William Bairstow Ingham

By Joyce Finocchiaro

Ingham's Namesake
Born 4-6-1850 Black Hall, Yorkshire, England
Died 28-11-1878 New Guinea

He was handsome, he was charming,
From the landed English gentry,
An adventurer and a dreamer was he.
He was brave and self-reliant,
With a Cambridge education,
He left the Royal Navy aged twenty-three.

Adventure lured him to the colonies,
With sixty pounds at his disposal,
He sailed to a far off destination.
Via Tasmania and New South Wales
He came to the Herbert River Valley,
Bought and named Ings Plantation.

He acquired a steamboat, cleared his land,
Had Kanakas plant sugarcane,
And machinery for a sugar-mill be bought.
Low sugar prices and rust disease
Forced him to abandon his plantation,
And the dream in the fortune he had sought.

He headed north on the 'LOUISA'
Freighting cargo unsuccessfully,
But his sawmill turned out a good investment.
He surveyed the Barron River,
Moved to Port Moresby in New Guinea,
And became an agent for the Queensland Government.

He met with his untimely end
Along with six others of his crew,
On the Louisade Archipelago at Opening Bay,
Where by natives he was killed,
In a cannibalistic ritual he was eaten,
On that fateful, twenty-eight September day.

He was handsome, he was charming,
From the landed English gentry,
An adventurer and a dreamer was he.
He was brave and self-reliant,
With a Cambridge education,
William Bairstow Ingham was he.

Author’s Note:
The town of Ingham was gazetted and named in 1874. Prior to this the settlement was known by the Irish name Siligo. Ingham's relatives and the townsfolk installed three stained glass windows in the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity as a further memorial to this young man whose name will forever live in Ingham's history.

‍