A History by Design

Brisbane 1919

  

" ...on the waters of a wide and deep river..."

North Quay, Brisbane, c1900s

Fryer Library, Postcard Collection, PC3O

After taking on a pilot near Cape Moreton, the Orient Line mail steamer slowly made its way across Moreton Bay and into the mouth of the Brisbane River. Its voyage had started in London and progressed via the Suez Canal to Ceylon and on to Australia, berthing at Fremantle, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Brisbane was the end of the line. As the ship progressed upstream, one passenger stayed on deck and took in the view:

"After passing Pinkenba, the character of the river banks improves. And we steam between high slopes on which are pleasantly dotted the charming suburban homes of the well-to-do citizens. Alongside the new wharf at Bulimba, on the waters of a wide and deep river, the ship makes fast, and her outward voyage is at an end."

" ... we steam between high slopes on which are pleasantly dotted the charming suburban homes of the well-to-do... "

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Plans of additions to 'Mayfield', Windermere Road, Hamilton, 1909. Architect: C.W. Chambers

Fryer Library, Conrad & Gargett Collection, UQFL228, Item 406

It was only a short stay, but long enough for brief expeditions around the centre of Brisbane. Our observer recorded a few impressions:

"Brisbane is charmingly situated on the deep waters of the Brisbane River. It is a busy city, but, of course, lacks the magnificence of the greater capitals.

But with Queensland increasing in prosperity at its present pace, it may not be many years before Brisbane will vie with Sydney and Melbourne in importance. It possesses a fine park, fringed by the river, and a run on the electric trams makes a pleasant excursion." [1].

Eight years later, war and recession had dimmed the hopes of Brisbane’s boosters. The city remained a quirky and limited provincial centre, with less than 210,000 people living within ten miles (sixteen kilometres) of the GPO. [2]

  

" ...a run on the electric trams makes a pleasant excursion... "

Customs House, Brisbane, c1910

Fryer Library, Postcard Collection, PC3X

The municipalities of Brisbane and South Brisbane hosted a combined population of only 85,000. [3] While Sydney and Melbourne had continued to broaden their economic horizons, Brisbane on the eve of the 'twenties was still a port city and a centre of administration and finance for the State’s primary and extractive industries.

It is indicative, perhaps, of the absence of large-scale industrial and residential development that nature dominates many of the accounts of Brisbane written in this period.

In 1906 George Essex Evans portrayed Brisbane as something of a sub-tropical idyll:

An amphitheatre of purple hills
And emerald slopes where nestling villas gleam,
Flooded with golden light that crowns and fills
Height, vale and stream.

The clouds float motionless like isles of snow
Set in the sapphire of the summer sky,
The river, like a ribbon, far below
Winds rippling by;

As, like a creeping snake, with curve and sweep
The languid current steals past mead and scar,
To the dark mangroves fringing on the deep
Abreast the bar.

Slow drifts the boat past homestead, town, and lea;
The waters laugh and sob against the side
As down the murmuring river to the sea,
Dreaming, I glide. [4]

"Slow drifts the boat past homestead, town and lea..."

Sailboats on Hamilton Reach of Brisbane River, c1900s

Fryer Library, Wilson Collection, UQFL112, Parcel 62

Even in Fox's History, published in 1919, it was still possible to represent Brisbane as a city under the sway of nature:

"From Mount Coot-tha one of the most striking features of the view lies in the dark green which everywhere clothes the earth, from the distant sand rimmed edge of Moreton Bay to the dim blue of the far distant western mountains." [5]

For F.W. Thiel, writing in 1922, Brisbane offered a pleasing blend of the built and natural:

"On both sides of Queen, George, Edward, Wickham and Brunswick Streets the substantially built premises of the various financial, commercial, mercantile and industrial establishments arrest the observation of the visitor, and [the] well arranged tram system and other forms of speedy locomotion demonstrate that the metropolis of Queensland is decidedly progressive in every respect. Nature has bestowed scenic glories upon Southern Queensland in a most lavish manner, and the beauties of the Brisbane River from its watershed to its entry into Moreton Bay excite the admiration of all visitors." [6]

Yet changes were underway.
In Emily Bulcock's ode, 'The Brisbane River - Oxley's Coming, 1823', nature was in full retreat:

Then came swift Progress, and the axe laid low
Banksia and bloodwood, sweet with spicy bloom;
Treated no more as friend, but rather foe –
The white man bade the woods "Make room! Make room!"

Far from lamenting this destruction,
Bulcock welcomed the metropolis that was emerging as a triumph of Europe's civilising presence:

And see, to-day, where winds that splendid stream,
A sweet young city laughing in the sun;
Ah! Gloriously fulfilled is Oxley's dream -
Rare trophies Progress has so swiftly won. [7]

A new villa for a sweet young city...

Plans for a new house, New Farm, 1914. Architects: H.W. Atkinson & Chas McLay

Fryer Library, Conrad & Gargett Collection, UQFL228, Item 381

    Click to view zoomable image

Published in Brisbane's official centenary history in 1924, Bulcock's poem expressed a particularly capitalist and utilitarian vision of the city's development.

There were, however, other perspectives and other forces to be reckoned with.

Brisbane's built environment between the wars would be textured not only by the ideology of Progress, but also the broader agencies of economic, political and social history.

A busy city, but lacking the magnificence of greater capitals?

City Wharves, Brisbane, c1910

Fryer Library, Postcard Collection, PC3P

  
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