The Barcaldine War Memorial Clock, a major regional memorial was unveiled on 21 May 1924 by the then
Governor of Queensland, Sir
Matthew Nathan. It was designed and executed by Andrew Lang Petrie, monumental masons of
Toowong,
Brisbane at a cost of . The marble and granite memorial honours the 292 local men who served during the
First World War, including the 38 fallen. Settlement in the area of Barcaldine began in 1886 due to the extension of the
Central Western Railway. In 1891 the town was the site of one of Queensland's most significant events, the
shearer's strike which caused widespread unrest and ultimately lead to the formation of the
Australian Labour Party. Shortly after this, artesian water was discovered, causing an influx of people followed by a rush of development, including a brewery, meat processing plants and other new industries. Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation. Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word "
cenotaph", commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means "empty tomb". Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit. Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the
digger (soldier) statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the
obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects. Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair. Although many different types of war memorials were erected throughout Queensland, there are few of the clock type. The form of a clock was decided upon by public ballot held in 1922 after the
Barcaldine Shire Council initiated the proposal for a memorial. This is a particularly ornate type of war memorials. Although no others have been located in Queensland, the design is described in A L Petrie's records as clock tower number two design. The monument was originally surrounded by four granite posts, however these have been removed at some stage, as has the original street light. In 1992, the monument was damaged by a storm and the clocks were replaced by Synchronome Pty Ltd. A L Petrie and Son were the largest monumental masonry firm in Queensland at this time and produced many memorials throughout the state. == Description ==