Civic is the city centre or central business district of Canberra. Civic is a common name for the district, but it is also called Civic Centre, City Centre, Canberra City and Canberra, and its official division name is City (postcode: 2601). Canberra's City was established in 1927, although the division name City was not gazetted until 20 September 1928. Walter Burley Griffin's design for Canberra included a Civic Centre with a separate Market Centre located at what is now Russell. However Prime Minister Stanley Bruce vetoed this idea and only the Civic Centre was developed; the idea of the Market Centre was abandoned. Some of the earliest buildings constructed in Canberra were the Sydney and Melbourne buildings which flank Northbourne Avenue. The buildings house many shops, bars and restaurants. S20N_664

The Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC), located on the south bank of the Brisbane River opposite the central business district, is the state's principal cultural venue and an important example of late 20th century modernist architecture. Constructed between 1976 and 1998, this ambitious complex, a milestone in the history of the arts in Queensland and the evolution of the state, was designed by renowned Queensland architect Robin Gibson in conjunction with the Queensland Department of Public Works, for the people of Queensland.

The Cultural Centre includes the Queensland Art Gallery (1982), the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (1984), the Queensland Museum (1986), the State Library and The Fountain Room Restaurant and Auditorium (The Edge in 2015) (1988). The substantially altered State Library and the Gallery of Modern Art are part of the broader cultural precinct but are not included in the heritage register boundary.

South Brisbane before the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC)

By the late 1960s, much of South Brisbane, especially along the river, was in economic decline. Prior to European settlement, the whole of the South Brisbane peninsula was known as Kurilpa, an important meeting place for the Yuggera/Jagera people. The tip of the South Brisbane peninsula was a traditional river crossing. After the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal settlement in 1825, convicts cleared the river flats to grow grain for the settlement and during the 1830s, timber from the south bank was exported to Sydney.

From the 1840s, South Brisbane developed as one of Queensland's key location for portside activity, initially advantaged by its more direct access to the Darling Downs and Ipswich. As maritime trade expanded, wharfs and stores were progressively established adjacent to the river. Over time, a range of commercial, light industrial and manufacturing activities also occurred, along with civic and residential land uses. The area prospered in the 1880s and South Brisbane became a municipality in 1888. Along with the development boom, a dry dock was opened in 1881, coal wharves and associated rail links were constructed and South Brisbane was established as the passenger terminus for suburban and country train lines.

By the end of the 19th century, the area had evolved into a substantial urban settlement, with Stanley Street a major retail centre and thoroughfare. Such development however, could not arrest a gradual 20th century decline which accelerated after World War II, influenced by the reorientation of economic activity and transport networks in Brisbane. Post-war, wharves, stores and railway sidings closed and were subsequently demolished, with the progressive relocation of shipping downriver. The decline of such a centrally located area in the capital city presented an opportunity for significant urban renewal.

Impetus for the Queensland Cultural Centre

The pressure to address the lack of adequate cultural facilities in Queensland increased in the 1960s, as public awareness of the importance of the arts to the cultural health of the community was rising. At this time, the Queensland's principal cultural institutions were located in buildings and sites in Brisbane that did not meet their existing or future requirements. The first purpose-built Museum had opened in William Street in 1879 but proved inadequate from the outset. It was converted to the Public Library of Queensland (the State Library from 1971) in 1900-02, after the 1889 Exhibition Building at Bowen Hills was converted for use as a Museum in 1900. From 1895, the Queensland Art Gallery was housed in the Brisbane Town Hall, moving in 1905 to a purpose designed room on the third floor in the new Executive Building overlooking George Street. When the new City Hall was completed in 1930, the Concert Hall at the Museum building was remodelled to house the art gallery.

Until the opening of the Queensland Cultural Centre, there were no Queensland government-operated performing arts facilities. Most musical and theatrical performances were initially held in local venues such as schools of arts, church halls or town halls, of varying suitability. Purpose-built facilities were limited and only erected in major centres. By the 1880s, Brisbane had four theatres, with the Opera House (later Her Majesty's Theatre), erected in 1888, the most lavish and prestigious, with seating for 2700. The Exhibition Building was one of the first buildings specifically designed for musical performances and contained a concert hall complete with a four-manual pipe organ. It became the centre for major musical events until the opening of the Brisbane City Hall in 1930.

Across Australia, the post-war era saw governments on all tiers commit to large projects related to developing the arts, including standalone and integrated landmark projects for institutions such as libraries, theatres and art galleries. Sites for such projects were often in centrally located areas, where previous uses and activities were in decline, or had become redundant. This type of urban renewal offered a blank slate for development, where the existing layout could be reconfigured and the built environment transformed. The construction of Sydney's Opera House had commenced in 1959; preliminary investigations for Adelaide Festival Centre started in 1964; the National Gallery of Australia was established in 1967; the first stage of the Victorian Arts Centre, the National Gallery of Victoria, was completed in 1969 and Perth's Civic Centre was also developed during the 1960s.

In Queensland, an earlier phase of civic construction (mostly town halls and council chambers) occurred in the 1930s, often incorporating spaces for arts and cultural activities. By the early 1950s, architect and town planner Karl Langer was designing civic centre complexes for larger regional centres such as Mackay, Toowoomba and Kingaroy.

Several attempts were made to secure stately cultural facilities in Queensland's capital but each came to nothing. Construction of an art gallery and museum near the entrance to the Government Domain, on a site granted in 1863, never eventuated. In the 1890s a major architectural competition for a museum and art gallery on a site in Albert Park sought to address the need for sufficient premises. In 1934, on a nearby site along Wickham Park and Turbot Street, an ambitious urban design proposal to incorporate a public art gallery, library and dental hospital resulted only in the construction of the Brisbane Dental Hospital. Post-WWII plans to incorporate the art gallery in the extensions to the original Supreme Court Building did not eventuate. The Queensland Art Gallery Act 1959 paved the way for a new Board of Trustees to establish a gallery with public funds subsidized by Government. The proposal at that time, for a gallery and performance hall at Gardens Point, to mark Queensland's centenary, was not realised; however, an extension to the State Library proceeded and included an exhibition hall and reading rooms.

A proposal for a State Gallery and Centre for Allied Arts, on the former municipal markets site adjacent to the Roma Street Railway station, formed part of a government backed plan for the redevelopment of the Roma Street area. Prepared by Bligh Jessup Bretnall & Partners in 1967, this substantial development over a number of city blocks, inspired by the redevelopment of redundant inner city areas in Europe and new towns in America, incorporated a significant commercial component. The plan was abandoned in 1968 due to conflicting local and state interests, together with the lack of an acceptable tender.

The following year, the Treasury Department initiated a formal investigation into a suitable site for an art gallery, led by Treasurer, Deputy Premier and Liberal Party Leader, Gordon Chalk. An expert committee, including Coordinator-General Charles Barton as chair, Under-Secretary of Works David Mercer and Assistant Under-Secretary Roman Pavlyshyn, considered 12 sites, including those from previous proposals. Three sites were shortlisted: The Holy Name Cathedral site in Fortitude Valley; upstream of the Victoria Bridge at South Brisbane; and the BCC Transport Depot in Coronation Drive. The South Brisbane site was preferred, considered to be the most advantageous for the city and the most architecturally suitable. The recommendation was accepted and work on progressing a design commenced.

Architectural competition and concept (1289)

In April 1973, Robin Gibson and Partners Architects won a two-staged competition to design the new Queensland Art Gallery at South Brisbane, with a sophisticated scheme considered superior in its simplicity and presentation. While this design was never realised, the art gallery that was built as part of the Cultural Centre was in many ways very similar, including the palette of materials and modernist design details inspired by the 1969 Oaklands Museum in California. The original design occupied the block bounded by Melbourne, Grey, Stanley and Peel Streets. Over Stanley Street, a pedestrian walkway connected the gallery to the top of an amphitheatre leading to sculpture gardens along the river.

The development of cultural facilities was reconsidered during 1974, evolving into a much more ambitious project. In early November, Deputy Premier Sir Gordon Chalk (who had a real interest and commitment to developing the arts in Queensland) announced as an election policy, a proposal for a $45 million dollar cultural complex. While the development of the Art Gallery had been progressing, Chalk, with the assistance of Under Treasurer Leo Hielscher, had covertly commissioned Robin Gibson to produce a master plan for an integrated complex of buildings which would form the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC). The plan included an Art Gallery, Museum, Performing Arts Centre, State Library and an auditorium and restaurant. The devastating floods of January, which had further hastened the decline of South Brisbane, provided a timely opportunity to utilise more space adjacent to the river, through resumptions of flood prone land.

When the proposal was submitted to Cabinet by Chalk in late November, it was initially opposed by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. However, the support of Brisbane's Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, (who gifted council-owned allotments on what became the QPAC site); influential public servants Hielscher, Pavlyshyn; Mercer, and Sir David Muir, Director of the Department of Commercial and Industrial Development, helped the project gain momentum. After winning the December 7 election, the proposal was formally adopted by the Bjelke-Petersen government. Muir was appointed chairman of the planning committee and became the first chairman of the QCC Trust.

Gibson's November 1974 Cultural Centre master plan differed significantly from his winning competition design for the Gallery and gave Gibson the opportunity to further demonstrate his planning principles for inner city development. Stanley Street was to be diverted under the Victoria Bridge through to Peel Street, with the Art Gallery and Museum occupying one large block. The scheme included building forms with oblique angles to the street grid, to address the main approaches. The Performing Arts building, comprising a single, multi-purpose hall, and the Art Gallery, extending from the Museum to the river's edge, were aligned diagonally around a Melbourne Street axis to address the approach from the Victoria Bridge. Pedestrian bridges provided access across the site over Melbourne Street and to the South Brisbane Railway Station over Grey Street.

Gibson's design of the QCC sought to convey a relaxed atmosphere reflective of Queensland's lifestyle. A simple, disciplined palette of materials, and design elements was adopted and rigorously maintained throughout the lengthy construction program to unify the complex: off-white sandblasted concrete; cubic forms with deeply recessed glazing; a constancy of structural elements, fixtures and finishes; repetitive stepped profiles and extensive integrated landscaping.

A fundamental conceptual aspect of the Cultural Centre's design was its relationship to the Brisbane River and the natural environment. Gibson saw the Cultural Centre as an opportunity for ‘amalgamating a major public building with the river on the South Bank'. The external landscaping and built form was carefully articulated to ‘step up' from the river. The comparatively low form of the complex was consciously designed so that the profile of the Taylor Range behind would remain visible when viewed from the city.

Retaining the approved general placement of the individual buildings, subsequent changes to the complex plan included: the orthogonal realignment of each of the buildings; the duplication of the multipurpose hall to create separate purpose-built facilities for musical and theatrical performances; the extension of an existing diversion in Stanley Street upstream to Peel Street and under the Victoria Bridge, which was bridged by a wide plaza as a forecourt to the Gallery.

Robin Gibson & Partners

Robin Gibson (1930-2014) attended Yeronga State School and Brisbane State High before studying architecture at the University of Queensland (UQ). After graduating in 1954, Gibson travelled through Europe and worked in London in the offices of architects, Sir Hugh Casson, Neville Conder, and James Cubitt and Partners. Returning to Brisbane in 1957, he set up an architectural practice commencing with residential projects, soon expanding into larger commercial, public and institutional work. Notable Queensland architects employed by his practice included Geoffrey Pie, Don Winsen, Peter Roy, Allan Kirkwood, Bruce Carlyle and Gabriel Poole.

Gibson's creative, administrative and diplomatic talents were widely recognised. His buildings were consistently simple, refined, and carefully executed, often comprehensively detailed to include fabrics, finishes and furnishings. Characteristically crisp, logical and smoothly functional, his works employed a limited palette of materials and were carefully integrated into their setting.

Robin Gibson & Partners' contribution to Queensland's built environment is significant. Other major architectural projects include: Mayne Hall, University of Queensland (UQ) (1972), Central Library, UQ (1973) Library and Humanities building at Nathan Campus, Griffith University (1975), Post Office Square (1982), Queen Street Mall (1982), Wintergarden building (1984), Colonial Mutual Life (1984) and 111 George Street (1993). Over time, Gibson and his body of work has been highly acclaimed and recognised through numerous awards including: 1968 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Building of the Year award, Kenmore Church; 1982 RAIA Sir Zelman Cowen Award (for public buildings) QAG; 1982 RAIA Canberra Medallion - Belconnen Library, ACT; 1982 Queenslander of the Year; 1983 Order of Australia; 1986 Honorary Doctorate - Griffith University; 1988 Advance Australia Award; 1989 RAIA Gold Medal for outstanding performance and contributions; 2000, and the 2007 25 year RAIA award for Enduring Architecture.

Construction and completion

The design development, documentation and the multifaceted construction program for the entire complex was administered by Roman Pavlyshyn, Director of Building, Department of Public Works. Pavlyshyn had previously overseen the selection of the site and had run the competition for the Queensland Art Gallery. The Cultural Centre was to continue the Department of Public Works' tradition in providing buildings of high quality in design, materials and construction throughout the state.

The funding of the QCC came entirely from the government-owned Golden Casket. The revenue derived from the Golden Casket was effectively ‘freed up' from health funding after Medicare was introduced by the Whitlam government. The then annual income of $4 million was projected to fund the QCC's construction over 10 years. By the early 1980s, inflationary impacts had blown out the cost to $175 million. Under Hielscher's guidance, Treasury looked at other ways to raise revenue. In response, Instant Scratch-Its and mid-week lotto were introduced to Queensland. This successful increase in gambling revenue enabled the QCC to be built at no extra cost to the state's existing budget and without going into debt.

The construction of the Cultural Centre was a complex undertaking and involved a multifaceted program staged over 11 years with a workforce of thousands, from design consultants to onsite labourers. Pavlyshyn guided Stages One, Two and Three to completion and the commencement of Stage Four, before retiring in July 1985. With the number of contractors and suppliers involved, quality control was a critical factor for a successful outcome. For example, the consistent quality of the concrete finish was achieved by securing a guaranteed supply of the principal materials, South Australian white cement, Stradbroke Island sand and Pine River aggregates, for the duration of the project and the strict control of colour and mix for each contract.

The program commenced with the construction of the Art Gallery, the most resolved of the building designs. Stage One also included the underground carpark to the Gallery and Museum and the central services plant facility on the corner of Grey and Peel Streets. Contractors, Graham Evans & Co, commenced construction in March 1977 and the Art Gallery was officially opened by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen on 21 June 1982. When awarding the art gallery the Sir Zelman Cowen Award that year, the RAIA jury declared the art gallery would enrich the fabric of Brisbane for many years to come, praising: the sustained architectural expertise and masterly articulation of space; avoidance of rhetorical gestures and fussy details, noting the building would enrich the fabric of the city for many years to come.

A development plan for the largest component of the complex, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), built as Stage Two, was released in 1976. The project architect for the Centre was Allan Kirkwood from Robin Gibson and Partners and contributors to the development and design of the Centre were theatre consultants, Tom Brown and Peter Knowland, the Performing Arts Trust and user committees. Completed in November 1984 by contractors Barclay Bros Pty Ltd, a concert for workers and the first public performance were held in December ahead of the official opening by the Duke and Duchess of Kent on 20 April 1985.

The Centre comprised three venues, each specifically designed for particular performance types. The Lyric Theatre and Concert Hall shared an entrance off Melbourne Street with shared and mimicked foyers, bars, circulation and ancillary facilities. The Studio theatre, now the Cremorne, had a separate entrance and foyer off Stanley Street with its own discreet ancillary facilities.

The Lyric Theatre, (2200 seats) was designed for large-scale dramatic productions including opera, operettas, musicals, ballets and dance performances. It had an orchestra pit, stalls, two balconies and side aisles. The 1800 seat Concert Hall was designed for orchestral concerts, choral performances, chamber music, recitals, popular entertainment and ceremonies. A Klais Grand Organ, featuring 6500 pipes, was built into the stage area. Its ‘shoe box' form, designed to enhance natural acoustics, incorporated an orchestral pit, stalls, single balcony, side galleries and side aisles. The Studio Theatre was built to accommodate up to 300 seats for dramatic performances and could be configured in 6 different ways, from conventional set-ups to theatre-in-the-round. It had stalls and a balcony level with an internal connection to the other two theatres.

Opened in 1986, the Queensland Museum, (Stage Three), was connected to the Art Gallery by a covered walkway and to the Performing Arts Complex by a footbridge over Melbourne Street. The entrance on the Melbourne Street side of the building was accessed from street level and the Melbourne Street footbridge. Built over the Stage One carpark, the six-level Museum building had four floors open to the public, with the two top levels dedicated to offices, laboratories , library and artefact storage. The first floor was designed for a variety of uses, including lecture halls, back of house, preparatory area and workshops. Levels 2 to 4 showcased collections in galleries situated on either side of a central circulation core comprising walkways, stairs, lifts and escalators. The outdoor area contained a geological garden on Grey Street side (in 2014 the Energex Playasaurus Place). Stage Four included the State Library and adjacent restaurant and auditorium building (The Edge) completed in 1988.

Public artworks

As part of the construction of the QCC, several pieces of public art were commissioned from Australian artists. Five outdoor sculptures were purchased and installed in 1985, the largest commission of public sculpture at one time in Australia. Four were directly commissioned: Anthony Pryor's Approaching Equilibrium (Steel, painted. River plaza-upper deck); Leonard and Kathleen Shillam's Pelicans (Bronze. QAG Water Mall); Ante Dabro's Sisters (Bronze. Melbourne Street plaza) and Rob Robertson-Swann's Leviathan Play (Steel, painted. Melbourne Street plaza). Clement Meadmore's Offshoot (Aluminium, painted. Gallery plaza) was an existing work.

Other public artworks commissioned at the time of construction are located at QPAC: Lawrence Daws' large interior mural, Pacific Nexus and Robert Woodward's Cascade Court Fountain.

Use and modifications

Since opening, the institutions of the QCC have played a dominant role in fostering and enabling cultural and artistic activities of Queensland - through performances, exhibitions, collections and events. The purpose built world class facilities of the complex, with their careful consideration of both front and back of house requirements, have enabled Queensland to host national and international performances, events and exhibitions, and expand and display collections, in a way that was not possible previously. In addition to the QCC's artistic endeavours, the role of the Queensland Museum in science disciplines has also been an important activity. The QCC (as part of the larger Cultural Precinct) is a major visitor destination in Brisbane; millions of people from Queensland and elsewhere have visited the site.

The successful development of the Cultural Centre was the catalyst for the broader renewal of South Brisbane along the Brisbane River. In 1983 Queensland won the right to hold the 1988 World Exposition (Expo 88). The site for Expo 88 was directly adjacent to the Cultural Centre and underwent a major transformation to host the event. Robin Gibson designed the Queensland Pavilion. Expo 88 was a highly successful for Brisbane and Queensland. After Expo, the site was again comprehensively redeveloped, opening in 1992 as the South Bank Parklands, now a major public space in Brisbane. More widely, the Cultural Centre's direct relationship with the Brisbane River influenced the way the city has come to engage with its dominant natural feature along its edges.

With the exception of The Edge, each of the buildings within the QCC retains its original use. Subsequent modifications to cater for changing requirements have altered the buildings within the complex to varying degrees. The most significant of these changes were the addition of the Playhouse to QPAC and the multimillion dollar Millennium Arts Project, which provided for a refurbishment of the entire complex.

