Bedourie Pisé House is a heritage-listed house and archaeological site at 5 Herbert Street, Bedourie, Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1897. It is also known as Bedourie Pisé House, Aboriginal Tracker's Hut and Bedourie Mud Hut. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 31 May 2019.
History The Bedourie Pisé House was built in 1897 as the residence of Mary Brodie, local landowner and proprietor of Bedourie's Royal Hotel. The use of pisé (rammed earth construction) was an uncommon form of building in Queensland. The building was used as a dwelling, a council meeting place and possibly a temporary hotel, but fell into disrepair before being purchased by the Diamantina Shire Council and restored in the early 21st century. Moved to stand behind the Pisé House in 2011, the Aboriginal Tracker's Hut was built at the Bedourie Police Station in 1947 as lodgings for police tracker Doctor Jack and his wife Norah. The shelter is typical of the accommodation standard built for Aboriginal trackers employed by the Queensland police in the 20th century.
The small, isolated town of Bedourie is located near Eyre Creek in the Channel Country flood plains of central western Queensland, approximately west of Rockhampton and north of Adelaide. The town is on the edge of the traditional lands of the Wangkamadla, Pitta Pitta, Mithaka, and Wangkangurru people. These people retained important knowledge of soaks, vital in the often dry country. Soaks or soakage or native wells) are hollows dug in freely permeable sediments, which allow water to seep through and soak in. Clean water can be dug up from the hollows. Sharing knowledge of the soaks was essential for survival and care of the land. Aboriginal people also used the major rivers, particularly the Georgina River, as water supply, travel route, and source of Dreaming stories.Thom Blake and Beatov Design, Pisé House, Bedourie Conservation Management Plan, Pisé House (Mud Hut) Bedourie: A Report for the Diamantina Shire Council, June 2018, pp5-6IAE Bayly, "Review of how indigenous people managed for water in desert regions of Australia", Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia, 82, 1999, pp17-25, p20Dempsey on behalf of the Bularnu, Waluwarra and Wangkayujura People v State of Queensland (No 2) 2014 FCA 528 at Cite32.Dempsey on behalf of the Bularnu, Waluwarra and Wangkayujura People v State of Queensland (No 2) 2014 FCA 528 at Cite32 and Cite246.
The area now encompassing Bedourie was a meeting place, exchange centre and distribution area for pituri, a hallucinogenic plant containing high levels of nicotine. The country between the Georgina and Mulligan rivers was the primary source of pituri, which was used in hunting, ceremonies, and recreationally. This placed it at the centre of an important trade route, with people travelling hundreds of kilometres to the area to exchange high quality stone axes from Cloncurry and Mount Isa, medicines, and sea shells for pituri. The route was also significant for social and ritual trade, where songs, ceremonies, and knowledge were exchanged.Val Donovan and Colleen Wall, "Introduction" and Isabel McBryde, "Landscapes of Exchange", Making Connections: A journey along Central Australian Aboriginal trading routes, Brisbane: Arts Queensland, 2004, pp1-2, 8-9Aplin on behalf of the Pitta Pitta People v State of Queensland 2012 FCA 883Dempsey on behalf of the Bularnu, Waluwarra and Wangkayujura People v State of Queensland (No 2) 2014 FCA 528Gorringe on behalf of the Mithaka People v State of Queensland 2015 FCA 1116ABC Hindsight, Along the Pituri Trail, broadcast 22 June 2008 (audio recording).
Following European expeditions, pastoralists occupied the Channel Country in the 1860s, stocking runs with cattle and sheep from South Australia. From 1884 Afghan cameleers, following the Aboriginal trade routes, transported goods from the newly opened Maree railway station in central South Australia, along the Channel Country rivers to Birdsville and Cloncurry. Afghan trading towns sprang up near the present sites of Birdsville and Bedourie, supporting camels transporting stores north and drovers moving stock south to the Adelaide sale yards. The Central Australia railway from Port Augusta reached Hergott Springs (later named Marree) in 1884. Construction of the line began in 1878, with Darwin the intended terminus, It reached Oodnadatta in 1891 and terminated in Alice Springs in 1929. Date palms, a regular feature of stations along the track, were planted in the townships including Bedourie to provide shade and food for the cameleers.Christine Stevens, Tin Mosques and Ghantowns, a history of Afghan Cameldrivers in Australia, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp73-76Allen Adrian, "Frontier Towns in Western Queensland: Their growth and present tributary areas", The Australian Geographer, XI, 2(1969), p121-22.National Library of Australia PIC/3944/46 LOC Cold store PIC AIM 80/3189.
