The office of the Colonial Secretary was located in William Street from the 1860s until 1889, when it moved to the then newly constructed William Street wing of the Treasury Building. Today, the Heritage Hotel is situated on this largely forgotten site from which Queensland was once administered.

The Office of the Colonial Secretary was located in William Street from 1860 until 1889. The office occupied the building opposite the Commissariat stores and during the convict years had been the commissariat officer’s residence. The main entrance was in William Street via a flight of stone steps, but everyday access was from George Street via a lane between St John’s school and the Police Commissioner’s office. Today, the Heritage Hotel is situated on this largely forgotten site from which Queensland was once administered.

The first colonial secretary, Robert G. W. Herbert arrived in the colony as private secretary to Governor Bowen in 1859. With approval from the Colonial Office, he was appointed colonial secretary immediately, however, the Colonial Office ruled he would only hold the office if he was elected to the Legislative Assembly and had enough votes in the House. He held the position of Colonial Secretary from 1859 to 1866; it was one of the three key administrative positions in Queensland, the other two being the Colonial Treasurer and the Attorney General. These three positions formed Governor Bowen’s Executive Council.

The former commissariat officer’s residence needed refurbishing. An indication of this came in December 1859 when Governor Bowen asked the Executive Council to approve the estimated cost for ‘procuring certain articles of furniture and effecting certain repairs immediately required at the office of the Honourable the Colonial Secretary’. The building was not large and this may have contributed to the small number of staff employed, considering the responsibilities of the Colonial Secretary. The staff was made up of an under-colonial secretary, two clerks of the first class; two clerks of the second class and one clerk of the third class, along with an office keeper and a constable who acted as a messenger. At the time, the Colonial Secretary controlled 20 sub-departments and up to 400 public service positions. By 1885, the staff had increased slightly to under-colonial secretary, chief clerk and accountant, six clerks, officer keeper, messenger and assistant messenger. The office then oversaw 26 sub-departments and 1,900 public service positions.

From the start the Colonial Secretary’s responsibilities covered policing, immigration, defence, health and education. The office was known as the ‘everything else’ department, in other words responsible for everything not administered by the Attorney General or the Colonial Treasurer. This would change in the coming decades with the establishment of new departments such as the Crown Lands Office; the Board of Education; Public Lands and Works and the Surveyor-General’s Department. Despite this, the Colonial Secretary’s office remained central to the administration of Queensland, as shown in the budget of 1884-85 when, out of a £2,800,000 expenditure, the Colonial Secretary was responsible for one sixth of the amount, a figure equalling £48,000. Only Public Works had a larger budget.

Beginning with Robert Herbert, the Colonial Secretary was also often Premier. Between 1860 and 1888 all but two of the Premiers also held the role of Colonial Secretary. Those two were Mackenzie in 1867/68 and Thorn in 1876/77. By 1884, Samuel Griffith as Premier wanted less ministerial responsibilities and felt the Colonial Secretary’s role should also change. As a result, in 1886 the position of Colonial Secretary was split with a new ministerial position of Chief Secretary created to have responsibility for overseas affairs and the Colonial Secretary, renamed the Home Secretary in 1896, responsible for home affairs. The office itself was relocated to the Treasury Building when the first stage of that building was completed in 1889.

Some of the Queensland politicians who served as Colonial Secretary and in a few cases also Premier include:

Sir Robert Herbert: Colonial Secretary and Premier, 1859 – 1866

Sir Arthur Palmer: Colonial Secretary, 1867 – 1868; Premier & Colonial Secretary, 1870 – 1874

Thomas McIlwraith: Premier & Colonial Secretary, 1882 – 1883

Berkeley Moreton: Colonial Secretary, 1886 – 1888

Boyd Morehead: Colonial Secretary, June 1888 – November 1888; Premier & Colonial Secretary, November 1888 – August 1890

Sir Horace Tozer: Colonial Secretary, 1890 – 1896; Home Secretary 1896 – 1998.

Sources

Scott, J; Laurie, R; Stevens, B; Weller, P (2001) Creating the Colonial Secretary’s Office: Bowen, Herbert and Moriarty. The Engine Room of Government 1859 – 2001. University of Queensland Press.

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The Queen’s Gardens is a square of Brisbane CBD green space bounded by William, Elizabeth and George Streets and, in 2017, the Heritage Hotel. Such has not always been the case.

