Frederic Charles Urquhart was the son of Frederic Day Urquhart, army officer, and his wife Charlotte, née Goldie. He attended All Saints School, Bloxham, Oxfordshire, and Felsted (military) School, Essex and served as a midshipman. He migrated to Queensland in 1875 where he worked in the sugar and cattle industries before becoming a telegraph linesman at Normanton in 1878.
Urquhart joined the Queensland Native Mounted Police Force on 27 April 1882 as a cadet and was appointed sub-inspector in charge of the Gulf, Cape York and Torres Strait districts. He went to Cloncurry in 1884 to lead a detachment of armed settlers and police against the Kalkatunga (Kalkadoon) Aborigines in a campaign that culminated in pitched combat at Battle Mountain and ended the Aborigines' armed resistance. He transferred in 1889 to the general police.
In the far north Urquhart searched for survivors from the ill-fated Quetta in Torres Strait in 1890. He charted Albatross Bay, and the Embley and Hay Rivers, publishing his findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland (1897). He also wrote bush verse including Camp Canzonettes (1891) and reputedly Blood Stains (1919) which has not been traced. He was appointed as Queensland's fourth commissioner of police on 1 January 1917, holding the position until 16 January 1921. He was appointed as administrator of the Northern Territory on 17 January 1921. After his retirement in 1926, Urquhart settled at Clayfield, Brisbane.
[For further details, refer to main source: W. Ross Johnston, 'Urquhart, Frederic Charles (1858 - 1935)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 12, Melbourne University Press, 1990, pp 306-307.]
