PLANTATION DECEPTION AND AN AUSTRALIAN ARTWORLD CONNECTION

Portrait of Russell Drysdale. Photographer unknown. Date unknown. Image source: Art Gallery of New South Wales Archives

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By Dr Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui

The Brisbane-born painter Lloyd Rees (1895-1988), one of Australia’s most celebrated landscape artists, was the grandson of Charles Léon Burguez, a French Mauritian who was part-owner of the Gairloch sugar mill in the early 1880s.  

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Burguez first came to Australia for the gold rush and married his Cornish wife Elizbeth Bone in Victoria.  

He returned to Mauritius where, as a plantation owner, he gained experience in sugar cultivation. In 1878 he returned to Australia, landing in Melbourne where he heard of the sale of the Gairloch Plantation by the Bank of New South Wales.

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He then entered into an agreement with Henry Henderson Drysdale, a Melbourne warehouse keeper, for each to pay half of the deposit on the plantation. But then, the following month, Burguez managed totrick Drysdale out of the arrangement and negotiated with the Bank signing a separate agreement for the entire plantation, selling Melbourne merchant firm Edward Fanning and Thomas James Nankivell a half share.

Burguez installed himself as manager and had grand plans for the plantation. A new milling plant was installed. Edward Owen Rees came to the Herbert River district on transfer from a Melbourne accountancy firm, employed by Fanning and Nankivell to be Gairloch’s bookkeeper.

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Edward and Angèle, the second youngest daughter of Charles Léon and Elizabeth Burguez, were already acquainted from the Melbourne social circuit but on the Herbert romance blossomed. Angèle was a petite, stylish brunette, very French. The couple were married on April 18th 1882, at St John's Church, Brisbane, by the Reverend J. Sutton. They later settled in Brisbane where Edward set up business as an insurance agent. Lloyd was born in Yeronga, Brisbane.

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Lloyd’s grandfather Charles Léon Burguez was forced to leave Gairloch Plantation once his deception of Henry Drysdale caught up with him. Drysdale successfully sued Burguez for non-compliance with the 1880 agreement and Burguez, Fanning and Nankivell were ordered to compensate Drysdale. Fanning and Nankivell retained control of Gairloch but stepped away from the plantation in 1885.  

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Burguez, his reputation and marriage in tatters, retreated, insolvent, to Cooktown where he and other family members selected land on the Morgan and McIvor rivers. Failing to attract anybody interested in investing in what he spruiked as a “profitable” enterprise on a “magnificent sugar estate” he travelled to Fiji to explore sugar cultivation opportunities there. He returned to Australia and died in Sydney in 1887.  

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Lloyd Rees was intrigued by the Drysdale connection, wondering if Henry Henderson  Drysdale was in any way related to the George Russell and William Drysdale who purchased Pioneer sugar plantation on the Burdekin River, north Queensland. Plantation ower George Russell was the grandfather of Sir George Russell Drysdale (1912-1981), renowned Australian artist. Rees even entered into communication with Drysdale and he too was interested to think that their ancestors may have been “linked through a common purpose”.

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If there was a connection this would be an intriguing story of how two families associated with the establishment of the Australian sugar industry at the frontier of sugar growing in tropical north Queenslandproduced two of Australia’s most celebrated artists.  

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At any rate when you drive through Trebonne, give a thought to our rascally Charles Léon Burguez. It is he who is credited with its name, for when riding through the area he declared it trés bon (very nice).

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