History

FORMATION OF THE RSSILA 1916

By 1915 invalid returning soldiers from World War 1 were forming associations and gathering in clubhouses in Queensland (and NSW, SA and Victoria). At those gatherings they discussed their health problems and concerns about the lack of coordinated repatriation facilities and tailored medical services.

On 10 May 1916 representatives of those associations met in Sydney to address the need for a unified approach to repatriation and medical services. This was followed by a meeting held in Melbourne from 6 to 12 May to discuss the formation of a returned soldiers association. Such an association would not only achieve those aims but proved a venue where returned service men could continue to experience the ‘camaraderie, concern, and mateship’ that sustained them in the battlefield. A constitution was formulated and the provisional name the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) was decided upon.

At the first Federal Congress held in Brisbane from 11-16 September 1916 the formation meeting minutes and the suggested name were adopted and the RSSILA was formally constituted. 

In November 1940 a name change to Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA) was effected to include airmen. In October 1965 a decision was made to condense the name to Returned Services League of Australia. This was followed in September 1990, by a decision to change the name yet again to Returned & Services League of Australia in order to cater for a wider membership as, with the passing of time, an exclusive membership of returned servicemen and women could no longer be sustained.

FORMATION OF THE INGHAM SUB BRANCH OF THE TOWNSVILLE RSSILA – 1933

The first ANZAC DAY dinner was said to have been held at the Masonic Hall in Ingham in 1920.  In 1924 the North Queensland District was established. Sometime early in the 1920s a committee was formed of three returned soldiers and three civilians for the aim of raising funds for a Memorial Hall. This committee was already being addressed as the Returned Soldiers Association as indicated in a newspaper report of 1929 when on the visit of the Italian Consul to Ingham, the Returned Soldiers Association was presented £35 by the Italian Returned Soldiers’ Association as a contribution to the construction of a Memorial Hall. £1000 had already been raised and the Memorial Hall committee was investigating the possibility of obtaining a vacant allotment in the main street between the Post Office and the Police Sergeant’s residence. It was anticipated that between £2000 and £3000 would be required to build the Memorial Hall.

Maybe Ingham was spurred on by Halifax which had unveiled a concrete obelisk as a war memorial on ANZAC DAY 1933 and when doing so remarked on the fact that Ingham “was still without anything of the sort”! Rather coincidently then, on Saturday 24 June 1933 a large number of returned soldiers met in Ingham to discuss the formation of a branch of the RSSILA and the building of a Memorial Hall to commemorate the fallen of World War 1, then called the Great War, and to provide a meeting place for returned service men. At the time there were at least 120 returned soldiers living in the district. The President and Secretary of the Townsville branch of the RSSILA addressed the meeting and suggested that a sub branch of the Townsville branch be formed. As a result of this meeting a Herbert River sub branch committee (herewith referred to as the Sub Branch) was constituted.

As for the hall the group envisaged a two storied brick and concrete building whose entrance would house the honour board. The building would include a meeting room, shops and offices for rent in order to provide revenue to assist paying off the building and for running expenses.

NEGOTIATIONS FOR A LEASE OF LAND FOR A MEMORIAL HALL

The acquisition of a block of land to site a Memorial Hall did not go smoothly. The site that the Sub branch had set its sights on in Lannercost Street was vetoed in September 1933 by the Lands Department contrary to the recommendation of the suitability of that land for a Memorial Hall made to the Lands Department by the Hinchinbrook Shire Council and the Ingham Chamber of Commerce.

The Lands Department’s reason for the refusal was that the Sub Branch had previously been allotted a piece of land on Townsville Road. But the Council pointed out to the Lands Department that when the original Memorial Hall committee had applied for the Townsville Road land the Lannercost Street block was not up for application. The 1927 flood saw the Townsville Road allotment go under many feet of water which proved its unsuitability for the location of the Memorial Hall, hence the Sub Branch preferring a main street location.

After the Sub Branch was unsuccessful in its bid to secure any of the town allotments that went up for offer in early 1934, the Council, with the agreement of the Lands Department, decided to excise a portion of the Shire Hall land  for the use of the Sub Branch on the proviso that it agreed that the land would revert back to the Council when and if the it no longer had any use for the land. At that time, before the installation of an official War Memorial in Lannercost Street and a clubhouse, the Honour Roll was housed in the Shire Hall and ANZAC Day ceremonies were conducted outside that building.

Another block of land that came up for lease was opposite the Court House on Palm Terrace but after discussions with the Council the Sub Branch decided to continue with the idea of leasing the land adjoining the Shire Hall and to comply with the conditions set down by the Lands Department regarding the relinquishing of the land back to the Council at a future date. In 1935, tenders were called for the building of the hall with shops on the land adjacent to the Shire Hall.

Fund raising continued apace with the first annual Diggers’ Ball held on Friday 24 August 1934 in the De Luxe Theatre. Many community groups got behind the Sub Branch’s fund-raising efforts. For example, proceeds from the inaugural performance of the Playbox Repertory Society at the Shire Hall were donated to the Sub Branch. The returned soldiers formed the Diggers’ Hack Club in 1935. Money raised from the meetings went towards the Memorial Hall fund.

