Kelso Family

DESCRIPTION

NameKelso Family DescriptionJames Kelso selected land on the Upper Ross in 1879.

James Kelso, senior, first came to Australia during the 1850s gold rushes. He was a blacksmith by trade but had tried his luck without success on a number of goldfields. Eventually he returned to his trade as a blacksmith to earn a living. He went back to Scotland where he met and married his wife Mary. In 1874 James and Mary with their one surviving child migrated to Australia and settled in Warwick. About 1876 they moved to Townsville, where James Kelso obtained work at the Cleveland Foundry. In 1879 James and Mary Kelso and their children took up a selection on the upper Ross River where they ran cattle. The property became known as Laudham Park. James used his skill as a blacksmith to repair a broken wagon and then he began carrying goods to many of the mining centres as a way of earning extra money during the dry seasons. The women of the family established a dairy.

His son, James Kelso, junior, worked as spare boy on his father’s carrying teams, which transported freight to Georgetown, Gilberton and other places. They carried the first cyanide treatment plant from Charters Towers to the Cumberland, situated beyond Georgetown. They also transported the first load of timber to Richmond for the construction of Goldring and Tolano’s Store. When James Kelso, junior, was 21 years old his father died. James, junior, continued in the carrying business but later gave it up to concentrate on pastoralism. In 1907 he married William Ireland’s daughter Annie and in 1911 they went to live at the Laudham Park property on the Upper Ross. During World War I, James Kelso and William Ireland went into partnership in a cattle property, Granite Hills. The Kelso family continued to operate Laudham Park until it was resumed for Ross River Dam in the early 1970s.

Photograph

Ernie Kelso with dog, Laudham Park, ca 1918

Ladies at the bottom of Hervey's Range, Thuringowa, ca 1929

Place

Former Thuringowa Shire

Suburb

Kelso

Kelso Family Christmas, 1918.

Kelso Collection
Photographer Unknown

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Kelso Family