Free The Mayne Inheritance by Rosamond Siemon Page A

Council’s first meetings he showed himself to be a practical, cooperative alderman. It says something for George Raff’s political power in the community that in February the following year, the Queensland Government Gazette listed Patrick Mayne as one of the Governor’s nine appointees to the first Board of National Education in Queensland, serving under the presidency of Sir Charles Nicholson. For the ambitious Mayne this was a real distinction in the community. He was not only sitting as an equal at the same table as educated members of the establishment, but helping to make decisions for the education of their children. He could be excused for thinking his social alienation was over: around the table were the highly respected Hon. Robert Ramsay Mackenzie, Daniel Rountree Somerset, George Raff, William Thornton, Charles Tiffin, Henry Jordan and Henry Day.
    Patrick’s success as an alderman, and now his pride in what he saw as an exalted role, became too visible and too audible. Some townsfolk were not willing to accept an upstart, almost illiterate butcher on their Board of Education. They had no difficulty in accepting a successful butcher as an alderman, but this appointment was anaffront. Shock and anger turned to ridicule of the man. Rumours spread like a bushfire and the blaze was quickly out of control. It was said that ‘‘Patrick Mayne was too big for his boots; now he planned to stand for Parliament.’’ There was no objection to other aldermen who later successfully stood for the State legislature, but Mayne they did not want. The rumours grew. The smirks and derision were undisguised. Patrick was disparaged from all sides. The effect on a man of his explosive temperament must have been devastating. In three weeks the ‘‘hate’’ campaign against him reached a point where the Executive Council had to step in to protect its decision, publishing a rebuttal of the scuttlebutt in the Moreton Bay Courier of 8 March 1860. It read:
    â€˜â€˜Some of our contemporaries have been amusing themselves by poking fun at Mr Patrick Mayne and the Executive Council on his appointment to the seat at the Education Board of Queensland and we are now in a position to state the circumstances of the appointment. When Dr Milford and Mr Duncan left it became necessary to find some person to represent the Catholic body at the National School and Mr Patrick Mayne was considered most eligible by the other patrons; and when it was thought desirable to place a master in the school, the executive appointed those who had been patrons as a temporary board. When Mr Mayne became patron he contributed the munificent sum of £100 for the purpose of forwarding the objects of the school. It will be very fortunate if as good grounds can be shown for public appointments generally as for this one; but we do not admire the taste ofthose who, because Mr Mayne acquired wealth by honest industry, should seize the opportunity afforded by his anxiety to forward education, to reproach him with his misfortune that he is not an educated man. If his co-religionists and co-patrons deem him fit, what right has anyone in this community which embraces principally wealth with ignorance and ignorance without wealth, to point to Mr Mayne? He is a city alderman elected with a large majority and has fully justified the choice of his fellow citizens and we believe him to possess much more common sense than most of his detractors. If any more were required to show the petty animosity displayed on this occasion, it would be the fabrication of the report that Mr Mayne is a candidate for the Legislature—it is devoid of truth.’’
    Harassment of Mayne did not vanish overnight. Open season on him lingered for several weeks but, after the Executive Council statement he immediately took his own action to regain some lost prestige. In the Moreton Bay Courier of 20 March he called for public tenders for the erection