Carl Adolph Feilberg (21 August 1844 – 25 October 1887), also spelt Carl Adolf Feilberg, was a Danish-born Australian journalist, newspaper editor, general political commentator, and Indigenous rights activist.
He lived and worked mainly in the colony of Queensland, and in his editorials and columns criticised many aspects of the colonial government policy towards Aboriginal Australians in the colony, in particular the use of the Native Police. After a major campaign in The Queenslander in 1880 and the publication of a pamphlet titled The Way We Civilise: Black and White: The Native Police, he suffered personal and political fallout, and had to move to Melbourne for some time. After becoming ill there and moving back to Brisbane, he died at the age of 43.
Although widely cited, his work was not lauded for most of a century after his death, but towards the 21st century, his reputation as a journalist and historian has been recognised.
He also wrote short stories, novellas, and a novel.
Early life and education Carl Feilberg was born on 21 August 1844 in a small apartment at 1 Bredgade in Copenhagen, Denmark.Minister book, Holmens Kirke, Copenhagen, 13 December 1844 He was the first born and only son of Danish Royal Navy lieutenant Christen Schifter Feilberg and Louise Adelaide Feilberg, the daughter of a planter on the island of St. Croix in the then Danish West Indies. Following the early death of both parents, Feilberg was placed in foster care with Danish relatives, his aunt Louise Stegman (née Brummer) and her husband greengrocer Conrad Stegmann, at the time living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Feilberg received his formal education in Scotland, followed by a year at a college in Saint-Omer in France. After graduation he moved to Lincolnshire, England, and was then employed by shipping broker Lloyd's of London.Evening Observer (Brisbane), 25 October 1887, Obituary by Walter John Morley.
Feilberg's second name was spelled Adolph in his birth record and on most contemporary publications for public use, but he frequently used "Adolf" as his personal signature.
Move to Australia (1867) Suffering from a serious case of tuberculosis, Feilberg was advised to migrate to Australia where time spent in the dry interior might mitigate some of the symptoms and provide a chance for survival.Queenslander 22 November 1879, p652d-653a 'Life in the Bush' by 'CF';Wide Bay News 27 October 1887
He arrived in Sydney from London on the Aberdeen vessel Sir John Lawrence on 18 June 1867, travelling onto Rockhampton carrying a letter of introduction to Archibald Berdmore Buchanan, a Scottish squatter. He then gained "colonial experience", working as a shepherd, store and bookkeeper, predominantly at Buchanan's properties. The first six months at Cardbeign station in Springsure district, the remaining time in the Barcoo district on Greendale and possibly other stations in the central west.North Queensland Telegraph (Townsville) 26 October 1887; Brisbane Courier 22 June 1926, p.2
The knowledge he gained in the outback, including his experiences with the Native Police and the darker sides of the colony's frontier policies, would later influence his work as a journalist, political commentator, and author.The Way We Civilise: Black and White: The Native Police/articles from the Brisbane Courier/Queenslander March–Sept 1880, Brisbane 1880; see also bibliography below
Journalism career
After being naturalised at Rockhampton Court House on 21 June 1870, Feilberg chose to settle in Maryborough, where in August 1870 he commenced a career in journalism, initially assisting Ebenezer Thorne on his newly launched three-weekly Wide Bay and Burnett News.The Queenslander 11 June 1870, p.2&p.325; The Queenslander 10 June 1870, p10c (Wide Bay News was Launched on 2 July 1870); See more in Feilberg's obituaries and BC 21 January 1871 (Public meeting at M'boro's Oddfellows Hall Wednesday evening 11 January 1971). In November 1870, after a series of libel cases and family issues, Thorne sold his share in the journal to Feilberg, who became the sole editor and proprietor.Maryborough Chronicle 9 March 1871, p2g (Feilberg testify in a libel case against the previous proprietor); other libel cases see:Libel against the Editor of the Wide Bay News: Maryborough Chronicle 10 September 1870 (Walsh allegedly defamed); Brisbane Courier 13 October 1870 (Libel), p.3e; Brisbane Courier 20 October 1870, p2c; Maryborough Chronicle 29 October 1870; Maryborough Chronicle 1 November 1870, p5f-g.; Brisbane Courier 5 November 1870, p5f. Feilberg as editor supported the struggle for manhood suffrage, his success in breaking the press monopoly of William Henry Walsh.Denis Cryle: The Press in Colonial Queensland, chapter 6 & 8, and p.124-27 He was owner-editor of the Wide Bay and Burnett News from November 1870 to about 1875.
Feilberg's journalism covered a wide range of subjects, in which parliamentary business, railway and settlement policy, finance and economic policy, and Indigenous rights took a prominent position. Beyond being additionally a harsh critic of the Kanaka (blackbirding) trade, he was an eager advocate for settlements in the interior and railway schemes supporting this; he questioned the uncontrolled Chinese immigration (during the great mining rush in the far north); and he was a strong advocate of laws to combat the threat to the environment of uncontrolled logging and deforestation, and securing a policy of sustainable foresting.
He was freelance correspondent and occasional editorial writer for the Brisbane Courier its weekly, The Queenslander, as well as for other journals, and also editor of the Cooktown Courier from September 1876 to June 1877. He was a Hansard shorthand writer from July to October 1877, and part-proprietor and editor of the Queensland Patriot / Daily News from March 1878 to early January 1879.
