The Homestead Application
Parish of Geham, Queensland, Australia 1871
By January 1871 Geoffrey Keating had been at Highfields for two years.
No title. No grant. Building on ground he did not yet legally hold.
The homestead application changed that.
The application was made under the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868. The Act allowed Crown land to be taken up without competition as a homestead, provided the applicant lived on it and made specified improvements.
The land comprised Portions 71 and 72. Eighty-one acres in the Parish of Geham, County of Aubigny.
Geoffrey’s declaration states plainly that the land was open to selection without competition.
He paid £6 12s. 6d. — the first year’s rent at sixpence per acre, together with survey fees — and entered Selection No. 496.
In the application he described himself as the head of a family. He swore that the land was sought for his own exclusive use and benefit.
Portion 74 still stood in his name — forty-one acres, mortgaged to John Watts since Christmas Eve 1866, the debt still running.
Portions 71 and 72 lay beside it.
On paper the titles differed. On the ground they met.
The Act required five years of continuous residence and improvements valued at ten shillings per acre before the land could pass into freehold.
He would have to remain. He would have to fence. He would have to spend money before any return could be expected.
There is no sign in the 1871 file of urgency or competition. The land was available. The process was formal. The declaration was routine.
The five-year term began in January 1871.
If he lived there, fenced it, and met the required value of improvements, the lease would become a grant.
More ground would lie under his name.
The way forward still seemed possible.