.d.), Hillman (1990) and O’Brien and Statham-Drew (2009).

See Henn (1954), Erickson (1974, 1978), Hillman (1990), Brooker (2006), de Burgh (2008), Buchanan and Buchanan (2009) and O’Brien and Statham-Drew (2009). Brown (1999) catches the importance of these relationships when comparing the development of Western Australian colonial society in mid-century with the picture of society painted by Jane Austen in her various novels of a slightly earlier age. Brown draws upon the Hillman diaries to argue that, while Austen was dead before the initial settlement of the Swan River Colony took place, the settlers remained locked into a social ordering that was outlived in the mother country, but which appears to have persisted into late Victorian times in Western Australia.

Harper’s lifetime connections with the members of Western Australia’s elite is caught by the fact that the pall-bearers at his funeral in 1912 included S. Viveash, W. Hackett, J.M. Oliphent (the manager of the Producers’ Union—a co-operative venture commenced by Harper and discussed in detail in Chaps. 3 and 6) and Pearce, while Sir J. Forrest, S.F. Moore, G. Lukin, J. Cowan, W. Padbury, E. Shenton and D. Clarkson all participated in the service itself, as did members of his extended family, the de Burghs (The West Australian 22nd April 1912).

It is extremely difficult to identify all of Harper’s siblings as there are differing reports of some of their names and dates of birth and death, while others are simply not mentioned in the literature. The task of identifying these offspring is made harder because the primary narratives tend to use honorific titles and surnames without mention of the Christian name. Mercer (1958, p. 1) reports that Harper only had three siblings, but does not name them. Erickson (1974) reports that the second Harper child, Isabella, died in 1840, whereas the Battye Library Web summary for the family records reports that Isabella died in 1839. Both sources agree that she was born in 1839. Frustratingly, the Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages is silent on the matter, as records are not available for the period before 1841. Perhaps Mercer either did not know of, or ignored, Isabella due to her short life. The Western Australian Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages records the lives of Julia (the eldest—1838 to 1889), Charles Junior and the focus of this narrative (the fourth—1842 to 1912), and Sarah (the fifth—1844 to 1928). Julia is also mentioned in the Inquirer and Commercial News (24th July 1889), which reported her sudden and unexpected collapse and death at the relatively young age of 51 years. Mary (the third sibling), who is also mentioned in the Wittenoom Diaries (O’Brien and Statham-Drew 2009), appears to have taught Sunday School for over 50 years in the Anglican communion and was recognised for devoted service at the 13th Synod of the Church of England (Mercer 1958, pp. 5–6).

The original site of Toodyay was abandoned after floods and the inhabitants moved the town to safer ground and renamed it Newcastle in 1860. Newcastle was then renamed in 1910 to become the present day Toodyay (Erickson 1974; Erickson and Taylor 2006).

The careful reader would have noticed by now that there are three Charles Harpers in this narrative. The Charles Harper who was the father of the subject of this narrative and who became an Anglican clergyman; the Charles Harper who was the politician and co-operator, and—importantly—the subject of this narrative; and the Charles Walter Harper who was the latter’s son and a co-operator in the 1920s. To avoid confusion, these individuals will hereafter be respectively referred to as Reverend Harper, Charles Harper or Harper and Walter Harper.

The name is incorrectly spelt Luskin in the article.

Harper did send some mineral samples to London for assay (there not being facilities in Western Australia at that time). The resultant report indicated that it was likely to be gold in the region explored, but nothing was done about it (Mercer 1958; Brooker 2006). Given its auriferous nature, the region was subsequently opened up for mining in the late 1880s following substantial strikes (Spillman 1993, p. 58).

Lee Steere eventually terminated the arrangement that allowed Harper to farm the Beverley property when the former returned from a trip to England. However, shortly after ending the arrangement, Lee Steere defaulted on his debts and handed over the property to Harper’s business partner, Sam Viveash. He, in turn, sold it to Reverend Harper, and thus it eventually returned into the hands of Charles Harper, and became part of his land holdings (Erickson 1974; Erickson and Taylor 2006).