Since 1825 this small envelope of land has been the site of a convict era cottage and lumber yard, a church, parsonage and synod hall and the offices of Brisbane’s early police detectives. It has been known by two garden names and, since the early twentieth century, a place notable for its statues and monuments.

From around 1825 to the mid to late 1830s, the convict settlement’s engineer resided here in a sawn timber cottage. The cottage was converted to offices following the removal of the lumber yard to a site at the upper end of what would become Queen Street. The chaplain also lived in this location, with his front door facing the river and his gardens sloping towards today’s George Street.

With the convict settlement closed, the Church of England acquired the site in the late 1840s, constructing a parsonage on the William Street/Elizabeth Street corner in 1850-51. St John’s Church was completed next, in 1850-54. Today a marble plaque identifies the position of the altar. With the declaration of the Diocese of Brisbane in 1859, St John’s Church was designated a pro-Cathedral. As the congregation grew, an extension was constructed (1868). The third bishop, William Webber, commenced the planning for a grand cathedral in 1885. In the late nineteenth century, the pro-Cathedral was the venue for a number of society weddings.

The day-to-day operations of the Diocese required the construction of a timber bell tower in 1877. It held a set of 8 bells cast in London by Messrs John Warner and Sons. Towards George Street, a timber building was erected in 1879-80 to provide space for a synod hall, library, committee rooms and a church school. This building was replaced by the Church Institute and Synod Hall built in stone at the George Street/Elizabeth Street corner in 1897.

Government plans for the construction of a new lands and survey building (the previous one was in George Street near Adelaide Street) changed the direction in which planning for the cathedral was headed. The land on which the pro-Cathedral was built was sold to the government to provide the Diocese with the finances needed to purchase land in Ann Street, the eventual location of St John’s Cathedral.

The church buildings were demolished in 1904. The Executive Gardens, a 30 metre strip of land to the west of the newly constructed and now named Executive Building, provided the park’s first green space. Within two years the land on which the demolished parsonage had been located was declared a park reserve to be added to the Executive Gardens, the second of the three parcels which make up the Gardens.

The stone Church Institute building was not initially demolished, being used as the offices for the Criminal Investigation Branch (formed 1896). In 1927 an explosion caused considerable damage to the building. With the construction of a new police headquarters in North Quay in the 1960s, the former Church Institute building/CIB office was demolished. The stone was used for the ongoing construction of St John’s Cathedral in Ann Street. Queen’s Gardens now consisted of a total of 0.48 hectares of land of gardens open to the public.

In preparation for the visit in March 1963 of Queen Elizabeth II, a new layout for the gardens was prepared featuring diagonal paths, gardens and a fountain. Beneath the park has been developed since as a car park.

Over the years, the Executive Gardens/Queen’s Gardens has become the site of a number of statues, monuments and artillery items:

The bronze statue of Queen Victoria by Thomas Brock

The bronze statue of Queensland Premier Thomas Joseph Ryan by Bertram Mackennal

Artillery pieces from the Boer War.

A Krupp (German) 77mm field gun placed in the gardens in 1917.

A Monument of Memories erected by the Queensland Service Women’s Association in 1990.

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In the nineteenth century many unexplained deaths in Brisbane occurred near the river. This seems one of the reasons why, in its various evolutionary forms, the Brisbane public morgue has had a long association with the Queen’s Wharf vicinity.

Brisbane’s first public morgue was built in the grounds of the former convict hospital. The hospital was sited between North Quay and today’s George Street, between Adelaide and Ann Streets. (The development known as Brisbane Quarter, at 300 George Street, is the latest construction on this site.)

In Brisbane’s sub-tropical climate, and with no refrigeration then available, the nearby presence of the morgue cannot have assisted in the recovery of patients who were recuperating in Brisbane’s first hospital. Understandably, there were moves to relocate the morgue. On 21 July 1862 tenders were called for the construction of a new morgue at the river end of Edward Street. The slab had already been laid near the A.S.N. Company wharf before the acting colonial secretary responded favourably to the objections of a deputation of nearby residents. The morgue remained within the hospital grounds, though the building was resited more towards the river and Ann Street.

From 1862, with the departure of the hospital to its new site at Bowen Hills, the former hospital became a Police Barracks. The morgue remained, although there were further attempts to have it relocated, one in March 1878 to the reserve immediately above the stock sale yards in Roma Street. Again there were objections and the morgue remained where it was.

