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Stephany Evans Steggall’s book is an important insight into the treatment of Aboriginal people in the early days of colonial Queensland. The Politician and the Pedestrian was selected as an important work of cultural significance by the First Nations Writers Festival in 2025.
The Politician and the Pedestrian is a fascinating fictionalised account of two men, one white and one Aboriginal, who grew up on Jimbour Station on the western Darling Downs, then owned by the Bell family. The white boy was the eldest son, Joshua Bell, known as Master Joey. The Aboriginal boy was called Sambo Combo. This is the story of the white boy, the future debonair politician, and the Aboriginal boy, indisputably the fastest foot runner in the world in the 1880s.
In the decade before the first modern Olympics, Charles Samuels, previously Sambo Combo, was making a name for himself on the cinder running tracks as a pedestrian. At that time, pedestrianism was the name given to competitive walking, running and jumping.
The lives of Sambo and Master Joey diverge, testing their childhood friendship, as one enters politics and the other becomes a foot runner. Their story is intricately entwined with Queensland colonial history, especially the ill-treatment of Indigenous people, the domination of squatters like JP Bell, Master Joey’s father, and the men and women who moulded the incipient state.
The Bells’ nurse, Jeannie Maxwell, who remained with the family for 50 years, observes and comments throughout the book on the lives of her first charge, Master Joey, and his Aboriginal friend, Sambo Combo, whom she always called Sammy.
The book was published by Jabiru Publishing and can be ordered from their online Shop.