However, in 1936 with continuing lack of success in obtaining land and therefore a faltering momentum for fund raising, the idea was floated by the Sub Branch to build a memorial swimming pool in Herbert Street close to the Palm Creek bridge. That idea sat for another 10 years before it was revisited.

VINCENT EDWARD HAY SWAYNE, SOLICITOR DONATES 4 HAWKINS STREET

Meanwhile, in the end, the Sub Branch acquired, not a new two-storied brick and concrete building but the former residence of Vincent E. Swayne, solicitor, married to Helen Fraser, daughter of Frank Fraser Snr. The home was a typical Queenslander style and incorporated a tennis court as many houses then did. Because he had named his property Kentucky, the courts were called the Kentucky Courts. Swayne and his family were avid tennis players and visiting teams from north and south of Ingham would travel to compete on these courts. On one occasion there were 150 spectators watching the hotly contested matches.

The building was acquired for £1750 payable on terms. However, Swayne suggested that he donate £250 towards the furnishing fund if the Sub Branch would pay £1500 outright in cash. The Sub Branch secured a £500 overdraft, and the deal was completed. The Diggers’ Hack Club transferred £117 to the Sub Branch to help pay off the bank overdraft. The furnishing of the ‘Diggers’ Club Rooms’ and alterations required to convert the former home to a club house would be achieved with the donations already received which amounted to £370 and a piano donated by Swayne in addition to the agreed upon £250.

The Sub Branch took possession of the house a few days before it held its first annual general meeting in its new clubhouse at 4 Hawkins Street on Sunday 6 February 1938.

The original Swayne house continued to be renovated for the growing and changing needs of the RSL. Renovations to the club house occurred in the early 1970s, 1999 and 2010. The clubhouse hosted North Queensland District Congresses in 1948, 1957, 1983,1995 and 2011.

THE IDEA OF AN IMPROVED MEMORIAL HALL DID NOT GO AWAY

However, the idea of a memorial of some sort did not go away. In December1945 a public meeting considered an Olympic sized pool would be a fitting memorial.

But in 1946 at discussions of the pool idea the Sub Branch thought that a pool was a civic concern and rather that as the premises as 4 Hawkins Creek was proving inadequate the Sub Branch requested of Council land at the western end of Lannercost Street on which it could erect a large building for the recreational purposes of returned servicemen. It was envisaged that the building would include a library, billards tables, bar and office. The Council asked the Sub Branch to provide detailed plans of the proposed building and a suggested size of land area required.

On February 22 a public meeting launched an appeal. The Sub Branch approached a separate body, the Herbert River District War Memorial Committee, whose chairman was the Shire Chairman to collaborate. In 1946 the Herbert River Cane Growers Association arranged for farmers to subscribe to a list to raise funds for the War Memorial Fund.  In 1947 Ingham Line farmers committed to a levy for three years with those levies being paid into the War Memorial Fund. Similarly, the Sub Branch donated a substantial amount to the Fund. The Herbert River Farmers’ League, the Ingham CWA (disbursement of its residual Servicemen’s Restroom Funds) and the Herbert River Jockey Club were also among the keen donors.

Somewhere between 1946 and 1950 the idea of a large building for recreational purposes for returned servicemen seemed to have slipped off the agenda. Perhaps that in 1948 the War Memorial Fund was closed and the money handed over to the Sub Branch signified that the idea of a new building centrally located on Lannercost Street was abandoned once and for all.

Instead, by 1950 Council was considering the erection of a War Memorial.  The discussion went on for years with the pool or memorial tower vying for popularity. In 1951 an Olympic sized pool with restaurant and dance hall was mooted. The Chamber of Commerce was in favour of a pool and could not see how money spent on a stone edifice could be justified. By1953 a street memorial tower with or without a clock was most favoured and it seemed that in February 1954 a tower War Memorial without clock was settled upon, however not without some disagreement as to where it was to be located: where the pool was to have been located or in the town centre. Tenders were put out to stone masons. Then a few months later in 1954 the Council revisited the idea of building instead a Memorial Pool in the location that the Sub Branch had suggested in 1936. 

Ultimately, a tower War Memorial was constructed at the intersection of Townsville Road and Lannercost Street and a very well attended ANZAC Day service was held there on 25 April 1959. The Sub Branch donated the flag pole. In 1989 the War Memorial was relocated from its original site to the Keith Payne VC Botanical Gardens.

A pool would be erected but not in the original envisaged site, now Rotary Park, but on McIllwraith Street on land donated by the Conroy family. The Ingham Municipal Pool opened in 1962 at the cost of £3000 with money raised by a voluntary pool committee.

Written by Dr Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui

Sources:

• A Short History of the beginnings of the RSL, http://www.rslangeles.com/history-of-the-rsl/
• Herbert River Sub Branch Inc. https://www.rslqld.org/about-us/herbert-river-sub-branch-inc
• TROVE – newspapers 1929-1959
• Vidonja Balanzategui, The Herbert River Story, Ingham: Hinchinbrook Shire Council, 2011.