Insider knowledge led to a new course in 1935
Harrington shared credit, along with the Rev A.E. White of Albany, Western Australia, for instituting the tradition of the dawn service on Anzac Day each year.
In the years immediately following World War I, Mr Harrington and a group of followers would rise in the early hours of April 25 to visit and place flowers on the known graves and memorials of fallen soldiers in the city.
They would then retire to Picnic Point where the men would toast their mates with rum until the first rays of dawn appeared.
As dawn broke, a bugler would sound the Last Post and Reveille.
Mr Harrington, who was described as a natural leader, was a man of vision with great energy and a determination to see his visions fulfilled.
Within months of him taking office in February 1935, the committee was canvassing the views of club members regarding the re-establishment of the club at a new, more expansive course closer to the city.
To this end, Mr Harrington and his committee enlisted the support of the Mayor of Toowoomba, Ald J.D. Annand.
During discussions with the committee, Mayor Annand mentioned a 29-acre grazing block owned by Toowoomba Council in the vicinity of South, Ruthven and West streets.
Mayor Annand had inside knowledge the block would become available in 1936 and advised the club to apply for the lease.
He did, however, have one stipulation — that all citizens of Toowoomba would be eligible for membership at the golf club.
As mayor, he saw the benefit and value of enhancing Toowoomba’s growing reputation as a tourist destination and he believed a golf links close to the city would assist this cause.
When he was asked whether the council would resume the land after the 21-year lease expired, Mayor Annand replied that “no city council worthy of the name” would ever resume any land that had been developed as a golf course.