QPAC was well utilised from the outset and the need for a mid-sized theatre was soon realised. Plans for Stage Five, a 750-850 seat Playhouse theatre, designed by Gibson, were produced with input from the same committees and advisers as Stage Two. Completed in 1998, the Playhouse, attached at the eastern end of QPAC, incorporated stalls, balcony, mid-stalls and balcony boxes for patron seating. It had a separate entrance off Russell Street and was separated from the rest of the complex by the loading dock. The Playhouse was refurbished between 2011-12.

The key features of the Millenium Arts Project (2002-2009) were: the addition of a new Gallery of Modern Art and public plaza; the major redevelopment of the SLQ including the addition of a fifth floor; a new entrance to the QAG, and refurbishment of the QM and QPAC.

At the north-western end of the complex, the Gallery of Modern Art, completed in 2006 was built to house Queensland's growing art collection and is linked to the rest of the complex by a public plaza.

The major refurbishment of the Library in 2006 included the addition of a fifth storey and substantial alterations to both the interior and exterior. A new entrance and new circulation patterns were established and the stepped terraces were removed, replaced by a large extension toward the river.

New entrances to QAG and QM were designed by Gibson and completed in 2009.

The new art gallery entrance provided alternative access from Peel Street and included the partial enclosure of the courtyard, a new staircase, and a lift. At the Museum, in addition to the new entrance provided on the eastern end of the Museum, a café was added to the western end, the internal circulation was rearranged and a new entrance on the Grey Street elevation was created to provide access to the Sciencentre, relocated from George Street to the ground floor of the museum in 2009.

In 2009 QPAC was refurbished to meet safety standards and to improve access. A setdown area was added along Grey Street to replace the drop off tunnel which was closed in 2001. Changes to circulation included the installation of lifts and the replacement and reorientation of staircases. The lobby book shop was replaced with a bar and other bars and lobbies were refurbished, removing the salmon colour scheme in higher traffic areas. Brown carpet was installed and the red marble bar finishes were replaced with black in the Lyric Theatre foyer and white in the Concert Hall foyer. Many seats were also replaced in the Lyric and Concert Hall. The Cremorne Theatre remains largely unchanged.

The Edge, operated and managed by SLQ, was reopened in 2010 as a new facility containing workshops, spaces for creative activities, events and exhibitions. The dropped restaurant floor was filled and new lifts installed. Wide scale changes were made to interior fit-out and finishes. The auditorium floor was replaced, and new openings were created in the rear and side elevations. The external structure was modified at ground level with changes to access and the loading dock which was made obsolete by changes to SLQ car park entry. The major external change was cosmetic and involved the enclosure of the open verandah with pre-fabricated steel window bays to create riverfront study and meeting spaces.

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

The Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC), located on the south bank of the Brisbane River opposite the central business district, is the state's principal cultural venue and an important example of late 20th century modernist architecture. Constructed between 1976 and 1998, this ambitious complex, a milestone in the history of the arts in Queensland and the evolution of the state, was designed by renowned Queensland architect Robin Gibson in conjunction with the Queensland Department of Public Works, for the people of Queensland.

The Cultural Centre includes the Queensland Art Gallery (1982), the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (1984), the Queensland Museum (1986), the State Library and The Fountain Room Restaurant and Auditorium (The Edge in 2015) (1988). The substantially altered State Library and the Gallery of Modern Art are part of the broader cultural precinct but are not included in the heritage register boundary.

South Brisbane before the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC)

By the late 1960s, much of South Brisbane, especially along the river, was in economic decline. Prior to European settlement, the whole of the South Brisbane peninsula was known as Kurilpa, an important meeting place for the Yuggera/Jagera people. The tip of the South Brisbane peninsula was a traditional river crossing. After the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal settlement in 1825, convicts cleared the river flats to grow grain for the settlement and during the 1830s, timber from the south bank was exported to Sydney.

From the 1840s, South Brisbane developed as one of Queensland's key location for portside activity, initially advantaged by its more direct access to the Darling Downs and Ipswich. As maritime trade expanded, wharfs and stores were progressively established adjacent to the river. Over time, a range of commercial, light industrial and manufacturing activities also occurred, along with civic and residential land uses. The area prospered in the 1880s and South Brisbane became a municipality in 1888. Along with the development boom, a dry dock was opened in 1881, coal wharves and associated rail links were constructed and South Brisbane was established as the passenger terminus for suburban and country train lines.

By the end of the 19th century, the area had evolved into a substantial urban settlement, with Stanley Street a major retail centre and thoroughfare. Such development however, could not arrest a gradual 20th century decline which accelerated after World War II, influenced by the reorientation of economic activity and transport networks in Brisbane. Post-war, wharves, stores and railway sidings closed and were subsequently demolished, with the progressive relocation of shipping downriver. The decline of such a centrally located area in the capital city presented an opportunity for significant urban renewal.

Impetus for the Queensland Cultural Centre

The pressure to address the lack of adequate cultural facilities in Queensland increased in the 1960s, as public awareness of the importance of the arts to the cultural health of the community was rising. At this time, the Queensland's principal cultural institutions were located in buildings and sites in Brisbane that did not meet their existing or future requirements. The first purpose-built Museum had opened in William Street in 1879 but proved inadequate from the outset. It was converted to the Public Library of Queensland (the State Library from 1971) in 1900-02, after the 1889 Exhibition Building at Bowen Hills was converted for use as a Museum in 1900. From 1895, the Queensland Art Gallery was housed in the Brisbane Town Hall, moving in 1905 to a purpose designed room on the third floor in the new Executive Building overlooking George Street. When the new City Hall was completed in 1930, the Concert Hall at the Museum building was remodelled to house the art gallery.

Until the opening of the Queensland Cultural Centre, there were no Queensland government-operated performing arts facilities. Most musical and theatrical performances were initially held in local venues such as schools of arts, church halls or town halls, of varying suitability. Purpose-built facilities were limited and only erected in major centres. By the 1880s, Brisbane had four theatres, with the Opera House (later Her Majesty's Theatre), erected in 1888, the most lavish and prestigious, with seating for 2700. The Exhibition Building was one of the first buildings specifically designed for musical performances and contained a concert hall complete with a four-manual pipe organ. It became the centre for major musical events until the opening of the Brisbane City Hall in 1930.

Across Australia, the post-war era saw governments on all tiers commit to large projects related to developing the arts, including standalone and integrated landmark projects for institutions such as libraries, theatres and art galleries. Sites for such projects were often in centrally located areas, where previous uses and activities were in decline, or had become redundant. This type of urban renewal offered a blank slate for development, where the existing layout could be reconfigured and the built environment transformed. The construction of Sydney's Opera House had commenced in 1959; preliminary investigations for Adelaide Festival Centre started in 1964; the National Gallery of Australia was established in 1967; the first stage of the Victorian Arts Centre, the National Gallery of Victoria, was completed in 1969 and Perth's Civic Centre was also developed during the 1960s.

In Queensland, an earlier phase of civic construction (mostly town halls and council chambers) occurred in the 1930s, often incorporating spaces for arts and cultural activities. By the early 1950s, architect and town planner Karl Langer was designing civic centre complexes for larger regional centres such as Mackay, Toowoomba and Kingaroy.

Several attempts were made to secure stately cultural facilities in Queensland's capital but each came to nothing. Construction of an art gallery and museum near the entrance to the Government Domain, on a site granted in 1863, never eventuated. In the 1890s a major architectural competition for a museum and art gallery on a site in Albert Park sought to address the need for sufficient premises. In 1934, on a nearby site along Wickham Park and Turbot Street, an ambitious urban design proposal to incorporate a public art gallery, library and dental hospital resulted only in the construction of the Brisbane Dental Hospital. Post-WWII plans to incorporate the art gallery in the extensions to the original Supreme Court Building did not eventuate. The Queensland Art Gallery Act 1959 paved the way for a new Board of Trustees to establish a gallery with public funds subsidized by Government. The proposal at that time, for a gallery and performance hall at Gardens Point, to mark Queensland's centenary, was not realised; however, an extension to the State Library proceeded and included an exhibition hall and reading rooms.

A proposal for a State Gallery and Centre for Allied Arts, on the former municipal markets site adjacent to the Roma Street Railway station, formed part of a government backed plan for the redevelopment of the Roma Street area. Prepared by Bligh Jessup Bretnall & Partners in 1967, this substantial development over a number of city blocks, inspired by the redevelopment of redundant inner city areas in Europe and new towns in America, incorporated a significant commercial component. The plan was abandoned in 1968 due to conflicting local and state interests, together with the lack of an acceptable tender.

The following year, the Treasury Department initiated a formal investigation into a suitable site for an art gallery, led by Treasurer, Deputy Premier and Liberal Party Leader, Gordon Chalk. An expert committee, including Coordinator-General Charles Barton as chair, Under-Secretary of Works David Mercer and Assistant Under-Secretary Roman Pavlyshyn, considered 12 sites, including those from previous proposals. Three sites were shortlisted: The Holy Name Cathedral site in Fortitude Valley; upstream of the Victoria Bridge at South Brisbane; and the BCC Transport Depot in Coronation Drive. The South Brisbane site was preferred, considered to be the most advantageous for the city and the most architecturally suitable. The recommendation was accepted and work on progressing a design commenced.

Architectural competition and concept (1289)

In April 1973, Robin Gibson and Partners Architects won a two-staged competition to design the new Queensland Art Gallery at South Brisbane, with a sophisticated scheme considered superior in its simplicity and presentation. While this design was never realised, the art gallery that was built as part of the Cultural Centre was in many ways very similar, including the palette of materials and modernist design details inspired by the 1969 Oaklands Museum in California. The original design occupied the block bounded by Melbourne, Grey, Stanley and Peel Streets. Over Stanley Street, a pedestrian walkway connected the gallery to the top of an amphitheatre leading to sculpture gardens along the river.

The development of cultural facilities was reconsidered during 1974, evolving into a much more ambitious project. In early November, Deputy Premier Sir Gordon Chalk (who had a real interest and commitment to developing the arts in Queensland) announced as an election policy, a proposal for a $45 million dollar cultural complex. While the development of the Art Gallery had been progressing, Chalk, with the assistance of Under Treasurer Leo Hielscher, had covertly commissioned Robin Gibson to produce a master plan for an integrated complex of buildings which would form the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC). The plan included an Art Gallery, Museum, Performing Arts Centre, State Library and an auditorium and restaurant. The devastating floods of January, which had further hastened the decline of South Brisbane, provided a timely opportunity to utilise more space adjacent to the river, through resumptions of flood prone land.

When the proposal was submitted to Cabinet by Chalk in late November, it was initially opposed by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. However, the support of Brisbane's Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, (who gifted council-owned allotments on what became the QPAC site); influential public servants Hielscher, Pavlyshyn; Mercer, and Sir David Muir, Director of the Department of Commercial and Industrial Development, helped the project gain momentum. After winning the December 7 election, the proposal was formally adopted by the Bjelke-Petersen government. Muir was appointed chairman of the planning committee and became the first chairman of the QCC Trust.

Gibson's November 1974 Cultural Centre master plan differed significantly from his winning competition design for the Gallery and gave Gibson the opportunity to further demonstrate his planning principles for inner city development. Stanley Street was to be diverted under the Victoria Bridge through to Peel Street, with the Art Gallery and Museum occupying one large block. The scheme included building forms with oblique angles to the street grid, to address the main approaches. The Performing Arts building, comprising a single, multi-purpose hall, and the Art Gallery, extending from the Museum to the river's edge, were aligned diagonally around a Melbourne Street axis to address the approach from the Victoria Bridge. Pedestrian bridges provided access across the site over Melbourne Street and to the South Brisbane Railway Station over Grey Street.

Gibson's design of the QCC sought to convey a relaxed atmosphere reflective of Queensland's lifestyle. A simple, disciplined palette of materials, and design elements was adopted and rigorously maintained throughout the lengthy construction program to unify the complex: off-white sandblasted concrete; cubic forms with deeply recessed glazing; a constancy of structural elements, fixtures and finishes; repetitive stepped profiles and extensive integrated landscaping.

A fundamental conceptual aspect of the Cultural Centre's design was its relationship to the Brisbane River and the natural environment. Gibson saw the Cultural Centre as an opportunity for ‘amalgamating a major public building with the river on the South Bank'. The external landscaping and built form was carefully articulated to ‘step up' from the river. The comparatively low form of the complex was consciously designed so that the profile of the Taylor Range behind would remain visible when viewed from the city.

Retaining the approved general placement of the individual buildings, subsequent changes to the complex plan included: the orthogonal realignment of each of the buildings; the duplication of the multipurpose hall to create separate purpose-built facilities for musical and theatrical performances; the extension of an existing diversion in Stanley Street upstream to Peel Street and under the Victoria Bridge, which was bridged by a wide plaza as a forecourt to the Gallery.

Robin Gibson & Partners

Robin Gibson (1930-2014) attended Yeronga State School and Brisbane State High before studying architecture at the University of Queensland (UQ). After graduating in 1954, Gibson travelled through Europe and worked in London in the offices of architects, Sir Hugh Casson, Neville Conder, and James Cubitt and Partners. Returning to Brisbane in 1957, he set up an architectural practice commencing with residential projects, soon expanding into larger commercial, public and institutional work. Notable Queensland architects employed by his practice included Geoffrey Pie, Don Winsen, Peter Roy, Allan Kirkwood, Bruce Carlyle and Gabriel Poole.

Gibson's creative, administrative and diplomatic talents were widely recognised. His buildings were consistently simple, refined, and carefully executed, often comprehensively detailed to include fabrics, finishes and furnishings. Characteristically crisp, logical and smoothly functional, his works employed a limited palette of materials and were carefully integrated into their setting.

Robin Gibson & Partners' contribution to Queensland's built environment is significant. Other major architectural projects include: Mayne Hall, University of Queensland (UQ) (1972), Central Library, UQ (1973) Library and Humanities building at Nathan Campus, Griffith University (1975), Post Office Square (1982), Queen Street Mall (1982), Wintergarden building (1984), Colonial Mutual Life (1984) and 111 George Street (1993). Over time, Gibson and his body of work has been highly acclaimed and recognised through numerous awards including: 1968 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Building of the Year award, Kenmore Church; 1982 RAIA Sir Zelman Cowen Award (for public buildings) QAG; 1982 RAIA Canberra Medallion - Belconnen Library, ACT; 1982 Queenslander of the Year; 1983 Order of Australia; 1986 Honorary Doctorate - Griffith University; 1988 Advance Australia Award; 1989 RAIA Gold Medal for outstanding performance and contributions; 2000, and the 2007 25 year RAIA award for Enduring Architecture.

Construction and completion

The design development, documentation and the multifaceted construction program for the entire complex was administered by Roman Pavlyshyn, Director of Building, Department of Public Works. Pavlyshyn had previously overseen the selection of the site and had run the competition for the Queensland Art Gallery. The Cultural Centre was to continue the Department of Public Works' tradition in providing buildings of high quality in design, materials and construction throughout the state.

The funding of the QCC came entirely from the government-owned Golden Casket. The revenue derived from the Golden Casket was effectively ‘freed up' from health funding after Medicare was introduced by the Whitlam government. The then annual income of $4 million was projected to fund the QCC's construction over 10 years. By the early 1980s, inflationary impacts had blown out the cost to $175 million. Under Hielscher's guidance, Treasury looked at other ways to raise revenue. In response, Instant Scratch-Its and mid-week lotto were introduced to Queensland. This successful increase in gambling revenue enabled the QCC to be built at no extra cost to the state's existing budget and without going into debt.

The construction of the Cultural Centre was a complex undertaking and involved a multifaceted program staged over 11 years with a workforce of thousands, from design consultants to onsite labourers. Pavlyshyn guided Stages One, Two and Three to completion and the commencement of Stage Four, before retiring in July 1985. With the number of contractors and suppliers involved, quality control was a critical factor for a successful outcome. For example, the consistent quality of the concrete finish was achieved by securing a guaranteed supply of the principal materials, South Australian white cement, Stradbroke Island sand and Pine River aggregates, for the duration of the project and the strict control of colour and mix for each contract.

The program commenced with the construction of the Art Gallery, the most resolved of the building designs. Stage One also included the underground carpark to the Gallery and Museum and the central services plant facility on the corner of Grey and Peel Streets. Contractors, Graham Evans & Co, commenced construction in March 1977 and the Art Gallery was officially opened by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen on 21 June 1982. When awarding the art gallery the Sir Zelman Cowen Award that year, the RAIA jury declared the art gallery would enrich the fabric of Brisbane for many years to come, praising: the sustained architectural expertise and masterly articulation of space; avoidance of rhetorical gestures and fussy details, noting the building would enrich the fabric of the city for many years to come.

A development plan for the largest component of the complex, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), built as Stage Two, was released in 1976. The project architect for the Centre was Allan Kirkwood from Robin Gibson and Partners and contributors to the development and design of the Centre were theatre consultants, Tom Brown and Peter Knowland, the Performing Arts Trust and user committees. Completed in November 1984 by contractors Barclay Bros Pty Ltd, a concert for workers and the first public performance were held in December ahead of the official opening by the Duke and Duchess of Kent on 20 April 1985.

The Centre comprised three venues, each specifically designed for particular performance types. The Lyric Theatre and Concert Hall shared an entrance off Melbourne Street with shared and mimicked foyers, bars, circulation and ancillary facilities. The Studio theatre, now the Cremorne, had a separate entrance and foyer off Stanley Street with its own discreet ancillary facilities.

The Lyric Theatre, (2200 seats) was designed for large-scale dramatic productions including opera, operettas, musicals, ballets and dance performances. It had an orchestra pit, stalls, two balconies and side aisles. The 1800 seat Concert Hall was designed for orchestral concerts, choral performances, chamber music, recitals, popular entertainment and ceremonies. A Klais Grand Organ, featuring 6500 pipes, was built into the stage area. Its ‘shoe box' form, designed to enhance natural acoustics, incorporated an orchestral pit, stalls, single balcony, side galleries and side aisles. The Studio Theatre was built to accommodate up to 300 seats for dramatic performances and could be configured in 6 different ways, from conventional set-ups to theatre-in-the-round. It had stalls and a balcony level with an internal connection to the other two theatres.

Opened in 1986, the Queensland Museum, (Stage Three), was connected to the Art Gallery by a covered walkway and to the Performing Arts Complex by a footbridge over Melbourne Street. The entrance on the Melbourne Street side of the building was accessed from street level and the Melbourne Street footbridge. Built over the Stage One carpark, the six-level Museum building had four floors open to the public, with the two top levels dedicated to offices, laboratories , library and artefact storage. The first floor was designed for a variety of uses, including lecture halls, back of house, preparatory area and workshops. Levels 2 to 4 showcased collections in galleries situated on either side of a central circulation core comprising walkways, stairs, lifts and escalators. The outdoor area contained a geological garden on Grey Street side (in 2014 the Energex Playasaurus Place). Stage Four included the State Library and adjacent restaurant and auditorium building (The Edge) completed in 1988.

Public artworks

As part of the construction of the QCC, several pieces of public art were commissioned from Australian artists. Five outdoor sculptures were purchased and installed in 1985, the largest commission of public sculpture at one time in Australia. Four were directly commissioned: Anthony Pryor's Approaching Equilibrium (Steel, painted. River plaza-upper deck); Leonard and Kathleen Shillam's Pelicans (Bronze. QAG Water Mall); Ante Dabro's Sisters (Bronze. Melbourne Street plaza) and Rob Robertson-Swann's Leviathan Play (Steel, painted. Melbourne Street plaza). Clement Meadmore's Offshoot (Aluminium, painted. Gallery plaza) was an existing work.

