IT’S one of North Queensland’s greatest trackside tales of training, technique and ultimate triumph.
William “Billy” Chaplain, a 17-year-old of pioneer farming stock, was written a worthwhile investment rising as the fastest male in the regional sprinting ranks.
The teenage prodigy rewrote record books with a trio of runs to win the programme at the Towers 100 in 1906.
Known as “The Pocket Hercules”, Bill took out the 75 yards sprint, the 130 yards handicap and the 75 yards novice at the nineteenth carnival held at the Charters Towers showgrounds.
The crowd plumped for Bill, who’s performance was certainly the most meritorious and although he was re-handicapped after winning the 75 yard heats he still won defeating some of Australia’s greatest athletes.
With a handicap of six and three-quarter yards, he outpaced Australian-great Arthur Postle after he had returned with a medal from the World Professional Running Championships, classing Bill as the unofficial world champion.
Born in Croydon in 1888 Bill was one of four sons to William and Mary Chaplain.
His father followed work in the mines, carting timber in his horse dray supplying the pioneers who transformed far-north Croydon into a boom town, not long before the turn of the century.
As a youngster growing up in the country, Bill helped his father with carting timber in the several drays that made up the business.
At the age of 14, Bill was boarding in Cloncurry working as a printer at the local newspaper to help pay rent.
Bill received very little formal schooling, mainly because his family moved around so often following the mines.
He completed some schooling at Richmond Hill School in Charters Towers where he competed in youths’ races at the L.N.Q Wheelmen’s meetings.
Richmond Hill School teacher George Nass first noticed Bill’s running ability offering to train him, but it wasn’t long before he moved back west to work with his father.
He travelled back to Charters Towers later that year, to win the Towers 100.
From the Towers, he went onto Brisbane to compete in a sprints event, which was cancelled, so instead his father took him to the Bundaberg Championships, which he also won.
Two years later, he and his brothers purchased the butchering business in Selwyn.
Whilst working in Selwyn, Bill was undefeated in the monthly Big Foot Races which hosted competitors from across the Australia.
In about 1910, they sold the business and bought the butchery in Cloncurry.
The Chaplain Brothers then started to buy properties in the Cloncurry district; Rocky Glen, Quilalah, Jessievale, Leelavale, and Malakoff.
On selling those places, the brothers bought Boomarra station in 1918, and Fort Constantine in 1935.
The brothers also purchased two hotels in Cloncurry, the Central and the Queens.
Bill acquired his well-known nickname “Boomarra” Bill from the cattle station bearing the same name which he managed for 38 years.
The young cattleman married wife Rose in 1936 and they had a family of three boys, Douglas Hinkler (named after the famous pilot because he was born on the same day Hinkler arrived in Cloncurry), John and William as well as daughter Rosemary.
They also raised Paddy Cusack, who was given to Bill in 1922 as a six month old baby.
Paddy was a legendary stockmen and buckjump rider, now 92, and residing in the nursing home at Cloncurry Hospital.
Apart from being among the first of the outback people to see an aeroplane – Bill saw both Hinkler and Amy Johnson land at Cloncurry – and saw the first train pull up with goods from Richmond.
At the age of two-and-a-half Bill’s eldest son, Douglas Hinkler, passed away after an unfortunate accident in Cloncurry.
Throughout his final years William Croydon Chaplain still enjoyed a glass of ale and was always found chewing on a piece of succulent wood – even when talking.
“He was a very popular man, well-known within the Cloncurry community and its surrounds,” John Chaplain, son of Bill said.
“In the last 15 years of his life he started to go blind, left with hardly any sight at all.”
Bill passed away at the age of 93 and will forever be remembered for his athletic ability and strong work ethic.
