order of Foresters, and is now a much-respected honorary member of it. Within recent years he has resided in Fremantle.
Few men have had more interesting careers than Captain Thomas. To those who took life boldly in their hands, so to speak, in the twenties and thirties all respect is due, and their names will be long remembered and should be known in history. They are the Pilgrim Fathers of Western Australia. It is to be hoped that Captain Thomas will be spared for many years to the colony for which he has done so much.
ROBERT FAIRBAIRN, P.M.
IN Western Australia years ago the position of a Civil Servant who hoped to rise in his profession was in some respects like that of a soldier who has to be ready to go anywhere without cavil and put his life in danger for the sake of Queen and country. As a rule the "Government stroke" is looked upon with envy by the civilian in private employment, who is prone to think that he has to work harder and longer and for less money than the servants of the State, whose comfortable offices and short hours in large cities bring a horde o[ claimants to the doors of Ministers in eager search for a vacant post. The Civil Service officer, it is true, is sometimes a spineless individual who loves routine and who clings to some subordinate office with the tenacity of a barnacle to a rock, and who would be mortally afraid at being detached from his humble and familiar sphere, but this is the kind of man who does not make any progress towards promotion. The conditions of the work required from men of calibre in this colony, the men who have shown their fitness for the charge of departments or to act as the emissaries of the Crown in affairs of delicate poise requiring a strong and well-trained judgment, have been of a far more exacting, weighty, and honourable character, and the successes which they have won by their fidelity, integrity, and intellectual powers during a long career have been and are to them what the war medal is to the soldier. In Western Australia especially promotion has been so hardly earned that it carries with it far more than the ordinary stamp of ability and zeal in what used to be a very unattractive, arduous, and ill-paid service. The colony, when the veteran of to-day who occupies a high place enlisted to devote his time and talents to the interests of the public, was impoverished and primitive in its resources. It had wild and desolate tracts of country in torrid zones, to which it sent Police Magistrates to live in tents on the hardest fare and very little pay. "Theirs not to reason why," when they were ordered to the Murchison and Kimberley as pioneer white settlers; theirs but to do and if needs be die of fever, poor nourishment, and exposure. There were no visions of a golden future to encourage them; they were sustained only by a stern sense of duty in the discouragements of their desolate lives, and now that the silver lining of the cloud has been revealed and they are placed at the head of their profession, they are by the general approval of the people acclaimed to have worthily won their way to the forefront and are fully entitled to all that they enjoy in the improved condition of the affairs o[ the colony.
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Photo by ROBERT FAIRBAIRN, P.M. Nixon & Merrilees. |
Robert Fairbain, the son of John Fairbairn, of Berwickshire and Roxburghshlre, Scotland, was born in Bunbury in 1841, his family having been among the earliest settlers in that district. The lack of schools was more than compensated for by the high class private tuition which it was the lad's good fortune to receive, and which qualified him, in 1860, to accept an appointment as assistant teacher in a large school at Perth. Two years later he became Clerk of Courts in the Sussex district, of which Busselton is the centre. He discharged the duties of the position with so much assiduity and ability that in 1875 he was promoted to the bench as Acting Resident Magistrate of the Greenough district, Victoria division, Champion Bay. A notable incident in connection with his experiences in this part of the colony arose out of the alleged lead poisoning of a number of miners employed on the Geraldine mines. A report was made to the Government on the ground that the mine-owners failed to supply pure water to the men, and that they were suffering from dangerous impregnations in their domestic supply. The charge was of too serious a nature to be lightly passed over, and Mr. Fairbairn, Mr. Elliott, Government resident, and Dr. Elliott, medical officer, were invested with special powers to enable them to make a thorough investigation in the interests of the mining community.
About that time a report was made to the Government of abuses in connection with the coloured labour engaged in the pearling industry at Sharks Bay. The Cabinet resolved that a full investigation should be made for the information of the Crown, and Mr. Fairbairn was appointed to undertake the responsible task, which he carried out to the entire satisfaction of those who reposed so much confidence in his acumen and judicial impartiality. He
