South Brisbane Memorial Park
A Memorial to What?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1375/qr.18.1.54Keywords:
South Brisbane Memorial Park, empty pedestal, memorialisationAbstract
In the centre of the old city of South Brisbane, at the intersection of its two main streets, Stanley and Vulture, one finds a small, triangular park. Its most obvious feature is the grand set of stairs leading up from Stanley Street, near the Ship Inn Hotel. These stairs have a commanding presence, inviting the walker to ascend to an imposing edifice, but at the top they simply end. Part-way up, a couple of metres above street level, a pedestal, 2 metres high and 2.5 metres across, draws the eye upwards; it should be supporting an iconic statue, perhaps 3 or 4 metres high, but there is nothing. I’ve lived in the South Brisbane area for most of the past 40 years, and the mystery of the grand stairs and empty pedestal of South Brisbane Memorial Park has long puzzled me. What is this park memorialising? If a war, then which war, and why is it not known as South Brisbane War Memorial Park? These are some of the questions my research sought to uncover.
References
R Kidd, ‘Aboriginal History of South Brisbane’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Vol. 17, No. 11 (2001): 463–4.
It had been established at what is now Redcliffe on 14 September 1824, but moved to what is now Brisbane in the following March.
The western side was today’s Boundary Street, South Brisbane and West End, projected to intersect Boundary Street, Spring Hill (the northern boundary). The eastern boundary was today’s Wellington Road, Kangaroo Point and East Brisbane, with the river serving as the boundary between where it meets Wellington Road and Boundary Street, Fortitude Valley.
The peculiar layout of streets within central Brisbane arose because, while the four boundaries were laid out without reference to the river, the internal streets were laid out on a grid, roughly aligned to the South Brisbane Reach of the river.
These were at the corner of Stanley and Dock Streets, and remain today as Griffith Film School.
FJ Brewer and R Dunn, The Municipal History of South Brisbane (Brisbane: H Pole & Co Printers, 1925).
W Metcalf, ‘Dr Thomas Pennington Lucas: Queensland Scientist, Author, Doctor, Dreamer and Inventor’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, vol. 19, no. 5 (2006): 788–804.
Information gleaned from various Post Office Directories.
Brisbane Courier, 18 October 1888: 6.
D Watson and J McKay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A Biographical Dictionary (Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994), pp. 5–6.
Brisbane Courier, 27 April 1893: 4.
Brisbane Courier 4 May 1892: 6.
Brisbane Courier 9 November 1915: 3.
Brisbane Courier 4 May 1895: 6.
Brisbane Courier 28 June 1913: 4
K Calthorpe and K Capell, Brisbane on Fire: A History of Firefighting (Brisbane: Ken Capell, 1997), p. 126.
Calthorpe and Capell, Brisbane on Fire, p. 231.
K Inglis, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2008), pp. 117–87.
J Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape (New York: Praeger, 1988), pp. 1, 20.
Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape, p. 6.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 15.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 14.
S McIvor and T McIvor, Salute the Brave (Toowoomba: University of Southern Queensland Press, 1994), p. 7.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 129.
Brisbane Courier, 21 May 1921: 7.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 124.
Brisbane Courier, 7 June 1921: 4.
Inglis, Sacred Places, pp. 6, 133.
Brisbane Courier, 29 May 1920: 5.
Brisbane Courier, 10 September 1920: 8
George Henry Male Addison, born in Wales in 1857, arrived in Australia in 1883 and came to Brisbane in 1886, where he was very active in artistic and bohemian circles. He died in 1922 after a protracted illness. Watson and McKay, Queensland Architects, pp. 5–6.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 124.
Brisbane Courier, 10 September 1920: 8, and 14 October 1920: 7.
Plans found in Brisbane Courier, 11 November 1920: 7.
Inglis, Sacred Places, pp. 144, 139, 275.
Brisbane Courier, 26 October 1920: 8.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 131.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 127.
This public hall, built in 1902, is today the ‘sound stage’ of Griffith Film School, and occasionally still serves as a public venue.
The Princess Theatre still exists and is used for theatrical productions and church services.
Brisbane Courier, 8 July 1922: 19.
Brisbane Courier, 15 February 1921: 6.
Brisbane Courier, 1 March 1921: 6.
Brisbane Courier, 13 April 1921: 11.
Brisbane Courier, 11 May 1921: 9.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 137.
For example, Brisbane Courier, 23 February 1922: 4.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 122.