Other public artworks commissioned at the time of construction are located at QPAC: Lawrence Daws' large interior mural, Pacific Nexus and Robert Woodward's Cascade Court Fountain.

Use and modifications

Since opening, the institutions of the QCC have played a dominant role in fostering and enabling cultural and artistic activities of Queensland - through performances, exhibitions, collections and events. The purpose built world class facilities of the complex, with their careful consideration of both front and back of house requirements, have enabled Queensland to host national and international performances, events and exhibitions, and expand and display collections, in a way that was not possible previously. In addition to the QCC's artistic endeavours, the role of the Queensland Museum in science disciplines has also been an important activity. The QCC (as part of the larger Cultural Precinct) is a major visitor destination in Brisbane; millions of people from Queensland and elsewhere have visited the site.

The successful development of the Cultural Centre was the catalyst for the broader renewal of South Brisbane along the Brisbane River. In 1983 Queensland won the right to hold the 1988 World Exposition (Expo 88). The site for Expo 88 was directly adjacent to the Cultural Centre and underwent a major transformation to host the event. Robin Gibson designed the Queensland Pavilion. Expo 88 was a highly successful for Brisbane and Queensland. After Expo, the site was again comprehensively redeveloped, opening in 1992 as the South Bank Parklands, now a major public space in Brisbane. More widely, the Cultural Centre's direct relationship with the Brisbane River influenced the way the city has come to engage with its dominant natural feature along its edges.

With the exception of The Edge, each of the buildings within the QCC retains its original use. Subsequent modifications to cater for changing requirements have altered the buildings within the complex to varying degrees. The most significant of these changes were the addition of the Playhouse to QPAC and the multimillion dollar Millennium Arts Project, which provided for a refurbishment of the entire complex.

QPAC was well utilised from the outset and the need for a mid-sized theatre was soon realised. Plans for Stage Five, a 750-850 seat Playhouse theatre, designed by Gibson, were produced with input from the same committees and advisers as Stage Two. Completed in 1998, the Playhouse, attached at the eastern end of QPAC, incorporated stalls, balcony, mid-stalls and balcony boxes for patron seating. It had a separate entrance off Russell Street and was separated from the rest of the complex by the loading dock. The Playhouse was refurbished between 2011-12.

The key features of the Millenium Arts Project (2002-2009) were: the addition of a new Gallery of Modern Art and public plaza; the major redevelopment of the SLQ including the addition of a fifth floor; a new entrance to the QAG, and refurbishment of the QM and QPAC.

At the north-western end of the complex, the Gallery of Modern Art, completed in 2006 was built to house Queensland's growing art collection and is linked to the rest of the complex by a public plaza.

The major refurbishment of the Library in 2006 included the addition of a fifth storey and substantial alterations to both the interior and exterior. A new entrance and new circulation patterns were established and the stepped terraces were removed, replaced by a large extension toward the river.

New entrances to QAG and QM were designed by Gibson and completed in 2009.

The new art gallery entrance provided alternative access from Peel Street and included the partial enclosure of the courtyard, a new staircase, and a lift. At the Museum, in addition to the new entrance provided on the eastern end of the Museum, a café was added to the western end, the internal circulation was rearranged and a new entrance on the Grey Street elevation was created to provide access to the Sciencentre, relocated from George Street to the ground floor of the museum in 2009.

In 2009 QPAC was refurbished to meet safety standards and to improve access. A setdown area was added along Grey Street to replace the drop off tunnel which was closed in 2001. Changes to circulation included the installation of lifts and the replacement and reorientation of staircases. The lobby book shop was replaced with a bar and other bars and lobbies were refurbished, removing the salmon colour scheme in higher traffic areas. Brown carpet was installed and the red marble bar finishes were replaced with black in the Lyric Theatre foyer and white in the Concert Hall foyer. Many seats were also replaced in the Lyric and Concert Hall. The Cremorne Theatre remains largely unchanged.

The Edge, operated and managed by SLQ, was reopened in 2010 as a new facility containing workshops, spaces for creative activities, events and exhibitions. The dropped restaurant floor was filled and new lifts installed. Wide scale changes were made to interior fit-out and finishes. The auditorium floor was replaced, and new openings were created in the rear and side elevations. The external structure was modified at ground level with changes to access and the loading dock which was made obsolete by changes to SLQ car park entry. The major external change was cosmetic and involved the enclosure of the open verandah with pre-fabricated steel window bays to create riverfront study and meeting spaces.

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

The Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC), located on the south bank of the Brisbane River opposite the central business district, is the state's principal cultural venue and an important example of late 20th century modernist architecture. Constructed between 1976 and 1998, this ambitious complex, a milestone in the history of the arts in Queensland and the evolution of the state, was designed by renowned Queensland architect Robin Gibson in conjunction with the Queensland Department of Public Works, for the people of Queensland.

The Cultural Centre includes the Queensland Art Gallery (1982), the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (1984), the Queensland Museum (1986), the State Library and The Fountain Room Restaurant and Auditorium (The Edge in 2015) (1988). The substantially altered State Library and the Gallery of Modern Art are part of the broader cultural precinct but are not included in the heritage register boundary.

South Brisbane before the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC)

By the late 1960s, much of South Brisbane, especially along the river, was in economic decline. Prior to European settlement, the whole of the South Brisbane peninsula was known as Kurilpa, an important meeting place for the Yuggera/Jagera people. The tip of the South Brisbane peninsula was a traditional river crossing. After the establishment of the Moreton Bay Penal settlement in 1825, convicts cleared the river flats to grow grain for the settlement and during the 1830s, timber from the south bank was exported to Sydney.

From the 1840s, South Brisbane developed as one of Queensland's key location for portside activity, initially advantaged by its more direct access to the Darling Downs and Ipswich. As maritime trade expanded, wharfs and stores were progressively established adjacent to the river. Over time, a range of commercial, light industrial and manufacturing activities also occurred, along with civic and residential land uses. The area prospered in the 1880s and South Brisbane became a municipality in 1888. Along with the development boom, a dry dock was opened in 1881, coal wharves and associated rail links were constructed and South Brisbane was established as the passenger terminus for suburban and country train lines.

By the end of the 19th century, the area had evolved into a substantial urban settlement, with Stanley Street a major retail centre and thoroughfare. Such development however, could not arrest a gradual 20th century decline which accelerated after World War II, influenced by the reorientation of economic activity and transport networks in Brisbane. Post-war, wharves, stores and railway sidings closed and were subsequently demolished, with the progressive relocation of shipping downriver. The decline of such a centrally located area in the capital city presented an opportunity for significant urban renewal.

Impetus for the Queensland Cultural Centre

The pressure to address the lack of adequate cultural facilities in Queensland increased in the 1960s, as public awareness of the importance of the arts to the cultural health of the community was rising. At this time, the Queensland's principal cultural institutions were located in buildings and sites in Brisbane that did not meet their existing or future requirements. The first purpose-built Museum had opened in William Street in 1879 but proved inadequate from the outset. It was converted to the Public Library of Queensland (the State Library from 1971) in 1900-02, after the 1889 Exhibition Building at Bowen Hills was converted for use as a Museum in 1900. From 1895, the Queensland Art Gallery was housed in the Brisbane Town Hall, moving in 1905 to a purpose designed room on the third floor in the new Executive Building overlooking George Street. When the new City Hall was completed in 1930, the Concert Hall at the Museum building was remodelled to house the art gallery.

Until the opening of the Queensland Cultural Centre, there were no Queensland government-operated performing arts facilities. Most musical and theatrical performances were initially held in local venues such as schools of arts, church halls or town halls, of varying suitability. Purpose-built facilities were limited and only erected in major centres. By the 1880s, Brisbane had four theatres, with the Opera House (later Her Majesty's Theatre), erected in 1888, the most lavish and prestigious, with seating for 2700. The Exhibition Building was one of the first buildings specifically designed for musical performances and contained a concert hall complete with a four-manual pipe organ. It became the centre for major musical events until the opening of the Brisbane City Hall in 1930.

Across Australia, the post-war era saw governments on all tiers commit to large projects related to developing the arts, including standalone and integrated landmark projects for institutions such as libraries, theatres and art galleries. Sites for such projects were often in centrally located areas, where previous uses and activities were in decline, or had become redundant. This type of urban renewal offered a blank slate for development, where the existing layout could be reconfigured and the built environment transformed. The construction of Sydney's Opera House had commenced in 1959; preliminary investigations for Adelaide Festival Centre started in 1964; the National Gallery of Australia was established in 1967; the first stage of the Victorian Arts Centre, the National Gallery of Victoria, was completed in 1969 and Perth's Civic Centre was also developed during the 1960s.

In Queensland, an earlier phase of civic construction (mostly town halls and council chambers) occurred in the 1930s, often incorporating spaces for arts and cultural activities. By the early 1950s, architect and town planner Karl Langer was designing civic centre complexes for larger regional centres such as Mackay, Toowoomba and Kingaroy.

Several attempts were made to secure stately cultural facilities in Queensland's capital but each came to nothing. Construction of an art gallery and museum near the entrance to the Government Domain, on a site granted in 1863, never eventuated. In the 1890s a major architectural competition for a museum and art gallery on a site in Albert Park sought to address the need for sufficient premises. In 1934, on a nearby site along Wickham Park and Turbot Street, an ambitious urban design proposal to incorporate a public art gallery, library and dental hospital resulted only in the construction of the Brisbane Dental Hospital. Post-WWII plans to incorporate the art gallery in the extensions to the original Supreme Court Building did not eventuate. The Queensland Art Gallery Act 1959 paved the way for a new Board of Trustees to establish a gallery with public funds subsidized by Government. The proposal at that time, for a gallery and performance hall at Gardens Point, to mark Queensland's centenary, was not realised; however, an extension to the State Library proceeded and included an exhibition hall and reading rooms.

A proposal for a State Gallery and Centre for Allied Arts, on the former municipal markets site adjacent to the Roma Street Railway station, formed part of a government backed plan for the redevelopment of the Roma Street area. Prepared by Bligh Jessup Bretnall & Partners in 1967, this substantial development over a number of city blocks, inspired by the redevelopment of redundant inner city areas in Europe and new towns in America, incorporated a significant commercial component. The plan was abandoned in 1968 due to conflicting local and state interests, together with the lack of an acceptable tender.

The following year, the Treasury Department initiated a formal investigation into a suitable site for an art gallery, led by Treasurer, Deputy Premier and Liberal Party Leader, Gordon Chalk. An expert committee, including Coordinator-General Charles Barton as chair, Under-Secretary of Works David Mercer and Assistant Under-Secretary Roman Pavlyshyn, considered 12 sites, including those from previous proposals. Three sites were shortlisted: The Holy Name Cathedral site in Fortitude Valley; upstream of the Victoria Bridge at South Brisbane; and the BCC Transport Depot in Coronation Drive. The South Brisbane site was preferred, considered to be the most advantageous for the city and the most architecturally suitable. The recommendation was accepted and work on progressing a design commenced.

Architectural competition and concept (1289)

In April 1973, Robin Gibson and Partners Architects won a two-staged competition to design the new Queensland Art Gallery at South Brisbane, with a sophisticated scheme considered superior in its simplicity and presentation. While this design was never realised, the art gallery that was built as part of the Cultural Centre was in many ways very similar, including the palette of materials and modernist design details inspired by the 1969 Oaklands Museum in California. The original design occupied the block bounded by Melbourne, Grey, Stanley and Peel Streets. Over Stanley Street, a pedestrian walkway connected the gallery to the top of an amphitheatre leading to sculpture gardens along the river.

The development of cultural facilities was reconsidered during 1974, evolving into a much more ambitious project. In early November, Deputy Premier Sir Gordon Chalk (who had a real interest and commitment to developing the arts in Queensland) announced as an election policy, a proposal for a $45 million dollar cultural complex. While the development of the Art Gallery had been progressing, Chalk, with the assistance of Under Treasurer Leo Hielscher, had covertly commissioned Robin Gibson to produce a master plan for an integrated complex of buildings which would form the Queensland Cultural Centre (QCC). The plan included an Art Gallery, Museum, Performing Arts Centre, State Library and an auditorium and restaurant. The devastating floods of January, which had further hastened the decline of South Brisbane, provided a timely opportunity to utilise more space adjacent to the river, through resumptions of flood prone land.

When the proposal was submitted to Cabinet by Chalk in late November, it was initially opposed by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. However, the support of Brisbane's Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, (who gifted council-owned allotments on what became the QPAC site); influential public servants Hielscher, Pavlyshyn; Mercer, and Sir David Muir, Director of the Department of Commercial and Industrial Development, helped the project gain momentum. After winning the December 7 election, the proposal was formally adopted by the Bjelke-Petersen government. Muir was appointed chairman of the planning committee and became the first chairman of the QCC Trust.

Gibson's November 1974 Cultural Centre master plan differed significantly from his winning competition design for the Gallery and gave Gibson the opportunity to further demonstrate his planning principles for inner city development. Stanley Street was to be diverted under the Victoria Bridge through to Peel Street, with the Art Gallery and Museum occupying one large block. The scheme included building forms with oblique angles to the street grid, to address the main approaches. The Performing Arts building, comprising a single, multi-purpose hall, and the Art Gallery, extending from the Museum to the river's edge, were aligned diagonally around a Melbourne Street axis to address the approach from the Victoria Bridge. Pedestrian bridges provided access across the site over Melbourne Street and to the South Brisbane Railway Station over Grey Street.

Gibson's design of the QCC sought to convey a relaxed atmosphere reflective of Queensland's lifestyle. A simple, disciplined palette of materials, and design elements was adopted and rigorously maintained throughout the lengthy construction program to unify the complex: off-white sandblasted concrete; cubic forms with deeply recessed glazing; a constancy of structural elements, fixtures and finishes; repetitive stepped profiles and extensive integrated landscaping.

A fundamental conceptual aspect of the Cultural Centre's design was its relationship to the Brisbane River and the natural environment. Gibson saw the Cultural Centre as an opportunity for ‘amalgamating a major public building with the river on the South Bank'. The external landscaping and built form was carefully articulated to ‘step up' from the river. The comparatively low form of the complex was consciously designed so that the profile of the Taylor Range behind would remain visible when viewed from the city.

Retaining the approved general placement of the individual buildings, subsequent changes to the complex plan included: the orthogonal realignment of each of the buildings; the duplication of the multipurpose hall to create separate purpose-built facilities for musical and theatrical performances; the extension of an existing diversion in Stanley Street upstream to Peel Street and under the Victoria Bridge, which was bridged by a wide plaza as a forecourt to the Gallery.

Robin Gibson & Partners

Robin Gibson (1930-2014) attended Yeronga State School and Brisbane State High before studying architecture at the University of Queensland (UQ). After graduating in 1954, Gibson travelled through Europe and worked in London in the offices of architects, Sir Hugh Casson, Neville Conder, and James Cubitt and Partners. Returning to Brisbane in 1957, he set up an architectural practice commencing with residential projects, soon expanding into larger commercial, public and institutional work. Notable Queensland architects employed by his practice included Geoffrey Pie, Don Winsen, Peter Roy, Allan Kirkwood, Bruce Carlyle and Gabriel Poole.

Gibson's creative, administrative and diplomatic talents were widely recognised. His buildings were consistently simple, refined, and carefully executed, often comprehensively detailed to include fabrics, finishes and furnishings. Characteristically crisp, logical and smoothly functional, his works employed a limited palette of materials and were carefully integrated into their setting.

Robin Gibson & Partners' contribution to Queensland's built environment is significant. Other major architectural projects include: Mayne Hall, University of Queensland (UQ) (1972), Central Library, UQ (1973) Library and Humanities building at Nathan Campus, Griffith University (1975), Post Office Square (1982), Queen Street Mall (1982), Wintergarden building (1984), Colonial Mutual Life (1984) and 111 George Street (1993). Over time, Gibson and his body of work has been highly acclaimed and recognised through numerous awards including: 1968 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Building of the Year award, Kenmore Church; 1982 RAIA Sir Zelman Cowen Award (for public buildings) QAG; 1982 RAIA Canberra Medallion - Belconnen Library, ACT; 1982 Queenslander of the Year; 1983 Order of Australia; 1986 Honorary Doctorate - Griffith University; 1988 Advance Australia Award; 1989 RAIA Gold Medal for outstanding performance and contributions; 2000, and the 2007 25 year RAIA award for Enduring Architecture.

Construction and completion

The design development, documentation and the multifaceted construction program for the entire complex was administered by Roman Pavlyshyn, Director of Building, Department of Public Works. Pavlyshyn had previously overseen the selection of the site and had run the competition for the Queensland Art Gallery. The Cultural Centre was to continue the Department of Public Works' tradition in providing buildings of high quality in design, materials and construction throughout the state.

The funding of the QCC came entirely from the government-owned Golden Casket. The revenue derived from the Golden Casket was effectively ‘freed up' from health funding after Medicare was introduced by the Whitlam government. The then annual income of $4 million was projected to fund the QCC's construction over 10 years. By the early 1980s, inflationary impacts had blown out the cost to $175 million. Under Hielscher's guidance, Treasury looked at other ways to raise revenue. In response, Instant Scratch-Its and mid-week lotto were introduced to Queensland. This successful increase in gambling revenue enabled the QCC to be built at no extra cost to the state's existing budget and without going into debt.

The construction of the Cultural Centre was a complex undertaking and involved a multifaceted program staged over 11 years with a workforce of thousands, from design consultants to onsite labourers. Pavlyshyn guided Stages One, Two and Three to completion and the commencement of Stage Four, before retiring in July 1985. With the number of contractors and suppliers involved, quality control was a critical factor for a successful outcome. For example, the consistent quality of the concrete finish was achieved by securing a guaranteed supply of the principal materials, South Australian white cement, Stradbroke Island sand and Pine River aggregates, for the duration of the project and the strict control of colour and mix for each contract.

The program commenced with the construction of the Art Gallery, the most resolved of the building designs. Stage One also included the underground carpark to the Gallery and Museum and the central services plant facility on the corner of Grey and Peel Streets. Contractors, Graham Evans & Co, commenced construction in March 1977 and the Art Gallery was officially opened by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen on 21 June 1982. When awarding the art gallery the Sir Zelman Cowen Award that year, the RAIA jury declared the art gallery would enrich the fabric of Brisbane for many years to come, praising: the sustained architectural expertise and masterly articulation of space; avoidance of rhetorical gestures and fussy details, noting the building would enrich the fabric of the city for many years to come.

A development plan for the largest component of the complex, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), built as Stage Two, was released in 1976. The project architect for the Centre was Allan Kirkwood from Robin Gibson and Partners and contributors to the development and design of the Centre were theatre consultants, Tom Brown and Peter Knowland, the Performing Arts Trust and user committees. Completed in November 1984 by contractors Barclay Bros Pty Ltd, a concert for workers and the first public performance were held in December ahead of the official opening by the Duke and Duchess of Kent on 20 April 1985.

The Centre comprised three venues, each specifically designed for particular performance types. The Lyric Theatre and Concert Hall shared an entrance off Melbourne Street with shared and mimicked foyers, bars, circulation and ancillary facilities. The Studio theatre, now the Cremorne, had a separate entrance and foyer off Stanley Street with its own discreet ancillary facilities.

