Once was a Smart State: Intellectual Leaders in Queensland
1859-1989
A Typology of Thinkers and their Interrelation in Queensland History
The First Representative Dozen
Most Commonly Known Among the Widest Representation
Identifying Queensland intellectual leaders, influential thinkers in the Queensland society, in a long time period of 130 years, could end up with a list of hundreds of names. This is a long-term project and inclusion is going to be a matter of time. Patience, please! As a very tentative short-list, I have come up with my first representative dozen. You have to start somewhere, and the project will not grow unless I bravely take the first step of making a selection.
The grouping of the first dozen has a natural rationale as the first attempt. From what I already know of Queensland intellectual history – and yes, we have only just began to scratch the surface – who are the most commonly known thinkers in the society, paying attention to the criteria outline in the Criteria and Methodology page, as well as selecting, as a first run, the widest representation I can find – representation of gender, class, race, ethnicity and occupations. Given that we are looking at “intellectuals”, that representation will be severely tested by the weight of representation which one can locate in the past. But I think I have some success as indicated by the following table:
Count in The First Representative Dozen
Queensland Thinkers 1859-1989
Female
4
Working Class Birth
7
ATSI Identity
3
Non-British Background
0
Labourer (Once)
6
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