W.A. Amiet: Literature and the R.S.L.

Abstract

In Mackay, where he lived for nearly forty years, W.A. Amiet is still highly esteemed, one indication of this being the library of the university centre there, which is a memorial to him. The main reason for the community's remembrance is probably that Amiet did all the proper community things. A barrister by profession, he was on the local dxecutive of the Country Party for more than thirty years, for six years president of the R.S.L., foundation president of Rotary, president of the Amateur Race Club and the Dramatic Society, chairman of the Mackay Ambulance committee, of the Mackay Show Association, of the local branch of the Royal
Geographical Society, and soon. To the outsider, however, Amiet is chiefly
memorable as a writer, and as one, furthermore, who flourished in a region not remarkable for its encouragement of the arts.