Louth Road, of course, leads from Cobar to the river town and inland port of Louth. From 1870 until the late 1880s, ore from the Cobar mines was transported to the river ports to be taken to Adelaide. Other items and produce, including wool bales, were also transported this way. The nearby burgeoning goldfields of Billagoe and Mt Drysdale also contributed to the traffic. It all meant that the road was well-frequented and there was a need for hotels as staging posts. Horses had to be changed, bullocks needed a break, camels kept going, and humans needed refreshments of various sorts.
The first licensee and owner of the Queen’s Hotel was John Alfred Edwards. From 1883, he lived there with his wife and children. As there was no school nearby, in 1888 at the age of nine years, the eldest child, Louisa, was sent to board in Bathurst. She desperately wished the government would build a railroad to Cobar so her mother could come to see her – it would be another long four years before she finally got her wish.
In the same year that Louisa went away to school, her father tried to sell the hotel on account of ill-health. At this time, it was a ten-room pine building roofed in corrugated iron with a separate kitchen and a stable that could accommodate four horses and buggies. As well as the 40 acres of freehold, there were 400 acres of grazing rights and a large tank, all essential selling points in the age of horse-drawn vehicles.
However, in spite of all its attraction, the property did not sell and John Edwards stayed on until his death on June 16th 1898, aged 68 years. His widow, Josephine Edwards, kept the hotel for a short time before the licence was transferred, first to C. Hervey and then to J. Hervey. Members of the Hervey family held Mt Drysdale, Mt Grenfell and Maryvale stations, and were also involved with other hotels and, surprise, mining ventures.
After this, there are no further records of a licence for the Queen’s Hotel, but that did not mean that it was abandoned.
There may not have been a licence, but why should that stop a good businesswoman from trading where there’s a need. In 1905, Catherine Colbran was charged with selling liquor without a licence at a place on Louth Road. A man called Alexander Gray said that on a day he couldn’t really remember, but it was sometime in October or November, he had been travelling along the Louth Road and stopped at Mrs Colbran’s for his dinner. He paid for his dinner, but he thought maybe not for the colonial wine he drank, but someone robbed him of £7, and so he complained to the police. On that occasion, the case was dismissed as there was no evidence of sale. Or of anything, really.
You can’t help but like and even admire Catherine Colbran. She was a widow with three children to support and she worked hard to do just that. At the time of this charge, her son Vally was 10 and her daughters Ileen and Lela were eight and seven years old. (Another reason to like Catherine – in a world of Georges, Marys, Henrys and Elizabeths, she chose quirky names for her kids.)
In 1906, she applied for a Colonial Wine Licence (licence to sell wines grown and made in Australia, sometimes interpreted as being only for the colony or state, a system designed to protect the local industry against imported products). If she had a licence, she could charge people such as Alexander Gray for their drink. However, she was knocked back, but nothing deterred, she carried on trading, and in December 1906, she was once again charged with selling liquor without a licence. This time, it’s easy not just to like Catherine, but to feel a tad indignant on her behalf. Entrapment!
A drover by the name of Gerald Quinn went towards Mrs Colbran’s place with Senior-Constable Kinkead and Constable McClintoch. They stopped before they got to Mrs Colbran’s house and Quinn was first searched and then given three marked coins. He went on by himself and went into the house where, he said, he bought whisky and rum for himself and two other men from Mrs Colbran. The next morning, he went to the Police Station in Cobar and informed them of what had happened. This time, Catherine Colbran was found guilty and fined an eye-watering £30, plus court costs and witnesses’ expenses. The liquor was to be confiscated and – half the fine was to go to the informant.
The confiscated liquor was sold to Mr J. Crow for the sum of 10s. Mrs Colbran’s career at the Queen’s Hotel was over, but she still had a living to get and a family to support. She went on, first to a hotel at East Toorale, and then to Tilpa.
In 1910, the Queen’s Hotel property, consisting of 40 acres freehold with a large building and several outbuildings, seemingly not much changed from when Mr Edwards tried to sell it in 1888, went to a mortgagee’s auction, conducted by J.M. Scott. The property was bought by Mr M. S. Armstrong, the overseer of the Overflow station and owner of Buckwaroon. It was not to be a hotel ever gain, and it’s likely Mr Armstrong was more interested in the freehold land than the buildings.
The old bush monarch is now long gone with few traces remaining, just the odd bottle or so and a few pieces of broken china. Its story remains one of the links in the never-ending chain of hard-working women and men and the always changing ways of life in the far reaches of the west.