1861-Alfred Cotton
Aviator extraordinaire, cattle station owner, drover
This is the story of a man named Alfred Cotton or 'Al' ,as he was known, who was born on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands in the British Isles in June 1861.
At the age of 14, his father died, so Alfred went to sea and for six years and travelled the world on cargo ships.
When he arrived in New South Wales at the age of 20, he decided to go jackarooing for the Dangar family in the north-west of New South Wales.
In 1886, Al found himself cattle droving for the Dangar family and a man named Frederick Bode, of Bromby Park near Bowen and Proserpine. Frederick Bode was a brother to Henry Morrill Bode, of Rita Island, Ayr.
In 1890, Alfred married Annie Bode, the daughter of Frederick Bode. Together they raised four children, three boys and one girl.
At the time of his marriage, Alfred was a very busy man, as he had three cattle droving outfits which were taking cattle from North Queensland to the southern markets. The family lived at Goorganga Station on the Conway Peninsula, near Proserpine. Goorganga Station is still in existence today.
Between 1905 to 1911, Al Cotton acquired a portion of Inkerman Station and also Woodstock, and in 1911 he sold Inkerman Station to AM Terry nephew of the station's original owner in 1861, G MacDonald. The Cotton family eventually sold Goorganga and their home became Hidden Valley at Grandchester; south of Ipswich.
Al Cotton had many business ventures in his lifetime, including, droving, selling horses to the British Army during the Boer War buying and selling hides, director of the meatworks at Bowen - all the while acquiring cattle stations which included Lawn Hill, Fiery Downs, Punjab, Augustus Downs, Inverleigh, Gregory Downs, Telawanta and Escott, and later Brunette Downs in the Northern Territory.
The motor vehicle was fast becoming the mode of transport in the pre-World War I era, hnd Al Cotton, while on a trip to England with his family, bought one which he had especially made for travelling through the bush in North Queensland.
His son, Frederick Sidney, worked on this vehicle. In an article in The North Queensland Register, September 18, 1911, there appeared a series of photos taken by Al of the first motorised vehicles, titled, 'Crossing the Burdekin River at Ayr'.
In the pictures, the Cotton vehicle towed a second vehicle through the sand and three feet of water in the river bed. An anchor was run-out ahead of vehicles, which then hauled up its load to the anchor and then repeated the exercise until the opposite bank of the river was reached.
The vehicle registration 'No 335'was a prototype of an old Sunbeam with many parts supplied by Dennis Brothers. It stood 15 inches above the ground, high enough to negotiate the erratic creeks of far North Queensland. There was a winch on the front, and the radiator could swing sideways so that the grass seeds could be picked out of the core.
Sidney Cotton may have been on this trip, and just as his father embraced the age of the motor vehicle, Sidney went one further and became enthralled by the aeroplane.
In 1933, Alfred Cotton published his autobiography, "With the Big Herds in Australia".
He died in Queensland in April 1941, just short of his 80th birthday,
Sidney Cotton, Alfred's oldest son, enlisted in World War I in the flying section in England and learned to fly as well as becoming an engineer. He flew over France and through flying he invented the 'SidCot' flying suit to protect pilots from the freezing conditions.
After the war, he went flying in Canada to earn a living, and also experimented with aerial photography, and so was employed by the British to take aerial photographs of military installations over Germany and Italy prior to World War II, flying a Lockheed 12a Electra aircraft.
After World War II, Sidney became involved in gun-running for The Nizam of Hyderabad in India.
Sidney Cotton died in 1969 after he had written a book with Ralf Barkel titled "Aviator Extraordinary".
Jeffrey Watson (who made a documentary for television Sidney Cotton: Last Plane out of Berlin) published a book of same name in 2002.
Another book," Above AII Unseen", by Edward Leaf in 1997, was published. It is a history of The Royal Air Force's Photographic Reconnaissance Units 1939-1945 and has many references to Sidney Cotton.