We regret to have to announce the sudden and somewhat violent death of one of our oldest resident colonists, Mr Donald Coutts, of Bulimba House, who died yesterday [Boxing Day], at about 2 in the afternoon. On the previous evening, the unfortunate gentleman was fondling and patting a foal on his premises, when the animal suddenly swerved, and kicked him violently in a vitally dangerous part of the body. No fatal effects were apprehended for some time, but the character of the injury, combined probably with the influence of the extreme heat, caused Mr Coutts to succumb, and he died yesterday afternoon at the hour stated.
Some … years ago Mr Coutts purchased Bulimba House from Mr D McConnel, and when it was vacated by the then tenant, Sir R. R. Mackenzie, … the deceased gentleman retired from squatting life, and settled down in the residence in which he died.
— The Brisbane Courier,
December 28, 1869
SOON after the death of Donald Coutts, the direct links between our capital city’s oldest sandstone home and the Rosewood district were severed.
But the association of Coutts with the part of northern New South Wales, which would later gain statehood as Queensland, predated the building of the home known as Bulimba House.
Donald Coutts’ association with the State began in 1844, when he was granted a depasturing licence for the 20,000 acres (8,094ha). By 1846, the station run had been given the name Rosewood, probably due to the red timbered wattles we know by the same common name, today.
The depasturing run was headquartered closer to Gatton and today’s Rosewood-Walloon-Marburg district was then enclosed in an almost impenetrable dry rainforest which was referred to as the Rosewood Scrub.
The Scrub was later of great value to timbergetters, but it was of little value to Coutts, who ran sheep and cattle. The station was recorded as having the carrying capacity for up to 10,000 sheep.
While history records that Donald Coutts held the licence for the run, it appears it, like many other big station holdings in which he was involved, tended to be a family affair as his brother John also lived and worked on Rosewood. Their eldest brother, Thomas, too may have had an interest.
THE Coutts brothers association with the British colony known as New South Wales began in 1817, when he arrived as a 12-year-old boy in the company of his siblings – Thomas, 20; John, 18; James, 17; and Anne, 9.
[There is some conjecture that Donald, James and Ann may not have arrived in the colony until the early 1830s – true or false it makes little difference to our narrative.]
What motivated the siblings departure from Aberdeen is not known, however, it seems they were all well educated either in Scotland or in Parramatta where they first settled.
James would later become a Presbyterian Minister and was considered one of the “best linguists alive” as he was reputed to be conversant in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and partly so in five other languages.
Little is known of the siblings’ early years in Parramatta and it is through endeavours other than farming or running sheep that we next come across records of the family’s progress.
Around 1832, the brothers were involved in building a brig, the Lady Leith, that was initially used as a trading vessel first plying the cargo route between Sydney and Tasmania and then trading in sugar between Australia and Mauritius. Thomas was named as the owner and master (captain) of the ship.
As the returns from their endeavours were not what they hoped they would be, by the mid 1830s they had converted the Lady Leith to a whaling vessel.
By 1840, the brig had been sold and Thomas, John and Donald were overlanding around 800 cattle and 5,000 sheep up to the Clarence Valley.
Donald, while holding the Tooloom station run moved further north and took up Rosewood and for a year from 1848, the 15,000 acre Tambourine station run (correct spelling at the time), which he stocked with 750 cattle.
While Coutts’ time as a squatter living in the bush had allowed him to accumulate some wealth it had earned him and in particular, his brother Thomas, reputations as ‘bad men’ in their dealings with Aboriginals.
In 1853, Donald paid £5,000 for the two storey sandstone and cedar home built by Andrew Petrie for David and Mary McConnel, who held Cressbrook station on the Brisbane River near today’s town of Toogoolwah.
The McConnel’s called the home Bulimba House, when it was completed in 1849-1850. It was built on a high point above a reach of the Brisbane River in today’s suburb of Bulimba.
When Donald Coutts purchased it, the property comprised 220 acres and included a working farm and several outbuildings including a coach house, stables, laundry, kitchen, a store, barns and workers cottages. In all, up to 100 people were employed on the property.
The farm was showing good returns and the dairy herd, kitchen gardens, livestock, poultry and large orchard ensured the whole operation was self sustainable.
Under Coutts’ early stewardship, the home was rented out.
In 1854, Coutts sold Rosewood and acquired the pastoral licences for the 125,000 acre (51,000ha) Jondaryan station run for £24,000 and the 60,000 acre (24,000ha) Toolburra run. Jondaryan was sold only a couple of years later, but Toolburra, which Donald owned in partnership with Thomas, was held by the family for many years.
The station runs were acquired in the same year John Coutts died. John and his wife had been living on Rosewood station but moved back to Parramatta shortly before John’s death.
Ten years later, Donald Coutts took up residence at Bulimba House.
He remained there until his death on Boxing Day 1869.
His brother Thomas was killed the year before on Toolburra station when the upper branches of a tree that was being cut down fell on him.
And with Donald’s death all direct links between today’s Rosewood district and the oldest stone home still standing in Brisbane, were brought to an end.