Constructed where the demolished police barracks had been, the new Brisbane Supreme Court opened in 1862. Its location so near to the public morgue drew more complaints about the continuing presence of this small though essential building. Finally, in 1879, the government constructed a new public morgue, its design attributed to the government architect FDG Stanley, on the riverbank below Queen’s Wharf Road downstream of Victoria Bridge. The single storey timber morgue was at a suitable distance from residences. The area was most noted for its government buildings.

Unfortunately, the public morgue flooded in 1887 and was damaged extensively in a landslip in 1890 when its outer downstream foundations dropped away. It was repaired, only to be destroyed completely in the flood peaks of February 1893. Temporary space was found in the Department of Agriculture and Stock building.

Until a new morgue was constructed, the morgue at the General Hospital in Bowen Hills was then utilised for a public morgue. Funds were not readily forthcoming for a replacement until 1910 when, at a cost of £855.10.00, a new morgue designed by government architect Thomas Pye was built higher on the river bank below Queen’s Wharf Road. Construction was by Thomas Hooper.

This morgue was an improvement on those previous. Measuring 50 feet (15.24 metres) by 16 feet (4.87 metres) it was constructed on concrete supports. A landing jetty was situated below on the river bank. There was no refrigeration or air-conditioning. According to one newspaper report, as many as 2,000 deaths were investigated in this small building over the 16 years the public morgue operated in this location. With the Brisbane City Council keen to beautify the area, and a steep climb necessary from the jetty on the river, the decision was made in 1927 to move the morgue, literally.

This time it was to Alice Street, close to the river. At a cost of £1,333.50.0, the small building was dismantled and resited on deep concrete foundations. Constructed in timber with galvanised iron cladding, this ‘new’ morgue was divided into three sections. When the Brisbane River flooded yet again in April 1928 water surrounded the morgue, but it did not enter the building.  There was no refrigeration until the Second World War (1943), when a refrigeration room was installed.

Key to the operation of the public morgue from 1947 was Doctor John Iredale Tonge. An Army officer in the Second World War, Tonge was the Director of the State Laboratory of Microbiology and Pathology from 1947, following the promotion of Dr Ted Derrick. The laboratory had emerged in 1910 from the Stock Institute and was attached to the Department of Health and Home Affairs.

Tonge’s office was close by, in the 1936 extension to the Department of Agriculture and Stock building in William Street. Were a new morgue to be constructed, Dr Tonge favoured a site in the Domain at Gardens Point (now in the grounds of the Queensland University of Technology) as suitable.

Conditions at the Alice Street morgue were less than favourable. According to Dr Tonge, the building was too small, its layout was not ideal and in its then condition fittings had been declared unhygenic. Following a visit to the morgue by Alex Dewar MLA to identify his deceased mother in 1956, and his subsequent speech in the Legislative Assembly, the need for a new morgue was publicly acknowledged. A minor upgrade costing £1,456 was made, though there were no improvements to the refrigeration facilities, a decision that left a noxious odour in the wind when the refrigeration plant broke down over the long weekend in May 1958.

A final decision on the site for a new morgue was made a year later. Located in the Domain and named the Institute of Forensic Pathology, it was operational from 1962 and remained on the site for thirty years, until 1992 when a new mortuary was constructed adjacent to Queensland Health’s Forensic and Scientific Services on Kessels Road. Dr John Tonge had retired in 1979. The new mortuary was named the John Tonge Centre in his honour.

Acknowledgements:

Butterworth, L. K. What Good is a Coroner? : The transformation of the Queensland Office of Coroner 1859 – 1959. PhD Thesis, Griffith University, April 2012.

Dr John Iredale Tonge CBE MBBS FRCPA in Dr Q May 2013, AMA Queensland. https://issuu.com/amaqueensland/docs/doctorq-mayonline/45

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It soon became apparent that the former Immigration Depot, converted to offices for the Department of Agriculture to occupy in 1890, was too small for the activities of the growing department. More office space was needed as indications were that the Stock Department would be included in the same building when the mooted Department of Agriculture and Stock was created.

Plans attributed to Thomas Pye and John Murdoch, working under Government Architect Alfred Brady, were prepared for an added two wings and an additional storey to the William Street elevation of the former depot. The builders were Caskie and Thompson. The offices were occupied in May 1899. The Department of Agriculture and Stock came into being in 1904.

