Anzac Day in Queensland

The Minister for Education, Herbert Hardacre was also a member of the ADCC and establishment of commemoration in the Queensland school calendar and curriculum was a high priority.

While Australians had yet to experience the blood bath that occurred at Pozières and Fromelles in the European summer of 1916, the casualty lists from Gallipoli had brought home the reality of war to many in Australia.

[10] The first Anzac events in Brisbane and elsewhere were a combination of civic requiem, recruiting rally, fund-raising carnival and celebration of nationhood – with different representative phases of the commemoration emphasising those aspects.

People thronged the streets in April 1916 to cheer the parading soldiers in such numbers that there were major issues of crowd control on some parts of the march.

The collection consists of minutes, suggestions, correspondence, cutting books, circulars, photographs and miscellaneous papers relating to the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee.

It consisted on a number of events, including:[4] It is important to note that although Canon Garland was a deeply committed Anglican, he was well aware that the Australian servicemen and those who would want to mourn or commemorate them would come from a wide range of faiths, which would create difficulties incorporating religious elements into the ceremonies.

For example, it was not customary for Protestants to pray for the souls of the dead, Roman Catholics would not attend a religious event led by a non-Catholic, and Jews believed in God but not in the Holy Trinity.

Given these founding principles, public Anzac Day ceremonies in Queensland are generally secular with singing often limited to the national anthem.

[16] Though the Premier had appealed for businesses to voluntarily close, Anzac Day was not formally gazetted as a public holiday in Queensland during the wartime commemorations.

[18] While returned servicemen who were state and federal public servants were typically given time to attend the commemorations, decisions about the others were left to their private employers.

[2] The tensions between the day's solemn elements and the need for returned soldiers to "let off steam" are evidenced in the large numbers of police reports in the archives in the 1920s and 1930s from the Licensing Department for the prosecution of hotel owners for illegal opening.

[4] As Queensland has become increasingly secular, fewer people attend Anzac Day church services, preferring the more inclusive ceremonies at the war memorials.

This preference validates David Garland's long insistence that Anzac Day ceremonies should not linked to any particular religion or denomination to attract wide public participation.

Although car transport was available to frail veterans to participate in the parades, many preferred to march alongside their comrades assisted by a family member (perhaps pushing them in a wheelchair).