Colin Rankin

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Colin Dunlop Wilson Rankin (b. 20 January 1869, Galston, Ayrshire, Scotland - d. 2 November 1940, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) was a soldier, politician, cane farmer and company director.

The second son of William Rankin, colliery manager, and his wife Jane, née Anderson, he was educated at Galston Public School and Kilmarnock Academy. Colin Rankin accompanied his family to Queensland when his father became manager of Queensland Collieries Co. Ltd. at Howard, near Maryborough in 1884. Rankin joined its staff and from 1886 the Queensland Defence Force. By 1890 he was assistant company manager, grew sugar at Tigh-na-Bienne on the Isis, near Bundaberg, north of Howard, and became a clerk and valuator with the Isis Divisional Board (1890 - 1899).

A major when the South African War broke out, Rankin volunteered for service and on 13 January 1900 sailed with the Second Queensland Contingent. He was appointed second-in-command of the First Australian Regiment of Mounted Infantry and saw action at Diamond Hill, Riet Vlei and elsewhere. Invalided to England, Rankin returned to Queensland in March 1901. In 1903 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the Wide Bay Infantry Regiment, assuming command in 1906.

He had been chairman of the Howard Shire Council since its formation in 1903, and in 1905 successfully contested the seat of Burrum in the Legislative Assembly after unsuccessful attempts to gain it in 1899 and 1904. He married Annabelle Davidson Thomson on 5 September 1906 at Maryborough; they settled on his plantation.

Rankin promoted rural interests during his thirteen years in parliament. He became a council-member of the Australian Sugar Producers' Union. His membership of the Farmers' Parliamentary Union (Country Liberal Party from 1913), however, exacerbated disunity among government ranks. After unsuccessfully challenging Denham's leadership, Rankin was secretary for railways briefly in 1915, then became deputy leader of the Liberal Opposition when Labor won the May election.

During World War I Rankin served briefly in 1915 with the Australian Imperial Force in Egypt before appointment to command the 11th Brigade in the newly formed 3rd Division, as temporary brigadier general from 1 May 1916. On Salisbury Plain in England, he was dismissed by Major General Sir John Monash as "incapable". He returned home in November, and retired with the honorary rank of colonel in February 1917. He failed to hold Burrum in the 1918 election. Next year when his brother, William Charles Rankin, died he succeeded him as general manager of Queensland Collieries Co. Ltd.

As managing director in 1924-1940, Rankin continued a tradition of paternal despotism. He had found the company in poor shape with a falling output and inadequate coal reserves; charges have also been made of 'intense exploitation, sub-standard conditions and hard-fistedness'. He courageously took out new leases in the Burrum district and opened new mines which helped the company to weather the Depression of the 1930s. Rankin died in a private hospital in Brisbane on 2 November 1940, survived by his wife and two daughters, and was buried with Anglican rites in Howard Cemetery.

His daughter, Annabelle, became the first woman to enter the Federal parliament from Queensland.

[edit] Links

• Biodata

[edit] References

• Australian Defence Department, Official Records of the Australian Military Contingents to the War in South Africa, P. L. Murray, editor (Melbourne, 1911)
• W. J. E. Watson, 100 Years in Coal (Maryborough, 1963)
• E. Ross, A History of the Miners' Federation of Australia (Sydney, 1970)
• D. J. Murphy, T. J. Ryan (Brisbane, 1975)
• W. Browne, A Woman of Distinction (Brisbane, 1981)
• R. L. Whitmore, Coal in Queensland (Brisbane, 1985)
• P. Thomas, The Coalminers of Queensland, Volume 1 (Ipswich, 1986)
• Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15 November 1940, p. 284
• Queensland Times (Ipswich), 3 September 1907, 18 February 1910
• Queenslander, 15 September 1906, 27 December 1913, 20 August 1915, 17 May 1919, 13 December 1919
• Brisbane Sunday Mail, 3 November 1940
• State Library of Queensland
• Raymond L. Whitmore, Rankin, Colin Dunlop Wilson (1869 - 1940), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988, pp. 330-331.