Ian Townsend

The plague that reached Australia in 1900 was part of a pandemic that began in China. It visited most major Australian ports and infected Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, Fremantle, and Coolgardie.

Courtesy Fourth Estate

In Queensland, it touched Brisbane, Ipswich, Maryborough, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Charters Towers, Geraldton (now Innisfail), Cairns, Port Douglas, Mossman, and Thursday Island.

The plague haunted Australia for two decades and the dead haunt Australia still. Infected towns had plague cemeteries, where by law the dead were buried in quicklime in graves 20 feet deep. Most plague graves were poorly tended and studiously forgotten. In most cases, the location of plague cemeteries is now a mystery.

The plague scare drove Australian governments to begin the public health systems we have today. In the 1900 Queensland epidemic, which lasted from April to December, there were 136 official cases of which 57 died. Authorities acknowledged that hundreds of cases were probably misdiagnosed or not reported.

The doctor sent to save North Queensland from the plague was a small, pale, carefully dressed Englishman with a speech impediment. Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner was an early paediatrician and one of the first bacteriologists.

During his lifetime, the heroic Dr Turner saved thousands of children from disease, malnutrition and poisoning. He was also the last of a particular breed of gentleman amateur naturalist.

Turner amassed a collection of 50,000 Australian moths. He was regarded as a world expert in his many fields, but while he promoted his causes fiercely he never promoted himself, forgoing his place in Australian history.

Quarantined with the ship that brought plague to Townsville was a man who had led the world’s first Labour Government; a former Queensland Premier who went on to become a Minister for Defence in the Australian Federal Government.