It is difficult to establish all of Harper’s pastoral interests during his years in the North. There are conflicting accounts as to the particular stations he invested in, who his partners were and when the investments were undertaken. For instance, Battye (1972) describes Harper’s investment in a station called “Yanrey”, while Mercer (1958) does not describe this station. On the other hand, Tambrey Station is identified in the Mercer discussion as being an investment of Harper’s, while the Register of Heritage Places does not recognise Harper as being involved in this property (Heritage Council of Western Australia 1998; McLaren and Cooper 2002).

Gresley was also a successful scholar at Melbourne University and Ed Shann, who was his contemporary and also who attended Melbourne University, dedicated his book, An Economic History of Australia (1948 [1930]), to him amongst others (Stratton 1990; Leonard 2009).

Although I reintroduce Walter Harper in Chap. 6, it is necessary at this point to record that he deservedly inherited his father’s reputation for honesty and hard work. Indeed, at one time he determined to resign from CBH due to a perceived conflict of interest relative to a business deal between Wesfarmers and CBH. Monger, the chairman of CBH, warned of irreparable damage to the CBH movement should Harper not remain as a Trustee. The following day Harper acceded to remaining as a Trustee (Zekulich 1997). He was, however, always sensitive to perceptions of impropriety and keen to retain his good reputation (Sandford 1955).

See Alexander (1963), Hunt (1978), Stannage (1979, 1981), Hunt (1983), Haig (1984) and Collins (2007).

Grasby arrived back in Western Australia in 1905 after having wound up his interests and activities in South Australia. While he and Harper apparently saw eye to eye and had similar interests, the relationship could be rocky, particularly as Grasby could be argumentative and controversial in his pronouncements about best practice. The occasional storm in the relationship did not, however, prevent some people from referring to Grasby as Harper’s pet (Abbott 2012, p. 120). In 1909, the pair commenced experimenting on wheat varieties, an activity Grasby continued until well after Harper’s death (Abbott 2012, p. 117). Sometimes jointly with Harper, he developed wheat strains such as “Niloc”, which became widely used in Western Australia (Glynn 1975). “Gresley” and “Wilfred” were strains developed after Charles’s death and were named in honour of Harper’s two sons who, as already mentioned, were both killed at Gallipoli (McMullen 2012). The proceeds from the sale of these latter two varieties were provided to the Silver Chain Nursing League and the Kindergarten Union (Abbott 2012, p. 117). Grasby quickly entered the elite circle, presumably via the sponsorship of Harper and others with whom he had worked. He served as one of the inaugural senators for the University of Western Australia—where he worked with Harper’s son, Walter, and Hackett (Alexander 1963, p. 24; Abbott 2012, p. 117). Intriguingly, he also founded the Kindergarten Union in 1911 (Kerr 1994). He died in 1930 after a quarter century of work in the West (Ramsland 1983).

The governor was appointed by the Imperial government largely without input from, or recourse to, the residents of Western Australia. By and large, the governors were professional members of the Imperial bureaucracy and enjoyed careers that entailed moving from one gubernatorial role to the next and, generally, moving from lesser to more substantial roles. The positions of Viceroy of India and Governor General of Canada were particularly seen as the prizes at the end of the gubernatorial career path. At certain points, for political and historic reasons, members of the Royal family might also be appointed to such roles, as shown by the appointment of the Duke of York to the role of first Governor General of Australia. In all cases, for the period under consideration, the appointees were members of the elites, usually had titles, may have been senior military and naval officers, and were conservative by nature. Thus, they reinforced the conservative nature of the Legislative Council and appointed people who had a similar ethos to themselves (Souter 1976; Stannage 1981; Gregory and Gothard 2009).

In Harper’s case, it appears that he felt the economic constraints associated with being a member of parliament to such an extent that he allowed political interests associated with the Labor Movement, a movement to which he was antipathetic, to print their periodical, Labour Notes, on the press of The West Australian for a fee of £200 (Western Mail 27th April 1912). Notwithstanding his conservative politics and membership of the colonial elite, Harper simply needed the cash to continue in his position in the parliament.

The longest-serving member in the House.

