Edmund J. Banfield was born in Liverpool, England, on September 4, 1852, and was brought, while a boy, to Australia by his father who settled in Ararat, Victoria.
When a young teenager in Ararat, Banfield sneaked out on his father's bone-shaker bicycle. He was freewheeling down an incline, lost control and was thrown onto a rusting windlass, injuring his right eye. His eye became infected and dogged him for years. Ultimately, it was surgically removed and replaced with a glass eye.
Banfield became a journalist and went to North Queensland where he joined the staff of The Townsville Daily Bulletin. He wrote to his father reporting that he had met Thomas Hollis Hopkins, a wealthy wholesaler, and a prime mover of the separation movement which was aimed at achieving separate statehood for North Queensland.
Banfield made one trip to England where he met and courted his future wife, Bertha Golding, a music teacher. On a trip to the Lake District, Banfield felt he must confess his lack of an eye. "Well!" said Bertha in amazement, "for someone with just one eye you seem to see more than a dozen people with two." Bertha went on to comment, "You must have noticed that I keep on placing myself to your left. I'm afraid the hearing's almost gone in my left ear since I went down with rheumatic fever. Makes us quite a pair, doesn't it." They were married in 1886 and returned to Townsville. We presume that if they ever argued in later life that they sat the opposite way - a see no evil, hear no evil strategy.
In 1896, after ten years of marriage and no children, the Banfields began to hanker for a retreat, some place where they could escape the pressures of being editor of the Bulletin. Thomas Hollis Hopkins had recently acquired Tam O'Shanter Point as a possible alternative port to Innisfail, and he suggested that Banfield look around there.
Banfield visited Dunk Island in September, 1886. As his party rounded the spit, he was immediately taken with the beauty of the island. His party camped on the spit and caught fish which they cooked. The smoke from the fire attracted the attention of the aborigines on the mainland, and soon a bark canoe paddled to the beach. The lone aborigine identified himself as Tom, one of only four surviving descendants of the 400 aborigines who had once lived on the island before being driven off by the white newcomers. Tom was eager to help and guided Banfield about the island. Banfield loved what he saw and when he got back to their camp, told Mrs. Banfield that this was it, and that he had found a perfect site to build a "modest castle".
Upon returning to Townsville, Banfield immediately applied to lease the area around Brammo Bay, where the resort now stands. There were no other applicants so the Queensland Government granted him a 30 year lease. With evident relief, he and Mrs. Banfield began planning their retreat.
But things were not going well for Banfield - in practice he was editor of the Bulletin, but he did not have the title, and the issue he cared about so passionately, statehood for North Queensland, was secondary to the drive for federation. Banfield's health began to deteriorate. He stopped eating and began wasting away; he couldn't sleep and became so desperate for sleep that he resorted to chloroform. Mrs. Banfield pressed him to visit a doctor who diagnosed his disease as pulmonary consumption and gave him six months to live. Mindful that Henry Thoreau said: "To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery"... he set sail for Dunk Island to spend the few remaining months of his life.
Banfield didn't die in short order; he lived on Dunk for another 25 years. He purchased the island (the 400 acres that was permitted), wrote The Confessions of a Beachcomber (1908), My Tropic Isle (1911), Tropic Days (1918), and Last Leaves from Dunk Island (published posthumously in 1925), and he developed an enormous international following of readers. He popularized the whole notion of breaking away from the pressures of city life and going to live on a tropic island. He was a naturalist - he documented the birds, animals and plants on his island - and he maintained steady correspondence with naturalists all over the world.
Banfield developed a relationship with Thomas Hollis Hopkins' eldest son, Spenser McTaggart Hopkins. This is documented in the section, Hopkins Family.
Cairn marking Banfield's grave
On June 2, 1923, Banfield died of a perforated ulcer of the stomach. Mrs. Banfield was by herself and tried desperately to stop the small steamer Innisfail which was steaming between Dunk and the mainland because the weather was foul and the seas were rough. The captain noticed a small figure waving from the beach but interpreted the signal as a greeting and gave a whistle blast. But something seemed odd - she was by herself without her husband - so the captain stopped and sent a boat ashore. The crew buried Banfield on the island. The captain begged Mrs. Banfield to come back to Townsville, but she would not leave and so he left one of his men with her. When he arrived back in Townsville, he notified Spenser Hopkins.
Despite the high seas, Spenser set off immediately for Dunk in the new 21' whaler, Nee Mourna, which Banfield had just purchased (his third boat with that name) and which Spenser was to deliver. He comforted Mrs. Banfield and he built the cairn above Banfield's grave. He had a marble tablet engraved and quoted Banfield's favourite philosopher and inspiration, Thoreau:
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears."
Mrs. Banfield died ten years later and Spenser Hopkins placed her ashes by her husband's grave, and he added a second tablet to the cairn. The cairn can be viewed on a small hill by the resort.
In 1997, the John Oxley Library (the State Library of Queensland) held an exhibition to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of Banfield's arrival on Dunk Island. The library's web site now has a section which gives a brief biography of Banfield and shows historical photos.
You can read about Banfield's life in A Different Drummer by Michael Noonan, University of Queensland Press.
One of Banfield's books, The Confessions of a Beachcomber, was reprinted in 1982 by Australian Classics, Lloyd O'Neil Pty. Ltd., 56 Claremont Street, South Yarra, Victoria, for Currey O'Neil.
We invite you to e-mail our agent (thopkins07@DunkIsle.com).
