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EARLY AND RECENT HISTORY OF
BRISBANE'S G.P.O.
[By J. W. RAWLINSON, Public Relations Officer,
Postmaster-General's Department, Brisbane.]
(Read at a meeting of the Society on
November 28, 1957.)
In discussing Brisbane's G.P.O. we must really go
back to the beginning of time because—as a feature
writer for one of the leading daily newspapers put it
recently—"the G.P.O. is really 160 milhon years old."
That is because the stone from which the building is
erected—sandstone—takes millions of years to form,
mature and take on its sandstone form.
Before I deal with that aspect (I will explain more
about it later) let us look first at some of the early
postal history of this State. When Moreton Bay ceased
to be a convict settlement and became a free colony—in
1842—the Clerk of Petty Sessions was also the Postmaster. The first Postmaster was therefore Gilbert
Whyte, C.P.S. of the time. In 1843 he was replaced by
a Mr. Slade (no Christian names are available), who
occupied the position until 1848 when he was replaced
by W. A. Browne.
However, in Post Office history credit for being the
first Postmaster goes to Captain J. E. Barney because
he was the first man appointed specifically to conduct
a Post Office. Whyte, Slade and Browne merely sandwiched the job between their other work and there was
no Post Office as such. It was in 1852 that such an
establishment was set up and Barney became the Postmaster.
The office was established in Queen Street whe.re
Edwards and Lambs premises now stand. It was a tiny
structure about thirty feet in front, but with a fairsized residence at the back. Captain and Mrs. Barney
lived on the premises. In 1855 Captain Barney died,
and his widow was selected to replace him in charge of
the office. She has the distinction of being in offi.ce
when Queensland became a separate colony in 1859.
Actually, therefore, in the final analysis, Mrs. Barney
was the colony of Queensland's first postal official.
In 1861 the Government of the day decided that it
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was time the Post Office service was expanded, because
the colony was growing very quickly. By an Act of
Parliament, therefore, Parhament created a position
of Postmaster-General, the first Postmaster-General
being Thomas Lodge Murray Prior, and his appointment gave him also the rank of Postmaster at Brisbane.
Murray Prior took up office in 1862 and, under
instructions, he began to search for a site for a permanent Post Office building, and he selected the present
site which was previously the women's prison. At the
time of Murray Prior's appointment, however, the site
was occupied by the Police Court.
It was not until 1871 that tenders for the erection
of the building were called. The successful tenderer
was John Petrie, son of a prominent—perhaps the
only—builder of the day. The tender price was £7,450.
John Petrie built the wing nearest (]reek Street and
the building was completed in October, 1872. The
building was erected next door to the PoHce Court.
Meanwhile, a Telegraph Office had been established on a portion of land now occupied by the Government Printing Office which spans George and William
Streets. The Telegraph Office was in William Street.
It was the old Evangelical building.
Five years after the first section of the G.P.O. had
been built, the Government decided to centre the Postal
and Telegraph Services in the same block—although
they were administered separately. The two Departments were not amalgamated under one control until
many years later.
In 1876 the Police Court was demolished and
tenders were called for the erection of the telegraph
wing. The builder was again John Petrie. In 1879 he
built—for £19,000—the telegraph wing (next to the
Commonwealth Bank), the central archway and the
clock tower. The roof of the balcony overlooking
Queen Street is supported by a number of corinthian
columns on each side. On the Postal wing, oddly
enough, two of the columns are of cast iron—nobody
knows why—because the remainder are all sandstone.
The two buildings extended about half-way back
to Elizabeth Street. Stables were built at the back of
the telgeraph office to stable horses used by telegram
messengers to deliver telegrams. Nature favoured
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Petrie's work. The site of Brisbane, millions of years
ago (geologists set it at 160 millions and that explains
my reference at the start of this talk) was a series of
large lakes. Standing above the surface of these, either
as islands or surrounding land masses, stood high
grounds that exist to-day as familiar hills — Ascot
Heights, Mt. Cootha, Taylor Range, Eildon Hill, White's
Hill and Mt. Gravatt. These were—and still are—composed of tougher rock than the surrounding country.
On the floors of the great Brisbane lakes were
deposited, over the ages, thick layers of silt and sand—
layer upon layer in various warm shades of gold and
apricot and light brown. Perhaps the sand was
deposited by a river or rivers (nobody has yet discovered whether the Brisbane River existed during
this, the late Triassic Period), or perhaps the sand was
washed down from the surrounding hills. Then, slowly
through the ages, the land that is now Brisbane, lifted
upward; the lakes became dry and their sandy beds
dried and gradually solidified. This process was aided
by the great pressure of soil and sediment above.
And so sand became sandstone, ready for the hand
of the builder. Andrew and John Petrie, looking for
material for their buildings, found the great bed of
sandstone close to the surface of what is now Albion
Heights. They set up what were then known as the
Breakfast Creek quarries at Albion, behind Crosbie
Road. Here, John Petrie's stone workers hewed out
rough sandstone blocks, shaped them with wooden
mauls, and transported them by dray to Petrie's Brunswick Street works or directly to the G.P.O. site. Petrie
also dug into another well-known Brisbane site for his
G.P.O. stone—the corner of Oriel Road and Sandgate
Road hard by the boundary of Albion and Clayfield.
And he went further afield for some blocks—:to
Murphy's Creek near Helidon.
The G.P.O. design is grecian in influence and if
one looks closely at the structure, one cannot fail to be
impressed by and appreciate the full beauty and grace
of its lines. It is one of the finest gifts to modern Brisbane from its colonial past.
That was the original G.P.O. In 1908, with the
expansion so evident in the colony, it was necessary to
add more space. The brick portion facing Elizabeth
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Street and the back of the Mail Exchange Branch was
added that year. The Elizabeth Street end is now the
private box section and a Branch Parcels Office.
Branching out still further, the building was extended
down Edison Lane towards Creek Street, and, in 1928,
the existing telephone exchange building in Elizabeth
Street was erected.
An interesting sidelight on the G.P.O. is that Brisbane's first electrical power station was established on
the site of the extensions to the G.P.O. erected in 1908.
Below the mail bag storage room in the Mail Branch
in Elizabeth Street lies the old foundation of the first
electric power station in Queensland—just as it was
abandoned in 1898. In that year, in order to meet
increased demand, a temporary power boiler was
installed in Edison Lane, which is off Creek Street and
between Queen Street and Elizabeth Street. The site
was that now occupied by the Department.
Incidentally, the first consumer of electricity in
Brisbane was the G.P.O. Indeed, the Brisbane G.P.O.
was the first consumer of electricity in the British
Commonwealth outside of Great Britain.
Now we come to a happy coincidence. In 1953,
when the Queen's visit was imminent, it was decided
to clean the stonework of the G.P.O., and the contract
was let to Andrew L. Petrie Pty. Ltd. to do the work.
The senior firm member in charge was John Petrie, the
great-grandson of the builder of the G.P.O.
The stone was cleaned down with water, wire
brushes and carborundum blocks only. No soap, acid,
spirit or other cleaning agent was used because such
things would eat into and eventually damage the stone.
The result was amazing. There, in all its pristine glory,
stood one of the most beautiful examples of the stonemason's art seen in Brisbane. The grain of the stone is
of pure beauty and its condition is as good as it was
over eighty years ago.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Grateful acknowledgement is
made to—
Mr. Arthur Richards, of the Brisbane "Courier-Mail."
Mr. F. R. Lestrange, of the Southern Electric Authority
of Queensland.
The Post Office Historical Society.
The Postmaster-GeneraVs Department.