The Lyric Theatre, (2200 seats) was designed for large-scale dramatic productions including opera, operettas, musicals, ballets and dance performances. It had an orchestra pit, stalls, two balconies and side aisles. The 1800 seat Concert Hall was designed for orchestral concerts, choral performances, chamber music, recitals, popular entertainment and ceremonies. A Klais Grand Organ, featuring 6500 pipes, was built into the stage area. Its ‘shoe box' form, designed to enhance natural acoustics, incorporated an orchestral pit, stalls, single balcony, side galleries and side aisles. The Studio Theatre was built to accommodate up to 300 seats for dramatic performances and could be configured in 6 different ways, from conventional set-ups to theatre-in-the-round. It had stalls and a balcony level with an internal connection to the other two theatres.

Opened in 1986, the Queensland Museum, (Stage Three), was connected to the Art Gallery by a covered walkway and to the Performing Arts Complex by a footbridge over Melbourne Street. The entrance on the Melbourne Street side of the building was accessed from street level and the Melbourne Street footbridge. Built over the Stage One carpark, the six-level Museum building had four floors open to the public, with the two top levels dedicated to offices, laboratories , library and artefact storage. The first floor was designed for a variety of uses, including lecture halls, back of house, preparatory area and workshops. Levels 2 to 4 showcased collections in galleries situated on either side of a central circulation core comprising walkways, stairs, lifts and escalators. The outdoor area contained a geological garden on Grey Street side (in 2014 the Energex Playasaurus Place). Stage Four included the State Library and adjacent restaurant and auditorium building (The Edge) completed in 1988.

Public artworks

As part of the construction of the QCC, several pieces of public art were commissioned from Australian artists. Five outdoor sculptures were purchased and installed in 1985, the largest commission of public sculpture at one time in Australia. Four were directly commissioned: Anthony Pryor's Approaching Equilibrium (Steel, painted. River plaza-upper deck); Leonard and Kathleen Shillam's Pelicans (Bronze. QAG Water Mall); Ante Dabro's Sisters (Bronze. Melbourne Street plaza) and Rob Robertson-Swann's Leviathan Play (Steel, painted. Melbourne Street plaza). Clement Meadmore's Offshoot (Aluminium, painted. Gallery plaza) was an existing work.

Other public artworks commissioned at the time of construction are located at QPAC: Lawrence Daws' large interior mural, Pacific Nexus and Robert Woodward's Cascade Court Fountain.

Use and modifications

Since opening, the institutions of the QCC have played a dominant role in fostering and enabling cultural and artistic activities of Queensland - through performances, exhibitions, collections and events. The purpose built world class facilities of the complex, with their careful consideration of both front and back of house requirements, have enabled Queensland to host national and international performances, events and exhibitions, and expand and display collections, in a way that was not possible previously. In addition to the QCC's artistic endeavours, the role of the Queensland Museum in science disciplines has also been an important activity. The QCC (as part of the larger Cultural Precinct) is a major visitor destination in Brisbane; millions of people from Queensland and elsewhere have visited the site.

The successful development of the Cultural Centre was the catalyst for the broader renewal of South Brisbane along the Brisbane River. In 1983 Queensland won the right to hold the 1988 World Exposition (Expo 88). The site for Expo 88 was directly adjacent to the Cultural Centre and underwent a major transformation to host the event. Robin Gibson designed the Queensland Pavilion. Expo 88 was a highly successful for Brisbane and Queensland. After Expo, the site was again comprehensively redeveloped, opening in 1992 as the South Bank Parklands, now a major public space in Brisbane. More widely, the Cultural Centre's direct relationship with the Brisbane River influenced the way the city has come to engage with its dominant natural feature along its edges.

With the exception of The Edge, each of the buildings within the QCC retains its original use. Subsequent modifications to cater for changing requirements have altered the buildings within the complex to varying degrees. The most significant of these changes were the addition of the Playhouse to QPAC and the multimillion dollar Millennium Arts Project, which provided for a refurbishment of the entire complex.

QPAC was well utilised from the outset and the need for a mid-sized theatre was soon realised. Plans for Stage Five, a 750-850 seat Playhouse theatre, designed by Gibson, were produced with input from the same committees and advisers as Stage Two. Completed in 1998, the Playhouse, attached at the eastern end of QPAC, incorporated stalls, balcony, mid-stalls and balcony boxes for patron seating. It had a separate entrance off Russell Street and was separated from the rest of the complex by the loading dock. The Playhouse was refurbished between 2011-12.

The key features of the Millenium Arts Project (2002-2009) were: the addition of a new Gallery of Modern Art and public plaza; the major redevelopment of the SLQ including the addition of a fifth floor; a new entrance to the QAG, and refurbishment of the QM and QPAC.

At the north-western end of the complex, the Gallery of Modern Art, completed in 2006 was built to house Queensland's growing art collection and is linked to the rest of the complex by a public plaza.

The major refurbishment of the Library in 2006 included the addition of a fifth storey and substantial alterations to both the interior and exterior. A new entrance and new circulation patterns were established and the stepped terraces were removed, replaced by a large extension toward the river.

New entrances to QAG and QM were designed by Gibson and completed in 2009.

The new art gallery entrance provided alternative access from Peel Street and included the partial enclosure of the courtyard, a new staircase, and a lift. At the Museum, in addition to the new entrance provided on the eastern end of the Museum, a café was added to the western end, the internal circulation was rearranged and a new entrance on the Grey Street elevation was created to provide access to the Sciencentre, relocated from George Street to the ground floor of the museum in 2009.

In 2009 QPAC was refurbished to meet safety standards and to improve access. A setdown area was added along Grey Street to replace the drop off tunnel which was closed in 2001. Changes to circulation included the installation of lifts and the replacement and reorientation of staircases. The lobby book shop was replaced with a bar and other bars and lobbies were refurbished, removing the salmon colour scheme in higher traffic areas. Brown carpet was installed and the red marble bar finishes were replaced with black in the Lyric Theatre foyer and white in the Concert Hall foyer. Many seats were also replaced in the Lyric and Concert Hall. The Cremorne Theatre remains largely unchanged.

The Edge, operated and managed by SLQ, was reopened in 2010 as a new facility containing workshops, spaces for creative activities, events and exhibitions. The dropped restaurant floor was filled and new lifts installed. Wide scale changes were made to interior fit-out and finishes. The auditorium floor was replaced, and new openings were created in the rear and side elevations. The external structure was modified at ground level with changes to access and the loading dock which was made obsolete by changes to SLQ car park entry. The major external change was cosmetic and involved the enclosure of the open verandah with pre-fabricated steel window bays to create riverfront study and meeting spaces.

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

Officially opened in October 1888, the stone Warwick Town Hall on Palmerin Street is important in demonstrating the consolidation and importance of Warwick as a business and administrative centre for the surrounding district during the late 19th century. It is an excellent example of the work of architect Willoughby Powell, demonstrates the principal characteristics of a 19th century town hall, is a landmark, and has a long association with the Warwick community. The Footballers Memorial, a marble honour board mounted on the front of the Town Hall, is a rare and unusual example of a war memorial that reflects the contemporary parallels drawn between war and sport.

The first European pastoralists, Patrick Leslie and his brothers, arrived on the Darling Downs in 1840, and selected the land which became Toolburra and Canning Downs stations. The New South Wales Government opened the Darling Downs Pastoral District on 11 May 1843, and in 1847 the site of Warwick was chosen as the business and administrative centre for the southern Darling Downs.

Warwick township, surveyed in 1849, developed slowly during the 1850s and by 1857 the population of the parish of Warwick had reached just over 1300. Under the provisions of the 1858 Municipalities Act (NSW), any centre with a population in excess of 1000 was entitled to petition the colonial government for recognition as a municipality. Brisbane was proclaimed a municipality on 7 September 1859.

By 1859, the year in which the colony of Queensland separated from New South Wales, the township of Warwick was recognised as a major urban centre on the Darling Downs, and when Queensland's new electoral districts (settled areas only) were proclaimed on 20 December 1859, the electorate of the Town of Warwick had its own representative in the Legislative Assembly.

In February 1861 a petition calling for municipal status for the town of Warwick, with 110 signatures appended, was sent to the Queensland Governor, and on 25 May 1861 Warwick was proclaimed a municipality. The municipal boundary followed the original Warwick Town Reserve of five square miles. Warwick was the fifth corporation created in Queensland outside of Brisbane, being preceded by Ipswich, Toowoomba, Rockhampton and Maryborough. The first Warwick municipal election was conducted on 5 July 1861, and at its first meeting on 15 July 1861, the Warwick Municipal Council elected John James Kingsford as the first mayor of Warwick.

At this time the first Warwick Town Hall was established in a slab building at the northern end of Albion Street, which had been constructed in the early 1850s as Warwick's first court house. In 1873 the Council purchased the Masonic Hall, a brick building in Palmerin Street, and this served as the Warwick Town Hall until imposing new premises were constructed in 1887, on a half-acre (2023m2) site in Palmerin Street purchased for £500. During the late 19th century, Palmerin Street gradually replaced Albion Street as the main centre of commercial and public activity in Warwick.

A sum of £2000 was borrowed from the Queensland Government, and a competition for the design of the new Town Hall was held in 1885, expenditure not exceeding £3,500. First place in the competition was won by Clark Bros, a partnership formed in Sydney in 1883 between architect brothers John J and George Clark; the design by Clark Bros coming closest to Council's budget. However, although more costly, the design of second placegetter, Willoughby Powell, was eventually chosen for the new Town Hall.

Powell had arrived in Queensland c1873, and practiced as an architect until c1913. During Powell's architectural career in which he alternated between employment in the Queensland Department of Public Works and periods of private practice, including working for Richard Gailey, he was responsible for the design of a number of substantial buildings in Toowoomba, Maryborough, and Brisbane including churches, private residences, shops hotels, and the Toowoomba Grammar School. Powell was also responsible for the winning design in a competition for the (third) Toowoomba City Hall, although he subsequently had to give up supervision of its construction to Toowoomba architects James Marks and Son in order to take up an appointment in the Department of Public Works. Powell died in 1920.

Tenders for the building were called in 1887. Although tenders were called for either a brick and stone or an all-stone building, Council accepted the tender of Michael O'Brien for a stone building, and the contract with O'Brien, for £4810, was signed in March 1887. Warwick had access to quality building stone from a number of nearby locations. As early as 1861 Warwick boasted 16 stone houses. By 1886, there were 14 stone masons working in Warwick, as opposed to four bricklayers. Warwick’s sandstone buildings indicated prosperity and importance, which reinforced its position as the major town on the southern Darling Downs.

Shortly after construction began, O'Brien advised the Council he was insolvent, and arranged for the firm of Stewart, Law and Longwill to take over the work, which they did on 9 July 1887. Work recommenced under the supervision of William Wallace, with sandstone transported from the Mt Sturt quarry for the Palmerin Street elevation, and from the Mt Tate quarry for the back and sides of the building.

The stone work was subcontracted to John McCulloch, a Warwick stonemason responsible for the stone work on a number of prominent buildings in the town including Pringle Cottage (McCulloch’s house), the Court House, St Marks Church, St Andrews Church, Central School, the Sisters of Mercy Convent, the Railway Goods Shed and the Albion Street Post Office.

The foundation stone of the new Town Hall was laid on 13 August 1887 by Lady Griffith, wife of then Premier of Queensland, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith. A bottle, sealed with the Corporation seal and containing a copy of a commemorative scroll, copies of the local papers and coins, was placed in a cavity in the stone.

A clock tower was not part of Powell's original design for the new Town Hall. In late 1887, however, it was suggested that the building would be enhanced by the addition of a clock tower. At a meeting of ratepayers in December 1887, a vote was carried in favour of the addition of a tower which was subsequently incorporated into the building. The final cost of the Town Hall was £6317. The clock itself was not installed until 1891-2. It is understood that the Council acquired a bell from St Mary's Church in Warwick, which was eventually installed on the outside of the tower.

Occupied by the Council from September 1888, and hosting its first public performance on 7 September, the new Town Hall was formally opened on 1 October 1888 by the Mayor of Warwick, Ald. Arthur Morgan. The event was marked with a concert given by the local Philharmonic Society. In his remarks, Morgan described the new Town Hall as ‘...a credit to the town… If there was any truth in the saying that the history of a town was known by the character of its buildings, then the Municipal Council of Warwick had no reason to be ashamed of the page they had contributed to the history of their town’.

The Town Hall faced west directly onto Palmerin Street. It was reported that the front of the ground floor contained, either side of a 30ft by 9ft (9.1m by 2.7m) corridor, two rooms on the south side, each 20ft by 13ft (6m by 4m); and a front room on the north side, with another office behind. The southern rooms were meant for the aldermen, and the northern rooms for the Town Clerk and the rate collector, but these officials instead chose to occupy the first floor rooms. The first floor included two offices, ‘on the right’, each 14ft by 13ft (4.3m by 4m), with a front room extending the width of the building, for the Municipal Chambers. A narrow staircase ascended from the first floor, to a series of steps and ladders within the tower. The hall, with a panelled and coved ceiling and seven windows to each side, was 70ft (21.3m) long from its entrance to the stage, and 42ft (12.8m) wide, with walls 26ft (7.9m) in height. Doors led to the stage on either side of the arched proscenium – which had a 22ft by 18ft (6.7m by 5.5m) opening – and there were two dressing rooms at the rear of the building.

The Town Hall was the venue for a number of celebrations, including a ball for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. Fireworks were discharged from the tower to celebrate the Relief of Mafeking, during the war in South Africa in 1900, and the balcony of the Town Hall was used to proclaim the declaration of the WWI Armistice in November 1914 and of the City of Warwick on 2 April 1936. A reception was held in the hall in 1923 for the Prime Minister, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, when he laid the foundation stone for the war memorial in Leslie Park.

It was also used by community groups for balls, festivities suppers, concerts and flower shows. The hall’s acoustics attracted travelling performers, including JC Williamson, Peter Dawson and Gladys Moncrief. As well as hosting functions, the Town Hall was used for picture shows, with references to Cook’s Pictures being shown there as early as 1906.

The building has had a number of additions and renovations over the years. Gas lighting was installed in the building in 1889, and was subsequently replaced by electricity c1912-3. In October 1907 Conrad Cobden Dornbusch, architect, called tenders for the addition of a gallery (a tiered balcony for audience seats) and iron escape stairs in the hall.

Dornbusch (1867-1949) trained in England, and by 1887 was employed in the Brisbane office of the Architects Oakden, Addison and Kemp. He was practicing as an architect in Warwick by 1891, where he had an office in the Warwick Town Hall during the 1890s. He was elected an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects in 1893, and a Fellow in 1913. He was an Alderman of the Warwick Municipal Council in 1901. In 1910 he entered into a partnership with Daniel Connolly, with their offices located opposite the Town Hall. Dornbusch and Connolly worked on a number of prominent Warwick buildings, including the Christian Brothers’ School; the Mitchner shelter shed at the Warwick General Cemetery; the Johnsons Building adjacent to the Town Hall; the Langham and Criterion hotels on Palmerin Street; and St Mary’s Church. The partnership also designed the rest house at the Stanthorpe Soldiers Memorial.

The new town hall gallery designed by Dornbusch was 42 feet (12.8m) by 13 feet 6 inches (4.1m) with five tiers for seating. The balcony fascia was panelled with pressed metal. On the southern side of the gallery was a fire escape door leading to an external iron stair to the alley running down the side of the building. The plans included substantial swing doors leading into the hall from the ground floor foyer, which were built under a separate contract. The contract for the gallery was awarded to HD Miller, who commenced work on 9 December 1907 and promised to have the gallery ready by Boxing Day, for the Caledonian Society’s 35th annual gathering in the Town Hall – a feat which was just achieved. The contract for the swing doors was let in September 1908 to JD Connellan and R Elloyes. Steel girders were installed on the front of the balcony to support these doors which hung between the vestibule and the auditorium.

The Town Hall was also extended at the rear in 1911. Efforts to extend the Town Hall date from about 1907, when new supper rooms at the back of the hall were recommended by the Town Hall Committee. By 1908 the committee also hoped to enlarge the hall. Loans were obtained from the Queensland Government, and in 1910 Dornbusch and Connolly were commissioned to design the additions. The work was undertaken in 1911 by contractors Connolly and Bell (for a tender of £1297), and when the Town Hall Committee inspected the additions in August 1911, it stated that 200 more chairs were required, due to the extension of the hall, and that the area underneath the ‘new dressing rooms’ should be enclosed with corrugated iron.

The Town Hall was also a place for a prominent memorial to remember the war dead. In early 1917 a movement was initiated by James Brown, Patron of the Warwick and District Amateur Rugby Football League, to erect ‘a memorial to honour the Warwick league football heroes, who have given their lives for their King and country (and those who may yet fall)’. A committee was formed, subscriptions collected and a tablet unveiled at a ceremony on 12 May 1917. Inscribed with nine names (later 19) and placed to the right of the entrance to the Town Hall, the tablet was the work of Warwick masons Troyahn, Coulter and Thompson. In unveiling the tablet, the then Mayor of Warwick Ald. Gilham drew contemporary parallels between war and sport, suggesting that ‘There were worse places for young fellows to be than on the football field and places that were not such good training grounds to fit the young fellows for service to the Empire. It was said that Waterloo was won on the cricket fields of England. Probably some of the glories of the war had been contributed to, and to some extent made possible by, the previous practice the boys had received on the football fields of sunny Queensland’.

A tablet/plaque to the memory of Colonel William James Foster CB, CMG, DSO, Australian Staff Corps, was also mounted to the right of the entrance to the Town Hall in 1930. Colonel Foster was born in Warwick in 1881 and died in England in 1927. The memorial was erected by Colonel Foster's brother officers, of the Australian Staff Corps and Australian Light Horse.

Further changes occurred in the Town Hall in the 1920s. Undated plans by Dornbusch and Connolly show that a strong room, 3ft 9 inches by 8ft (1.1m by 2.4m) with a concrete floor, was added to the upper floor adjacent to the gallery, and this occurred between 1925 and 1929. In 1925 there were also plans to turn the Town Clerk and accountant’s rooms into the Council Chamber, and vice versa. Minor alterations to the vestibule were made in April 1926, to plans by Dornbusch and Connolly, and the nosing of the step at the entrance was modified. Tiles were added to the entrance vestibule c1929. On 6 August 1930 a contract was signed with James Straddock to build a ticket office in the vestibule in accordance with plans drawn by Dornbusch.

The Town Hall was again extended to the rear, including the construction of a separate lavatory block, in 1929-30. In 1928 the Town Hall Committee recommended renovations and further additions, including extending the dressing rooms and the back of the Town Hall, and erecting four brick lavatories. The lack of ‘public conveniences’ had been an issue for Warwick for some time. There was only one latrine, in Leslie Park, in 1911, and more public lavatories for Warwick had become part of the local Labor Party’s policy by 1927.

The tender of P Thornton for £2877, for improvements to the Town Hall to be completed in 18 weeks, was accepted in June 1929. The improvements included a new supper room, measuring 42ft by 30ft (12.8m by 9.1m), which was almost finished in September 1929. By that time widening of the Council Chamber – from 13ft to 20ft (4m to 6m) – was about to commence. The new supper room appears to have been added to the rear (east) of the existing 1911 timber extension.

