page_title: Augustus Charles Gregory
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Augustus Charles Gregory / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir Augustus Charles Gregory lying in state, Brisbane, 1905. Sir Augustus Charles Gregory was an English-born Australian explorer who undertook four major expeditions between 1846 and 1858. He was later appointed surveyor-general of Queensland in 1859 and held the position until 1879 when he retired.
context_page_description: Sir Augustus Charles Gregory KCMG was an English-born Australian explorer and surveyor. Between 1846 and 1858 he undertook four major expeditions. He was the first Surveyor-General of Queensland. He was appointed a lifetime Member of the Queensland Legislative Council.
context_section_description: In 1855 Gregory became a freemason in the Sydney Samaritan Lodge in New South Wales.
  Gregory was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1858.
  Gregory undertook no further explorations but was appointed Surveyor General of Queensland in 1859. He later clashed with William Alcock Tully (then under-secretary for public lands and chief commissioner of crown lands); in 1875 Tully became acting surveyor-general in place of Gregory. Gregory then became a geological surveyor.
  In 1862, he built by hand the now heritage-listed farmhouse Rainworth at Rosalie in Brisbane. He lived there until his death. He leased a home he had built on the Rainworth estate to surveying colleague, Walter C. Hume, which he and his family re-named "Fairseat".
  On 23 December 1862, Gregory was appointed Provincial Grand Master of the England masonic Lodge in Queensland.
  In 1865 Gregory, Maurice Charles O’Connell and John Douglas applied for a special grant of land to erect a Masonic Hall in Brisbane. This was granted on 15 January 1865. On 28 February 1865 Gregory was made a Royal Arch Mason in the North Australia Royal Arch Chapter.
  From 1880 to his death in 1905, he served as a councillor of the Shire of Toowong and as an alderman of its successor, the Town of Toowong. He was shire president for 12 years, being 1881 to 1884, 1888 to 1890, 1895, 1898 to 1901 and town mayor in 1904.
  On 10 November 1882 Gregory was made a member of the Queensland Legislative Council (a lifetime appointment).
  By the late 1880s he had built a summer house in Southport.
  With his brother, F. T. Gregory, he published their Journals of Australian Exploration in 1884.
  He was interested in scientific research and was a trustee of the Queensland Museum.
  Early in 1895, Gregory was appointed Grand Superintendent of Royal Arch Masonry in Queensland. On 25 June 1895 he opened the District Grand Chapter.
  On 6 November 1903, Gregory was knighted, being appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (Imperial) in recognition of his service as Surveyor-General and in the Queensland Legislative Council.
  Gregory died on 25 June 1905 at his residence Rainworth at Rosalie, Brisbane. His body lay in state at the Masonic Hall in Alice Street where many people came to pay their respects; it was estimated that 1,400 people visited on the morning of the funeral. His funeral took place at the hall in the afternoon of 29 June 1905, after which a funeral procession of several hundred people walked along Alice Street, William Street, North Quay and the River Road (now Coronation Drive) to the Toowong Cemetery where hundreds of people were already assembled at the cemetery. Grgegory was buried high on the northern slope of the hill below Governor Samuel Blackall's grave with Anglican rites conducted by his friend Rev. Thomas Jones of Indooroopilly.
  After his death, his home Rainworth was rented to a number of people, including Robert Philp. His farm land was eventually subdivided and, to facilitate this, the house Rainworth was relocated to another site, now 7 Barton Street in the suburb of Bardon. The house was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
  In late 1905 Brisbane artist Oscar Fristrom sculpted a bust of Gregory. In February 1906, Fristrom offered to sell the bust to the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland but the society decided not to buy it; however, they did display it at an event in June 1906. For many years the bust was displayed at Freemasons’ Gregory Lodge in Cairns (Gregory being depicted wearing his Masonic regalia). In 2018, the Freemasons donated the bust to the Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying in Brisbane. As at 10 March 2020, the bust is at the entrance of the museum.
caption: Sir Augustus Charles Gregory lying in state, Masonic Hall, Alice Street, Brisbane, 1905
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