The Kemp family settled in Barcaldine about 1887. This is the story of William and Hannah contributed by their great-grand-daughter, Diane Passmore.
William Kemp was born in July 1844 in Donegal Ireland, and died on 11 June 1911 in Barcaldine. Hannah McCall was born on 9 August 1849 in Farnaloy Armagh Ireland. She died on 13 September 1942 in Barcaldine. They have an impressive memorial in the Barcaldine cemetery.
It is believed they travelled to the colony on the same ship, arriving in Queensland on or just before 1864. We have been unable to find their exact arrival as some of the records were lost in a Brisbane flood. Hannah travelled with six of her siblings and one of them Mary Jane married in Queensland in 1864.
William and Hannah married in Mackay on the 17th August 1872 and spent the next couple of years in Rockhampton.
William worked as a carrier along the central rail line as it was built out from Rockhampton to Barcaldine.
We have an idea of where they were from the births of their eight children born along the line. Only four survived, My grandmother, Rebecca was the youngest, born in Barcaldine in 1887.
When they reached Comet in about 1877, William had a break for a while and ran a shanty pub there. We know this because when the first official survey was done of Comet the surveyor marked the buildings that had previously been there. In one corner of a block is marked William Kemp’s Pub.
When the family reached Barcaldine William gave up carrying once again and became a publican at the Half-Way Hotel. The hotel was situated at Mildura, about 20-mile from Barcaldine on the Aramac road.
When the family lived there the girls had a governess who taught them the violin and art among other things. Once they moved into Barcaldine the girls went to the convent school.
The Kemps moved into town and took over the Welcome Home Hotel from 1902 until it burned down in the Oak Street fire of 1909. When it was rebuilt as the Federal Hotel, William and Hannah continued to manage it. When William died in 1911, Hannah became the licensee, continuing until she retired in 1917.
The three Kemp daughters, Mary Jane, Elizabeth and my grandmother Rebecca all married in Barcaldine. My grandmother married Frederick Clifford and moved to Maxwelton near Richmond. Mary Jane and Elizabeth married brothers William and Jim Ballinger. The only surviving son, William Joseph, never married.
This poem, written c1871, is inside a prayer book in Diane’s possession.
