Barns and Webb – Mining Secretaries, Gympie

BARNS & WEBB – 224 MARY STREET GYMPIE.

Barns & Webb, Gympie Mining Secretaries.

In about 1879, the twenty-four year old Egerton Brydges Barns, after gaining some knowledge of a mining secretary’s duties, set up his own business in Gympie. The following year Mr Barns engaged a fourteen year old lad, Arthur Ernest Webb, as his clerk. Arthur Webb proved so capable a clerk and so energetic, that in 1895, Mr Barns took him into partnership, constituting the firm of Barns and Webb. Barns and Webb occupied the first floor of premises owned by Elizabeth Hughes at 224 Mary Street.

Sometime in the 1890s, Mr E. B. Barn’s eldest son, James Agnew Barns, entered the firm. During Arthur Webb’s protracted visit to Europe, and the retirement of his father towards the end of the nineteenth century, James A. Barns took over the partnership with Arthur Webb. The business continued to thrive and broaden its interests.

Barns and Webb extended their business in 1913 with the disposal of Mr. Dennis Horigan’s interest in the firm of the late John Flood. Mr. Horigan who was born in Gympie, entered the office of Mr. Flood as a junior clerk in 1897 and succeeded to the business following Flood’s death in 1909.

Mr. Horigan had purchased the Club Hotel in Ipswich, and commenced his career in the hotel business in March 1913. In May that year, he married a Gympie lady, Miss Jessie Bunworth, at St Patrick’s Church, Gympie, and moved to Ipswich, where they made their home. He died there in 1916, aged 32.

Egerton Brydges Barns.

The senior partner of Barns and Webb, Egerton Brydges Barns was born in England, son of William and Sarah Barns who migrated from Dudley in Worcestershire. Mr. Barns arrived in Queensland at an early age, and started his business career as a solicitor’s clerk in his father’s Maryborough office. Subsequently, he was apprenticed to the engineering branch of John Walker and Co.’s Union Foundry there, and acquired a good knowledge of that industry.

In the course of his early career, he was engine driver at a sugar mill on the Mary River, and locomotive engine driver on the Railway between Toowoomba and Brisbane. After leaving the Railway, he became a line repairer in the telegraph service, graduating to Telegraph Operator, and Telegraph Master. He was posted to Gympie as Post and Telegraph Master at One Mile in the 1870s. The Government service did not afford sufficient scope for Mr. Barns’ energies, so he left it, and after gaining some knowledge of a mining secretary’s duties, he started in that line on his own account about 1879, and soon established a good business. No doubt his experience with the telegraphic service would have served him well in business and with his dealings in the Gympie Stock Exchange. Messrs. Barnes and Webb, Gympie Share brokers, made regular reports of the mining industry, and of sales of shares to the various newspapers of the time.

Egerton Brydges Barns married Mary Elizabeth Sloan, and had a son, James Agnew Barns, who was born in 1877. After the death of his first wife, Egerton Barns married Margaret Ann Ardern, at Gympie, in 1883. Margaret Ann Barns died aged 38, in 1897, leaving three young children. In the following year Egerton B. Barns married Margaret’s sister, Susan Elizabeth Ardern.

In 1895, Mr. Barns took his clerk, Arthur Ernest Webb, into partnership, and from that time, with his son, James A. Barns, also in the business, E. B. Barns took a less active interest in the firm.

After the death of Daniel Hendry in 1890, the executors of Hendry’s estate, sold the Hendry property, Orange Grove, at Pie Creek to Mr. Egerton B. Barns who made a number of improvements to the property, and resided there until the time of his death in 1905. Mr. Barns had been in failing health for some time so his relatives and friends were not altogether unprepared for the end which came calmly at about 3 o’clock on 30 December. He was just a few months over 50 years of age, and left a widow, four sons and a daughter. His funeral left Orange Grove at 10 a.m., arriving at the Channon Street Bridge half an hour later. Members of the United Ancient Order of Druids were asked to assemble at the bridge to follow the cortege to the Gympie Cemetery.

Edgar Davison Barns, a brother of Egerton B Barns, joined the firm as their confidential clerk, sometime after 1895. Until that time he had been Accountant in the Brisbane Office of Tattersall’s Sweeps. When, the Queensland Government banned these sweeps, Tattersall’s were welcomed by the Tasmanian Premier and moved to that State. Edgar D Barns remained with Barns and Webb until about eighteen months before his death in Brisbane in 1917. It is ironic that the Queensland Government which had banned lotteries in 1895, was by 1920, running the Golden Casket.

