A century ago, Queensland’s Darling Downs hosted two unique Santa Claus impersonators, one with links to the British peerage, and the other who broke all the stereotypes. I told a version of this story live on Darling Downs radio 4AK.

In 1914, Mr H.G. Deacon impersonated Santa Claus for the St David’s Sunday School at Allora. His full name was Herbert Gladstone Deacon and behind his Father Christmas disguise he was well known in Allora as the president of the Progress Association, secretary of the Show Society, and manager of the Savings Bank.

Deacon was also executor of Australia’s most sensational contested will of the early twentieth century. An unmarried Allora man of German descent, by the name of William Mitchener, died in Toowoomba in 1918 just as the First World War was coming to an end. He left an incredible £40,000 of property to charities in Germany. That’s around $25 million today and back then caused quite a stir because of the war.

The state contested the will and it went all the way to the High Court. The result was that because of German war reparations, the whole estate was taken by the Queensland Public Trustees, and anyone who felt hard done by were advised to make their claim against the German government.

But that wasn’t the Allora Santa’s only claim to fame. Deacon’s son in the Second World War fought on the Kokoda Trail and became a prisoner of war of the Japanese. After the war the son married a member of the British peerage. The wife’s aunt was a socialite at Southport, her grandfather was in the Queensland Legislative Council, her great-grandfather was brother of a Baronet and Lord Chancellor, and also the son of Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet, Lord Mayor of London and personal advisor to Queen Caroline.

So Allora’s Father Christmas in 1914 is probably the first and maybe only Santa Claus in Australian history with peerage connections.

Then there was the Father Christmas in Warwick in 1928 who also makes an historic claim.

Miss Betty Rowland impersonated Santa Claus for the kindergarten at the Church of England Girls’ School in Warwick, which today is St Catharine’s.

Her father was a Warwick accountant and justice of the peace. Her uncle was a member of the Warwick fire board, officer of the Queensland military forces, and hardware shop proprietor.

Miss Rowland herself was destined for greater things. What’s remarkable about Betty is that she broke the gender stereotypes of the day to be a pharmaceutical chemist, mechanic, and the only female Father Christmas that I’ve managed to find in newspaper history of the Darling Downs.

So between the Santa Claus with peerage connections in Allora, and the only female Father Christmas in Warwick, you can see why I get pretty excited about there always being more history out there.

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

Photo credits:
Depiction of Allora and Warwick Father Christmases – ChatGPT.
Depiction of Mr H.G. Deakon from his silhouette in Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette, 10th March 1936, page 12 – ChatGPT.
Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet, by Arthur William Devis – Wikimedia Commons.
Miss Betty Rowland – Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 12th April 1954 page 10.