In 1886, a township reserve named Bedouri - reputedly meaning "dust storm" - was proclaimed on Eyre Creek. After locals advised of the flooding risk, a new site was chosen further north, on the road from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Adelaide. Situated about two days' journey from Boulia in the north and Birdsville to the south, the township was one of six small settlements which became important refreshment and supply sites for surrounding pastoral stations and drovers bound for Adelaide. The land was taken from the Nappa, Marrawilla, Pierrie, and Glenlees runs. Blackall merchants AJ Haylock and Co established a general store and hotel in the yet-to-be proclaimed and surveyed township, importing building materials to the sparsely vegetated area. The survey of the township, completed in 1888, shows the location of the hotel, its kitchen, stable and horse yards (Allotment 1 of Section 1), and the store (Allotment 2 of Section 1), but no other structures. The hotel was 61 feet by 36 feet (18.6 x 11m) and the store 30 feet by 16 feet (9 x 4.9m), both were built of cypress. The site also contained a sheep yard with 500 sheep, cellar, flour frame, 'Chinaman's garden', and a stock of wines and spirits. A further advertisement in 1889 indicated that at least £1000 would secure the property.Queensland Government Gazette, 20 February 1886, p589Eyre's Creek Police Station QSA File #290304Queenslander 13 October 1883 p612, 18 June 1887 p875 and 19 May 1888 p767Morning Bulletin 17 April 1886 p4 and 12 July 1888 p1Western Champion 2 November 1886 p4.Brisbane Courier 27 May 1889 p3Survey Plan EU8, 1889
Bedourie developed slowly, with the hotel at its centre. A publican's licence was issued for the Bedourie hotel, named the Royal, in May 1888, but AJ Haylock and Co advertised the hotel and store for sale or let two months later. The businesses were still unsold in May 1889, when the Bedourie town sites were offered for sale in Birdsville. Eleven allotments, including the hotel, store, and future site of the Pisé house, were purchased by Mary Dolan. Born Mary Ballard , she had been raised in hotels in Victoria by her twice-widowed mother. In 1883 she married Andrew Carey Dolan, the manager of Breadalbane Station, on the Georgina River, and the couple moved to Birdsville. Andrew Dolan died in 1887, leaving Mary with one child and an £800 estate. Rate books indicate that Andrew Dolan owned Lot 4 section 5 on which there was a wooden dwelling house. The Bedourie town land, particularly the hotel and store, enabled Mary to provide an income for herself and her daughter. Mary's acquisition of the hotel also mirrored a tradition of female publicans in Australia, particularly of widows or deserted wives. Hotel keeping was one of the few occupations women could pursue in the 19th century, allowing childcare from a home base, and granting them legal and economic independence. Mary's father, David Ballard, had managed the St Agnes Hotel in Kyneton, Victoria during the 1850s. After his death in 1858, the approximate year of Mary's birth, her mother Margaret later acquired his liquor licence and managed the hotel while raising three small children. She married Robert Hall in 1861, had four more children, was widowed 1866, with another child born after Robert's death. Margaret continued to manage the St Agnes Hotel through to 1877, when she was declared insolvent. A study of Townsville female publicans reveals that numbers of female publicans rose dramatically in the early 1900s: a handful of women were hotel-keepers in the 1890s, but by 1902, half the hotels in town were run by women.Kyneton Observer 30 September 1858 p2Kyneton Observer, 16 October 1860 p3The Age 11 October 1866 p5Kyneton Guardian 27 September 1871 p2Australasian 24 November 1877 p14 (insolvency of Margaret Hall)Deeds of Grant 30055044, 30055045 (lots 501,502) and 30055036, 30055043 (lots 101,110), Survey Plan EU8.South Australian Register 17 August 1883 p4Victorian Births ref #26610 birth of Margaret Georgina, 1885Queenslander 23 July 1887 p121Telegraph 3 September 1887 p6Brisbane Courier 29 August 1892 p8QSA Item ID 339073, Diamantina Divisional Board rate books, 1889, p3Clare Wright, Beyond the Ladies Lounge, Australia's female publicans, Carlton, Melbourne University Press, 2003, pp17,31,35,36,42,51Dorothy Gibson-Wilde, A pattern of Pubs, hotels of Townsville 1864 -1914, Townsville: James Cook University,1988, pp56-59Queenslander 4 February 1888 p176Pugh's Almanac, 1891, p50 (Country Towns Directory).
By 1891, Mary had become the principal business operator and service provider in Bedourie. Although very few people lived in the town, her hotel served passing drovers, pastoral station occupants, and visiting racegoers who attended Bedourie's annual horse races, which began in 1887. In addition to being the hotel proprietor, Mary was the town's postmistress, storekeeper, butcher, and wine and spirit merchant. She also grazed two flocks of sheep around Bedourie, and owned the town's boat. In 1890, she married John Gray Brodie, of Cluny Station, and the hotel, butcher, store, and wine and spirit businesses were transferred to Brodie from 1892. John Brodie, however, died in January 1895, leaving Mary with a further two children and a third expected. John and Mary's son was also named John Gray Brodie and their youngest daughter Grace was born in September 1895, after John's death. She continued to run the Bedourie businesses, inheriting them along with Brodie's £500 estate.Queenslander 20 December 1890 p1161Queensland births deaths marriages indexes, Reg no 1890/C/528, 1892/C/3638, 1893/C/3170, 1895/C/1065, 1895/C/3187Pugh's Almanac 1891, p5Pugh's Almanac 1892, p49Queenslander 16 February 1895 p297Probate of Estate of John Gray Brodie QSA £280873.