Meet the Originals: Fergus McMaster

The idea that would change his life

Fergus McMaster was born near Rockhampton in 1879. He was a brilliant Chairman of Q.A.N.T.A.S. from its earliest days to its emergence as an internationally-respected airline.

He had the breadth of experience to move smoothly from helping with shearing o­n his property, Moscow in the Winton district, to standing toe-to-toe with an argumentative Prime Minister who did not understand the west as McMaster did.

McMaster and his first wife (Photo: Frith Fysh)

His experience in running properties in Queenslands central-west meant that few could equal his grassroots grasp of the tyranny of distance, the limits put o­n life by physical isolation, and poor communications and transport.

He knew about the paralysis caused by blacksoil mud because he had to deal with it after every downpour.

He knew about the personal costs of isolation because of the death of his wife from typhoid after she drank from an infected waterbag.

He tried to enlist to fight in the Great War and was rejected three times. As a grazier, he was in a protected occupation, a restriction eventually loosened as the war ground o­n, so that o­n his fourth attempt, he was accepted.

After the War, discharged from the Australian Imperial Force in London, he came home slowly, after travelling to the Continent, Scotland, Ireland and the United States. He even flew in a plane. He came home with perhaps a more open perspective o­n the world and its possibilities than when he left, which was characteristic of many returned soldiers.

In 1919, beef prices were high, making cattle stealing profitable. With typical energy, he became Chairman of the Anti-Cattle Duffing Association. A Mr Champneys o­nce said to him, "Dont be in such a hurry, Mr McMaster, you'll get ahead of yourself." The dour reply was, "Some people might, Champneys."

Then he met Paul McGinness, another returned soldier, in a dusty Cloncurry street, and the seeds were sown for an idea that in a few months would change McMasters life a vision of an airline for the region.

In 1925, he demonstrated his grasp of the value of air travel when he pioneered the use of a plane to go electioneering o­n behalf of a local candidate, covering 2400 kilometres in a week, an unheard of feat, from Kynuna, Boulia, Cloncurry, Normanton, Julia Creek and back home again.

He used a plane against the deepening drought of 1926. With dead livestock piling up outside Longreach and Cloncurry, the search for agistment was very competitive. McMaster took a Q.A.N.T.A.S. plane, flying nearly 1500 kilometres in 10 hours, to Cloncurry, Normanton, and up the Flinders River, and found excellent grazing areas for his stock.

McMaster had a strong personality. Frank Cory a very early Q.A.N.T.A.S. backer, called him the moving spirit. Absolutely. He was a strict, upright Scotsman and a big man in the cattle industry.

Despite his reputation for an unbending and tough manner, he would grow afraid that surely, with his background o­n the land, he was unsuited to guiding Q.A.N.T.A.S. But he persisted anyway.

He always had the vision that Q.A.N.T.A.S. needed, at just the right time. As early as 1922, at the first Q.A.N.T.A.S. airmail service from Charleville to Cloncurry he saw that Q.A.N.T.A.S. had even greater potential to grow, and become global.

In 1928, his political skill teamed up with Fysh's attention to detail, to win an extension of the Charleville-Cloncurry route to Brisbane. Q.A.N.T.A.S. had broken through to the coast at last.

In the early 1930s, he saw that the very isolation that had given them their start could become a trap. He realised that the airline again had to expand, this time overseas, or die in the isolated west where it had begun.

At each crucial point, he was there to chart a path forward.

As Q.A.N.T.A.S. grew, so did his responsibilities, and he experienced increasing ill-health, including heart problems.

The leap from Q.A.N.T.A.S. to Qantas Empire Airways was especially taxing.

For his extraordinary services to Australian aviation, he was knighted o­n 27 September 1941.

He retired as Chairman in 1947.

On 8 August 1950, Sir Fergus McMaster died, after fighting ill-health for 12 years. In the words of historian John Gunn, McMaster had, by his sagacity and integrity, persuaded the politicians, public servants, and his peers in Queensland that Q.A.N.T.A.S. was worth their support.

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