Community & Business
11 November, 2025
Thomas Allen: rogue, entrepreneur, publican, politician, farmer
Famous Australian writer, Thomas Kenneally, when writing about colonial Australia made comment about the type of individual who should embark on a voyage to this pioneer land at the bottom of the world. He called his book: Bring Larks and Heroes. Irishman Thomas Allen seems to fit this description.
Life in Ireland in the middle of the 19th century was a time of great hardship.
The Great Famine caused by a failure of the potato crop resulted in widespread starvation and disease with historians estimating one million people dying.
Ongoing poverty led to social disruption with many homeless and an increase in crime as people battled to feed their families.
By the 1850s many Irish men and women decided the best solution was to emigrate and New York city in America was a popular destination.
In Australia the discovery of gold near Bathurst in 1851 attracted many Irish migrants by the lure of striking it rich in the goldfields.
In 1857 twenty-one-years-old Irishman Thomas Allen decided Sydney, Australia offered him a better future than his homeland and so with his sister he boarded a sailing vessel for the long and dangerous voyage to Australia.
Sydney in the 1850s was a bustling, quickly expanding town on its way to becoming a city.
Gold had brought wealth and migrants to Sydney from all over the world with most heading off to the goldfields soon after arrival.
It seems young Thomas Allen was not interested in life on the goldfields and met up with a man in Newcastle by the name of William Handcock who just happened to have a general store in Drayton on the Darling Downs.
At this time Drayton was a bigger town than Toowoomba and Handcock must have been impressed by the young Irishman because Thomas very quickly ended up in Drayton, working in Handcock’s shop.
Thomas Allen’s life is one where, when he sees an opportunity, he grabs it with both hands, but working in a shop was not one of those opportunities.
Within a few months, for reasons unknown, he moves to Leyburn then known as Canal Creek and finds romance with a young widow, Adelaide Young who he marries in 1858.
Life was certainly moving quickly for Thomas and the young couple had a son, John Charles born in Canal Creek.
This development may have been a catalyst for another move because Thomas and family moved back to Drayton and saw him working again in Handcock’s shop.
It seems obvious that life as a shop keeper was not what Thomas wanted and after a short stint working as the Pound Keeper he bought two bullock teams and began carrying produce between Ipswich and the Downs.
Surely this lifestyle is better suited to an adventurous Irishman, but by 1866 he decides to get out`of the transport business possibly because the Brisbane railway line had reached Helidon in that year.
Thomas Allen is a man who knows what he wants from life and is prepared to take chances to achieve his life goals.
What better occupation for a young Irishman could there be than owning a hotel and so Thomas turns his home, “Thornhill” in Drayton into a hotel he calls “ The Cricketers Arms”.
A keen cricket player himself, Thomas organises cricket matches, banquets and other sporting events on the adjacent parklands on what today is possibly Earnest Peak Park.
His hotel is in direct competition with the Bulls Head Inn, located just down the road, but it seems Thomas is made for life as a publican.
He must have been popular with his customers because he becomes a Drayton Alderman and in 1869 he becomes Mayor of Drayton.
Life has turned for the better in a few short years, after escaping poverty in Ireland to becoming a successful businessman and politician in his adopted country. He was one of four men responsible for naming “Toowoomba” but despite these successes life appears never to stand still for very long for our Irishman.
He sells the Cricketers Arms and at various times owns other hotels such as the Cambooya Hotel and the Downs Hotel.
He also comes into contact with an ex-convict, Jack Slattery, who he employs working in one of his hotels.
It is believed Steele Rudd based his fictional character “Cranky Jack” on Slattery.
Taking chances and grabbing opportunities seems to be the way Thomas Allen lived his life and in 1868 he made another abrupt change of direction when he selected 640 acres at Emu Creek which he called “Woodlawn”.
He started running sheep but changed to mixed farming with a large dairy and found himself milking 150 to 200 cows per day.
At one time he had the largest dairy in Queensland and was one of the pioneers of dairying on the Downs.
At first he produced butter that was sent to Brisbane by rail but later turned to cheese and sent his milk to the local cheese factories that were popping up all around the country.
In 1894 he purchased “Allendale” where his son, John Charles and family lived.
Several other blocks were selected and it seems Thomas achieved this by placing family members on the blocks to “satisfy” authorities that in fact he was living on the block as was a requirement.
He was active in community affairs and was involved in having the Emu Creek School established, becoming the first Committee Chairman in 1875.
Thomas had his four children enrolled in Emu Creek, two of whom were first day enrolments.
One of these, Thomas, was killed the next year after falling from his horse on his way to school.
Thomas Allen was no stranger to “bending” rules and in an attempt to increase school numbers he enrolled his eldest son, John Charles, aged 16 years at Emu Creek in 1875.
Although enrolled as a student, John Charles apparently spent little time at school as he worked full time on his father’s farm.
In 1880 John Allen married Jane Brodie the eldest daughter of Violet Brodie, the storekeeper in Greenmount.
In 1899 Thomas lost his wife, Adelaide, who died suddenly at their Woodlawn home.
It seems Adelaide had become a popular community member and her obituary stated, “The gentle hostess of Woodlawn will not only be greatly missed in the home circle where her place can never be filled but her demise will leave a gap in the social life of the neighbouring community which will not soon be filled.”
In 1910 the Pilton Station was split up and Thomas jumped in quickly, buying a block of 1200 acres, known as the Bullock Paddock and later another block known as Budgee Park.
Surely the young twenty years old Irishman, Thomas Allen could not have dreamt that within fifty years of landing in Sydney, he would be one of the biggest landowners on one of the country’s most fertile farming districts.
John Charles Allen followed his father’s footsteps with an interest in local government politics and was elected to the Cambooya Shire Council in 1917 taking over from Arthur Hoey Davis ( Steele Rudd ), his father-in-law.
The devastation and poverty in Ireland that Thomas Allen escaped from must have shaped his outlook on life.
We can assume he came to Australia with a fierce determination to succeed and to leave behind the insecurity of life in his homeland.
He came to Australia when the economy was being supercharged by the discovery of gold and the beginning of what would become a rich wool industry.
It was a time for those with ambition to take chances and to adopt a positive entrepreneurial attitude and Thomas Allen fitted that criteria.
He died aged 88 years on 6th February 1923 at the homestead he built, Woodlawn, and is buried in the Drayton Cemetery alongside his wife, Adelaide.
Thomas wrote many letters to the Darling Downs Gazette and it was said he had many opinions and was not afraid to voice them.
Thomas Allen was possibly the right type of personality the young colony needed in the 19th century.
It might therefore be concluded that any migrant boarding a ship bound for an isolated and pioneer colony at the bottom of the world possessed these qualities.
Modern Australia was built on the back of these migrants.
The Clifton Courier would like to acknowledge the help of Allen family historian Liz Donnelly (nee Allen) and the Clifton Historical Society in the writing of this article.
Next week’s Clifton Courier will feature another pioneer family of our district.