A new wing to the south of the former depot was constructed substantially in brick by day labour in 1916. Predicted to meet the future needs of the Department for a number of years, this new wing was extended in 1923, ran parallel to William Street and formed part of an overall new main building that would be located across the now vacant land where Pettigrew’s sawmill had been. Plans for the 1923 extension were signed by the government’s acting chief architect, WJ Ewart. This new wing accommodated seed laboratories and stores and an office for the agricultural chemist. Scientific work undertaken during the 1920s was on fruit fly, citrus scale insects, cotton bollworm and codling moth.

A three storey infill block was constructed to adjoin the 1923 block in 1929. This brick extension housed the government entomologist, the government pathologist, libraries and various laboratories.

From plans dated 1933 and signed by AB Leven, the last two extensions were completed by the end of 1936. Offices in this section were allocated to the Government Analyst’s Department, the Public Health Department, the sugar pathologist and the Geological Survey Department.

The various departments began moving from the building in the 1950s and in 1989 the Department of Primary Industries vacated the building completely. In 1994 all the post-1898 extensions were demolished to make way for what became the Neville Bonner building. In 2017 the Neville Bonner building subsequently was demolished as part of the Queen’s Wharf re-development being undertaken by Destination Brisbane Consortium.

Acknowledgement

Bruce Buchanan Architects, Pty Ltd, in association with the Historic Buildings Section of the Department of Administrative Services (Queensland), The Old D.P.I. Building and Environs, Conservation Study August 1990.

Additional Reading

Read the Queensland Heritage Register citation for this building.

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Brisbane may seem like a young city compared with London, Rome and other European and or even Asian cities dating back as far as 5,000 BC. As it turns out, Brisbane has quite a history of its own and some of it lies underground.

Long before Europeans settled along the river city, this continent had been home to over 100,000 Aboriginal Australians. During the convict era of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, between 1824 and 1842, some of the earliest foundations of our built environment were laid.

Queen’s Wharf Road and William Street are two of the oldest streets in Brisbane, as are George, Charlotte, Margaret, Alice and Elizabeth Streets. One of the reasons we have some knowledge of the history surrounding the early streets of Brisbane is due to these particular streets yielding items of archaeological significance.

The original street survey plans provide a clear identification of the early settlement structures. New construction has revealed a deposition and build-up of layers of habitation rather than removal, preserving pieces that fit into the puzzle that is the archaeological record. This process is an archaeologist’s dream as this provides a relatively accurate dating method and allows archaeologists to put historical events into a direct sequence.

With construction of the Riverside Expressway in the 1970s, archaeological evidence of the early constructs of Queen’s Wharf and Pettigrew’s Wharf along the river was lost. However, work on the site of the former Government Printing Office, in conjunction with the construction of the adjacent Executive Building in the 1980s, revealed the footprint of the convict settlement Commandant’s Cottage and kitchen.

Construction sites around the city have revealed tantalising glimpses of early life in Brisbane. During the refurbishment of the Brisbane City Hall, a culvert from the 1880s was found. In 2011 a broken water main in William Street damaged the Commissariat Stores but provided an opportunity for archaeologists to investigate the mound of dirt and rubble that slid towards and into the building. Here they found more than 8,500 individual artefacts from the 1800s. These included bones, bottles, ceramic ware and shell that gave an interesting insight to the diet and lifestyle of Brisbane people at this time.

Until 2016, the historical streets of the Queen’s Wharf precinct remained the least disturbed in the central business district, with a high potential for exposing cultural artefacts and remains. Archaeological work undertaken in conjunction with the Queen’s Wharf Integrated Casino Development may reveal more.

Sources

Queensland Heritage Register citation for the Early Streets of Brisbane

Sydney Morning Herald article on 2011 archaeological treasures found

Additional Reading

Read more on archaeology at Brisbane City Hall

Read the media release on the Early Streets of Brisbane.

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Demolition of the Neville Bonner Building, formerly at 75 William Street, began in January 2017 to make way for the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane redevelopment.

The building was named after Senator Neville Bonner (1922–1999), the first Indigenous Australian to be elected to the Federal Parliament.

The building of the Riverside Expressway in the 1970s divorced the land and government buildings along William Street from the Brisbane River. Completed in December 1998, the Neville Bonner Building was the first major government building constructed in what had become an unused area.

