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| Dr William J. Metcalf is an Adjunct Lecturer, Griffith School of Environment Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia |
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| Dr Bill Metcalf at the Launch of his book on the Gayndah Communes. |
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| Bill at the book launch featuring Veronica Cusssack, daughter of Tom Pedrazini, the communes' school teacher. |
Since a child, I have been interested in communalism.
Growing up on a dairy farm in Canada, I experienced communal working bees with men threshing grain and building barns, while women’s working bees fed the men, made quilts for newlyweds, and prepared housing for those in trouble.
At university, I studied Agricultural Economics, focusing on the economics of communalism.
After immigrating to Australia in 1970, I completed an MA in sociology at University of Queensland, then my PhD at Griffith University, in both cases focusing on contemporary communal groups.
Many such groups arose in the 1970s & 80s, with most people thinking they were inventing a new form of social and economic life.
My research, however, showed that Australia’s first commune, Herrnhut, was established in Victoria in 1852, and the first in Queensland, Friends Farm, in 1868.
During the early 1890s, under Samuel Griffith, the Queensland Government brought in legislation to support rural communes with land and money, and 2000 people took part.
Three of these communes, Byrnestown, Resolute and Bon Accord were established near Gayndah in 1893. A hundred years later, I explored the sites, local records, interviewed descendants, then researched and wrote a book about these 400 communards.
A few children and many grandchildren of the communards still lived and while some supported my work others wanted to forget that their family had been involved in ‘communism’.
With support from the Gayndah Museum, and by living there and exploring the sites, I won people over, was given photos and old letters, and shown archaeological remains. From that, and considerable archival research in Brisbane and Maryborough, I wrote the book, The Gayndah Communes. This was launched in Gayndah on 7 June 1998 by Governor Peter Arnison, arriving by horse and carriage.
Writing The Gayndah Communes has affected me deeply.
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| 1997, Bill sitting beside the grave of 3-month-old Margaret Matthews, the first death of the communards, 12 May 1894. |
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| Margaret Matthews parents, Bridget and James Matthews, of Byrnestown commune, who remained in the area after the commune collapsed in 1896. |
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| Byrnestown School, 1895,comprising communards' children. |
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| Walter and Elizabeth Lowe, and children, of Resolute commune, proudly showing one of their just completed slab houses for members. |
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| Selina and Thomas Wharton, members of Bon Accord commune. Their grandson, Claude Wharton, was the Country / National Party member for the Gayndah area between 1960 and 1986, and was a Cabinet Minister in the Bjelke-Peterson government. |
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| Mary and Michael Hanlon, and their family, of Bon Accord commune. The boy at the extreme left is Ned Hanlon who went on to become a Labor MLA (1926-52) and Queensland Premier, 1946-1952. |
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| Plan showing the location of these three communes in relation to Gayndah, the current Burnett Highway and rail-line, Gooroolba and Burnett River. |
This year Bill was the well deserved recipient of the prestigious John Douglas Kerr Medal of Distinction in Research and Writing Australian History.The award was presented at the Queensland Day Dinner on 6 June, 2018. Bill has continued research and twenty years later Friends Farm: Australia’s First Quaker Commune has been published in relation to communes on what is now called the Sunshine Coast.
Published with consent from Dr William Metcalf.
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