The lavatories were completed by August 1930, when Dornbusch (as architect) and Thornton (as contractor) were in a disagreement about Thornton’s adherence to the building specifications: the joists in the supper room were in many cases over 5 inches (12.7cm) wider apart than specified, while the rafters in the lavatory block were more than double the width apart that was specified. The lavatories were attached to a septic system, as Warwick’s sewerage scheme was not implemented until World War II. The Town Hall lavatory block was seen as ‘out of date’ by 1948, and new public toilets were built on Grafton Street by June 1954 (since replaced).

Warwick was one of the first municipalities in Queensland to have a lethal chamber for exterminating stray cats and dogs with coal gas, and one was added ‘at the rear of the Town Hall yard’ by March 1935. It was said to have been built of concrete, with a removable door and two pipes; one for pumping in the gas, and one for releasing displaced air. Death was supposed to occur within 3-4 minutes, and was seen as an improvement on the previous method of death by hanging. However, no written evidence has been found confirming its exact location.

In October 1935 Warwick celebrated (prematurely) 75 years of municipal government, and at this time the local press popularised the idea of the town being proclaimed a city. The Queensland Cabinet approved the granting of city status to Warwick on 2 April 1936, and this was celebrated in Warwick on 29 June.

By the 1950s there was pressure to extended the Town Hall once more, and £7500 was borrowed, although the City Engineer claimed that £14,000 would be required to ensure adequate seating, stage space and dressing rooms, while completely replacing the supper room and building a new kitchen. This work did not eventuate.

A Council employee, Tom Bryant, recalled that in the 1950s the room on the ground floor to the southern side of the entrance was used by a clerk and two typists, while immediately inside the office was a large public counter. In the 1960s the position of Health Surveyor was created and the room was divided to provide a separate office space. On the northern side of the entry was the committee room which was connected to the Shire Clerk’s Office. Upstairs, office space was provided for the Works Foreman and the Sewerage Foreman, while the Mayor had a private office and retiring room. The room on the southern side was used for Council meetings. A raised podium was provided for the Mayor and part of the room was separated by a rail to form a public gallery which had a separate doorway.

In 1965 the supper room was modernised in accordance with plans prepared by Warwick Consulting Engineer HA Leonard. Between 1962 and 1972 a kitchen extension was added at the rear of the hall, onto the other extensions.

By the late 1960s, the Town Hall was considered generally inadequate for the purposes of the City Council. A new administration centre was erected at the corner of Fitzroy and Albion Streets, and the last meeting of the Council was held in the Town Hall in August 1975.

The Town Hall, after being listed with the National Trust in 1973, was re-roofed in 1975 with a National Estate Grant, and a damp proof course was inserted into the main building in 1976.

Further refurbishments occurred in 1984, when the ceiling and walls were repainted and new incandescent chandeliers replaced the former fluorescent lights. Stage lighting was renewed and improved and a bio box was installed behind the gallery to provide required lighting effects. Carpet was laid on the floor, which was provided with heating, and concrete was poured on the foyer floor. In the 1990s there was a problem with rising damp in the front, northern room, which did damage to the plasterwork, and repairs were made c1998. The rear office on the northern side of the ground floor has also been converted to a men’s toilet at some point.

In July 1994 the Queensland Government amalgamated the City of Warwick and the surrounding Shires of Allora, Glengallan and Rosenthal to form the Shire of Warwick; which was later amalgamated with Stanthorpe Shire in 2008 to form the Southern Downs Regional Council.

The Warwick Town Hall remains in use as a venue for community functions including flower shows, school plays and other entertainment. In 2017 its ground floor offices were used for a tourism office and craft shop, while the upstairs rooms were used by the Southern Downs Regional Council’s Economic Development Unit. The building remains a prominent local landmark in the otherwise low-rise centre of the town.

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1771894

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

A bit of History of Canberra.

Once agreement had been reached between the states for a new federal government and Queen Victoria had assented to the act a search began for a site for the new capital of the nation. The long time rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne was resolved by a clause in the new constitution which stated the capital had to be in NSW but at least 100 miles (160 kms) from Sydney and that the new Federal parliament would decide the final location. Politicians then suggested potential sites taking into account closeness to Sydney, rail access, and a good water supply as Australia had suffered a severe drought in 1902-1904. The new territory for the national capital would be ceded by the NSW parliament to the new government, so NSW always was going to have the final say! Twenty three sites were considered and inspected by politicians travelling by train, camping and then moving around on horseback! The sites included Albury, Armidale, Orange, Yass, Lake George, etc. The new territory was to be at least 100 square miles in area. The politicians decided on Dalgety a tiny town near Lake Jindabyne and Bombala near the NSW Victorian border in 1903. NSW did not approve of this choice as it was too far from Sydney and closer to Melbourne and there was no railway to the site so in 1908 a final decision was made on the Canberra-Yass district. The new territory was going to be 912 square miles in area. In 1911 the NSW parliament ceded this area to the new federal government and an international competition was then held for a design of the new capital city. 137 entries were received and the winner was Walter Burley Griffin from Chicago who planned for a city of 75,000 people in the tradition of a “garden city”. His plan involved the damming of Molonglo Creek to form a large lake, and a series of octagonal focal points were to be aligned with natural features (the surrounding mountains) and be linked by large avenues. The main axis of his plan (and his wife Marion worked on it too) was to be from Capital Hill (the site of our present parliament) across to the War Memorial at the foot of Mt Ainslie. On the 12th March 1913 Canberra was formally named and construction was to begin on the new city. Walter Burley Griffin arrived a few months later to supervise the work. Unfortunately World War I broke out in 1914 and worked stalled as the government had insufficient funds. Conflicts occurred and Walter Burley Griffin left Canberra in 1921 and new architects were brought in to complete the city. A major milestone was achieved when the temporary Parliament House was opened in 1927 and the Federal government moved from its temporary accommodation in Melbourne to the city of Canberra. Worked progressed slowly in the 1930s, because of the Depression, and in the 1940s because of World War Two, yet some progress was made in these decades. Prime Minister Robert Menzies made sure Canberra forged ahead in the 1950s and the city has continued to grow ever since. It now has a population of 370,000 people and is the eight largest city of Australia.

The Canberra district has been settled by pastoralists in 1824 at Bungendore and Braidwood. Like these two towns Canberra too had been first discovered by ex-convict Joseph Wild in 1820. The earliest station was Duntroon set up by a good Scot called Campbell and another station nearby called Yarralumla was also set up by a Scot, named Murray. Another early settler Joshua Moore called his property Canberry, but the local Aborigines called the district Canberra so he changed his property’s name to Canberra. Moore’s original cottage was on land now occupied by the Australian National University. Much of his grazing land is now under Lake Burley Griffin! A tiny village or local focus emerged here in 1845 when St. John’s Anglican Church was erected on land donated by the Campbell family of Duntroon station. St. John’s remains as Canberra’s oldest public structure and Duntroon (1833) as its oldest building. These original settlers and other landowners were not happy about the creation of the Australian Capital Territory as their land was resumed and offered back on 99 year leases. All land in the ACT is still owned by the government and there is no freehold land only leased titles.

Some Canberra Miscellanea.

•The Aboriginal Tent Embassy was established on Australia Day 1972. After some protests it was demolished several times and but soon re-established. In 1995 the Embassy was added to the Register of the National Estate. Prime Minister Gillard lost a shoe near the Embassy on Australia Day 2012.

•The Australian-American Memorial was erected from public donations after the ending of World War Two. It commemorates the support the USA gave Australia during that war. It is 79 metres high and was opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1954.

•Anzac Parade was officially opened by Prime Minister Robert Menzies on Anzac Day 1965 to commemorate the Gallipoli Landing.

•ASIO , Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was founded in 1949 by Prime Minister Ben Chifley. The ASIO Headquarters were opened in 1897.

•Yarralumla, Government House. The house was built in 1891 for a pastoralist. It has been the home of the Governor-General since 1927. The Queen stays here. Prime Ministers and cabinets are sworn in here. The first Australian born Governor-General was Sir Isaac Isaacs in 1931 despite strong opposition to his appointment from King George V. Prime Minister Scullin insisted. Isaacs Isaacs was the first Jewish GG.

•The Lodge, at 5 Adelaide Avenue was built in 1926 as a residence of the Speaker of the House but it became the residence of the Prime Minister. Stanley Bruce, 1923-29, was the first Prime Minister to live in the Lodge from 1927. It is a 40 roomed Georgian style mansion on 4.4 acres of gardens. Plans for a luxurious Prime Minister’s residence were never completed so the Lodge remained the Canberra residence of the PM. Prime Minister John Curtin died in the Lodge in 1945.

•Air Disaster Memorial near Canberra Airport. In August 1940 a plane crashed at Canberra Airport killing three Cabinet members. Prime Minister Robert Menzies recalled 31 year old Harold Holt from the Army to serve as a Minister. Holt later became Prime Minister 1966-67 until he disappeared in the ocean 17/12/67.

•Ridges Lakeside Hotel. It opened in 1972 as the leading Canberra Hotel. Here Pakistani money broker Khemlani booked in with his luggage (with lots of money in it) whilst he stayed elsewhere! This affair in part led to the downfall of the Whitlam government. Bob and Hazel Hawke stayed here in 1983 when he was elected Prime Minster. Hawke ran the government from Ridges for about one week!

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1036526

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

(Extract from Macedon Ranges cultural heritage and landscape study 4 v. 1994.).

CAMERON MEMORIAL CROSS.

William Cameron of Cameron Lodge donated the memorial cross,

surrounds, roadway and gates to the people of Gisborne Shire as a

memorial to the sodliers of the First War{ Milbourne, p.90}. It

was announced in the `Argus' in 1932 as to be set at an elevation

of 3324 feet and floodlit at night such that it would be visible

from Melbourne. .

Edward Campbell & Sons of Melbourne designed and fabricated it,

the actual erection on site taking 25 hours. It was completed by

1935, with dedication services held on the 16th March when the

cross was unveiled by His Excellency Lord Huntingfield KCMG. .

`Seventy feet in height with a plinth 14 feet in width, the Cross

rests on a circular base 38 feet in diameter. the pale yellow

stone, in releif against the sombre colours of the dense bush

which clothes the Mount, is conspicuous for miles across the

palins 2000 feet below'..

`On two sides of the cross in relief, two swords, each 25 feet

long point ot the ground. About the circular base are trim lawns,

trees and shrubs. the Cross, floodlit at night, bears the

inscription `To the Glory of God and in memory of Australia's

sons 1914-18'..

`Death cannot rob them of their Glory..

Nor time effce the memory of their gallant deeds'.

.

The Cross is mounted on a 70ft. high steel frame set in concrete

foundations. Mounted on the east side of the Cross, which faces

Melbourne, is a cast bronze crusader's sword about 25 ft in

length. The ceramic tiles were made by Wunderlich..

.

The unveiling of the Cross has generally been attributed to the

State Governor, Lord Huntingfield, however, Marion

Hutton notes that the Age shows the unveiling

to have been performed by the Premier, Sir Stanley Argyle and

that no apology or explanation was given for the Governor'

absence . .

.

Cameron paid for the surrounding gardens and water storage as

well as the three mile road which linked the Cross with the Mount

Macedon Road when opened in 1941. The total cost was £30,000. Cameron also inspired the formation in 1944 of a

committee of management consisting of representitives from the

Gisborne Shire, Forest Commission, the RSL and the Cameron

estate. After years of neglect local residents commenced fund

raising for repair of the Cross and its surrounds in 1953, paying

some £5000 for renewing and elevation of the flood lights,

erecting a kiosk and caretaker's residence, clearing the bush and

restoring the gardens..

.

A later stone gateway and wrought iron gates (1956) mark the

approach to the cross from the carpark. The gates were relocated

in 1990 following realignment of the walking track to the Cross

to allow for the development of a new kiosk. The newly

relocated gates were opened by Bruce Ruxton, State President of

the RSL.

.

The `Kyneton Guardian' on 22.10.1975 recorded damage to the

masonry on the Cross caused by a lightning strike, which was

believed to be the first time the structure had been directly

hit. .

.

Significance Aspects.

Notes by the Committee of Management after the Ash Wednesday

fires documents the emblematic vision that the Cross provided to

the people of the district:.

"The people of this district saw the Cross, unharmed by the

holocaust, as a symbol for them to have hope, courage and

perseverance in rebuilding their future lives among the ashes".

.

The Committee noted that each year at dawn on Anzac Day a

pilgrimage of returned soldiers from many parts of Victoria is

held at the Cross and considered the Cross had come to be

regarded as a National Memorial. .

.

In 1941, on the occasion of the Governor's visit, Sir Winston

Organ stated that Cameron Drive was not a tourist road rather a

pilgrim's way. .

.

In 1943, Cr Muntz told the Woodend Shire Council that a world

traveller told him that the views from the Cross equalled those

of Switzerland and other famous parts of the world ..

.

Originally clad with a terra-cotta faience veneer (simulating Hawkesbury

sandstone) fixed to a steel angle-braced frame, the cross stood

on a tiered podium also faced with faience but this had been

since rendered over with an unrelated aggregate finish. .

.

The approach to the cross is on axis and flanked by short stone

piers which once held light standards. Similar piers are placed

at other axes of the podium with stairs placed between. The

complex was once approached via ornamental cypress avenues,

typical of the 1930s (now gone). .

.

A later stone gateway and wrought iron gates (1956) mark the

approach to the cross from the carpark..

.

Little if any of the original formal landscape and forestry

plantation survives. The Memorial was formerly set within gardens which were formally laid out at the base of the Cross extending ì

into a plantation of mountain ash, snow gums and a mixture of ì

pines. An FCV brochure shows the planting as snow gums either

side of the path adjacent to the former water tank near the Cross. Just within the Memorial Gates was the Memorial Gardens and either side of this the plantation comprised Radiata pine planted 1926 and Corsican pine planted in 1923 and 1926. The parking and barbecue area was surrounded by Mountain ash and Corsican pine. .

.

The land on which the Cross was erected forms part of what was the Mount Macedon State Forest. .

The earlier lookout, pulled down in 1929 when only four legs were ì

left, was about 100 yards back up the hill from the Cross. It ì

was straight up from the original gates, about half way between ì

the western point and the southern point where the Cross is. ì

Bill de Mack, who worked as a scaffolder on the Cross remembers ì

that a ten foot by eight foot corrugated iron hut at the base of the lookout was all that was left but this disappeared over the

weekend soon after men started working at the Cross. The men ì

left the hut and used the little shed for dinner and some even ì

camped there. He also spoke of a stone shelter where wood was kept which had toilets underneath and on the roof was a reservoir ì

all built of local stone but later vandalised. This shelter may ì

be the same as the former water tank marked on the FCV brochure. .

.

In Bill de Mack's opinion, Mr Cameron was initially at odds with

the returned soldiers who thought money should be donated for their welfare, or that a monument should be erected in the town

in the form of clubrooms (after WW2 this was typically the case). Mr Cameron had to get approval from the FCV in selecting a site and their preference was another ì

site. However, Cameron persisted with the southern point site as ì

it could be viewed by telescope from Cameron Lodge. Apparently, Cameron watched from below and selected the exact site with the ì

aid of a system of flags to the men on the Mount. Even then, one morning the men were told it had to be shifted again by four or ì

five feet. This did not endear goodwill towards Cameron. .

.

Initially the Cross was not a favourable concept with anyone but

those to whom it gave employment. People also thought the road should have been made before the Cross was erected rather than

the reverse. The fact that Cameron was an American meant that heì

was not accepted until after many years the returned soldiers

eventually accepted what Cameron had sought to do. .

.

An original official opening ceremony brochure, for the

opening of Cameron Drive on 19.02.1941, documents that Gisborne's Shire President at the opening ceremony was Cr. James Railton who

welcomed His Excellency & Lady Dugan. A photograph shows the Cross and surrounds with formal landscaping with urns planted ì

with clipped shrubs edging the podium and steps to the Cross. Landscaping was reputedly carried out by Leversha and others....

.

Since the cross and garden have been replaced, the cross clad with a glazed finish unlike the original.

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1036513

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1036525

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1035391

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

(Extract from Macedon Ranges cultural heritage and landscape study 4 v. 1994.).

CAMERON MEMORIAL CROSS.

William Cameron of Cameron Lodge donated the memorial cross,

surrounds, roadway and gates to the people of Gisborne Shire as a

memorial to the sodliers of the First War{ Milbourne, p.90}. It

was announced in the `Argus' in 1932 as to be set at an elevation

of 3324 feet and floodlit at night such that it would be visible

from Melbourne. .

Edward Campbell & Sons of Melbourne designed and fabricated it,

the actual erection on site taking 25 hours. It was completed by

1935, with dedication services held on the 16th March when the

cross was unveiled by His Excellency Lord Huntingfield KCMG. .

`Seventy feet in height with a plinth 14 feet in width, the Cross

rests on a circular base 38 feet in diameter. the pale yellow

stone, in releif against the sombre colours of the dense bush

which clothes the Mount, is conspicuous for miles across the

palins 2000 feet below'..

`On two sides of the cross in relief, two swords, each 25 feet

long point ot the ground. About the circular base are trim lawns,

trees and shrubs. the Cross, floodlit at night, bears the

inscription `To the Glory of God and in memory of Australia's

sons 1914-18'..

`Death cannot rob them of their Glory..

Nor time effce the memory of their gallant deeds'.

.

The Cross is mounted on a 70ft. high steel frame set in concrete

foundations. Mounted on the east side of the Cross, which faces

Melbourne, is a cast bronze crusader's sword about 25 ft in

length. The ceramic tiles were made by Wunderlich..

.

The unveiling of the Cross has generally been attributed to the

State Governor, Lord Huntingfield, however, Marion

Hutton notes that the Age shows the unveiling

to have been performed by the Premier, Sir Stanley Argyle and

that no apology or explanation was given for the Governor'

absence . .

.

Cameron paid for the surrounding gardens and water storage as

well as the three mile road which linked the Cross with the Mount

Macedon Road when opened in 1941. The total cost was £30,000. Cameron also inspired the formation in 1944 of a

committee of management consisting of representitives from the

Gisborne Shire, Forest Commission, the RSL and the Cameron

estate. After years of neglect local residents commenced fund

raising for repair of the Cross and its surrounds in 1953, paying

some £5000 for renewing and elevation of the flood lights,

erecting a kiosk and caretaker's residence, clearing the bush and

restoring the gardens..

.

A later stone gateway and wrought iron gates (1956) mark the

approach to the cross from the carpark. The gates were relocated

in 1990 following realignment of the walking track to the Cross

to allow for the development of a new kiosk. The newly

relocated gates were opened by Bruce Ruxton, State President of

the RSL.

.

The `Kyneton Guardian' on 22.10.1975 recorded damage to the

masonry on the Cross caused by a lightning strike, which was

believed to be the first time the structure had been directly

hit. .

.

Significance Aspects.

Notes by the Committee of Management after the Ash Wednesday

fires documents the emblematic vision that the Cross provided to

the people of the district:.

"The people of this district saw the Cross, unharmed by the

holocaust, as a symbol for them to have hope, courage and

perseverance in rebuilding their future lives among the ashes".

.

The Committee noted that each year at dawn on Anzac Day a

pilgrimage of returned soldiers from many parts of Victoria is

held at the Cross and considered the Cross had come to be

regarded as a National Memorial. .

.