The building’s architects, Davenport Campbell with Donovan Hill and Powell Dods Thorpe, had to manage a challenging site, bounded on two sides by the Riverside Expressway and the Margaret Street off ramp, with their attendant noise and fumes. On the upstream side was  the former Department of Agriculture and Stock (later DPI) building, which had opened in 1866 as an Immigration Depot. To contend with also was a drop of nine metres between William Street and Queen’s Wharf Road.

At the time of its construction, the Neville Bonner Building was considered to be architecturally intelligent and original, with its related spaces establishing new and demanding standards for future government developments. The architects collaborated with artists Barbara Heath, Ron Hurley, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott and Yenda Carson so that pieces of their art could be included in and around the building. The most visible of these is The Net by Barbara Heath. Until its removal for relocation, The Net was fastened to the wall outside the entrance. It referenced related themes of the area’s original Indigenous inhabitants, including connections between the land and river, and their associated fishing practices. Hence the idea of a net. In November 2016 it was removed for cleaning and will be relocated to 1 William Street early in 2017.

Writing for Architecture Australia, Professor Michael Keniger (then head of the Department of Architecture at the University of Queensland) noted that, ‘The simplicity of the planning is masked by the complexity and staccato tactility of the elevations, which are enlivened by an interplay between the inner layer of glass cladding and suspended external screens of precast concrete panels and metal mesh blades’.  Not everyone agreed. Jim Soorley, then Brisbane’s Lord Mayor, described it as ‘ugly’.

The building, however, won two architectural awards for design:

The RAIA (National) Commercial Award 1999 and the

RAIA (Queensland) F.D.G Stanley Award & Regional Commendation 1999.

The Neville Bonner Building was demolished in the course of 2017, with the site becoming part of the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane redevelopment. At a cultural closing ceremony held in the building in August 2016 it was announced that the planned pedestrian bridge between Queen’s Wharf and Southbank would be named the Neville Bonner Bridge. In 2021 it is under construction. The artwork from the Neville Bonner Building was distributed between Parliament  House and 1 William Street.

Additional Reading

Architecture Australia, May 1999, vol. 88 no. 3.

The story of Neville Bonner on the Historic Queen’s Wharf website

In its brief 50 year history, the building on William Street which began as the United Evangelical Church took on several roles, from Church to Telegraph Office to offices for the Department of Public Instruction.

When they arrived, the Baptists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists encouraged to emigrate to Moreton Bay by Dr John Dunmore Lang in the late 1840s did not have a dedicated church in which to worship. To serve their needs, Reverend Charles Stewart, the congregation’s first minister and the man who had been the chaplain on the Fortitude, initially held services in the Brisbane Court House.

Remarkably, by October 1850 enough money had been raised by the United Evangelical congregation for the building of a 400-seat church. A tender from builder Alexander Gould was accepted. Earlier that year Gould had completed work on the town’s first Catholic Church, what we know today as the heritage listed Old St Stephen’s, or Pugin’s Chapel, in Elizabeth Street. The first service was conducted by Reverend Stewart in the William Street church on 13 April 1851.

The Reverend Stewart’s ill-health caused him to resign in December 1854. With no successor to take his place, the three diversifying groups split. Only Lang’s Presbyterians continued to meet in the building, from 1855 regularly referred to as Lang’s Church . In February 1857 the whole parcel of church-owned land, from William Street through to George Street, was put up in three lots for auction.

The chapel itself was built of brick and was 60 by 40 feet (18.2 by 12.1 metres) and 18ft (4.4 metres) high. The subdivision on which the chapel was located (Lot 1) had a 117 foot (35.6 metre) frontage on William Street and a depth of 115ft 6ins (35.2 metres), with access to a 17ft (5.2 metres) wide side passage (Telegraph, later Stephens Lane) running through to George Street. Reverend Lang purchased this allotment, on behalf of the Presbyterian body, for £1,080. Behind Lot 1, fronting George Street, were the smaller Lots 2 and 3, vacant land which had 50ft (15.2 metres) street frontages and were 120ft (36.5 metres) deep. They sold for £265 and £185 respectively.

After only four years, the Presbyterian Congregation moved out of the church. In 1860 Lang sold the building and land to the Queensland Government. The old church building became the first official Electric Telegraph Office in Brisbane, used as such until 1879 when telegraphic operations moved to the GPO Building in Queen Street. The old church then was converted into a residence for the Government Printer, whose workplace, the Government Printing Office, had been located in this section of William Street since 1862.

