This is a free public event - bookings are required to assist with seating and catering. As part of the Cairns 150 celebrations, the Cairns Historical Society and Cairns Museum are presenting a series of free public lectures throughout 2026. Held every second month, each lecture afternoon features two talks exploring key moments, people and themes from Cairns and Far North Queensland’s history. LECTURE #1 Meston’s Wet Dream in the Scottish Tropics Dr Jonathan Richards Many Cairns Historical Society members are familiar with Archie Meston’s dream of establishing a sugar empire on the Barron River. Fewer realise that he pursued a similar fantasy on the Russell River. This lecture reveals how Meston misled Scottish cane farmers from New South Wales by claiming to be a government land agent, and how the venture ultimately failed. LECTURE #2 William Bairstow Ingham: Cairns’ first entrepreneur Dr Sarah Collins Although present from the earliest moments of Cairns’ colonial settlement in 1876, William Bairstow Ingham and his contribution to Cairns’ early settlement history has largely been overlooked. Dr Collins’ public lecture will reveal the man and his significant contributions to the region’s local shipping and the timber industry before his murder at Brooker Island, New Guinea, in 1878. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Dr Jonathan Richards is a professional historian whose work focuses on frontier violence and colonial policing. His major research interest is the history of the North Queensland coast. Dr Sarah Collins is an archaeologist (PhD), historian, and author, whose expertise is in the post-contact history of north Queensland.