Bethune, Donald David

BETHUNE, Donald David (1826–1864) was born at Contin, Ross-shire, in the Scottish Highlands north-west of Inverness, the elder son of John Bethune, a crofter, and Christy McKenzie. In 1851 when Donald Bethune was listed as an agricultural labourer living with his family, his younger brother aged 19 was listed as a scholar. If not earlier, Donald Bethune may have gained building experience in the Lowlands at Edinburgh where he married Mary Smith in 1852 and in Glasgow where he was living in 1854 before migrating to Queensland. Soon after arriving at Moreton Bay, he commenced business at Ipswich in 1855 as D. Bethune & Co., building contractor, carpenter and joiner and advertising to prepare ‘plans accurately drawn and specifications written, for buildings of stone, brick, or wood’. In 1856 he tendered to build the new Watch House and in 1859 was inspector of works for the Ipswich Hospital for Charles TIFFIN. He was successful, advertising from time to time for employees in various trades and serving as an alderman of the first Ipswich Municipal Council from 1860. Bethune was surveyor to the Ipswich Equitable Investment and Building Society and built a brick residence of 10-rooms and outhouses in East Street for its President, Lieutenant-Colonel CJ Gray. Bethune was still working in Ipswich in 1862 when he built the Primary School at Little Ipswich and the organ loft for St Paul’s Church but thereafter as an alcoholic, he lost control, including resigning as alderman, then seeking re-election. After a drinking bout, he was admitted to the Brisbane Watch House “in a state bordering on insanity” and died there on 26 January 1864. His family remained in Queensland. His widow was living in Quay St, Rockhampton when their only son, William, an apprentice with the Rockhampton Bulletin died in 1873.