Dear QPF Committee & Members,
With the recent legacy gift from the out going members of QHS l thought it timely for those of you that don’t know how this legacy was made possible to hear how it began.
My knowledge of this stems from my acceptance into the QHS as a fourteen year old junior member in 1968 and continued as a member until 1982, the club had a membership of 40+ and the competition was fierce to say the least , one of the older members of the club was George May who told me he won the Courier Trophy in 1908, l will never forget that as he told me the same story every time I spoke with him.
The club premises were located at the junction of Judge & Caxton Street’s, Petrie Terrace. The property was an old Queensland cottage that was on a steep block which fell away from the street with a set of stairs down the outside which led to a door at the rear underneath of the house which was fully enclosed ,this was used as the club rooms , the top level was tenanted out.
The property had been recently purchased by the club prior to my joining , they had been using a space under a nearby butcher shop as their club rooms before the purchase of the new property .
The executive of the club was Les Mc Cormick president, Joe Foster secretary, George Walker treasure all very competent men who ran the club very well.
In my fourteen years in the club alcohol was not sold or permitted in the rooms and they didn’t run a canteen , the club would run a raffle on basketing and clock reading nights and on both of these nights a couple of members would walk across to the local hotel less than 100 metre’s away and sell raffle tickets for additional revenue raising for the club.
Every year the club would conduct pre-season tossing as a revenue raiser and most of those would have in excess of a 1,000 birds , in those days we flew two separate series from different directions and the club would conduct 2 of these pre season tosses for each direction. The club also conducted annual shows for fund raising .
At a meeting each year the members would donate trophies for every race on the program and all races had prize money for the first four placings which was funded through entry fee’s.
The membership was made up of a very diverse group of men made up of labour’s , banker’s , builders , wharfies and many more that on the main got on well together and some very very good flyer’s amongst them , but one extraordinary individual stood amongst us , a very unassuming man Doug Wadley who was Knighted in 1969 for service to commerce and the community and at his request continue to be addressed as Doug by the club members .
Sir Douglas Wadley (1904 – 1984) was a solicitor and company director .
Doug was educated at Brisbane State High School .
Articled to P.J.O’Shea and admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland in August 1926.
Early in the 1930s Doug became a partner in the law firm O’Shea. O’Shea. Corser & Wadley.
On 17 April 1942 Doug enlisted in the Volunteer Defense Corps he served in Brisbane mostly in the 1st Battalion until
December 1944 when placed on reserve.he was discharged on 21 October 1945.
Doug was a board member (1939-47) and chairman (1948-61) of Qld Brewery Ltd.
He was a director of retail drapers Mc Whirters. Ltd (1948-57).
Director of Morton Central Sugar Mill Co Ltd(1961-78).
Director of Federal Mutual Insurance Co of Australia Ltd (Sun Alliance Ltd) (1967-77).
Became founding chairman (1958-80) of Qld Television Ltd (Channel 9).
In 1960 he was appointed to the statutory committee of the Qld Law Society and was chairman (1977- 80).
As a prominent lay Catholic he was a founding member (1969-84) of the Archdiocesan Development Fund advisory board and a member of the business advisory board of the Catholic Leader.
There is no doubt Doug had a love for animals and invested much of his spare time to his interests , as a keen race horse owner was heavily involved in the racing industry , he was a part owner of Refulgent one of the best 3 years olds of it’s generation and was the long serving solicitor of the Qld Turf Club of which he was a member since 1933 and served as chairman (1974-80). The QTC named a race in his honor. (Sir Douglas Wadley Super QRIS Added Stakes).
He was a founding member (1962) of the Totalisator Administration Board (TAB) of Queensland and was Deputy Chairman (1975-80).
In 1938 he was elected to the council of the Royal National Agricultural & Industrial Association of Queensland and was President (1961-80). He had some success in breeding Jersey Cattle, he enjoyed showing cattle and would often turn up at basketing night wearing his business suit and a pair of gum boots as he would have gone from work to his dairy at Moggill for afternoon milking , then back to his home at Indooroopilly to collect his pigeons and onward to the clubhouse for basketing.
Dog’s were another love of Doug’s and the dog pavilion at the RNA Brisbane was named after him.
As we know Doug was a member of QHS and also the legal advisor and Patron of the club. He was a competitive and successful flyer who won some good races. He raced Moxy Hanssen’s that he purchased from Moxy’s sale.Doug always raced a large team for those days of no entry limits and would turn up at the club with 80 birds some nights for basketing. He had a fair share of bad luck with the pigeons like all of us but his mainly came from the very large Morton Bay Fig tree’s nearby his loft , a good place for the birds to perch in on their return from a race.
Now you have some insight into the man Sir Douglas Wadley , a man with immense corporate and legal experience that advised and coached the executive committee of the QHS, without Sir Douglas I doubt whether the original club house in Petrie Terrace would have eventuated , the purchase of which has been pivotal in the prosperity of the QHS.
As some of you know QHS has moved on from that original house , moving to a property in Milton and then again to Ashgrove, each time having a paying tenant continually building the wealth of the club over a period of 55+ years , but not for getting the effort of the ordinary members that built the club rooms under the house at Milton and then to have it engulfed by the 1974 flood and the massive clean up after and also enduring a couple of minor floods as well , each time the club arranged working bee’s to get the job done.
At this point I must lay praise to Les Mc Cormick for his efforts as President for a period (if my memory serves me correctly) of 35+ years held the club together and guided the members for so long ,which was quite remarkable as he nursed his bed stricken wife for that many years I can’t remember , but still giving his best effort to the club, Les was also a returned servicemen and ex P.O.W of the Japanese Prison Camp Changi in Singapore.
Again if my memory is correct both Les and Doug are Life Members of the both the QHS and QRPF.
I have no doubt that Doug , Les and the efforts of the ordinary members of QHS through this period of time laid the foundation stone for the future prosperity of the club and a lasting legacy for all the future members that followed.
Thank you for reading.
Regards ,
Terry Roebig.