While David Bedford has analysed two extant examples of veneered Queensland desks made by J W Carey, Yvonne Barber provides biographical information about this man devoted to the Queensland timber industry, who remarked that ‘taking a man like him from his business was like taking a rudder out of a ship.’ After starting out ‘on the tools’ as a cabinetmaker in the 1860s and 1870s – for which he will be best remembered – Carey moved on to become a saw-mill proprietor, a contractor constructing prefabricated buildings and an inventor.