1893 Brisbane flood

[9] The area was under the jurisdiction of several local governments (the present City of Brisbane being formed by their amalgamation in 1925).

John McMaster was Mayor of Brisbane Municipal Council, which contained the City Centre, and was the most important of the local government authorities.

A local businessman who would later become Premier, Robert Philp had a photo album (a very expensive item at the time) of the floods, which survives today.

[citation needed] The Indigenous people used to build their camps on higher ground along the rivers, aware of the dangers of floods.

They had warned the free settlers of the potential threat of floods, but their advice was ignored and settlements were built closer to the banks of the rivers.

He built a homestead called "Caboonbah" on the cliffs above the river, where he lived with his wife, Katherine Rose Somerset (1855–1935).

[16] In early February, after the heavy rains caused by Tropical Cyclone Buninyong, the weather had finally broken, and to his surprise, Somerset saw from his porch a great wall of water come down the Stanley River.

Somerset, realizing that people downriver where in great danger sent one of his workers, Henry (Harry) Winwood to Esk to send a telegraph to warn them.

The inhabitants of Brisbane were not worried however due to the fine weather, as the days of heavy rain having ended, all threat of floods seemed to have disappeared.

[3] On 17 February, another cyclone crossed the Queensland coast near Bundaberg to drench the already saturated Brisbane River catchment.

William (Billy) Mateer, of Eidsvold (Dalgangel Station) was Somerset's most talented horseman, and he was selected to undertake this dangerous mission.

Somerset and his men had to arrange for a dangerous crossing of the already flooded Brisbane River, with Mateer sent on with the only surviving horse (called Lunatic).

The site was first suggested for the location of a dam by Henry Somerset, after the 1893 floods, and he championed its construction when he was elected to parliament in 1904, where he served for 16 years as the Member for Stanley.

It was seen as a major job creation project when it commenced in the Great Depression, but was delayed by World War II when its workers were redeployed.

[citation needed] The same day that the notice of Billy Mateer's death appeared in the newspaper, there was also a major announcement that the Queensland Government had approved the construction of Somerset Dam.