Story Added: November 2007

A believer in the great value of education

Britha Barker was a far-sighted Australian who regarded education as the cornerstone of her family’s and the country’s future. One of 10 children and Queensland shipping pioneer John Burke’s grand-daughter, she and her husband Noel, who died in 1981, reared 11 children.

Between March 1943 and October 1963, Britha gave birth to one daughter and 10 sons. During those years, she and Noel bought and sold property—moving from Holland Park, to Kangaroo Point, the Gold Coast, Taringa, Kenmore in the early 1950s, and to Victoria Point in the early 1960s.Each of these moves was dictated by their growing family, financial necessity and, ultimately, a decision to ensure that they not only gave their children the best education possible but also a Catholic education. This was a decision that involved them in great sacrifice.

It was while living at Taringa that they began their long association with St Joseph’s College, firstly, through Nudgee Junior College, and, later, through Nudgee Senior College. All of the sons, but one, Thomas, received some or all of their education through these schools. However, Thomas later taught at Nudgee College and coached its First Fifteen for seven years with resounding success.

At different times, the Barker children also variously attended St Joseph’s School (Kangaroo Point), Sacred Heart School (Coolangatta), St Vincent’s School (Surfers Paradise), Kenmore State School, Brigidine College (Indooroopilly), Victoria Point State School (which seven of the children attended), Stuartholme School (Toowong), Broadbeach State School, St Joseph’s Gregory Terrace, and Brisbane State High School.

Their plans for ensuring their children’s education were an outstanding success. Two sons were school captains: Damien, at Nudgee College, and Nicholas, at Brisbane State High School. Others were prefects at these schools. All excelled academically and in sport, particularly swimming, tennis and Rugby Union, with a number playing in the first fifteens at both of these schools. Of the 11, nine graduated from university and all 11 embarked on careers in journalism, university public relations, veterinary science, medicine, engineering, teaching, broadcasting, sales and marketing, government and sports coaching.

The years at Kenmore were tremendously important for Noel and Britha for their growing family, Their decision to go there had lasting commercial consequences. They had bought land on Moggill Road, opposite the then one-teacher, one-building Kenmore State School. Initially, they built a mixed business and Kenmore’s first post office. Later, they built extensions to each side of the mixed business and the post office to provide accommodation for Kenmore’s first general practice and first pharmacy. They were truly Kenmore’s commercial pioneers.

Mrs Barker was born Britha Burke on St Valentine’s Day in 1919, in the Burke family home, at Kangaroo Point. The front pylons of the Story Bridge mark the house’s location in what is now known as Captain John Burke Park, named after her famous migrant Irish grandfather.

She grew up in what was very much an Irish-Australian household, and from her early years knew the story of the arrival in Moreton Bay in 1862 of the Catholic migrant ship, the Erin-Go-Bragh, “Ireland Forever”, and of two young people on board. These two - crewman, John Burke, of Kinsale, Ireland, and passenger, Alicia Swords, of Kings County, Ireland - had fallen in love during this epic voyage. John left the ship in Brisbane. He deserted and hid out at West End until the ship departed and a year later married Alicia in St Stephen’s Cathedral.

Britha knew about her master mariner grandfather’s skills as a river and bay captain, and his later establishing the shipping company bearing his name that serviced centres along the Queensland coast up to Thursday Island and into the Gulf of Carpentaria, which his sailors called “Burke’s Flaming Ocean”. These stories of the sea, of her grandfather’s heroic saving of people in the Logan River in the 1887 flood, and of her own father’s involvement as a captain and wharf manager in the Burke shipping company imbued her with a tremendous pride in her Irish heritage and a life-long love of the sea.

Her schooling was at St Joseph's Convent, Kangaroo Point, and at Commercial High School, in the Domain where the Queensland University of Technology now stands. At Commercial High, she could wave across the river to her father working on the Burke’s wharf at the bottom of Tribune Street, where South Bank is today. She was a woman of enormous energy and vitality who excelled in subjects such as English and book-keeping, and was a top-class hockey player and a pretty good tennis player as well. However swimming was her great passion. She obtained her bronze medallion in lifesaving and took part in march-pasts at lifesaving carnivals at the South Coast. She continued to swim throughout her life and well into her latter years. She often swam at high tide at the front of the Victoria Point family home. Her love of the water she passed on to all her children.

At the end of the 1950s, the Barkers moved from Kenmore to what became the new family home on the beach at the bottom of Edinburgh Street, Victoria Point, not far from the jetty at which her grandfather, John Burke, had unloaded supplies for the area’s early settlers. In fact, he had built the very first jetty. Victoria Point proved to be a wonderful move for the family; it had freedom and the biggest backyard possible - Moreton Bay. At Victoria Point, Britha continued to raise her family and was actively involved in the local community. In her later years, she was a member of the Victoria Point Senior Citizens' Association and its president in 1992-93.

For many years, she worked as a volunteer in the Lifeline Shop in Cleveland and did a Ministry for St Rita's Parish. She died in her sleep at home at Victoria Point. Mrs Britha Barker is survived by 10 of her children (Anthony, William, Damien, Noel, Margaret, John, Thomas, Nicholas, Richard and Timothy), 33 grandchildren and 9 great grandchildren. Her second eldest son, Brian, died suddenly on July 2 this year.