It is not known when the Government Printer moved residence. By 1889 it was occupied by the Department of Public Instruction. This department remained in the former church until 1893 and nothing further is known of its occupants between this date and the demolition of the former church in June 1899, an action required to make way for the Lands Administration Building on which construction would begin in 1901.

By the time of its completion in 1905, the Land Administration Building was known as the Executive Building. It housed the offices of the Premier, Executive Council and Cabinet. Today this building is the Treasury Heritage Hotel and little reminder of the United Evangelical Church, other than a plaque on the William Street wall of the former Government Printing Office, remains.

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The Queensland Government Printing Office was located between William and George Streets from 1862 until 1983. In that time, new buildings were erected and old ones demolished as the demands on the Office changed.

From 1859, the new colony’s building program began with Government House. The Government Printing Office soon followed.  The Brisbane Courier reported in March 1862 that the new Government printing office had been handed over in full working order to the Government Printer. The building was designed by Queensland’s first Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin. It was a two storey building of hard wood with nine rooms including a composing room 50 feet by 30 feet (15 metres by 9 metres) and cost £1,153. Inside were six superior presses dedicated to the work of printing, not just Hansard (the record of parliamentary proceedings) which was first published in 1864, and Votes and Proceedings,  but also, according to Wikipedia,  ‘postage stamps, Government Gazettes, Acts of Parliament, annual reports of departments, survey maps, text books, electoral rolls, school readers, and banknotes’.

The growth in Government printing meant that the building was altered twice in the first two years. In 1865 an additional L shaped, three storey brick and stone building, again designed by Tiffin, was erected to the rear of the original building. Included was a small engine room with workshop. A detailed description published in the Queenslander in October 1866 presented a very clear picture of the setup of the expanded printery. Its new steam driven printing press, recently imported from England, could print 1200 sheets an hour.

By 1872 the work of the printery had increased to such an extent that the Government Printer requested a new building. Designed by FDG Stanley, who became Colonial Architect that year, and built by John Petrie, the building cost £5,331/3/6. It was completed in 1874. The new William Street building was  an L shaped brick building with the front wing replacing the original timber building. The second wing extended on to what was the site of the original convict era Commandant’s cottage and kitchen (demolished circa 1861), wrapping around the south-eastern side of the 1865 building. The building was fitted initially with gas lights. By 1883 was the first government building to have the Edison’s incandescent lights installed, as a trial.

In 1879 the Government Printer’s residence was established in what had once been the Evangelical Chapel. From 1861 it had been used as the Telegraph Office, hence Telegraph (later Stephens) Lane. The engine room, enlarged in 1880, was demolished between 1884 and 1887 to make way for extensions. Three new buildings – a three storey brick building along Telegraph Lane, a two storey brick engine room and a two storey brick Lithograph office – were attributed to architect JJ Clark and built by John Petrie at a cost of £21,043. The engine room with steam engines and generators, completed in late 1885, supplied electrical power to the Printing Office machinery only initially. By 1886 it was supplying power to Parliament House as well via underground cables. Small changes were made to the older buildings over the next ten years or so, including a concrete plinth to protect the foundations of the William Street building when the level of the street was lowered in 1892.

In 1901 the old Evangelical Church/Telegraph Office/Government Printer’s residence was demolished to make way for the construction of the Land Administration Building (now the Treasury Hotel). George Street had become more important than William Street and, between 1910 and 1912, a three storey brick extension wing was built on George Street to connect the 1887 Telegraph/Stephens Lane building and the Lithograph Office in a U shape around the engine room. This last printery building was the new public front for the Government Printing Office. On the parapet above the main entrance are two free standing devils with a devil’s head carved in relief, directly above the entrance. Traditionally devils are a symbol of the printing trade, generally accepted as representing the printer’s apprentices. In 1912 electricity was connected to all the buildings on the site by the Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company. Various improvements were made to the existing buildings over the next decades and small building works undertaken.

A 1965 master plan for the area between William and George Streets would have seen everything demolished between the Land Administration Building and Parliament House. Only the Executive Building from this plan was built, between 1968 and 1971. A second master plan in 1974 for the same area saw the very contentious demolition of the Bellevue Hotel (in April 1979), although the Mansions and Harris Terrace were retained.

