In the 1860s Ipswich’s John Barnes defined resilience. I told a version of this story live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that the early days of Ipswich were pretty wild and woolly, and so too was the record keeping, I’m talking back in the 1860s just after Queensland achieved separation from New South Wales. I apologise to the Barnes family if I’ve got anything wrong here, but it’s a pretty good story none-the-less.

One day in 1866, presiding in Ipswich’s Police Court was the Ipswich’s first mayor John Murphy and the magistrate James Leith-Hay. They are both interesting in their own right because the mayor’s stepdaughter would later be killed in China’s Kucheng Massacre, and the magistrate’s daughter would marry Lord Henry Phipps the son of the 2nd Marquess of Normanby.

Appearing before them was Catherine Barnes. She confessed to assaulting a woman who came to the door of the house where she was working near Coal Falls to collect a debt. Catherine refused to shake her hand, turned her back to walk into the kitchen, but changed her mind, threw the woman off her veranda, broke her arm, ordered her off the property, and threatened to kill her.

Even the newspaper reporting the case was shocked, and so I’ve got to read you this quote: “The language made use of by the prisoner in describing how she had committed the assault was of a most beastly character”

Catherine Barnes’s husband I think was Mr John Barnes. He was the well-known bullock dray taxi driver, cattle farmer, and donor of the land to build the Catholic church at Pine Mountain. I understand that he also had a boot business near 215 Brisbane Street which is a café today.

Catherine Barnes brought with her an illegitimate daughter Jane. She became John Barnes’s stepdaughter of course and in 1861 she married respectfully to the drill-instructor of the Queensland Light Horse, but six years and three children later the stepdaughter was widowed, so the stepdaughter and all the kids came home.

John Barnes might have been coping with a lot because one night in 1862 he was charged with drunkenness and reckless driving in Brisbane Street, which back then meant furious riding of his horse.

And when he got home that night, he was assaulted by his wife Catherine. He then took her to court to force her to pay the resultant medical fees of Dr Henry Challinor. Dr Challinor was the senior doctor in town, he was a member of Queensland’s first parliament, and superintendent of the lunatic asylum. All up with the furious horse-riding charge, being assaulted by his wife, and the various court appearances, it was a tough twenty-four to forty-eight hours for John Barnes.

Another careless riding offence followed when he got his horse to buck and prance in Brisbane Street, thereby putting a number of people in danger near the School of Arts.

Horses continued to be a problem for John in 1869 when he was charged with stealing a horse that had once belonged to a bushranger named Arthurs. The police had been chasing Arthurs for months, his mates proved to be unreliable witnesses, and so fortunately John got off.

After all the trouble with his wife and riding his horse up and down Brisbane Street, John Barnes thrived and his life flourished. He even hosted public political meetings in his home at Pine Mountain, including for the Ipswich mayor James Foote and the Queensland Premier and Colonial Secretary Arthur Macalister.

So for all the people out there who might be doing it tough – avoid recklessly riding your horse through town, and hang in there because eventually things will come good just like it did for the resilient John Barnes.

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

Photo credits:
Furious Riding of Resilient John Barnes – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
John Murphy first mayor of Ipswich 1860-1861 1865 1866 1867 – State Library of Queensland.
Ipswich Old Courthouse, 2024 – Harold Peacock 20241020_060709-2.
Dr Henry Challinor 1814–1882 – University of Queensland Library.
Hon. Arthur Macalister – State Library of Queensland.