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have been the 20-year-old State School (headmaster, Robert Tait), where her two young sons
were lodged for a while, and the Anglican and Methodist churches. The former had been
wrecked, as was much of Ayr, by cyclone Leonta in 1903; the Methodists did not have their
own church in Ayr until the year of Esther's arrival.
Her most immediate interest, however, would have centred on the other storekeepers in Ayr, of
whom there were more than a few. Even before the
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increase in the white population between 1907 and 1910 - after it became 'illegal' to employ
Kanakas, or Islanders, on the sugar cane farms and in the fields, and the employment of
Chinese or other orientals was discouraged - a chain store, Lennon's of Townsville, had been
opened, in 1901, as had a branch of Green's pharmacy.
There were several other stores, catering mainly for the needs of a largely agrarian community
and the employees of the sugar cane farms and mills. The two main drapery, clothing and
footwear stores were McKimmin & Richardson and Mellick's. There was also the Federal
Store, owned by Charles Coutts and situated at the main intersection in Queen Street, opposite
the Queen's Hotel and the Federal Hall.
Charles Coutts, another Scot, opened his Federal Store in 1894 - nearly 20 years before Esther
Honeycombe set up shop.
John Kerr, writing in Black Snow and Liquid Gold, says of Coutts: 'With a wide range of stock,
plus honesty, and Scottish business acumen, he prospered... (He) admired innovation, and in
March 1910 imported a motor delivery truck. He delighted both children and adults with free
rides. On Monday it was in revenue service with a run to Plantation Creek and back, delivering
groceries to farmers. By this time he had a store and a bakery, plus a bulk store and land near
the railway. Camaraderie and hard work were both encouraged, the firm having its own tennis
and recreation club by 1913. Coutts built a new store at McDesme that year and was the
pioneer retailer at Home Hill... The business was incorporated as Coutts Limited on 21 July
1916 with a nominal capital of £10,000 in one pound shares.'
Coutts' Federal Store (as with Esther's tiny shop) was the beginning of a major family business
worth millions of dollars, that expanded into other stores and shopping centres, into service
stations, cattle properties, land and aviation, and then collapsed and was broken up before its
centenary was reached.
Its rise was followed, more slowly and cautiously, by the Honeycombe business that Esther
began in a very small way in Ayr.
And in the very same month and year that the Honeycombe business was founded, far to the
south the foundation stone was laid of a new capital city -Canberra.
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chance of a better life near the coast - away from the fatal dust and heat of Charters Towers.
It was Captain James Cook and his crew on the Endeavour who made the first known sighting
of that coast. Having circumnavigated New Zealand and viewed the southeastern shores of
Australia, the 41 -year-old Yorkshireman took his ship northwards, and in June 1770 was
sailing cautiously within the Great Barrier Reef in 'serene weather1, naming landmarks as he
passed - Cape Upstart, Cape Bowling Green (behind which Ayr would take shape 100 years
later) Cape Cleveland and Magnetic Island (whose mountainous length in part obscured the
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