Life in Australia
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According to his obituary in “The Times” from 1879 to 1883 he was a journalist in London, was sent to Indo China 1884-5 and visited America 1887 and 1890. By 1890 he had arrived in Australia. He was a member of the first Central Australia Exploration Expedition led by Alan A. Davidson which explored and prospected the Murchison Range, an area to the north and east of Alice Springs. F. J. Gillen who helped him obtain the Davidson position notes that after Keane left the expedition, he was engaged at Wire Creek Bore near Oodnadatta from where he wrote highly colourful articles about his experiences on the Davidson expedition for “The Port Augusta Dispatch” becoming editor of that newspaper for a short time. The articles titled” Four months in the Territory” appeared from 18 November 1898 to 13 January 1899. Throughout his life Keane always appeared to be short of money, a fact Gillen noted in his letter to Baldwin but he explained that once he received money he was most scrupulous about repaying his debts. By 1903 Keane was in Queensland employed at a saw mill in Mosman. He also claimed he worked as a sugarcane cane cutter to ascertain the ability of Europeans to perform hard manual labour in the Tropics. He appears to have had landholdings in the Mareeba (Carbeen) and Atherton areas (Yungarra) and by 1934 he was living in Mareeba. In his entry in “Who was Who” he claimed to have invented a form of fence wiring for the Queensland Government and noted his later life was spent residing on and improving his land to establish ownership and in agricultural experiment and criminal investigation, rod fishing and horse training. He died of senile decay 1937 aged 82 at Eventide Home for the Aged Charters Towers and is buried in the Lynd Cemetery in an unmarked grave Section 3 plot 322 grave number 8868.
Read more about this topic: John Fryer Thomas Keane
Famous quotes containing the words life in, life and/or australia:
“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“That poor little thing was a good woman, Judge. But she just sort of let life get the upper hand. She was born here and she wanted to be buried here. I promised her on her deathbed she’d have a funeral in a church with flowers. And the sun streamin’ through a pretty window on her coffin. And a hearse with plumes and some hacks. And a preacher to read the Bible. And folks there in church to pray for her soul.”
—Laurence Stallings (1804–1968)
“It is very considerably smaller than Australia and British Somaliland put together. As things stand at present there is nothing much the Texans can do about this, and ... they are inclined to shy away from the subject in ordinary conversation, muttering defensively about the size of oranges.”
—Alex Atkinson, British humor writer. repr. In Present Laughter, ed. Alan Coren (1982)