Brief History of Brisbane City in the 19th Century

In order to write this short article... there has been Extensive quoting from and Heavy reliance on the book, "The Brisbane River Story . Meanders through Time ." This was written by Helen Gregory and published by the Australian Marine Conservation Society in 1996. Please phone (07) 3848 5235 or link to AMCS in order to obtain a copy of this valuable contribution to the understanding of our River and our City. Thanks are due also to Robyn Buchanan of Buchanan Media for some use of her "In the Beginning... The Story of Brisbane" published in "This is our Brisbane" (2000). Brisbane River Historical Map

Aborigines lived in the Brisbane area, it is known, at least 20,000 years ago. At that time the coastline was many kilometres east of its present position. About 6000 years ago , the Brisbane and Moreton Bay areas took on their present form and two separate economies developed in the region- a marine-littoral economy near the coast and a terrestrial-riverine economy further inland. Fishing and the gathering of shellfish was the traditional coastal activity. An Aboriginal fishing party- reputed to be near Brisbane (Queensland Museum) In areas away from the coast, "firestick farming", the use of fire to clear areas for more effective running of game, was practised resulting in the "park-like" appearance of the region noted by early explorers. The Yugarabul language was the most widespread language spoken in the Brisbane region. Only Tom Petrie could speak this language because he learnt it as a child. Later Europeans noted nouns and place-names but did not come to terms with the grammatical structure of a language that was more complex than English. The rich food resources of the wallum area, which stretched 10 kilometres inland, and of the River, the creeks and surrounding land no doubt contributed to the size of the Aboriginal population and its health and strength. The population was estimated by early observers to be about 5000. In September 1824, Oxley saw a large group of people at a favourite hunting ground near the River at Toowong and described them as "about the strongest and best-made muscular men I have seen in any country". Fish and shellfish included the guard fish, mullet, perch, flounder, crayfish and shrimp. Oysters were prolific at Amity on North Stradbroke island. Turtles were plentiful and hunted particularly at New Farm ("Binkin-ba", place of turtles). Freshwater mussels were found in many places along the River banks and could easily seen through the clear greenish water. Eels were eagerly sought in creeks and known to be plentiful when the silky oak flowered. Some food was cultivated such as the "Kambi". This was a long white worm of the "ship worm" family and it was encouraged to infest sodden piles of cut timber at the edge of creeks and rivers. Water birds such as the black swan and duck were also favoured foods. Although Aboriginal clan or family groups usually stayed entirely within their own areas, special occasions were shared with visitors. The Toowong and West End areas close to the river were regularly used as feeding grounds and camp sites for visiting groups. Early settlers at Toowong occasionally heard the sound of corroborees as late as the 1860's. The canoe and swimming raft were the means of transportation on the River. Tom Petrie observed and recorded in detail the process of canoe construction. Bark and vines were principal materials. "As a freshly-made canoe got dry, it grew very strong and stiff. A large one would carry nine or ten people, while the smaller ones held about five.".

In October 1823, the Surveyor-General, John Oxley travelled north from Sydney to find suitable land for a remote settlement of convicts who had not reformed themselves but had re-offended. In the course of this voyage, he encountered Thomas Pamphlett and John Finnegan, ex-convicts (cedar-cutters) who had been blown northwards from Sydney in a severe storm. They and another convict Richard Parsons had spent some eight months in the area subsisting on fish and fern root (dingowa) mostly provided by the extremely hospitable Aborigines. Thomas Pamphlett stated that their "behaviour to me and my companions had been so invariably kind and generous, that, notwithstanding the delight I felt at the idea of once more returning to my home, I did not leave them without sincere regret". He also told the story of the first European sighting of the Brisbane River: The Surveyor-General of New South Wales, John Oxley (Collection: John Oxley Library Brisbane) "On the third day we arrived on the bank of a large river, at a place where it was evident the natives used to cross over; but it was too wide for us to attempt to swim, and we could not find a canoe; we therefore resolved to go up the river until we should find some means of crossing it. Accordingly we travelled on for nearly a month, being very much impeded by the number of salt creeks, which we were obliged to walk around, as neither of my companions were able to swim sufficiently well to attempt crossing them."