Besides his interest in Gympie’s mining industry, the Stock Exchange and the Ancient Order of Druids, Egerton Barns was also involved in civic affairs. The first meeting of subscribers for the Nashville Miners’ Hospital was held early in 1868. A committee was elected and until 1926, the hospital was maintained by voluntary contributions, which were later subsidized by the Government from Golden Casket profits. The first rules for the management of the Gympie Hospital were adopted at a public meeting of subscribers early in 1872. Together with other prominent citizens of Gympie, E. B. Barns appears on the list of life members, with a subscription of ten guineas. He was Secretary of the Committee of the Gympie Hospital when a new hospital was erected in 1885.

Arthur Ernest Webb.

Arthur Ernest Webb, the eldest child of Stafford Webb and Hannah Peed was born in Brisbane in 1867. Another son, born in1877 did not survive.

Born in Mauritius in about 1830, Stafford Webb was the youngest son of John and Hortense Webb. John Webb was a Captain in the British Army and served in Mauritius and the Isle of Bourbon (now Reunion) as well as in India. With the younger members of his family, he retired to St Peter Port on the Island of Guernsey. Stafford Webb arrived in Australia in 1852. In 1865 he was ap- Page 12 The Researcher March 2013 pointed Registrar for Northern District Court at Gladstone. However, by 1873, he was conducting a private school on Palatine Hill, Gympie. He died in Sydney sometime in 1908. Hannah Peed, Arthur’s mother, was born in 1840 at Maitland in the Hunter Valley. At the time of her death, she was described as having arrived on the goldfield whilst it was in its infancy, participating in its ups and downs. Her many kindnesses and good nature had secured her the good wishes of many people on Gympie. She earned a living as a seamstress, and gave her son, Arthur, a good education. Aged fourteen in 1880, Arthur commenced work in the office of Egerton Brydges Barns. In 1889, he married Margaret Reid, second daughter of Hugh and Mary Reid (née McCarron), from Mullabrack, County Monaghan, Ireland, at St Patrick’s Church, Gympie.

In 1897, the North Oriental and Glanmire Mining Company had been over-subscribed in Sydney, Brisbane and Gympie due to the work of Messrs Martin, Ross & McNutt, and Barns & Webb. 48,000 shares at 5s. each were issued. In March 1898, Messrs Barns & Webb reported that no business was being done in the share market owing to the rapid rise in the river, causing the floodgates to be put down in all mines under the drainage board’s jurisdiction. A month later, Mr and Mrs Webb were visiting Brisbane, staying at the Imperial Hotel in George Street.

In 1899, Arthur Webb was the guest of honour of members of the Mining Managers Association, Share brokers, Mining Secretaries, Commercial and Banking Interests, the acting Mining Warden and Police Magistrate who gathered for a dinner at Burke’s Union Hotel to wish him well on his imminent visit to London, where he would ‘combine business with pleasure’. The Chairman, Mr F. I. Power, alluded to Mr Webb’s career on Gympie, noting that he was only about six months old when his parents brought him to the field, and pointed out that as a boy he gave evidence of abilities superior to those of the ordinary run of youngsters. Mr Power also spoke of the way Webb had conducted himself, first as an office lad, then as a clerk, and finally as a partner in the firm of Barns and Webb. At a large meeting of the H.A.C.B. Society held in the Hibernian Hall, Arthur Webb, President of the Society was presented with an illuminated address and gold medal prior to his departure. Mr John Flood made the presentation.

The Mines Department prepared geological and mineralogical exhibits for the Greater Britain Exhibition, held at Earl’s Court, London. Two hundred and fifty tons of Gympie quartz were transported to London and treated by a plant erected in the grounds. During his time in Europe, Arthur Webb kept in regular contact with his firm and associates in Gympie by cable. One such communiqué told of his delight and surprise at Jack Bochaton’s hammer handles having a splendid position in the exhibition. Whilst in London, the Webbs were photographed by Russell & Sons, Photographers to Queen Victoria.

After Arthur Webb’s return from Europe, he purchased the lease, license and goodwill of the Union Hotel in Reef Street on behalf of his mother. Mrs Webb was described as one of the old identities of Gympie and was wished every success in her new business. She was less than two years in the hotel business when she died. Her funeral left from the Union Hotel for the Cemetery, where she lies under the wings of a marble angel, placed there by her son, Arthur.