In 1941, on the occasion of the Governor's visit, Sir Winston

Organ stated that Cameron Drive was not a tourist road rather a

pilgrim's way. .

.

In 1943, Cr Muntz told the Woodend Shire Council that a world

traveller told him that the views from the Cross equalled those

of Switzerland and other famous parts of the world ..

.

Originally clad with a terra-cotta faience veneer (simulating Hawkesbury

sandstone) fixed to a steel angle-braced frame, the cross stood

on a tiered podium also faced with faience but this had been

since rendered over with an unrelated aggregate finish. .

.

The approach to the cross is on axis and flanked by short stone

piers which once held light standards. Similar piers are placed

at other axes of the podium with stairs placed between. The

complex was once approached via ornamental cypress avenues,

typical of the 1930s (now gone). .

.

A later stone gateway and wrought iron gates (1956) mark the

approach to the cross from the carpark..

.

Little if any of the original formal landscape and forestry

plantation survives. The Memorial was formerly set within gardens which were formally laid out at the base of the Cross extending ì

into a plantation of mountain ash, snow gums and a mixture of ì

pines. An FCV brochure shows the planting as snow gums either

side of the path adjacent to the former water tank near the Cross. Just within the Memorial Gates was the Memorial Gardens and either side of this the plantation comprised Radiata pine planted 1926 and Corsican pine planted in 1923 and 1926. The parking and barbecue area was surrounded by Mountain ash and Corsican pine. .

.

The land on which the Cross was erected forms part of what was the Mount Macedon State Forest. .

The earlier lookout, pulled down in 1929 when only four legs were ì

left, was about 100 yards back up the hill from the Cross. It ì

was straight up from the original gates, about half way between ì

the western point and the southern point where the Cross is. ì

Bill de Mack, who worked as a scaffolder on the Cross remembers ì

that a ten foot by eight foot corrugated iron hut at the base of the lookout was all that was left but this disappeared over the

weekend soon after men started working at the Cross. The men ì

left the hut and used the little shed for dinner and some even ì

camped there. He also spoke of a stone shelter where wood was kept which had toilets underneath and on the roof was a reservoir ì

all built of local stone but later vandalised. This shelter may ì

be the same as the former water tank marked on the FCV brochure. .

.

In Bill de Mack's opinion, Mr Cameron was initially at odds with

the returned soldiers who thought money should be donated for their welfare, or that a monument should be erected in the town

in the form of clubrooms (after WW2 this was typically the case). Mr Cameron had to get approval from the FCV in selecting a site and their preference was another ì

site. However, Cameron persisted with the southern point site as ì

it could be viewed by telescope from Cameron Lodge. Apparently, Cameron watched from below and selected the exact site with the ì

aid of a system of flags to the men on the Mount. Even then, one morning the men were told it had to be shifted again by four or ì

five feet. This did not endear goodwill towards Cameron. .

.

Initially the Cross was not a favourable concept with anyone but

those to whom it gave employment. People also thought the road should have been made before the Cross was erected rather than

the reverse. The fact that Cameron was an American meant that heì

was not accepted until after many years the returned soldiers

eventually accepted what Cameron had sought to do. .

.

An original official opening ceremony brochure, for the

opening of Cameron Drive on 19.02.1941, documents that Gisborne's Shire President at the opening ceremony was Cr. James Railton who

welcomed His Excellency & Lady Dugan. A photograph shows the Cross and surrounds with formal landscaping with urns planted ì

with clipped shrubs edging the podium and steps to the Cross. Landscaping was reputedly carried out by Leversha and others....

.

Since the cross and garden have been replaced, the cross clad with a glazed finish unlike the original.

6921. A large crowd is gathered as HMAS SYDNEY [II] is launched by Mrs Stanley Melbourne Bruce, wife of the Australian High Commissioner to London, and a former Prime Minister, at the Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson shipyard at Wallsend on Tyne in the UK.. The moment is described above as the birth of a legend. As a bye the bye, we could help but notice that this photo is signed by James Henry Cleet [1876-1959] of South Shields and a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. Cleet produced many magnificent warship photographs for the British Ministry of Defence, and appears on this Photostream with the WWII Q Class destroyers.

In any event, he was also there when the HMAS SYDNEY [II] legend was born. This photo opens the page content of the West Australian Newspapers Ltd booklet 'No Survivors,' produced in 1991 half a century after the loss of the ship with all hands in battle with the German raider KORMORAN. The battle took place off Western Australia on Nov. 19, 1941, just weeks before Australia was plunged into a perilous new theatre of war with Japan.

Australia's greatest naval tragedy, the loss of HMAS SYDNEY [II] could also not have occurred at a worse time.

Credits: the key people involved in the concept and editorial production of 'No Survivors' for West Australian Newspapers Ltd were: Vicki Miller; Mike Whitington; Bruce Farrington; John and Mollie Ross; and Elizabeth Goodwin.` The booklet pages were first posted by Graham 'Sandy' McNab [RAN 1958-67] to the RAN Communications Branch Association [RANCBA] website in 2013, and they appear here with permission. Thanks are also due to Sandy McNab's daughter Karen Coates, who came across the booklet in the course of some family research, two members of the Coates family having served on HMAS SYDNEY [II] prior to the ships' loss. Related links:

www.rancba.org.au

www.rancba.org.au/HMAS_SYDNEY_Commemoration_Booklet.htm

'.

Believed to be at Clayton Rd, Clayton. Photograph mounted on card. [below: BACK ROW: Crs. Broome, Forster, Audsley, Coleman SECOND ROW: Rev. J.C. Atkinson, Hon.Stanley Bruce In light colour coat and bow tie, Cr McLorinan, Cr Cotter, Mr Groves, Cr Scott THIRD ROW: Cr Kollmorgan, Aurisch, Garnet, Rook, Earle, Jordan FRONT ROW: Mr Knights, Cr Stocks]

The Right Honourable, The Viscount Bruce of Melbourne,

CH MC PC FRS, was the Member for Flinders from 11 May 1918 and Prime Minister of Australia from 9 February 1923 to 22 October 1929, when he lost his seat in a general election.

MPLSLH000424

(Extract from Macedon Ranges cultural heritage and landscape study 4 v. 1994.).

CAMERON MEMORIAL CROSS.

William Cameron of Cameron Lodge donated the memorial cross,

surrounds, roadway and gates to the people of Gisborne Shire as a

memorial to the sodliers of the First War{ Milbourne, p.90}. It

was announced in the `Argus' in 1932 as to be set at an elevation

of 3324 feet and floodlit at night such that it would be visible

from Melbourne. .

Edward Campbell & Sons of Melbourne designed and fabricated it,

the actual erection on site taking 25 hours. It was completed by

1935, with dedication services held on the 16th March when the

cross was unveiled by His Excellency Lord Huntingfield KCMG. .

`Seventy feet in height with a plinth 14 feet in width, the Cross

rests on a circular base 38 feet in diameter. the pale yellow

stone, in releif against the sombre colours of the dense bush

which clothes the Mount, is conspicuous for miles across the

palins 2000 feet below'..

`On two sides of the cross in relief, two swords, each 25 feet

long point ot the ground. About the circular base are trim lawns,

trees and shrubs. the Cross, floodlit at night, bears the

inscription `To the Glory of God and in memory of Australia's

sons 1914-18'..

`Death cannot rob them of their Glory..

Nor time effce the memory of their gallant deeds'.

.

The Cross is mounted on a 70ft. high steel frame set in concrete

foundations. Mounted on the east side of the Cross, which faces

Melbourne, is a cast bronze crusader's sword about 25 ft in

length. The ceramic tiles were made by Wunderlich..

.

The unveiling of the Cross has generally been attributed to the

State Governor, Lord Huntingfield, however, Marion

Hutton notes that the Age shows the unveiling

to have been performed by the Premier, Sir Stanley Argyle and

that no apology or explanation was given for the Governor'

absence . .

.

Cameron paid for the surrounding gardens and water storage as

well as the three mile road which linked the Cross with the Mount

Macedon Road when opened in 1941. The total cost was £30,000. Cameron also inspired the formation in 1944 of a

committee of management consisting of representitives from the

Gisborne Shire, Forest Commission, the RSL and the Cameron

estate. After years of neglect local residents commenced fund

raising for repair of the Cross and its surrounds in 1953, paying

some £5000 for renewing and elevation of the flood lights,

erecting a kiosk and caretaker's residence, clearing the bush and

restoring the gardens..

.

A later stone gateway and wrought iron gates (1956) mark the

approach to the cross from the carpark. The gates were relocated

in 1990 following realignment of the walking track to the Cross

to allow for the development of a new kiosk. The newly

relocated gates were opened by Bruce Ruxton, State President of

the RSL.

.

The `Kyneton Guardian' on 22.10.1975 recorded damage to the

masonry on the Cross caused by a lightning strike, which was

believed to be the first time the structure had been directly

hit. .

.

Significance Aspects.

Notes by the Committee of Management after the Ash Wednesday

fires documents the emblematic vision that the Cross provided to

the people of the district:.

"The people of this district saw the Cross, unharmed by the

holocaust, as a symbol for them to have hope, courage and

perseverance in rebuilding their future lives among the ashes".

.

The Committee noted that each year at dawn on Anzac Day a

pilgrimage of returned soldiers from many parts of Victoria is

held at the Cross and considered the Cross had come to be

regarded as a National Memorial. .

.

In 1941, on the occasion of the Governor's visit, Sir Winston

Organ stated that Cameron Drive was not a tourist road rather a

pilgrim's way. .

.

In 1943, Cr Muntz told the Woodend Shire Council that a world

traveller told him that the views from the Cross equalled those

of Switzerland and other famous parts of the world ..

.

Originally clad with a terra-cotta faience veneer (simulating Hawkesbury

sandstone) fixed to a steel angle-braced frame, the cross stood

on a tiered podium also faced with faience but this had been

since rendered over with an unrelated aggregate finish. .

.

The approach to the cross is on axis and flanked by short stone

piers which once held light standards. Similar piers are placed

at other axes of the podium with stairs placed between. The

complex was once approached via ornamental cypress avenues,

typical of the 1930s (now gone). .

.

A later stone gateway and wrought iron gates (1956) mark the

approach to the cross from the carpark..

.

Little if any of the original formal landscape and forestry

plantation survives. The Memorial was formerly set within gardens which were formally laid out at the base of the Cross extending ì

into a plantation of mountain ash, snow gums and a mixture of ì

pines. An FCV brochure shows the planting as snow gums either

side of the path adjacent to the former water tank near the Cross. Just within the Memorial Gates was the Memorial Gardens and either side of this the plantation comprised Radiata pine planted 1926 and Corsican pine planted in 1923 and 1926. The parking and barbecue area was surrounded by Mountain ash and Corsican pine. .

.

The land on which the Cross was erected forms part of what was the Mount Macedon State Forest. .

The earlier lookout, pulled down in 1929 when only four legs were ì

left, was about 100 yards back up the hill from the Cross. It ì

was straight up from the original gates, about half way between ì

the western point and the southern point where the Cross is. ì

Bill de Mack, who worked as a scaffolder on the Cross remembers ì

that a ten foot by eight foot corrugated iron hut at the base of the lookout was all that was left but this disappeared over the

weekend soon after men started working at the Cross. The men ì

left the hut and used the little shed for dinner and some even ì

camped there. He also spoke of a stone shelter where wood was kept which had toilets underneath and on the roof was a reservoir ì

all built of local stone but later vandalised. This shelter may ì

be the same as the former water tank marked on the FCV brochure. .

.

In Bill de Mack's opinion, Mr Cameron was initially at odds with

the returned soldiers who thought money should be donated for their welfare, or that a monument should be erected in the town

in the form of clubrooms (after WW2 this was typically the case). Mr Cameron had to get approval from the FCV in selecting a site and their preference was another ì

site. However, Cameron persisted with the southern point site as ì

it could be viewed by telescope from Cameron Lodge. Apparently, Cameron watched from below and selected the exact site with the ì

aid of a system of flags to the men on the Mount. Even then, one morning the men were told it had to be shifted again by four or ì

five feet. This did not endear goodwill towards Cameron. .

.

Initially the Cross was not a favourable concept with anyone but

those to whom it gave employment. People also thought the road should have been made before the Cross was erected rather than

the reverse. The fact that Cameron was an American meant that heì

was not accepted until after many years the returned soldiers

eventually accepted what Cameron had sought to do. .

.

An original official opening ceremony brochure, for the

opening of Cameron Drive on 19.02.1941, documents that Gisborne's Shire President at the opening ceremony was Cr. James Railton who

welcomed His Excellency & Lady Dugan. A photograph shows the Cross and surrounds with formal landscaping with urns planted ì

with clipped shrubs edging the podium and steps to the Cross. Landscaping was reputedly carried out by Leversha and others....

.

Since the cross and garden have been replaced, the cross clad with a glazed finish unlike the original.

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1036531

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1036524

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1036512

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1035392

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

•Anderson, Charles Groves Wright

•Axford, Thomas Leslie

•Badcoe, John

•Beatham, Matthew

•Bell, Frederick William

•Birks, Frederick

•Bisdee, John Hutton

•Blackburn, Arthur Seaforth

•Borella, Albert Chalmers

•Brown, Walter Ernest

•Buckley, Alexander Henry

•Buckley, Maurice Vincent

•Bugden, Patrick Joseph

•Burton, Alexander

•Carroll, John

•Cartwright, George

•Castleton, Claud Charles

•Cherry, Percy Herbert

•Chowne, Albert

•Cooke, Thomas

•Currey, William Matthew

•Cutler, Arthur Roden

•Dalziel, Henry

•Dartnell, William Thomas

•Davey, Phillip

•Derrick, Thomas Currie 'Diver'

•Donaldson, Mark Gregor Strang

•Dunstan, William

•Dwyer, John James

•Edmondson, John Hurst

•Edwards, Hughie Idwal

•French, John Alexander

•Gaby, Alfred Edward

•Gordon, Bernard Sidney

•Gordon, James Hannah (Heather)

•Gratwick, Percival Eric

•Grieve, Robert Cuthbert

•Gurney, Arthur Stanley

•Hall, Arthur Charles

•Hamilton, John

•Howell, George Julian

•Howse, Neville Reginald

•Ingram, George Mawby

•Inwood, Reginald Roy

•Jacka, Albert

•Jackson, John William Alexander

•Jeffries, Clarence Smith

•Jensen, Joergen Christian

•Joynt, William Donovan

•Keighran, Daniel Alan

•Kelliher, Richard

•Kenna, Edward

•Kenny, Thomas James Bede

•Keysor, Leonard

•Kibby, William Henry

•Kingsbury, Bruce Steel

•Leak, John

•Lowerson, Albert David

•Mackey, John Bernard

•Mactier, Robert

•Maxwell, Joseph

•Maygar, Leslie Cecil

•McCarthy, Lawrence Dominic 'Fats'

•McDougall, Stanley Robert

•McGee, Lewis

•McNamara, Francis Hubert (Frank)

•Middleton, Rawdon Hume

•Moon, Rupert Vance

•Murray, Henry William

•Newland, James Ernest

•Newton, William

•O'Meara, Martin

•Partridge, Frank John

•Payne, Keith

•Peeler, Walter

•Pearse, Samuel George

•Pope, Charles

•Rattey, Reginald Roy

•Roberts-Smith, Benjamin

•Rogers, James

•Ruthven, William

•Ryan, Edward John Francis

•Sadlier, Clifford William King

•Shout, Alfred

•Simpson, Rayene Stewart

•Starcevich, Leslie Thomas

•Statton, Percy Clyde

•Storkey, Percy Valentine

•Sullivan, Arthur Percy

•Symons, William

•Throssell, Hugo

•Towner, Edgar Thomas

•Tubb, Frederick

•Wark, Blair Anderson

•Weathers, Lawrence Carthage

•Wheatley, Kevin

•Whittle, John Woods

•Woods, James Park

•Wylly, Guy George Egerton

AUSTRALIAN BORN

Australian born VC Holders

Lance-Corporal Thomas Leslie AXFORD on 18th June 1894 at Carlton, Carriston.

Major Peter John BADCOE on 11th January 1934 at Adelaide.

Lieutenant Frederick William BELL on 3rd April 1875 at Perth

Lieutenant Mark Sever BELL on 15th May 1843 at Sydney. NSW.

2nd Lieutenant Arthur Seaforth BLACKBURN on25th November 1892 at Adelaide.

Lieutenant Albert Chalmers BORELLA on 7th August 1881 at Borun, Victoria.

Sergeant Maurice Vincent BUCKLEY (alias Gerald SEXTON) on 13th April 1891 at Upper Hawthorn, Victoria. Also held DCM.

Private Patrick Joseph BUGDEN in March 1897 at Gundurimba, NSW.

Corporal Alexander Stewart BURTON on 20th January 1893 at Kyneton, Victoria.

Private John CARROLL on 15th August 1892 at Brisbane.

Captain Percy Herbert CHERRY on 4th June 1895 at Murradoc, Victoria.

Lieutenant Albert CHOWNE on 19th July 1920 at Sydney

Private William Matthew CURREY on 19th September 1895 at Wallsend NSW.

Lieutenant Arthur Roden CUTLER on 24th May 1916 at Manly, Sydney.

Drver Henry DALZIEL on 18th February at Irvinbank N.Queensland.

T/Lieutenant Wilbur Taylor DARTNELL on 6th April 1885 at Fitzroy, Melbourne

Corporal Philip DAVEY on 10th October 1896 at Goodwood, S.Aus.

Sergeant Thomas Currie DERRICK on 20th March 1914 at Berri, Murray River.

Corporal William DUNSTAN on 8th March 1895 at Ballarat, Victoria.

Corporal John Hurst EDMONDSON on 8th October 1914 at Wagga Wagga, NSW

Wing Commander Hughie Idwal EDWARDS on 1st August 1914 at Fremantle.

Corporal John Alexander FRENCH on 15th July 1914 at Crow's Nest, Toowoomba, Queensland.

Private James Heather GORDON on 7th March 1909 at Rockingham.

Private Percival Eric GRATWICK on 19th October 1902 at Katanning, W. Aus.

Captain Robert Cuthbert GRIEVE on 19th June 1889 at Brighton, Melbourne.

Private Arthur Stanley GURNEY on 15th December 1908 at Day Dawn, Murchison Goldfields, W.Aust.

Corporal Arthur Charles HALL on 11th August 1896 at Granville, NSW.

Private John HAMILTON on 29th January 1896 at Orange, Penshurst, NSW.

Corporal George Julian HOWELL on 23rd November 1893 at Enfield, Sydney, NSW.

Lieutenant George Morby INGRAM on 18th March 1889 at Bendigo, Victoria.

Private Reginald Roy INWOOD on 14th July 1890 at Renmark, N.Adelaide.

Lance-Corporal Albert JACKA on 10th January 1893 at Winchelsea Dist., Geelong, Victoria.

Private William JACKSON on 13th September 1897 at Gimbar nr. Hay, NSW.

Captain Clarence Smith JEFFRIES on 26th October 1894 at Wallsend, Newcastle, NSW.

Lieutenant William Donovan JOYNT on 19th March 1889 at Elsternwick, Melbourne.

Private Edward KENNA on 6th July 1919 at Hamilton, Victoria.

Private Thomas James Bede KENNY on 29th September 1896 at Paddington, Sydney, NSW.

Private Bruce Steel KINGSBURY on 8th January 1918 at Armadale, Melbourne.

