Petition from John Buhot to the Legislative Assembly for a Grant of Land for his services to the sugar industry

Background

Pioneer Queensland sugar-grower John Buhot was born on Barbados in 1831 and emigrated from London to Brisbane in 1862. Within a month of his arrival Buhot produced the colony’s first sugar from cane growing in Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens. He later worked respectively for Louis Hope and Claudius Whish before being employed to produce commercial quantities of sugar for Gladwell and Greathead at Maryborough. Buhot’s own attempts to establish himself as an independent grower in the Logan River and Redland Bay districts failed miserably. From 1864 he began a long-running campaign to seek official recognition and a reward as Queensland’s first sugar-producer, and although he received influential support the Legislative Assembly refused to endorse his claim. Buhot died in 1881.

 

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