In 1904, the biggest share transaction for a long time was negotiated by Mr. A. E. Webb when one thousand shares of No 2 South Great Eastern were sold in one parcel to Mr. John Donovan, a well known local investor. In October of that year, when mining investor, Page 13 The Researcher March 2013 George Crumie, 48, succumbed to pneumonia, Arthur Webb, Senior Sergeant of Police, John Ellis and produce merchant George Bell were appointed Executors of the Estate. John Geary, Hotel Proprietor and James A Barns of Barns & Webb, witnessed the will. George Crumie, a single man, who resided at the Union Hotel in Reef Street, left a considerable personal fortune, by way of shares in Gympie mines. He held shares to the value of almost £13,000. Prudent sales of his investments were subsequently made by his executors, until the estate was finalized in 1908. After a few small bequests and £1,000 for the Executors of his Estate, the bulk of the estate was inherited by his brothers and sisters in Ireland.

Arthur Webb held office in numerous other Gympie organisation, including the Fire Brigade, the Chamber of Commerce & Mines, the Mine Owners’ Association, the Southern Drainage Board, the Stock Exchange Club, the Gympie Hotel Keepers’ Association. A racehorse owner, he was a member of the Turf Club and Show Society, as well as Patron of a number of other sporting organisations.

He died at the Union Hotel on 25th August 1921, aged 55 years leaving his widow, Margaret Webb, to inherit his personal estate of almost £2,000. She was also the owner of a number of properties in O’Connell, Monkland, Myall and Stone Streets, Gympie, at the time of his death.

James Agnew Barns.

James was born in Ipswich in 1877. He was the eldest son of Egerton Brydges Barns and only child of E.B. Barns’ marriage to Mary Elizabeth Sloan. As a child in the early 1880s, he moved to Gympie. In about 1895, J. A. Barnes joined his father’s firm Barns & Webb, and worked as a mining secretary for many years. About the same time, Edgar Davison Barns, Egerton Brydges younger brother, joined the firm of Barns & Webb in Gympie as their confidential clerk. Until that time he had been Accountant in the Brisbane Office of Tattersall’s Sweeps.

The Barns family retained their interest in the Gympie Hospital for many years. James Agnew Barns was chosen to fill the position as Secretary of the Hospital Committee in 1920, after the resignation of Mr. A. R. Ranson. James Barns proved to be a most efficient Secretary. He was also appointed auditor and was responsible for monthly inspections of the Hospital’s books, vouchers, &c.

Prior to the death of his father, Egerton B Barns in 1905, James Agnew Barns entered the firm of Barns & Webb as a partner. J A Barns also had a long association with the Gympie Fire Brigade Board. He was appointed Secretary to that organisation in 1920, and held the position for about thirty years, and for several years was the Manager of the Gympie Stock Exchange Club. With his partner, A E Webb, he was jointly responsible for many of the achievements and progress in the mining industry mentioned above. In 1906, James Agnew Barns married Miss Lillian Willington of Sandgate. They had three sons:- Harry, Jim, and Egerton; and two daughters, Lillian Mary, Mrs R.J.H. Snook, Page 14 The Researcher March 2013 and Mrs Riley of Urangan, whose mother had died and was cared for as their own child. James Agnew Barns retired to Hervey Bay in 1938. James A. Barns died in Gympie, July 1959, and is buried in the Maryborough Cemetery. The Barns family home at 44 Barter Street is in a good state of repair, however members of the family who still live in Gympie no longer occupy it.  {Research and story contributed by Tony White from Kenilworth}

The Gympie Miner, Ibid, Cable to The Gympie Times from London 01.06.1899 The Gympie Times, The Queenslander, The Brisbane Courier, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Town & Country Journal, Queensland State Archives www.bdm.qld.gov.au, Historical Sketch of Gympie 1867-1927. Mr Jim Barns, Wishart, 4122. Susan Ilie (Associate Guernsey Research Association), Sydney Shipping Gazette, Vol 9 No 445, pp 284 & 286 Index to Queensland Government Gazette, 1865, Vol VI, p 27 Gympie 1867-1967: A Golden Past – A Golden Future (Gympie Centenary Celebrations Committee), 1967, p 65 https://tatts.com/golden casket  

This story previously appeared in The Researcher – March 2013

Photo: Qld State Archives