After leaving Maryborough, he was employed by the Brisbane Courier as a political commentator, leader writer, and as editor of The Queenslander, from January 1879 to December 1880.Browne, R.S.: A journalist's Memories (1927), p.57, 71,77, 167, 184, 259, 277, 283. Browne explains the period during which firstly Traill, then Feilberg and himself, functioned as "The Abstainer", the anonymous writer of the political satirical column "Political Froth". In the nine months from during March to December 1880 Feilberg utilised The Queenslander as a platform to launch a series of powerfully-worded editorials and articles demanding a Royal Commission and a change of policy with regard to Indigenous Australians. Although unsuccessful, he managed to trigger two large parliamentary debates, as well as the biggest public debate of its kind ever conducted by an Australian newspaper, on this subject.
A change in the proprietorship of the Brisbane Newspaper Company in late December 1880 caused Feilberg to endure a year of being gradually relegated to steadily more subordinate positions on the journal. On 23 September 1882, in a private letter in reply to Sir Arthur Gordon, the former Governor and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, Feilberg wrote: "I despair of doing much good for the blacks, and I have incurred enough personal ill-will myself by writing on their behalf during my residence in Queensland".Anti-Slavery Society Papers S22, C135/107Henry Reynolds This Whispering in our Hearts (Sydney 1998) p.260, 108–158
The personal and political fallout following the campaign of The Queenslander in 1880 subsequently caused Feilberg to accept a position as sub-editor on the then leading Victorian journal The Argus, based in Melbourne, in June 1882.Rockhampton Bulletin 30 May 1882, p2d;Brisbane Courier 5 June 1882, p2f; South Australian Advertiser 5 June 1882, p5f. It was noted in the contemporary press that Feilberg "has had very definite political opinions, and, in labouring unremittingly to impress them upon the public mind, has suffered at various times from the misrepresentation and obloquy which every active politician is fated to encounter".The Queenslander 10 June 1882. p712 (reprint from Brisbane Courier Mon. 5 June 1882, p2g)
He was sub-editor on The Argus from June 1882 to June 1883, and then returned to Brisbane to became editor-in-chief of the Brisbane Courier and The Queenslander from September 1883 to October 1887.
Human and Indigenous rights
Feilberg authored a great number of articles on the issue of human rights abuses towards Pacific Islanders and Indigenous people in Queensland. The issue of the so-called Kanaka trade or blackbirding – the use of Melanesian labour on Queensland sugar plantations – was high on his agenda from the late 1870 onwards; he and his journal were instrumental in bringing about the conviction of the captain of the recruiting schooner Jason in 1871.
Feilberg's contribution to the history of colonial Queensland, included editorials written for the Brisbane Courier from 1874 to 1878, and later in the Cooktown Courier during January to March 1877.
Feilberg ran two campaigns for the rights of Aboriginal Australians, critical of the Queensland Government's policies. The first was in 1878, when he was editor of the Queensland Patriot. This angered John Douglas, then Premier of Queensland, as well as other co-proprietors of the paper, although the Patriot was an independent liberal journal. The move was daring but ultimately unsuccessful, although it triggered a parliamentary debate on 10 July 1878.
The blueprint for the Queensland Patriot campaign was reused, commissioned by the managing editor of the Brisbane Newspaper Company, Gresley Lukin, on a much larger scale in the Brisbane Courier (the leading Queensland journal; now The Courier-Mail) two years later. In the nine months from during March to December 1880 Feilberg utilised its weekly, The Queenslander, as a platform to launch a series of powerfully-worded editorials and articles demanding a Royal Commission and a change of policy. Despite being unsuccessful, his campaign triggered two large parliamentary debates and the biggest public debate of its kind ever conducted by an Australian newspaper on this subject.
Feilberg outlined some of his deeper feelings in an editorial printed in the Queenslander on 19 January 1878, saying amongst other things that the "...complacent blindness which induces the natives of Europe to regard their own customs and institutions as excellent above compare, and their adoption as a certain remedy and advantageous substitute for all other manners of living, even to the most simple and Arcadian, has served as excuse for enormities at the contemplation of which humanity revolts...".Queenslander 19 January 1878, editorial & Browne, R.S.: "A Journalist's Memories" p.55-59
His opening lines to the campaign of the Queenslander on 1 May 1880, in his best known and most frequently cited editorial headed The Way We Civilise, it famously outlined Queensland's policy towards Aboriginal people in the following manner:
His pamphlet The Way We Civilise: Black and White: The Native Police (published in Brisbane, December 1880), which was characterised by historian Henry Reynolds as "one of the most influential political tracts in Australian history", was a collection of articles and letters formerly published in The Queenslander.Henry Reynolds, This Whispering in Our Hearts, 1998 p108; Reynolds, H.: An Indelible Stain?, 2001 chapter 7.
Other activities Feilberg also wrote many short stories and sketches reflecting the life and dreams of many of his fellow colonists.
He served several terms as president for Brisbane's famed literary Johnsonian Club. Other chairmen over time were noted Queenslanders such as jurist Sir Samuel Griffith, politician John Douglas, poet James Brunton Stephens, and journalist William Senior the principal shorthand writer also known as "Red Spinner". The latter three in particular were known to be close friends of Feilberg.