The Government Printing Office moved to new premises in Woolloongabba in 1983. A number of buildings were demolished in 1986 to make way for a four storey annex connected to the Executive Building and a four storey underground car park. The only buildings to remain were the William Street building, the George Street/Stephens Lane building and the section fronting George Street. Until late 2016m the William Street section was the Public Services Club and the section fronting George Street was used by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. From January 2017 the former Government Printing Office was included within the construction site boundary of the Queen’s Wharf  redevelopment being undertaken by Destination Brisbane Consortium. Currently inaccessible due to that redevelopment, the heritage listed buildings are to be repurposed and open to the public once the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane is completed.

Acknowledgements:

Brisbane Courier, 10 April 1883, p. 5.

Read the Queensland Heritage Register citation for the Government Printing Office (former)

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In a quiet courtyard between William Street and George Street can be found the footprint of the cottage constructed for the commandants of Moreton Bay. A long building with one verandah facing the river and one facing north, it was located away from those places occupied by convicts and soldiers. High on the bank it addressed the river and overlooked a tropical garden.

Not all commandants occupied the cottage. Not all commandants had wives who journeyed to this distant outpost with their soldier husbands. Jane Miller, the wife of first commandant Henry Miller (1784-1866), was the mother of three boys when she moved into the prefabricated wooden building that first housed the Commandant. Their youngest son had been born during the initial settlement period at Redcliffe, prior to the removal of convicts and soldiers to the Brisbane River site.

Julia Bishop, wife of the second commandant Peter Bishop, was not with her husband in the Moreton Bay Penal Colony when Commandant Bishop replaced Henry Miller in August 1825. Bishop described the accommodations as ‘merely temporary, being constructed of slabs and plastering’. Bishop was replaced by Patrick Logan in March 1826.

Patrick Logan (1796-1830), with his wife Letitia Anne, her sister Hannah Charlotte O’Beirne, son Robert Abraham and daughter Letitia Bingham (born in the cottage in 1826), occupied the commandant’s cottage until Logan’s death in October 1830. Assistant Surgeon Murray wrote to his sister of Letitia Logan, describing her as a very nice woman who could not have been more kind and attentive. He found her sister, Charlotte O’Beirne, likeable and always enjoyed his visits to the cottage, referring to it, correctly for the time, as Government House. The story of Letitia Anne Logan would be perhaps the most tragic of all the women who lived in the cottage. Following Logan’s death while exploring in the Brisbane Valley, Letitia Logan returned to Sydney accompanied by Surgeon Murray and her small family group. Patrick Logan was buried in the Devonshire Street/Surry Hills Cemetery there.

Moreton Bay Commandant between October 1830 and November 1835, Captain James Clunie (1795-1851), was not married at the time of his posting to the penal settlement. Sadly, one of his first duties was to establish the events that had led to the death of his predecessor. James Clunie served for a short period as a magistrate in Sydney before serving with his regiment, the 17th Regiment, in India. He eventually rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Captain Foster Fyans (1790-1870) from the 4th (Kings Own) Regiment was likewise not married when he served as Commandant of Moreton Bay, from November 1835 until July 1837. Foster Fynes had been Captain of the Guard at Norfolk Island. Hoping for a position in the Civil Service he was appointed Commandant to Moreton Bay. There, in his own words, he found ‘tractable material, successfully balanced discipline and humanity’. During his time the number of convicts sent to Moreton Bay decreased and those who were at the settlement had shorter sentences. The idea of opening the area up to free settlement had begun to take hold. In 1837 Fynes’ regiment was ordered to India.  At the same time the new town of Geelong in Victoria required a magistrate. Foster Fyans was chosen for Geelong.

The next Commandant of Moreton Bay was Captain Sydney John Cotton (1792-1874) from the 28th Regiment. He was Commandant from July 1837 to May 1839, when the penal settlement was moving steadily towards free settlement. Cotton had married Marianne Hackett in 1822 and they had four children, two boys and two girls. From a high of 1,020 convicts in 1831, by 1837 the numbers of convicts in Brisbane had been reduced to 300.

As commandants, Lieutenant Gravatt (1839) and Lieutenant Gorman (1839-42) oversaw a steadily reducing convict population. By 1839 there were no female prisoners and only 94 males and transportation to Moreton Bay had stopped. During his time as Commandant, Gorman was accused of immoral conduct and was responsible for the dismissal of the surveyor Robert Dixon. He also found an easier route through to the Darling Downs, now known as Gorman’s Gap.

