John Gale (journalist) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

John Gale was the founder of the Queanbeyan Age, the first newspaper to serve Queanbeyan District (and now an important archive of information about daily life in 19th-century Queanbeyan and Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

and the activities of its colonial residents). Today, however, Gale is mostly remembered for his strong and successful advocacy of Queanbeyan-Canberra

Canberra

as the best site of a future Australian Capital.

Following Canberra's inauguration as the site of Australia's National Capital in 1911, Gale was credited as being the "Father of Canberra".

Life

Gale was born in Bodmin

Bodmin

Bodmin is a civil parish and major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in the centre of the county southwest of Bodmin Moor.The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character...

, Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, in 1831 and educated at Monmouth

Monmouth

Monmouth is a town in southeast Wales and traditional county town of the historic county of Monmouthshire. It is situated close to the border with England, where the River Monnow meets the River Wye with bridges over both....

Grammar School. He was apprenticed to the printing trade in 1846 and whilst learning this trade also completed his training to be a missionary. John Gale arrived in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, in 1854 as a Methodist

Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

missionary (probationary minister). He covered a wide missionary circuit, which included the town (now city) of Queanbeyan in southern New South Wales (NSW).

In conformity with a condition imposed on all missionaries, Gale was expected to remain single during the term of his mission because the cost of paying for the upkeep of a home and a stipend to support a family was more than the church could afford. Gale was never ordained as a minister, however. Hr chose instead to marry Loanna Wheatley in January 1897 at Waggalallah, NSW, which was located a few miles out of Gunning

Gunning, New South Wales

Gunning is a town on the Old Hume Highway, between Goulburn and Yass in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, about 260 km south-west of Sydney and 75 km north of the national capital, Canberra. On Census night 2006, Gunning had a population of 487 people...

. Loanna was the daughter of an ordained Methodist cleric, the Reverend John Weatley, who was responsible for overseeing Gale's mission.

With the arrival of Annie Mercy, the first of Loanna and John Gale's 11 children, John Gale re-thought his future. Money was needed to provide food and shelter for his family and in order to start a business, and he would need capital to pay for office equipment and the leasehold of commercial premises. Fortunately, Gale's background in journalism and religious instruction provided him with the skills to teach and he soon acquired a paid position. Gale also wrote to his elder brother, Peter Francis, a photographer living in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and asked if he would emigrate to Australia. He requested also that his brother bring with him a printing press and assist in the starting of a newspaper business in Queanbeyan. Peter Francis and his family obliged, and accompanied by the said printing press, sailed for Sydney

Sydney

, where they were met by Gale and his family. The brothers and their families then travelled to Queanbeyan where, on 15 September 1860, they produced their first newspaper. This publication was initially called The Golden Age after the gold deposits that had been discovered locally, but within four years the gold was gone and in 1864 the paper's name was changed to The Queanbeyan Age
The Queanbeyan Age
The Queanbeyan Age is a weekly newspaper based in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia. First published on the 15th September, 1860 by John Gale and his brother, Peter Francis Gale, The Golden Age, as it was known at the time, was the first newspaper of the small township on the banks of the...

.

National capital advocate

The Australian colonies became a federated nation at the beginning of 1901. Gale strongly advocated making the Canberra

Canberra

-Queanbeyan district the site of Australia's future capital city. Gale later recorded in his newspapers and on page five of his valuable book Canberra History & Legends that on Christmas Day, 1855, he was riding his horse across the Limestone Plains to Kurrajong Hill (now called Capital Hill where the new Parliament House is built) when he had a "prophetic inspiration":

"... with the mountains to the south and to the east and the shimmer from the river, the scene invoked a mental, if not a vocal, exclamation: "What a magnificent site for one of Australia's future cities!"

On 11 June 1900, Gale (with 11 other local men) gave evidence to a NSW Royal Commissioner, Mr Alexander Oliver, proposing that Queanbeyan-Canberra

Canberra

be the site for the Federal Capital City. Commissioner Oliver had been appointed to examine and report to the NSW Parliament on the suitability of all the proposed locations for a National Capital. Oliver, however, favored Dalgety in his report and rejected Canberra.