Pamphlett, Finnegan and Parsons did not get further upstream than Oxley creek (formerly Canoe Creek) where they found a canoe and retraced their journey much more quickly with the help of the canoe. On 1 December 1823, Oxley, Stirling and Finnegan (as a somewhat reluctant guide) set out to explore the River. The first day's survey terminated a little above Redcliffe point. In his report on the expedition, Oxley related: Oxley Creek in 1925 (Royal Historical Society of Queensland) "Early on the Second day (Decr.2nd), in pursuing our examination, we had the Satisfaction to find the tide sweeping us up a considerable Inlet"... "The muddiness and taste of the water, together with the abundance of fresh water Mollusca, assured us we were entering a large River, and a few hours ended our anxiety on that point by the water becoming perfectly fresh, while no diminution had taken place in the Size of the River, after passing what I called 'Sea Reach'".

("Sea Reach" is now "Hamilton Reach") By sunset on that day, they had travelled 20 miles upstream:

"the Scenery was particularly beautiful; the country on the banks alternately hilly and level but not flooded; the Soil of the finest description of Brush wood land on which grew Timber of great magnitude; of various Species, some of which were unknown to us, amongst others, a magnificent Species of pine was in great abundance."

(This pine was later named the "Araucaria cunninghamii", the hoop pine) This plan was drawn by Lieutenant Stirling (Collection: John Oxley Library, Brisbane) The following day, the party proceeded another 30 miles upstream. The crew were by then so exhausted by continual exertion (soundings) under a vertical sun, that Oxley was forced reluctantly to forgo further penetration to the limit of the tidal influence. He had got as far as Goodna at a hill he called "Termination Hill". He then lost no time returning down the River with the ebb tide and when he got to the entrance he named the River after Governor Brisbane under whose orders the expedition had taken place. In September 1824, Oxley returned to assist the new settlers and to show the River to the King's botanist, Allan Cunningham, who was visiting New South Wales. In the course of this journey, Oxley pushed considerably further up the River and described the river Bremer which he saw on 25 September and named for Captain J.J.G. Bremer. A major settlement was established on the Bremer in 1827. Originally known as the Limestone Station, it was renamed Ipswich in 1848. On that occasion, the country was suffering a period of extreme drought as evidenced by increased salinity further upstream and the stagnancy of a River covered with pond-weed. In December 1824, Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane and others arrived to inspect the new discoveries. They travelled 28 miles upstream. In September 1825, Major Edmund Lockyer arrived in the tiny settlement which had been moved a few months earlier from Redcliffe to the banks of the Brisbane River near the northern end of the present Victoria Bridge. This new location was originally called Edenglassie but soon became known as Brisbane Town. Lockyer was able to travel much further upstream than Oxley had found possible in 1824:

"The wood on the banks - Fig tree, Blue gum, Swamp oak, and Iron bark, for the last half distance no Pines, but here and there a solitary cedar. On landing, found spinage in great abundance, mint, parsley, and the wild poppy. Halted at 3 o'Clock on the left side of the River on a sand stone rock forming a natural wharf or jetty. The tide only flows a short distance above this. Whilst dinner was preparing, took a walk into the country, found it delightful, thinly wooded to a great extent, fine pasturage for any number of cattle, only occasionally thick brush with little marks of natives having been there. Several very fine eels were caught here, and a fish called the cat fish."

In the new Brisbane Town, slab huts were quickly built for accommodation and the convicts set to work growing corn. There was some talk of establishing a farm on the upper reaches of Oxley Creek but due to the problem of coping with tidal flow in the River the plan was dropped in favour of the development of a farm on 2,225 hectares of land known as Eagle Farm. Clearing land for farms at various points along the River began to change the landscape and expose the soils to erosion. Maize, the first successful staple crop, was grown at South Brisbane, directly opposite the main settlement. Magnificent vegetation was obliterated. A convict described the western end of South Brisbane as it appeared in the late 1820's: An 1839 map of Brisbane Town (Queensland Government Dept. of Natural Resources) "a tangled mass of trees, vines, flowering creepers, staghorns, elkhorns, towering scrub palms, giant ferns, beautiful and rare orchids and the wild passion-flower; while along the River bank were the water lily in thousands and the convolvulus of glorious hue"

The convicts' work was not intended to be easy. Government regulations specifically forbade the use of ploughs and insisted that the convicts should till the soil with hoes to remind them that they were being punished. Their hours of work were sunrise to sunset with two long breaks, one at 8am for breakfast and one at midday. On Sundays, they were mustered for a church service. Stone and brick buildings gradually replaced timber huts and Brisbane started to look like a more permanent settlement. Approaching Brisbane town, at a bend in the river opposite Gardens Point (known by the Aborigines as "Meanjin", a favoured fishing area), porphyry was quarried and used in the foundations of buildings. Colonial Botanist, Charles Fraser, sent to Brisbane in July 1828, documented the use of the Brisbane River for industrial transport:

"Two miles beyond Canoe Creek is an excellent quarry of freestone, which is conveyed by water to Brisbane Town, a distance of eleven miles. Its quality is excellent, being granular, and when first cut quite soft, but exposure to the air renders it as hard as granite..."