Sergeant Albert David LOWERSON on 2nd August 1896 at Myrtleford, Bogong, Victoria.

Lieutenant Lawrence Dominic McCARTHY on 21st January 1892 at York, W.Aust.

Corporal John Bernard MACKEY on 16th May 1922 at Leichhardt, Sydney, NSW.

Lieutenant Frank Hugh McNAMARA on 4th April 1894 at Waranga, Rushworth, Victoria.

Private Robert MACTIER on 17th May 1890 at Tatura, Victoria.

Lieutenant Joseph MAXWELL on 10th February 1896 at Forest Lodge, Sydney.(Also MC& Bar and DCM.)

Lieutenant Leslie Cecil MAYGAR on 26th May1872 at Dean Station, Milmore, Victoria.

Flight Sergeant Rawdon Hume MIDDLETON on 22nd July 1916 at Waverley NSW.

Lieutenant Rupert Vance MOON on 14th August 1892 at Bacchus Marsh, Victoria.

Flight Lieutenant William Ellis NEWTON on 8th June 1919 at St. Kilda, Victoria.

Private Frank John PARTRIDGE on 29th November 1924 at Grafton, NSW.

Lance-Corporal Walter PEELER on 9th August 1887 at Castlemaine, Melbourne, Victoria. (Also BEM)

Corporal Reginald Roy RATTEY on 28th March 1918 at Barmedman, NSW.

Sergeant James ROGERS on 2nd June 1875 at Riverina, NSW.

Sergeant William RUTHVEN on 21st May 1893 at Collingwood, Melbourne.

Private John RYAN in February 1890 at Tumut, NSW.

Lieutenant Clifford William King SADLIER in 1892 at Camberwell, Victoria.

Warrant Officer Class II Rayene Stewart SIMPSON on 16th February 1926 at Redfern, NSW.

Private Leslie Thomas STARCEVITCH on 5TH September 1918 at Subiaco, W.Aust.

Corporal Arthur Percy SULLIVAN on 27th November 1896 at Crystal Brook, S.Aust.

2nd Lieutenant William John SYMONS on 10th July 1889 at Eaglehawk, Bendigo, Victoria.

2nd Lieutenat Hugo Vivian Hope THROSSELL on 27th October 1884 at Northam, W.Aust.

Lance-Corporal Joseph Harcourt TOMBS in 1884 at Melbourne.

Lieutenant Edgar Thomas TOWNER on 19th April 1890 at Glencoe Station, Queensland.

Lieutenant Frederick Harold TUBB on 28th November 1881 at Saint Helena, Longwood, Victoria.

Major Blair Anderson WARK on 27th July 1894 at Bathurst NSW.

Warrant Officer Class II Kevin Arthur WHEATLEY on 13th March 1937 at Sydney, NSW.

Private James Park WOODS on 2nd January 1891 at Gawler, S. Aust.

Trooper John Hutton BISDEE on 28th September 1869 at Hutton Park.

Corporal Walter Ernest BROWN on 2nd July 1885 at New Norfolk.

Sergeant John James DWYER on 9th March 1890 at Lovett, Port Cygnet.

Lieutenant Alfred Edward GABY on 25th January 1892 at Springfield.

Lance-Corporal Bernard Sidney GORDON on 16th August 1891 at Launceston.

Sergeant Stanley Robert McDOUGALL on 23rd July 1890 at Recherche.

Sergeant Lewis McGEE on 13th May 1888 at Ross,

Captain Henry William MURRAY on 30th December 1884 at Launceston,

Sergeant Percy Clyde STATTON on 21st October 1890 at Beaconsfield.

Sergeant John Woods WHITTLE on 3rd August 1883 at Huon Island.

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1035333

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

The Imperial Japanese Naval Squadron visited Australia in 1928, arriving in Sydney on 15 July 1928. The squadron consisted of the cruisers HIJMS IZUMO, commanded by Captain M Hirota and HIJMS YAKUMO, commanded by Captain M Idemitsu. Among the 1,600 men on board the cruisers was Sub-Lieutenant Prince Takamatsu, the third son of HIM Emperor Taisho, the 123rd Emperor of Japan.

The regular formalities were observed upon their arrival, including the laying of a wreath on the Sydney Cenotaph in Martin Place in honour of those who lost their lives during World War I. That night, a welcome banquet was also hosted by the Japanese Consul-General, Prince Iemasa Tokugawa, the 17th head of the Tokugawa clan (a powerful family that ruled Japan as Shoguns from 1603 to 1867). Also in attendance were Sir William Cullen, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce and Lord John Lawrence Baird Stonehaven, the Governor-General of Australia.

This photo is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Samuel J. Hood Studio collection. Sam Hood (1872-1953) was a Sydney photographer with a passion for ships. His 60-year career spanned the romantic age of sail and two world wars. The photos in the collection were taken mainly in Sydney and Newcastle during the first half of the 20th century.

The ANMM undertakes research and accepts public comments that enhance the information we hold about images in our collection. This record has been updated accordingly.

Photographer: Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection

Object no. 00034534

Check out our blog on naval visits to Sydney bit.ly/MTtR5H

See this record in the Queensland State Archives catalogue:

www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM1035329

Surfers Paradise, a coastal resort 75 km south of central Brisbane, is the best-known of the settlements on the Gold Coast. It includes the canal suburbs of Isle of Capri, Paradise Island, Paradise Waters and Chevron Island. Since the 1950s Surfers Paradise has entered the Australian imagination as the ultimate beach resort. It continues to have fans and detractors. Today it is an hour's drive from Brisbane, and a 30 minute drive to Coolangatta airport for flights to southern capitals.

The Nerang River flows northwards, parallel to the beach, creating a narrow coastal strip on which Surfers Paradise was originally created. Further north is Southport, a township established about 50 years before the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built in 1925. The Nerang River passed through unpromising swamp, estuarine plains and tidal marshes, leaving only recent foreshore dunes and older dunes mixed with organic matter as habitable land.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT

In 1865 two timber-getters tried cotton growing near the then unnamed locality, and erected an inn for coastal wayfarers. Twelve years later they disposed of their interests to Johann Meyer, a sugar cane grower, who also operated a ferry across the Nerang River to a wharf at the end of the present day Cavill Avenue, formerly Ferry Road, which established the centrepoint of Surfers Paradise's subsequent business district. The ferry also served the Southport to Coolangatta coach route, and Meyer built a hotel on the beach road. The locality across from Meyer's ferry was known as Elston.

During the 1880s railway lines were opened to seaside swimming places such as Sandgate (1882) and Southport (1889), prompted by or prompting land subdivisions for holiday houses and investors. By 1915 the subdivisional activity had moved down from Southport estate immediately north of Ferry Road (Cavill Avenue), extending from the river to the beach esplanade. In 1917 the Surfers Paradise Estate was put up for sale, north of First Street, Broadbeach. Two years later a general store, refreshment room and camping ground were opened on the future site of the Chevron Hotel, a block north of Ferry Road.

FROM ELSTON TO SURFERS' PARADISE

The event that marked the beginning of Surfers Paradise was the building of Jim Cavill's Surfers Paradise Hotel in Ferry Road in 1925, a year after the formation of a progress association and coinciding with the opening of the Jubilee Bridge across the Nerang River. The two storey, mock Tudor hotel was well appointed, with 16 rooms, and it attracted increasing numbers of motorists and beach trippers. A surf life-saving club was established in 1926, well supported by Cavill who saw that it enhanced the patronage of his hotel.

The official place name was changed from Elston to Surfers Paradise in 1933. The beach had relaxed dress standards: the neck-to-thigh bathing suit by-law was weakly enforced from over the river at Southport, and in the late 1930s the Melbourne fashion one-piece suit made its way northwards by winter vacationers. There was also considerable building activity, as affordable fibro holiday shacks were erected during the great Depression. By 1937 there were about 500 houses and holiday flats, along with a primary school and Catholic church (1934) and a picture theatre (1937). A State primary school was opened in Laycock Street, three blocks south of Cavill Avenue, in 1934. It was replaced with a new site on the Isle of Capri in 1976.

Regular flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Coolangatta airport began in 1947. The Surfers Paradise Chamber of Commerce was established in 1947, but building and development was hampered by scarce materials being directed to meet residential shortages in preference to holiday places. By the mid-1950s Surfers Paradise (as described by local historian Alex McRobbie) was 'a rather ugly conglomeration of mostly badly-designed buildings with a heavy emphasis on unpainted fibro, corrugated iron roofing, smelly septic systems, un-made roads and inadequate drainage, a great place to live when the weather was fine, but not much fun during long periods of rain'.

TOURIST RESORT

Surfers Paradise came to the forefront of beach fashion when in the early 1950s a local retailer, Paula Stafford, had six models parade her two-piece French swim suits on the beach, attracting press photographers and newsreel cameras. Surfers Paradise became identified with the bikini, an association later capitalised on by the Chamber of Commerce with its Meter Maids who fed coins into council parking meters to keep tourists and shoppers in the town.

The relaxed standards attracted visiting celebrities to Surfers Paradise (Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, 1948, Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall), usually to be seen at the Windjammer restaurant. As building materials became more plentiful accommodation standards moved in the 1950s from the old-fashioned fully-catered boarding or guest houses to self-catering apartments with swimming pools, telephones and bed lamps that worked. These innovations coincided with longer shopping hours and women were being wooed by a major fashion parade with leading models. Businesses grew, with seven banks in Surfers Paradise opening between 1953 and 1957.

MOTELS, CANALS AND UNITS

American style motels, such as the El Dorado (1955), provided further advances in accommodation, while in out-of-town Broadbeach Lennons opened a multi-storey hotel atop sand-mined dunes in 1956. In the heart of Surfers Paradise, Stanley Korman opened the first stage of his Chevron Hotel development, an international standard hotel, overshadowing the aged Cavill's hotel and ultimately buying it out. The first of many canal estates, Florida Gardens, was begun at the back of Broadbeach, and by the end of the 1950s works were in hand for canal estates at Paradise Island (also a Korman project). The credit squeeze (1961) removed Korman from the scene but by 1963 the finance companies which acquired the Chevron development presided over Surfers' largest employer (600 staff). Korman is nevertheless recognised as the person who put Surfers Paradise on the map.

The Surfers Paradise canal estates were the template for the many others that followed. Goat Island, a land-linked sand mass west of Elkhorn Avenue, was recontoured by sand pumping and renamed Chevron Island, another Korman project. MacIntosh Island to the north was similarly engineered and marketed by Bruce Small and the Hooker Rex company. Named Paradise Waters, it became the address of some of the Gold Coast's costliest real estate. South of Chevron Island the Gooding family had run a sugar cane farm and dairy on swampy farmland. The site was acquired for development in 1958 and onsold to Bruce Small who subdivided the recontoured 100 acres and sold them as the Isle of Capri in the early 1960s.

Apartments moved to high-rise with the Kinkabool 11 storey development (1960), and by 1971 another 11 apartment projects were completed, the highest, Apollo and Iluka, reaching 20 storeys. The consummation of the apartments boom came during 1979-82, fuelled by optimistic southern investors who soon found themselves in the midst of a severe downturn in market values. The Home Units Building Act (1965) boosted the apartments market, making it easier for investors and owner-occupiers to get a mortgage from the banks on the basis of strata title.

Surfers Paradise was publicised by its huckster mayor, Bruce Small (elected 1967), and attracted unwanted attention when king tides washed away much of the beach in June 1967. The race to build a protective wall was national news, accompanied by pictures of apartment blocks with exposed foundations.

SHOPPING

Retailing in Surfers Paradise, which offered Melbourne-style intimacy, suffered from the opening of drive-in shopping centres at Sundale, Southport (1969) and Pacific Fair, Broadbeach (1977). Cavill Avenue was made a pedestrian mall in 1976. Shopping then shifted from everyday things to fashion, and in 1987 nearly half the 400 shops in Surfers Paradise stocked fashion and accessories. Several were hotel lobbies or gallerias. By then there were no greenfield sites in Surfers for major retail projects. Jupiters Casino, across Hooker Boulevard from Pacific Fair, opened in 1985.

Several international hotels quickly followed: Conrad Hilton (622 rooms, 1985), Ramada (replacing Jim Cavill's hotel, 406 rooms, 1985), Holiday Inn (108 rooms, 1986), Christopher Skase's Sheraton Mirage (Main Beach, The Spit, 300 rooms, 1987) and Sea World Nara Resort (1988). Lennons Broadbeach hotel was demolished and redeveloped in 1989, with accommodation and a shopping resort. The Chevron site was redeveloped by Jim Raptis, who lost control of the site in the financial collapse of 2009.

Schoolies Week, where final year high school students head for the coast, began at Broadbeach in the 1970s. Surfers Paradise quickly became the centre of Australia's largest and most elaborately organised Schoolies Week, attracting thousands from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Ever since Bernard Elsey started pyjama parties at his Beachcomber Hotel in 1957 and lent his receptionist to be the first bikini-clad Meter Maid in 1965, Elsey and his promotions have typified Surfers Paradise. The sand and surf are acknowledged to be better down the coast, but Surfers shopping, nightlife and theme parks are supposedly second to none. The original appeal of Surfers Paradise - pleasant temperatures, hours of sunshine and a long beach - brought fibro holiday houses and permanent residents, but many residents have since retreated to waterfront estates west of the Nerang River. They have travelled a circle, back to places like the calmer waters of Broadwater which drew holiday-makers to Southport in the 1890s.

The median age of Surfers Paradise residents in 2011 was 36, the same as Queensland as a whole. Surfers Paradise has a shopping and civic centre, a bowling club, five churches and two synagogues. Younger and fitter residents also have the Northcliffe (1947) and Surfers Paradise surf live-saving clubs.

In July 2014 Surfers Paradise was linked along the 13-kilometre light rail corridor between the Gold Coast University Hospital and Broadbeach South.

www.queenslandplaces.com.au/surfers-paradise

Stanley Melbourne Bruce, Prime Minister of Australia 1 February 1923 to 22 October 1929.

NAA: A1200, L11183A

5091. From other images we are aware that the construction of Sydney Harbour Bridge was only at the roadway and approaches stage when HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] first arrived in the city on October 23, 1928.

At that time, she had first been welcomed in Brisbane by the Prime Minister of the day, Stanley Melbourne Bruce, on Oct 12, and while steaming south had been oin stanbdby to assist the pioneer aviators Kingsford Smith and Ulm if required, as they attempted the first flight from Wellington ascross the Tasman.

AUSTRALIA's assistance was not required.

However, as we say, this seems to be later. It is taken at a time when the whole of Sydney was wondering whether such mathematics for the bridge arch were possible, .

Intolerably to the Kookaburra - because he loathes the self-satifaction and pipe-sucking airs of engineers - Dr Bradfield and his men had weilded their dividers reasonably well, and the two sides did come together, perfectly.

Photo: Archives of the HMAS CERBERUS Museum, NO. 003, courtesy of the Curator, Warrant Officer Martin Grogan, RANR.

A three-part COMPENDIUM of links to more than 200 HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] images on this Photostream begins at Pic Entry NO 5412, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6627997309/in/photostream

Statues by John Birnie Philip atop the former Colonial Office now Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1868.

Britannia and her companions by Henry Hugh Armstead and J. Birnie Philip.

Legislation: Woman with paper (by Armstead).

Wisdom: Woman with book (by Philip).

Queen Victoria as Britannia, seated between a lion and a unicorn (by Philip).

Justice: Woman with sword and scales (by Philip).

Navigation: Woman with rudder (by Armstead).

The 19 typanums of the first floor windows each holds a bust, including those in the pavilion returns and the 3 windows in the projecting central section: numbered B1-19.

Queen Victoria is seated in the middle of a sculptural group, at the top, centre of the building, looking down on the Cenotaph.

B. The continents

Reliefs in the spandrels on first storey; sculpted by Henry Hugh Armstead

Left bay [Home Office], by John Birnie Philip

law

agriculture

art

science

manufacture

commerce

literature

Central bay Home Office

1st floor: an Angel and Christianity

2nd floor:

Right bay [Colonial Office], by Henry Hugh Armstead

government, man with crown and sceptre.

Europe, female with ship and horse.

Asia, female with elephant.

Africa, female with child, and a banana tree and hippopotamus.

America, female with feathers and spear.

Australasia, female with sheep and kangaroo.

Education, youth with book.

Relief portraits

In the roundels in lunettes on second storey; sculpted by Henry Hugh Armstead and John Birnie Philip

Starting at the King Charles Street side, along Whitehall from right to left and then around the corner in Downing Street.

Left corner bays [Home Office]

Henry II - Henry Curtmantle (Henri Court-manteau) (Le Mans 1133 - Chinon 1189), King of England 1154-1189.

Henry I - Henry Beauclerc (Henri Beauclerc) (Selby 1068 - Castle of Lyons-la-Forêt 1135), king of England 1100-1135.

Left bay [Home Office]

Gascoigne - Sir William Gascoigne Kt. (c. 1350 - 1419), Lord Chief Justice of England.

Sinclair - unknown

Reynolds - Sir Joshua Reynolds (Plympton 1723 - London 1792), English painter, specialising in portraits.

Bacon - Sir Francis Bacon (London 1561 - Highgate, Middlesex 1626), English philosopher and statesman.

Watt - James Watt (Greenock, Renfrewshire 1736 - Handsworth, Birmingham 1819), Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer.

Smith - Adam Smith (Kirkcaldy, Scotland 1723 - Edinburgh 1790), Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy.

Central bay [Home Office]

Ethelbert - Æthelberht of Wessex, king of Wessex, 860-865.

Edward the Confessor - Edward the Confessor, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066.

Alfred - Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, 871-899.

Right bay [Colonial Office]

Elizabeth - Elizabeth I (Greenwich Palace 1533 - Richmond Palace 1603), Queen of England 1558-1603.

Drake - Sir Francis Drake (Tavistock, Devon, 1540 - Portobelo, Panama, 1596), British sea captain and vice admiral.

Livingstone - David Livingstone (Blantyre, South Lanarkshire 1813 - Chief Chitambo's Village, in present day Zambia 1873), Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa.

Wilberforce - William Wilberforce (Kingston-upon-Hull 1759 - London 1833), English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.

Franklin - Sir John Franklin (Spilsby, Lincolnshire 1786 - aboard HMS Terror near King William Island, Canada, 1847), British Royal Navy officer and explorer of the Arctic.

Cook - James Cook (Marton, Yorkshire 1728 - Hawaï 1779), British explorer, navigator and cartographer, famous because of his three voyages to the Pacific Ocean.

Right corner bays

Edward III - Edward III (1312-1377), King of England 1327-1377.

Edward I - Edward I (1239-1307), King of England 1272-1307.

Statues in niches at the corner bays

South Wing [Home Office], Secretaries of State for the Home Department, by John Birnie Philip: The individual identification of the statues with the secretaries of state is not completely sure.

Facing Whitehall

Top left: Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 2nd Baronet (1806 - 1863), British statesman and man of letters; Home Secretary 1859-60.

Top right: William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779 - 1848), British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary (1830-1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835-1841).

Bottom left: Sir Robert Peel (Ramsbottom, Lancashire 1788 - London 1850), British Conservative statesman, twice Prime Minister (1834-35 and 1841-46), Home Secretary 1822-27 and 1828-29.

Bottom right: Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770 - 1828), English politician and both the youngest and longest-serving Prime Minister (1812-27); Home Secretary 1804-06 and 1807-09.