In February 1842 Brisbane was declared open for free settlement.

And so to the last occupant…

The final resident of the Commandant’s Cottage was John Wickham (1798-1864) who was appointed the police magistrate at Moreton Bay in November 1842 and took up his position in January 1843. He lived in the cottage with his first wife, the former Anna MacArthur, whom he had married in 1842. By now the Commandant’s Cottage was not in good condition and in 1847 Wickham purchased the property known as Newstead (today’s Newstead House) from his brother-in-law, Patrick Leslie. It became the unofficial Government House.

The Commandant’s Cottage was demolished and in 1862 the Queensland Government Printing Office was erected on and around the site. In 2017 the site was included in the Queen’s Wharf redevelopment being undertaken by Destination Brisbane Consortium. The Commandant’s Cottage footprint will be accessible again on completion of the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane redevelopment.

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The Moreton Bay settlement was in a state of flux in the first decade following the departure of the convicts and before the first immigrants arrived. Having served its purpose for the arrival and departure of convicts, the now Queen’s Wharf was the primary public landing place for North Brisbane.

Surveyor James Warner subdivided out the section of land on the river side of William Street, between the Queen’s Wharf reserve and Margaret Street. Five of the seven waterside allotments had direct river access. The allotment nearest the wharf was smaller. All were advertised for sale in June 1849 and those that did not sell were re-advertised in 1850.

Allotment no. 1 nearest Margaret Street was purchased by Thomas Coutts who owned the steamer Raven that for a short period carried goods and passengers between Brisbane and Ipswich. Following the death of Coutts in 1868, allotment no. 1 was sold to William Pettigrew.

Pettigrew had already purchased allotment no. 2 in 1850, constructing by January 1853 a sawmill building on the site. He contracted John Petrie to erect a 12 metre high brick chimney for the mill. All expansion of Pettigrew’s sawmilling business was made from this allotment.

Also sold in 1850 was allotment no. 3. This was purchased by William and Arthur Binstead for £45.10.0. Both were sawyers who would become pioneer settlers of the Upper Coomera district inland from the coast south of Brisbane. The Binsteads also purchased allotment no. 4. A plan from 1892 shows cottages, stables and sheds constructed on the William Street alignment of the allotments.

Thomas Dowse purchased allotment no. 5 in July 1850. True to the pattern of his financial ups and downs, Dowse offered the allotment for sale in 1860, though he did not find buyers until Matthew Brown Orr and James Honeyman arrived in the colony in 1863. They paid £2,000 for the allotment, subsequently investing double that amount in the construction of store buildings on the site. Their financial reversals led to the insolvency of the Orr and Honeyman business. In November 1871 William Pettigrew obtained title to the land, by that time including a brick and stone building, store no. 1, store no. 2, package store, the wharf, the storeman’s cottage, the stable and drainage. Most of these buildings were damaged during the flood peaks of 1893. In 1901 the Queensland government purchased this and allotment no. 6 to make way for extensions to the Department of Agriculture offices.

Storekeeper George Spottiswood Le Breton purchased allotment no. 6 in August 1849, quickly re-selling it to Margaret Byrne, the mother of Ann Dowse. Here her son-in-lawThomas Dowse constructed his Victoria Wharf and stores. As Dowse’s financial circumstances changed he and Ann Dowse variously mortgaged the property, turned it into a hotel or leased it. Dowse retained the property following Ann’s death in 1853, describing the still operational wharf in his writings of the period as ‘Old Tom’s Folly’. William Pettigrew purchased the allotment in 1874.

Although the Survey Plan indicates initial ownership of allotment no. 7 to James Chambers, the dealing documents for the allotment show the land was vested in the name of Jane Chambers, wife of Henry Chambers, in August 1849. Henry and Jane Chambers opened an inn on the site in 1850 called the Green Man. Their mortgagee, Jeremiah Daly, later became the owner. The inn was operated by a number of licenced publicans. In 1859, butcher and businessman Patrick Mayne became the owner of allotment no. 7. Following his death the allotment was sold to William Pettigrew.

The story of these allotments begins with their sale by the Crown to hopeful small business owners, matures as business expands to achieve economy of scale and concludes with government re-acquisition for the purposes of their expansion – a story which ends where it began.

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