The land on which the South Brisbane Fire Station stood came under the control of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board on 1 July 1921.
Brisbane Courier, 27 April 1922: 4.
Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 128.
Brisbane Courier, 5 January 1923: 15.
Queenslander, 5 August 1922: 21.
Brisbane Courier, 2 September 1922: 6. Addison died on 6 February of that year.
Brisbane Courier, 26 September1922: 6. This bandstand was never built.
Brisbane Courier, 17 October1922: 4.
Brisbane Courier, 19 October1922: 13.
Brisbane Courier, 5 January 1923: 15. The bandstand, the fountain and the Grecian columns were ever built.
Brisbane Courier, 17 March 1923: 4.
Brisbane Courier, 6 August 1923: 6; Daily Mail, 6 August 1923: 19, and 7 August 1923: 25.
Brisbane Courier, 7 August 1923: 7.
Telegraph, 6 August 1923: 8.
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Inglis, Sacred Places, p. 126.
Brisbane Courier, 20 March 1924: 7.
Brisbane Courier, 10 May 1924: 17.
Anzac Square resulted from a 1916 initiative to create a large war memorial park, with a monument, in the centre of the city of Brisbane. Originally, the square was to include the whole area bounded by Ann, Edward, Adelaide and Creek Streets, but this plan proved too ambitious. In 1928, plans were finally settled and work began on Anzac Square. Governor Sir John Goodwin officially opened Anzac Square on Armistice Day 1930.
Brewer and Dunn, The Municipal History of South Brisbane, p. 112.
Brisbane Courier, 22 January 1926: 6
Inglis, Sacred Places, pp. 157 and 60.
Ronald Martin Wilson was a local architect who worked with his father, Alex Wilson. See Watson and McKay, A Directory of Queensland Architects, pp. 209–10.
Architects and Builders Journal of Queensland, vol. IV, no. 44, 10 February 1926: 55; and Brisbane Courier 22 January 1926: 6.
Judith McKay Collection, University of Queensland Fryer Library, Acc: 880606, Box 7.
Brisbane Courier, 4 April 1928: 26. The land on which the South Brisbane Fire Station stood was under the control of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Board, and that Board had come under the control of Brisbane City Council in 1925.
Brisbane Courier, 4 July 1928: 6.
Brisbane Courier, 12 September 1928: 7.
Brisbane Courier, 30 May 1929: 13.
Brisbane Courier, 9 August 1929: 18.
Brisbane Courier, 3 March 1930: 3.
Courier-Mail, 4 April 1936: 14.
Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape, p. 4.
Courier-Mail, 28 October 1933: 18.
Brisbane Courier, 18 July 1922: 9.
Brisbane Courier, 16 January 1932: 17.
Brisbane Courier, 11 February 1932: 13.
Brisbane Courier, 11 February 1932: 13. Anzac Square, with cenotaph, was not completed until 1930.
Telegraph, 15 February 1946: 5.
Courier-Mail, 10 May 1952: 5.
Courier-Mail, 2 July 1952: 2.
Courier-Mail, 12 January 1954: 3.
Courier-Mail, 25 February 1954: 3.
Later, a Chandler Park was created along the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly.
Courier-Mail, 26 April 1954: 5, and 30 August 1954: 3.
Sunday Mail 2 March 1958: 30.
W Metcalf, ‘The Ship Inn Hotel: A Story of South Brisbane and Southbank’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Vol. 20, No. 2, 2007: 31–49.
The first section of this building was built in 1881–82 as the South Brisbane Post and Telegraph Office, but it spent most of its chequered career as the South Brisbane Municipal Library and Art Gallery.
Inscribed with: ‘Honour and Glory of our fallen comrades, World War II, 1939–1945. Erected by 2/31 Battalion AIF’. This plaque has no date on it, but was probably installed in 1954 (Courier-Mail, 30 August 1954: 3).
Inscribed on the front with: ‘To the Memory of the Fallen: World War I 1914–1918 / World War II 1939–1945 / Korea / Malaya / Vietnam’, and on the back with: ‘Lest We Forget / R.S.S. & A.I.L.A. / South Brisbane Sub-Branch’.
This was installed in March 1986. See Courier-Mail, 11 March 1986: 16.
J McKay, Lest We Forget: A Study of War Memorials in Queensland (Brisbane: Returned Services League, 1985), p. 1.
Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape, p. 7.
