The marble statue is often said to be located “in Thozet Creek” but this is not strictly correct.
The location of the plinth is in a dry gully about 50 metres uphill from the junction of the gully and Thozet Creek. This is apparent from three pieces of evidence. First, reference to maps will show that looking upstream from Lakes Creek Road the landscape forms a Y shape, with the mapped Thozet Creek being the left arm and the dry gully the right arm. Second, Thozet Creek is fringed by typical riparian vegetation while the gully lacks riparian vegetation and would best be described as having open woodland vegetation. Third, if you were to walk ‘upstream’ of the plinth you would quickly be stopped by the backyards of houses fronting Blanchfield Street, which intersects the gully.
No doubt at the time of white settlement and in the preceding years, the gully functioned as part of the creek system, but those years were much wetter than now.
1) The 1851 survey plan states that the salt water was intruding as far upstream as the rocks which determined the town’s location. At the time of the construction of the barrage (about 1970), salt water was present about 50 kilometres further upstream, which indicates there was much more freshwater flowing downstream about 1850 and keeping the salt water lense at bay.
2) The settlement of the Kalka area could only have taken place if freshwater was available; this must have been either running freshwater in the creeks (which there is not now), or freshwater in the river (which is also not the case presently).
Madame Thozet is reported to have said (CLARKE, RAY, Sunday, June 17, 1990) that the statue came over as ballast in a ship with goods frequently transported from Europe and that Anthelme Thozet cut timber, built base and put the statue up. This dates the construction of the plinth to pre-1878 (Anthelme’s death).
The Thozet family owned land on the western side of the creek, but never owned the land on the eastern side on which the statue was situated. This is apparent from both the survey plan, and later Torrens titles which specify the creek as the boundary.
The land on which the statue is situated was originally selected by George Brown who sold it to George Silas Curtis in 1880 and it became part of his Riversleigh Estate, which persisted until his death in 1922 and was disposed of in 1923. Hence GS Curtis was not responsible for the construction of the plinth and statue.
The statue was still located on this land in 1922 where it was referenced in a newspaper report on the flood as “the marble monument in Heenan’s paddock”.
GS Curtis offered it to Council in 1922 but the offer was declined when investigation showed it was so heavy that the costs of moving it would be prohibitive. It was offered again to Council by the estate of GS Curtis in 1927 when the offer was again investigated and declined for the same reason. In the early 1960’s the owners of the land (at the time, the McLaugjlin family who owned the brewery but were wanting to subdivide) again offered it to Council who declined for a third time for the same reason. The McLaughlin family then offered it to the R’ton and District Historical Society who also declined for reasons of cost. Finally it was offered to Mrs Beak and she and her husband Henry accepted and spent considerable expense on removing it and trying to have it restored.
The Statue The statue is in the Lady of the Lake style, about 2 metres tall, carrying a small child on her right arm and with a generic ’sea creature’ at her feet. We don’t know when it was erected but it stood on four timbers concreted together to make a plinth about 2 metres tall. It’s said that a small dam was constructed across Thozet’s Creek near Lakes Creek Road and the combination of spring water and creek flow filled to make a lake. The statue stood there for many years and was subjected to vandalism. Somewhere in the 1950s, the right arm and child were lost from the statue
Mrs. Michele Lang, daughter of Mr. Henry Beak, has provided the following information from Mr Beak’s diaries for our records.
Tuesday 14th September, 1965 – Monty down for tea and a talk.
Michele writes “That refers to my parent’s close friend, Albert Montefiore, who was an employee of the McLaughlin’s Brewery. That was the night he told them about the statue and how the Brewery had offered it to the Rockhampton City Council and they weren’t interested in it because of the cost involved in moving it and having it restored. It was that night that he told my parents it was going to be bulldozed and asked were they interested in rescuing it.”
Tuesday 21st September, 1965 – We rang C Allen and inspected a statue at Thozet Road that the R’Ton Brewery has given to Deidre.
Wednesday 22nd September, 1965 – Mr Larnets (?) (McLaughlins) rang to say we can have the marble statue from the property at Thozet Creek.
Wednesday 13th October, 1965 – Robinson removed statue from the brewing paddock at Thozet’s Road – to Allen’s monumental works where he is going to clean it up for us.
Tuesday 2nd November 1965 (Melbourne Cup Day) – Robinson brought the statue down, hope to set her up in the front garden near the red bougainvillea.
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