Harper also used his time as Speaker to admonish the House for its lack of decorum and boisterous behaviour, which he considered to be below what was expected of their station and class. He felt that senior parliamentarians were exacerbating the problem by not showing sufficient leadership and restraint in the interests of the community. For example, when chastising the House for its lack of capacity for self-regulation, Harper singled out Premier James as a chief source of interjections and interruptions and considered that Forrest’s poor example in this regard was still felt in the House after that leader had moved to the federal parliament (Phillips 2004; Pendal et al. 2007).

In fact, Harper very closely lost a motion to cancel the referendum on federation which ultimately sealed the anti-federation party’s fate (Crowley 2000, p. 254).

It is also instructive to reflect upon the introduction to this book in Chap. 1 wherein I described the fact that Harper continued to play a supporting role in the histories written about Western Australia. The fact that he was an informal opposition leader seems not to have been recognised in the general histories of Western Australia, notwithstanding the importance of this role in the subsequent development of the two-party system or his apparent effectiveness in driving policy.

While O’Connor was not implicated in these nefarious activities, there is some published evidence that his judgement was questioned in relation to the suitability of employing Hodgson in such a senior role and on such an expensive project. The publication of such criticism may well have contributed to O’Connor’s fateful decision to end his own life prematurely. The West Australian Sunday Times (26th June 1898) reports that Hodgson was “a tearing, fightable block of a man” and a “brainy” “first grade engineer”. However, he was “combustible with his enemies” and readily resorted to nepotism in support of his friends, of whom he appointed a number to the pipeline project. Additionally, reported the newspaper, Hodgson had no experience of such a large and expensive project. As the project progressed, Hodgson stood accused of using sub-standard materials in the construction of the pipeline and was required to report in writing to the colonial engineer-in-chief (O’Connor) responding to these accusations (Western Mail 5th October 1901). These progressive and worrisome reports were reinforced with the findings of the Royal Commission itself in 1902.

D’Espeissis (1993) highlights further contributions to agricultural development by noting that Harper was the first to implement large scale irrigation of an orchard and was also the first to build earthworks at Woodbridge designed to retain the silt brought by the Swan River when it flooded.

Although the Anglican Church is sometimes represented as a unified organisation at this time, Holden (1997, pp. 4–17) convincingly demonstrates otherwise. Hawtrey (1949), for instance, claimed that Bishop Goldsmith resisted the temptation to introduce High Church elements into services in his See when he became Bishop of Bunbury in 1904, but he did, in fact, do so and was a principal leader of the Oxford “party” (see also Bartlett 2004). Indeed, the conflict between High and Low Church amongst clerical and lay personnel became a significant problem for Riley, who seems never to have expunged it. Holden (1997, p. 6) cites an example of this struggle when he relates how Hackett used his influence as editor of The West Australian to prevent Goldsmith from being elected as Bishop of Perth upon the death of Bishop Parry. Another example of this divide is reflected in the occasion of the ceremony for the laying of the foundation stone of Christ Church in Claremont, which included the St George Cathedral Choristers dressed in red cassocks and white surplices because of “… the influence of Dean Frederick Goldsmith, very High Church if not indeed Anglo-Catholic” (Sharp 1993, p. 492).

There is correspondence indicating that Gillespie’s interest in the School was to be transferred to Harper, but that the cost of educating Gillespie’s son, who attended Guildford Grammar, would be deducted from the valuation. Harper offered Gillespie payment terms of three years at 6% interest (Harper to Gillespie GGSA 176/1990–1 February 13th 1904.)

In this letter, Gillespie stated that she only drank for medicinal purposes and that its effects were increased by mixing the alcohol with headache powders (GGSA AB49 176 1990–1).

Gribble was not the first to raise concerns with respect to the treatment of Aboriginal people in the North West. David Carley, an ex-convict, had also raised concerns, as had the Fairbairn Commission, which reported in 1882. Of significance though, once Gribble had raised his concerns and generated a not inconsiderable disturbance in the political balance, such concerns raised by others were revisited (Hunt 1978, pp. 11–12 and pp. 35–36).

For instance, Hunt (1978, pp. 17–29) reports that the locals refused supplies to Gribble, would not allow his building and other materials to be off-loaded when they arrived by sea, and passed resolutions which were transmitted to Perth indicating that they would prefer Gribble to discontinue his operations. Indeed, these communications were worded such that all missionary work should be discouraged.