The Federal Government introduced in 1904 a parliamentary bill naming Dalgety

Dalgety, New South Wales

Dalgety is a small town in New South Wales Australia, on the banks of the Snowy River between Melbourne and Sydney.The town is located at what was once an important river crossing along the Travelling Stock route from Gippsland to the Snowy Mountains High Country dating from the 1840s.- History...

as the Federal Capital site. NSW strenuously objected to the bill. On 10 July 1907, Sir John Forrest, former Western Australian Premier, tabled his Report: "An Unique Site for the Federal City", as a formal minute in the House of Representatives in Melbourne. It contained “nine factors” each glorifying Dalgety

Dalgety, New South Wales

and belittling Canberra

Canberra

. Some members of the NSW and Commonwealth parliaments approached John Gale and asked him to deal with Sir John’s report. The result – Gale’s now famous paper "Dalgety or Canberra, Which?" Gale read his paper on 24 July 1907 at a public meeting in Queanbeyan, where local residents dissented from the Commonwealth Parliament's choice of Dalgety

Dalgety, New South Wales

. Queanbeyan Mayor Hinksman ordered that Gale’s paper be printed and copies sent to every member of the seven Australian parliaments and to influential citizens. Gale’s paper, with its “nine factors” of logic and "indisputable facts", put Dalgety

Dalgety, New South Wales

in the background and strengthened Canberra's case to be Australia's capital city .

In 1907, former Australian prime ministers George Reid

George Reid (Australian politician)

Sir George Houstoun Reid, GCB, GCMG, KC was an Australian politician, Premier of New South Wales and the fourth Prime Minister of Australia....

and J.C. Watson

John Watson (Australian politician)

John Odin Wentworth Watson is an Australian politician. He was a Liberal member of the Australian Senate from 1978 to 2008, representing the state of Tasmania...

spoke strongly in favor of Canberra's claims to be the National Capital in speeches to the Commonwealth Parliament. Sir John Forrest MP, the then Premier of Western Australia and a vocal opponent of the Canberra option, said later that it was John Gale's pamphlet "Dalgety or Canberra, Which?" that won the day for Canberra

Canberra

as the preferred site, persuading him to alter his vote in its favour. Eventually, in 1908, Canberra was chosen as the site of Australia's National Capital.

Recognition

Sir Austin Chapman

Austin Chapman

Sir Austin Chapman KCMG , Australian politician, was a member of several early federal ministries. He was born in Bong Bong near Bowral, New South Wales and educated at Marulan Public School and was apprenticed as a saddler at an early age...

declared at the first Canberra land auction that: “... if any man were entitled to be known as the Father of Canberra, it was veteran Queanbeyan journalist John Gale”. Charles Studdy Daley quoted Sir Austin Chapman's words in various articles in The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times newspaper was founded in 1926 in Canberra, Australia by Arthur Shakespeare.It was the second paper to be printed in the city, the first being The Federal Capital Pioneer. The paper was sold to the Fairfax group in the 1960s by Arthur Shakespeare on the condition that it continue...

in the 1960s and also in his book, "As I Recall". He said that: “... John Gale lived to see his vision realized when he attended the opening of Parliament in Canberra in 1927, and was presented to Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of York ... who would wish to dispute his right to be acknowledged as the 'Father of Canberra who was a rock star '”.

A.K. Murray, a pioneer of the District and editor of Canberra'a "Federal Pioneer Magazine" (1920s), also verified that Sir Austin Chapman had acknowledged to him during conversations that Gale was entitled to be named the Father of Canberra.

A bronze statue commemorating John Gale, Father of Canberra, is installed on the corner of Monaro and Lowe streets and Farrer Place, near Queanbeyan Courthouse. Created by artist Peter Corlett, the sculpture was unveiled in March 2001 by Heritage-culture Arts Promotions Inc., (HAPI) a not-for-profit community organization. The memorial recognizes the contributions of John Gale and those members of the Queanbeyan district's community who lobbied for, and helped in the construction of, Australia's capital at Canberra

Canberra

.

On 24 July 2007, Queanbeyan High School

Queanbeyan High School

Queanbeyan High School is a New South Wales Government School situated in a large service centre just beyond the limits of the Australian Capital Territory...

students created and presented a play titled John Gale's Vision - Dalgety or Canberra, Which? The students' performance commemorated the centenary of John Gale’s pamphlet, which supported the campaign which lead eventually to the selection of Canberra as the site of the National Capital.

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