Austin, Robert

AUSTIN, Robert (1825–1905) was born at Wanstead House, Epping Forest, Essex, England, son of James Gardner Austin (1809–1880), architect, and Mary Ann Sims/Pole. In August 1841, JG Austin was appointed Chief Surveyor, Engineer and Architect for a new settlement called Australind being formed by the Western Australian Company at Port Leschenault, (adjacent to Bunbury). An advance party of surveyors including his father, mother and Robert was despatched from London on the Island Queen arriving at Australind in December 1841. Thomas Greensill (1812–1891) as Acting Architect and Surveyor, and TW Thompson (–), as Acting Engineer and Surveyor, devised an attractive layout for a city with squares and gardens, quite unrealistic given the poor soil and lack of water in summer. With the Chief Commissioner for Australind delayed in London, JG Austin had all responsibility without authority as the settlement’s shortcomings became clear, including the earlier, profitable pre-sale of sites which were randomly allocated by ballot. It ended badly with JG Austin successfully suing for his wages before commencing practice as an architect and civil engineer in Perth in 1842. Robert Austin’s professional education may have commenced prior to their departure for Western Australia where he benefitted from the presence of his father, Greensill and Thompson. By 1846 as a surveyor, he was working in the Toodyay district and reported on a proposed tramway from the Darling Ranges in 1848. In 1851 while serving as foreman of works in the Convict Establishment, he was also secretary of the Mechanics Institute at Fremantle, calling tenders for their premises which he probably designed. In 1852 he was Superintendent of Works for Eastern Region at York where he at least oversaw the erection of buildings including stores, offices, quarters and a lock-up. Austin was also associated with exploration, including leading an expedition in the Murchison and Gascoyne regions in 1854. Early in 1860, he resigned as Assistant Surveyor in the Survey Department to take up a comparable position in Queensland before in April 1862 he was appointed Engineer for Roads in the southern District where he designed and oversaw construction of numerous bridges and culverts as roads were established as settlement spread westwards. He served in the post until retrenched when the Roads Branch was amalgamated with the Colonial Architect’s office in April 1868. In a financial recession, he practised as a civil engineer and surveyor. In 1872 he undertook surveys of tin deposits discovered at Quart Pot Ck (later Stanthorpe) and was associated with slab and bark buildings there including those of the Broadwater Tin Mining Co and probably St Paul’s Church, carefully constructed and clad with bark. After insolvency in 1878, he was appointed as a railway surveyor with Queensland Railways until November 1879. When he was licensed as a surveyor under the Real Property Act in 1882, he was at Clifton Station in the Maranoa district. By the late 1880s he was practicing in Brisbane where in 1891 he was appointed sergeant-at-arms to the Legislative Assembly. In cost-cutting, he was retrenched in August 1893. By 1898, he was practicing as a civil and mining engineer and surveyor at Thornborough on the Hodgkinson gold field. In February-April 1902, the ethnographer Walter Edmund Roth (1861–1933) published four articles in the Queenslander on aboriginal ethnography in the early days of settlement in Western Australia based on reminiscences Roth collected from Robert Austin who died at Thornborough. His eldest son Major Colin Douglas Austin was killed in action at Gallipoli.