There have been monster stories coming from this one Queensland for over 160 years, and here are five of the most chilling. I told a version of this story on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

What follows are all real headlines.

Monster Meeting at Ipswich, Monster Entertainment at North Ipswich, Monster Procession, Monster Sports, Monster Buckjumping Show, Monster Garden Fete, Monster Indignation Meeting, Monster Methodist Festival, and the list goes on.

But here are what I think are the five biggest monster stories in Ipswich history that screamed monster headlines.

In 1910, Mr. Joseph Venables, a bootmaker of Brisbane Street and a resident of Blackstone Road, Silkstone, almost needed both arms to carry in a single egg that his Leghorn hen laid one morning.

The Monster Egg he collected was easily the biggest egg of the season and perhaps the largest in Ipswich history, measuring eight inches or twenty centimetres in circumference one way by six-and-a-half inches or seventeen centimetres the other way. That’s almost the size of an emu egg from a horrified house hen.

In 1916, Mr Harry Hart let one of his launches to a group of Ipswich people to tour Moreton Bay. Hart was one of Queensland’s best-known pastoralists, responsible for sinking one of the deepest artesian bores in the world, of more than two kilometres in depth. He owned the original Archerfield at Ipswich, a property of 15,000 acres.

The Ipswich day trippers on Hart’s boat were heading down the South Channel of Moreton Bay when they saw a Monster Turtle lying asleep on the surface. They brought the turtle back to the jetty and it attracted great attention. Mr. Hart sent his car down, and it took seven men to lift it in. The turtle was about five-and-a-half feet long and by three-and-a-half feet broad, and weighed around 500 pounds, that’s 227 kilograms. I was up in Arnhem Land last year and helped lift some big turtles, but this Monster was three or four time bigger than those.

In 1917, a Monster Ox came to the Ipswich show. It was a gigantic Durham ox, weighing 3,000 pounds or 1,361kg, and measuring twelve-and-a-half feet or almost four metres round the girth, and four feet through the shoulders. Plenty of photographs recorded his immense size.

In 1923, a Monster Pig came to the Ipswich show. His name was “Billy the Pig” and he was claimed to be the largest pig in the world. Billy weighed 1,188lbs or 539kg, was three feet nine inches in height, eight feet and three inches in length, and measured six feet and nine inches in girth. Billy was a Tamworth-Berkshire bred in New Zealand where his owner was the national Ju Jitsu wrestling champion.  Billy was so valuable that when he got a toothache, he was given a gold crown.

And finally in 1928, a Monster Calf was born at Glamorgan Vale which is just twenty-five kilometres north of Ipswich. The owner was an accountant Mr Aubrey John “Jack” Smallwood. He was the shire clerk in Drayton and then Gatton and photos show him complete with pens in the top pocket of his three-piece suit. He also served as a flight lieutenant with the Royal Australian Air Force in Townsville flying to New Guinea during the Second World War. His son was also in the RAAF, serving in Vietnam until just before the Battle of Long Tan.

Smallwood’s Monster Calf was a spotted Shorthorn which was born weighing over 104 pounds or almost fifty kilograms. That is a massive baby. When the calf was born, it was reported that both the calf and Jack Smallwood were in excellent condition.

So with the Monster Egg, Monster Turtle, Monster Ox, Monster Pig, and Monster Calf, there’s little doubt that Ipswich must be in contention to be the monster capital of Australia. Perhaps the people of Blackstone Street at Silkstone could erect a Big Egg in memory of Mr Venables’ brave hen 116 years ago.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
Ipswich’s Monster Years – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Blackstone Road, Silkstone, home of Joseph Venables, Ipswich, 1909 – Picture Ipswich.
Mr J.H. “Harry” Hart – Brisbane Courier, 20th November 1928, page 14.
Monster bullock Duhram – Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 31st March 1916, page 7.
Billy the Gigantic Pig – News, Adelaide, 5th September 1923, page 8.
Aubrey John Smallwood 276225 enlistment photo – National Archives of Australia.