One hundred and fifty years ago the only good thing that a globally famous author could see in this country town was a Chinese giant. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

Anthony Trollope was a famous and prolific English novelist of the Victorian era. His grandfather was the sixth son of Sir Thomas Trollope, 4th Baronet.

His mother moved to America to open a commune in Tennessee. After that venture failed, she opened a bazaar in Ohio which also failed. His father’s affairs also went from bad to worse. He gave up his legal practice and failed to make enough income from farming to pay the rent. He and the family fled to Belgium to avoid arrest for debt.

Through all this, young Anthony Trollope received the best education that the aristocracy could provide, including a private school at Sunbury, and the exclusive schools of Harrow and Winchester College.

However, with no money or friends at these elite institutions, Trollope was bullied and endured a miserable childhood. He finished up well-educated as a lawyer but failed at the Bar due to his bad temper. Ventures into farming proved unprofitable, and his expectations of inheritance were dashed when an elderly childless uncle married and fathered children.

With nothing else for it, Trollope got a job in the post office. There he acquired a reputation for unpunctuality and insubordination. A debt of £12 to a tailor fell into the hands of a loan shark and grew to more than £200.

Trollope hated his job and lived in constant fear of dismissal. However, he did decide to turn his hand to writing in his spare time. He wrote his earliest novels while working as a post office inspector in Ireland, occasionally dipping into the “lost-letter” box for ideas.

Come the mid-1860s, Trollope created postal history and was credited with introducing the pillar box or mail boxes to the world. Trollope’s novels also brought him great enduring success, as did his travel books.

In 1871, Trollope made his first trip to Australia, and in 1873 published a travel guide called, “Australia and New Zealand.” Trollope later returned to Australia to help his son close down another failed business and found himself highly resented throughout the country. That was due entirely to disparaging remarks he wrote about Australia and Australians, and he didn’t miss Warwick and the Darling Downs in Queensland.

While in Brisbane he was a guest of Queensland’s first chief justice, Sir James Cockle, and was advised to go out to the Darling Downs about the second week of September to see the Downs in all its vast glorious expanse, waving with grass and greener than fields in England in May.

And so from Ipswich he rode through Cunningham’s Gap which at the time required him to dismount and lead his horse over the gap itself. He then went to what he described as “the little town of Warwick” which he was told was the perfection of a town. He claimed he was unanimously advised how petty Warwick would be. But what Trollope saw was a district in drought and a town that he thought was ugly. He described it as unfinished and monotonous, and even the mountains were too far away to give it any redeeming feature, and then there was the muddy, sluggish Condamine River. He was not impressed.

Trollope did however note that Warwick was clean, believed it to be prosperous, and found an excellent pub, the original “Criterion Hotel” kept by Mr. David Bugden whose mother was the first settlers’ baby born in the district. Trollope no doubt would have been impressed by Bugden’s stylish female family members who had a penchant for wearing large feathered hats and boas.

The biggest attraction that Trollope found in Warwick, however, was a Chinese giant. That was Zhan Shichai or “Chang the Chinese Giant”. He was over 8 feet (or 2.44 metres) tall and made his fortune by touring the world and making public appearances. He was well educated with a good command of ten languages. While in Warwick in 1871, Chang charged 2 shillings a head to see him.

Trollope, however, was in no mood the see the giant. He preferred the Warwick pub and continued to write disparagingly about the Darling Downs and much of the rest of Australia.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON RADIO 4AK.

Photo credits:
Representation of Anthony Trollope and a Chinese giant – WordPress generated image.
Anthony Trollope by London Stereoscopic Photographic Company – National Portrait Gallery.
James Cockle the first Chief Justice of Queensland 1863-1879 – State Library of Queensland.
Eleanor Berry Bugden posing for a portrait wearing a large feathered hat and boa 1900-1910 – State Library of Queensland.
Chang Yu-sing the Chinese giant and Chung Mow his attendant dwarf – Wellcome Collection.