Facing King Charles Street

Top left: William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville (1759 - 1834), British Whig statesman. He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807 as head of the Ministry of All the Talents; Home Secretary 1779-81.

Top right: Sir James Graham, 2nd Baronet (1792 - 1861), British statesman; Home Secretary 1841-46.

Bottom left: Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet (1799 - 1882), British Whig politician; Home Secretary 1846-52, 1855-58, 1861-66.

Bottom right: John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792 - 1878), British Politican, twice Prime Minister (1846-52 and 1865-66)and Home Secretary 1835-39.

- North wing [Colonial Office], Secretaries of State for the Colonies, by Henry Hugh Armstead: The individual identification of the statues with the secretaries of state is not sure at all.

Facing Whitehall

Top left: Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (Knowsley Park, Lancashire 1799 - Knowsley Park, Lancashire 1869), English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1841-42.

Top right: Henry Pelham-Clinton, 5th Duke of Newcastle (1811 - 1864), British politician ; Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1852-54.

Bottom left: Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (London 1803 - Torquay 1873), English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician; Secretary of State for the Colonies 1858-59. NB The statue shows more likeness with his son, Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, who was Viceroy of India between 1876 and 1880.

Bottom right: Henry Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (1802 - 1894), English statesman; Secretary of State for the Colonies 1846-52.

Facing Downing Street

Top left: Sir William Molesworth, 8th Baronet (London 1810 - 1855), English statesman; Secretary of State for the Colonies July-Oct. 1855.

Top right: Charles Grant, 1st Baron Glenelg (Kidderpore, Bengal 1778 - Cannes 1866), Scottish statesman; Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1835-1839.

Bottom left: Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon, known as The Viscount Goderich (London 1782 - 1859), British statesman; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1827-1828; Secretary of State for the Colonies Febr.-Aug. 1827.

Bottom right: Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst (London 1762 - 1834), British statesman; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1827-1828; Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1812-1827.

Park side: former India Office

Central Bay

The façade of the India Office is decorated with statues of eight governor-generals on the 2nd and 3rd floor.

3rd floor

Lord William Bentinck, Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (Buckinghamshire 1774 - Paris 1839), British soldier and statesman; Governor-General of India, 1828-1835.

Lord Auckland, George Eden, 1st and last Earl of Auckland, (Beckenham, Kent 1784 - Hampshire 1849), English Whig politician and colonial administrator; Governor-General of India, 1836-1842.

Lord Hardinge, Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge (Wrotham, Kent, 1785 - Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 1856), British field marshal; Governor-general of India, 1844-1848.

Lord Ellenborough, Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough (1790 - Southam House, Gloucestershire 1871), British Tory politician; Governor-General of India, 1842-1844.

2nd floor

Lord Dalhousie, James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie (Dalhousie Castle, Midlothian 1812 - Dalhousie Castle, Midlothian 1860), Scottish statesman; Governor-General of India, 1848-1856.

Lord Canning, Charles John Canning, 1st Earl Canning (Gloucester Lodge, Brompton 1812 - London 1862), English statesman; Governor-General of India, 1856-1862.

Lord Elgin, James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin and 12th Earl of Kincardine (London 1811 - Dharamsala, Punjab, British India 1863), British colonial administrator and diplomat; Governor General of the Province of Canada, 1847-1854, Viceroy of India, 1862-1863.

Lord Lawrence, John Laird Mair Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence (1811 - 1879), British Imperial statesman; Viceroy of India, 1864-1869.

Left and Right Bay

The rivers Indus and Ganges and Indian regions.

Left bay

River god (Indus or Ganges) with attendants on the left corner.

Female figure with a branch.

Female figure with a box.

Right bay

Female figure.

Female figure.

River god (Indus or Ganges) with attendants on the right corner.

London - Sculptures at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Facing King Charles Street

Female figure.

Female figure with jar.

Sculptors

Henry Hugh Armstead (London 1828 - London 1905), English sculptor and illustrator .

John Birnie Philip (1824-1875), British sculptor

Sources & Information

Wikipedia, List of architectural sculpture in the City of Westminster.

Morning Post, Friday 30 October 1874 (through British Newspaper Archive).

Worcester Journal, Saturday 12 December 1874 (through British Newspaper Archive).

Illustrated London News, 6 Oct. 1866, pp. 340-341.

Arthur Mee, London: The Classic Guide. King's England (London, 1937).

Susan Foreman, From Palace to Power: An Illustrated History of Whitehall (Brighton: Alpha Press, 1995).

G. Alex Bremner, 'Nation and Empire in the Government Architecture of Mid-Victorian London: The Foreign and India Office Reconsidered,' The Historical Journal 48, 3 (Sep., 2005), pp. 703-742.

Bob Speel, London sculpture.

The Victorian Web, India and Foreign Offices, Whitehall.

Wikipedia, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

From hither and thither

www.vanderkrogt.net/statues/object.php?webpage=CO&rec...

"The Building

Today’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office building used to house four separate departments of state: the Foreign, India, Colonial and Home Offices. The Open House route takes visitors through the old Foreign and India Office quarters of the building which were opened in 1868.

The building is the work of architect George Gilbert Scott, whose other work in London includes the Albert Memorial in Kensington and the restored Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras. In 1856, an international competition invited designs for a new Foreign Office, and – even though his design only came third in the competition – Scott was appointed as the architect.

On completion, Scott’s Foreign Office was described as ‘a kind of national place, or drawing room for the nation.’ His lavish decoration throughout was exemplified by the Grand Staircase.

In addition to the work of Scott, you will also see the designs of a second architect, Matthew Digby Wyatt. As the India Office’s surveyor it was agreed that he would be responsible for the interior of the India Office. His masterpiece, the Durbar Court, is surrounded by three storeys of columns and was originally open to the sky.

The route takes you through some of the most imposing spaces that Scott and Wyatt created: the Durbar Court, the Grand Staircase and the Locarno Suite. These spaces came close to being lost when, in the 1960s, a decision was taken to demolish the building due to its dilapidated state. However, it eventually received Grade I listing status and a process of renovation, completed in 1997, restored the building to its original design.

Although the architecture of the building reflects the values of its time, today’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is anything but old-fashioned. Explore the Office with our online interactive virtual tour which contains audio podcasts and videos, giving a unique insight into Britain’s diplomatic story.

You will have the chance to learn about how the modern Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office operates and the types of work we engage in.

Lancaster House, situated close to Buckingham Palace, is also part of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office estate. This historic house offers a magnificent setting, a prestigious central location and first-class facilities for all types of events and hospitality. It has been used for high-profile receptions, and in 2007 various rooms were used in the filming of The Young Victoria, and BBC/HBO’s production of Churchill at War." Open House

The Imperial Japanese Naval Squadron visited Australia in 1928, arriving in Sydney on 15 July 1928. The squadron consisted of the cruisers HIJMS IZUMO, commanded by Captain M Hirota and HIJMS YAKUMO, commanded by Captain M Idemitsu. Among the 1,600 men on board the cruisers was Sub-Lieutenant Prince Takamatsu, the third son of HIM Emperor Taisho, the 123rd Emperor of Japan.

The regular formalities were observed upon their arrival, including the laying of a wreath on the Sydney Cenotaph in Martin Place in honour of those who lost their lives during World War I. That night, a welcome banquet was also hosted by the Japanese Consul-General, Prince Iemasa Tokugawa, the 17th head of the Tokugawa clan (a powerful family that ruled Japan as Shoguns from 1603 to 1867). Also in attendance were Sir William Cullen, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce and Lord John Lawrence Baird Stonehaven, the Governor-General of Australia.

This photo is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Samuel J. Hood Studio collection. Sam Hood (1872-1953) was a Sydney photographer with a passion for ships. His 60-year career spanned the romantic age of sail and two world wars. The photos in the collection were taken mainly in Sydney and Newcastle during the first half of the 20th century.

The ANMM undertakes research and accepts public comments that enhance the information we hold about images in our collection. This record has been updated accordingly.

Photographer: Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection

Object no. 00034533

Check out our blog on naval visits to Sydney bit.ly/MTtR5H

These Australian soldiers all appear to be in the 1st Light Horse Field Ambulance, A Squadron.

C. Stanley = Charles Stanley #107 from Horsham, Victoria

W. Lang = Bruce Dennistoun Lang #95 from East Malvern, Victoria

J. Chugg = John Chugg #88 from Hawthorn, Victoria

E. Sullivan = Edgar Sullivan #69 from Carlton, Victoria

E. Searle = Ernest William Searle #83 from East St Kilda, Victoria

A. Morris = Alfred Pritchard Kington Morris #97 from Armadale, Victoria

J. Knight = James Albert Knight #70 from North Melbourne, Victoria

J. Smythe = Harold James Smyth #106 from North Fitzroy, Victoria

Handwritten initials JC - J. Chugg's writing perhaps.

(found on ebay)

Dahlia bed

This image depicts eight men on the deck of RMS ORSOVA at the Anniversary Day Regatta which was held on Sydney Harbour on 26 January 1929. From left to right: possibly Colonel Alfred Spain, chairman of the Anniversary Day Regatta Committee and member of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, possibly Rear-Admiral E R G R Evans, Royal Australian Navy, possibly Captain G G Thorne of RMS ORSOVA, Sir William Cullen, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales, possibly Douglas L Dowdell, Orient Line Australian branch general manager, possibly John Garlick, Sydney Chief Civic Commissioner and president of the 1929 Anniversary Day Regatta Committee, Lord John Lawrence Baird Stonehaven, the Governor-General of Australia and far right is Stanley Melbourne Bruce who was Prime Minister of Australia from 1923 to 1929.

This photo is part of the Australian National Maritime Museum’s Samuel J. Hood Studio collection. Sam Hood (1872-1953) was a Sydney photographer with a passion for ships. His 60-year career spanned the romantic age of sail and two world wars. The photos in the collection were taken mainly in Sydney and Newcastle during the first half of the 20th century.

The ANMM undertakes research and accepts public comments that enhance the information we hold about images in our collection. This record has been updated accordingly.

Photographer: Samuel J. Hood Studio Collection

Object no. 00024312

6475. Just for the record here, construction on the Sydney Harbour Bridges arches was just about to begin when the RAN's new flagship HMAS AUSTRALIA [I] arrived in Sydney for the first time on Oct 29, 1928.

She had called at Brisbane first to be greeted by the Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce, and having arrived her her home port, left again only five days later, on Nov. 3, to make a traditional Navy call to Melbourne during M elbourne Cup week. The 10,000 ton County cruiser then visited Adelaide before returning to Sydney on Nov. 16.

The photo above is certainly taken in that period. The 'creeper cranes' on the bridge are standing ast the base of the north side arch here, and in the next 3 1/2 years AUSTRALIA [II] would watch the massive bridge grow to fruitition.

We literally see her watching here, Entry NO. 5091:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6379363139/

It was the cusp of the Great Depression, and in Australia the two County Class cruisers HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] and HMAS CANBERRA [I] were somehow joined with Sydney Harbour Bridge as cheering symols of hope and progress in that often threadbare era.

Even commercially, one can see how the cruisers and the Bridge were placed together as symbols of strength in the period, in the old Austin car advertisement Entry, 134, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/3840663924/

Photo: State Library of NSW [Mitchell Library], Home and Away Collection.

A three-part COMPENDIUM of links to the Photostream's 200+ images of HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] begins at Pic NO. 5412, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6627997309/in/photostr...

Ethel and Stanley Bruce outside The Lodge, February 1928.

Ethel Dunlop Anderson was born in Melbourne in 1879, one of seven daughters of Andrew George Anderson. She married Stanley Melbourne Bruce in July 1913 in Sonning, Berkshire in England.

NAA: A3560, 7648

5167. Chains and windlasses painted, teak foredeck looking pristine, this is an early visit to Brisbane by the new Australian flagship - perhaps even the first. Payne's history 'HMAS AUSTRALIA 1928-1955' [NHSA] records that Brisbane was actually AUSTRALIA's first homeport call on her delivery voyage, on October 14, 1928. She was directed there, from Wellington, NZ, because the Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce was visiting the northern capital at the time, and wanted to greet her on arrival in her home country.

Somehow, however, the lack of any sign of crowds, flags or fuss causes us to doubt whether this picture is actually of that occasion. Nonetheless it makes an interesting juxtaposition both of the preceding WWII image and a large acquisition photo that we had of AUSTRALIA's last visit to Brisbane, on May 22, 1954. That was at pic NO. 4887, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6268013048/

Also, notice that AUSTRALIA has not yet acquired the Federation Star that she carried on her centre bridge panel for much of the 1930s. We're not sure exactly when that appeared.

Folks commenting on the photo have noticed the Admiral's flag; If it is the delivery voyage would be the flag of Rear Admiral [later Sir] George Hyde, RN.

If it is NOT the delivery voyage it would most likely be the flag of flag of Rear Admiral E.R.G.R. Evans, RN, 'Evans of the BROKE' and Antarctica [he was there with Scott]. Evans raised his flag in HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] on May 17, 1929, and made a strong impression on the RAN {say M.A. Payne in his HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] history].

We have a special photograph of an Open Day on HMAS AUSTRALIA [II} at the same wharf - Dalgety's Wharf - at Entry 4881, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6120162689/in/photostr...

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IN 'COMMENTS': from Les Roberts ...

Captain G.F. Hyde, RAN hoisted his broad pennant as Commodore (1st Class) Commanding the Australian Squadron in HMAS Sydney on 30 April, 1926. Hyde remained in command of the Squadron after his promotion to Rear Admiral (23rd February 1928) until he hauled down his flag in May 1929.

As the new heavy cruisers HMA Ships Australia and Canberra neared completion in the United Kingdom, Hyde shifted his broad pennant to HMAS Melbourne and left for the United Kingdom with that ship carrying officers and sailors for the new cruisers. It was during the voyage to Europe that Hyde was promoted Rear Admiral. In May 1928, Hyde hoisted his flag in HMAS Australia, the first of a long line of Flag Officers to fly their flags in this ship. After HM King George V had visited both Australia and Canberra at Portsmouth, Hyde’s flagship left for home via North America, whilst Canberra came home via South Africa. Australia’s voyage included visits to Canada, Boston, New York, Annapolis and New Zealand before arrival at Brisbane

Photo: The Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria [pLaTrobe Library] image NO an011524, copyright expired.

A three-part COMPENDIUM of links to the Photostream's 200+ images of HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] begins at Pic NO. 5412, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6627997309/in/photostr...

A three-part COMPENDIUM of links to more than 200 HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] images on this Photostream begins at Pic Entry NO 5412, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6627997309/in/photostream

The centenary of Melbourne was commemorated with a china jug. From Stanley Bruce's collection.

NAA: M4254, 15

From the collection of Stanley Bruce. Masonic insignia and bible housed in case: written on the front of the bible is 'The United Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Victoria' and on the back 'Melbourne Church of England Grammar School.'

NAA: M4254, 21

Stanley Bruce became a British peer in 1947, as Viscount Bruce of Melbourne. This is the seal and illuminated parchment of his appointment.

NAA: M4254, 25

Andrew Fisher (1862-1928)

Australian Prime Minister 1908-9, 1910-13, 1941-1015

Leader Australian Labor Party 1907-1915

Bronze Bust of All Prime Ministers of Australia in Horse Chestnut Avenue, Ballarat Gardens.

A-Frame Conservatory

7040. The scene in this photograph is a public relations exercise, to which we hope to add some deeper meaning here. While a photographer kneels on one knee in the background preparing his gear, sailors are bringing out relics of HMAS AUSTRALIA [II]'s Pacific War kamikaze attacks for viewing by the Australian High Commissioner in London Stanley Melbourne Bruce [the one-time Prime Minister] and perhaps other distinguished guests.

While preparing this series, we happened to be reading the Australian historian David Day's book 'Reluctant Nation: Australia and the defeat of Japan 1942-45' {Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1992] - one of several in which Day has written and at great length on the bitter policy struggle waged between the Australian and British governments during WWII for resources to push back the Japanese threat of invasion to Australia [Days other books in this trilogy were 'Menzies and Churchill At War [1986] and 'The Great Betrayal' [1988].

It strikes us that this image illustrates HMAS AUSTRALIA [II]'s contribution to a sub-text of these works: the wartime jockeying between Australia, Britain and the US for postwar influence in Pacific, which began as early as 1943 - on matters such as future commercial air routes, the possession of old colonial territories, and eventually security guarantees associated with the surrender terms with Japan.

Against this background, what we are seeking to say here, is that along with the Australian Army's success in holding back Major-General Tomitaro Horrii's Japanese forces on the Kokoda Trail in July-Nov 1942, and the Aug 25-Sept 7 1942 defeat of the Japanese landings at Milne Bay [the first land defeat of the Japanese forces in WWII], HMAS AUSTRALIA [II]'s sacrifice against the kamikaze in the Philippines became symbolic of the country's wider total war effort against Japan, and helped to reinforce its foreign policy goals in the immediate postwar period.

It was for these reasons that the ship was diverted to New York on her way to Britain for repair in June 1945, and given maximum publicity there, before continuing on to the UK, where again we see the kamikaze relics here being brought out for the cameras. As we have previously pointed out, we're not sure where these particular relics are now, but perhaps we'll eventually find out.

In any event, the point we have been making, is that AUSTRALIA [II] seemed to have been destined to fulfill her RAN flagship role, both in name and significant actions, throughout the Pacific War period. in that sense, she deserves to be remembered, if not quite as reverently as WWI's Gallipoli, but certainly alongside WWII's, Kokoda and Milne Bay battles.

We had a magnificent image of the ship in New York in June 1945, seen being painted over in her USN Measure 21 Pacific Blue paint scheme, at Entry 5077, here:

www.flickr.com/photos/41311545@N05/6359850705/in/photolis...

This photo: Naval Historical Collection, Australian War Memorial, image ID NO. 306770, listed copyright expired, public domain, this slightly cropped version is taken from a published image.

7029. Crewmen of HMAS AUSTRALIA [II] pose with the propellor of the Aichi D3A 'Val' dive-bomber that crashed into the ship at Leyte Gulf on Oct. 21, 1944 - generally acknowledged as the first manifestation of the Japanese 'kamikaze' tactic, although there had been earlier instances of Japanese aircraft crash-diving into ships, such as the transport ELLIOTT during the Guadalcanal landings in Aug. 1942. With a destroyer in the background here, we think this photograph may have been taken at Manus Island, where AUSTRALIA subsequently retired for repairs. The subject of several photographs at different times soon after the attack, we're not sure where this historic 'kamikaze' relic is now located. The Australian War Memorial has photographs of it and other kamikaze parts being shown to the Australian High Commissioner in the U.K., Stanley, .Melbourne Bruce, in England when the ship went there for final repairs in July, 1945, but we find no record of it now among the AWM's relics. Perhaps someone can enlighten us. There is another AWM photo of it with the ship in the UK, here: www.awm.gov.au/collection/306770/

This photo: The Argus Collection, State Library of Victoria La Trobe Library] it is out of copyright and publicly released.

Sir Edmund (Tony) Barton (1849-1920}

First Australian Prime Minister 1901-1903

Bronze Bust of All Prime Ministers of Australia in Horse Chestnut Avenue, Ballarat Gardens.

This exhibition was on display at the National Archives of Australia from December 2009 to March 2010.

Spring Statue

Spring is a maiden wearing a toga dress and has a floral wreath on head and carrying a posy.

Horse Chestnut Avenue, Ballarat Gardens.