Artefacts from the Buderim Tramway

Click on the following images to view artefacts either held by BPHTI or by private citizens.

James Lindsay’s Desk

In 1915, a splendid writing desk was presented to Mr. James Lindsay, for his contribution to the Buderim Tramline. 

Below is an extract from the Nambour Chronicle describing the event:

The Day We Celebrate

Mr. J. Foote was called on to give “The Day We Celebrate” address. He was going to “do honour to the men who deserved honour”.

He did not know much of the difficulties left behind in the past such as the carting of their fruit to the Mooloolah River where sometimes the boats were so delayed that whole cargoes had to be thrown away, nor of the time when everything went to the train at its then terminus at Landsborough. He had arrived only about six and a half years previously, when everything was rosy.

 

Fortunately they had among them,  Mr. James Lindsay, to do the work of getting the Tramway to become a reality.

It was his pleasing duty to refer to Mr. Lindsay who had spent a great deal of time and money in pushing the tramway ahead. He had never once heard him complain and he knew he had done his very best. He hoped that Mr. Lindsay would accept the useful Cutler desk which had just been carried in and that he would long use it to draw his cheques on.

 

Mr. Lindsay said he had no idea till two days prior, that there was to be such a presentation. He maintained that what he had done had been done for his own good as well as that of Buderim but thanked them all for their kindness.

Nambour Chronicle, 25 June 1915.

Permission to reproduce the photo of the desk has been kindly given by Clive Plater, a relative by marriage of James Lindsay (James was his cousin Max’s great-grandfather).

After Jim’s death the desk passed to his eldest son, Herbert and remained in the family home on Lindsay Road.

Upon Herbert’s death the desk passed to Herbert’s youngest son Norman, who was a bachelor. Norman lived in the family home and cared for his parents, so the desk remained unmoved. Upon Norman’s death, his nephew Kenneth Maxwell (known as Max) Lindsay purchased the desk from Norman’s estate. Max lives on a property near Monto.