Limestone was noticed further upstream up the Bremer from the confluence with the Brisbane River. Deposits were used in the construction boom of the late 1820's which produced major new stone buildings such as the Commissariat Store in William Street and the Windmill on Wickham Terrace built to grind corn. The convict settlement was gradually reduced during the 1830's as the authorities prepared to open the Moreton Bay region for free settlement. In 1839, a survey party was despatched to survey the region, measure land for sale and chart the River. By 1845, the River survey had reached the upper reaches. Most of the convicts returned to Sydney.

The Moreton Bay region was opened to free settlement on 14 February 1842. The Brisbane River and region were described enthusiastically in the Sydney press and also enthused other early visitors one of whom, Nehemiah Bartley, compared Brisbane with London:

"it has a winding river, as wide as the Thames at London, and below it, and far deeper. It has- what Sydney, and Melbourne, and London have not - picturesque timbered hills, from 200 to 1000 feet high, within a five-mile radius. It is only ten miles from the sea, in place of 50, as London is, and this forms a great element in the scenery."

The first free settlers, a few store-keepers, came to Brisbane in 1841 to cater for the needs of the pastoralists who began to settle the Darling Downs in 1840. Supplying pastoralists on the Darling Downs and exporting their produce provided the basis for business in Brisbane and nearby areas for many years. This commercial imperative immediately focused attention on the River. Wharves began to be established. Steamships, introduced in 1846, plied the River and steamers soon began to replace sailing schooners on the run between Sydney and Brisbane and on the upriver stretch to Ipswich. The pressure to accommodate shipping also produced a proposal to dredge the River as early as 1846. Nine years later, a survey conducted by Captain John Clements Wickham revealed that the cost of clearing the outer bar and main channel to the wharves in the centre of town to a depth of sixteen feet would be £43,000. A shallow bar forced ships of draught greater than this depth to stand out in the Bay, be subject to heavy seas and require time-consuming and troublesome trans-shipment of goods to smaller craft. This was not the only feature limiting the efficiency of Brisbane as a port. Most ships tied up at South Brisbane in the 1850's, but business was transacted across the River in North Brisbane. During the 1850's there was increasing local irritation at the NSW Government's reluctance to spend money in the Moreton Bay region and, although Brisbane's population did not reach 6000 until the end of the 1850's, a growing impatience to solve infrastructure problems that were hampering further development. Persistent agitation led to separation from New South Wales on 10 December, 1859. In September that year, the new Brisbane City Council was established to take responsibility for local civic affairs. A key issue to be resolved for the Council was a bridge across the River. For the new State Government, a key issue was the dredging of the shallow and difficult bar across the mouth of the River. Drainage, sanitation and adequate water supply were other looming issues.

Initially the new Government was preoccupied with building the colony's population as quickly as possible through a vigorous programme to attract immigrants from the British Isles and Germany. The first Queensland immigration agent, Henry Jordan, toured the British Isles to take his message to cities, towns and remote villages. The "Indus" built in 1847 made six visits to Brisbane from 1870 to 1876 and brought many new settlers. This picture was taken in 1876 two years after the construction of Victoria Bridge. (Collection: John Oxley Library, Brisbane) A system of land orders was set up enabling immigrants to take up land. Those who paid their own passages were each entitled to a land order for £18, sufficient to buy eighteen acres of country land which was sold by the Government at £1 per acre; a further £12 for an additional twelve acres was granted after two years' residence. Immigrants without means were provided with free passages in the expectation that they would provide labour for developing industries. The first immigration scheme was immensely successful in attracting people to Queensland but many came from British cities and preferred to sell their land orders and settle in Brisbane or other entry ports rather than try to carve a farm out of the hostile Australian bush. More than 35,000 new settlers flocked to Brisbane between 1860 and 1865 and many remained in the town greatly increasing its population. The increase in Brisbane's population during the 1860's and 1870's encouraged agriculture by providing a strong local market for produce. Forest clearing to carve out farms up and down the River occurred extensively during this period. At Seventeen Mile Rocks, the Sinnamon family cleared their land systematically:

"Grandpa and his sons set about clearing their land. It was covered mostly with dense vine scrub matted in one great mass. With only their axes, they set about to clear the almost impenetrable scrub"

There was a strong market for dairy produce. Cows grazed along the River banks in fertile dairying areas such as Fig Tree Pocket and Long Pocket. Giant Moreton Bay Fig, Fig Tree Pocket, photographed 1866 (Collection: John Oxley Library, Brisbane) Farmers from the Moggill and Goodna area either rowed their produce to market or loaded it on to barges or steamers on the way down the River from Ipswich. Demand for timber increased. Large rafts of rainforest timbers were regularly seen floating along tributary creeks and thence along the River to sawmills at Indooroopilly and in the city centre. In this early period of expansion other forms of industry commenced. The banks of the River were considered suitable for sugar growing and large plantations were established at St Lucia and Graceville. The resources of the River and Moreton provided a living for a growing commercial fishing fleet. Oysters were a major export to Sydney and Melbourne in the 1870's. Dredging the River to extend shipping channels provided considerable work for local industry- Smellie and Co. and Walkers of Maryborough supplied a growing fleet of local dredges, barges, tugs and iron vessels. Coal was in considerable local and overseas demand and was brought from Ipswich to Brisbane either by rail (opened 1876) or by slow-moving barge.

As Brisbane grew it sprawled in all directions from its original centre. The undisciplined expansion of the suburbs swallowed farmland, trampled forests and strained transport links to the limit. Single houses on their own blocks of land were by far the most favoured form of family accommodation. Unlike most large cities, including Sydney and Melbourne, rows of terrace houses were not to be seen in Brisbane. View of a rapidly growing town in about 1869. Taken from Bowen Terrace showing Town Reach. (Brisbane City Council) Local and State authorities were confronted with the need to come up with effective solutions to a number of pressing infrastructure problems. A vigorous programme of dredging, damming and blasting began in the 1860's. In the 1861 estimates by the State Government a sum of £10,000 was set aside to provide a steam dredge so that work could start on a shipping channel. Ultimately, £18,000 was spent on the steam dredge "Lytton", three punts and a steam tug. The "Lytton" was built of NZ kauri pine and had the capacity to remove 560 tons of spoil daily. It arrived in Brisbane in July 1862. Work commenced and by 1870, vessels drawing seventeen feet could go as far upstream as the Eagle Farm flats (twelve feet). Further dredging during 1871 allowed larger vessels to reach the town wharves. However, periodic floods undid a lot of the work and it took several years to restore reaches from the River mouth to Hamilton affected by the massive 1893 flood to a depth of sixteen feet and a width of 300 feet. Dredging and blasting were part of a broader programme to improve navigation in the River by training and regulating its lower reaches. Tips of sharp bends in the River were trimmed to improve flow. The first to go was Kangaroo Point, then ten acres were removed from Gardens Point, followed by Bulimba Point and Kinellan Point at New Farm. The third phase of the plan to discipline the River involved building a series of training walls to improve scouring action on navigation channels. The 8,600 Hamilton wall was finished in 1900. Provision of an adequate water supply and attention to sanitation were other urgent issues. Brisbane's first water supply was a creek which rose near the present Brisbane Grammar School and flowed through the site of Roma Street Parkland to the site of the present City Hall, an area then known as the Horseponds. A small reservoir dammed this creek and conveyed water through hollow hardwood logs. In the 1840's and 1850's this arrangement became quite inadequate to deal with the great influx of immigrants. Clean water became very short. Council's response was construction of Enoggera Dam and fresh, clean running water from Enoggera was turned on at a hydrant in Queen Street on 3 July 1866. The Gold Creek dam in the Upper Brookfield hills delivered extra capacity in 1886. Supply continued inadequate until the Mt. Crosby works pumped water directly from the Brisbane River. Sanitation was a constant and largely unresolved problem for citizens of Brisbane in the nineteenth century. For several years during the 1860's, children under the age of five years recorded more than 60 per cent of all deaths from infectious disease in Brisbane. More stringent regulations during the 1860's and 1870's did much to restrain the practice of dumping night soil, butchery waste, street sweepings and other refuse on the banks of the River but these were merely ameliorative measures. The city experienced a rapid growth spurt in the 1880's. The discharge of sewage through stormwater drains into stagnant creeks and swamps was an offensive pollutant as well as a public health hazard. Norman and Kingfisher Creeks on the south side and Breakfast and Kedron Brook on the north side were particularly badly affected. Agitation grew for a proper sewerage scheme during the 1880's. Nothing was substantially implemented until the early twentieth century. Bridging the River was addressed by the first Brisbane City Council. In the early days of free settlement, a track pushed through the bush was the only road from the Darling Downs through Ipswich to Brisbane. The Ipswich road terminated at South Brisbane opposite the main settlement. It was necessary to cross the River to transact business:

"About this time much inconvenience was experienced in crossing the river, and none felt it more than the squatters, who on coming to the Settlement had to leave their teams on the south side. To get over themselves, they had to employ a man who had a dinghy, but who, like the policeman, was often 'there when not wanted, when wanted never there'. If it were desired to get a horse over to the north side it was generally towed over by the small dinghy..."

A competition was held for suitable designs for a bridge and the Governor laid the foundation stone of the winning design known as "Delta" on 22 August 1864. The first bridge was wooden, opened in 1865 (Collection: John Oxley Library, Brisbane) While construction was taking place, a temporary wooden bridge was built and opened in June 1865. The new bridge, complete with swing span to allow ships pass up-river, was finally opened by the Governor on 15 June 1874 and named Victoria Bridge. Rail transport was, however, seen as the key to improving the transport of goods to the port thereby stimulating industrial development. The Government chose to run the Southern and Western railway along the north bank and this obliged two rail bridges, one across the Bremer River and another across the Brisbane. The narrow section of the River between Chelmer and Indooroopilly was chosen. The new bridge was named for Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort. When it was opened on 5 July, Brisbane was connected by rail to Dalby on the western Darling Downs.

Brisbane experienced catastrophic floods on several occasions in the nineteenth century. The sub-tropical climate is characterised by hot, wet summers and dry, mild winters. Wider influences arising from changes in the Pacific Ocean also play their part and lead to exceptional climatic events which distort the usual sub-tropical rhythm and lead to periods of drought and flood. When a number of circumstances occur together, severe flooding results. These are a storm surge which adds to the normal tidal effect increasing mean sea levels and river penetration; if exceptionally heavy rains fall on tributary creeks which deliver the excess rapidly to the River; if heavy rain also falls in the upper catchments of the Brisbane River and those of the Stanley and Bremer Rivers. Flood and drought fluctuation in the years before 1893 Oxley saw a well-watered country in December 1823. Nine months later, the country was in the grip of severe drought. Drought during the summer of 1828-1829, when the convict population was growing at its fastest, dried up the available water supply. In the late 1830's and early 1840's, there were several years of exceptional rainfall occurring almost on top of each other. The 1841 flood was one of the two highest Brisbane River floods in the first 170 years of European experience in the Brisbane area (higher than the 1974 flood). There was a recurrence of years of flood cycle in the early 1860's particularly 1863 and 1864. This was followed by severe drought in 1865. Apart from a few small floods, few exceptional climatic incidents disturbed the weather pattern between the late 1860's and the late 1880's. There was high summer rainfall and damaging floods in 1887 and 1890 but these were followed by very dry years.

The great flood of 1893 Floods which had occurred in 1887 and 1890 were mere dress rehearsals for the devastation which came in the wake of a tropical deluge in February 1893 when land close to the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers was completely inundated. On Thursday, 2 February, the "Brisbane Courier" published an intimation of the coming disaster: People watching the destruction of the first Victoria Bridge (Barry Johnson) "The continuance of strong south-easterly winds, laden with heavy rain clouds, and the absence of any break in the weather, has during the last day or two given rise to serious apprehension of another flood in the Brisbane River...the day tides are at present highest, and unfortunately as the moon was at its full yesterday we are just at the season of spring tides."

On Saturday, 4 February, there was no doubt the situation was serious and on 6 February the full extent of the calamity was apparent (in the words of journalist, Theosophilus Pugh):

"Crowds lined the high grounds near the river bank or wherever a good view was obtainable; and the roar of the water as it rushed along at a speed of from 8 to 10 miles an hour, carrying with it scores of houses, furniture and household articles in endless variety...As house to house was carried against the Victoria Bridge the crash could be heard over everything and all that was swept onwards was smashed to fragments."

All the bridges in existence at that time across the River were destroyed by the 1893 flood. The first Albert railway bridge at Indooroopilly The first Albert railway bridge at Indooroopilly. (Built 1875) (P.F. Clarke) gradually succumbed to the immense pressure of the seething flood and to the sustained ramming by heavy objects such as houses carried along in the flood. A day later in the early morning, the northern half of Victoria Bridge separated from the southern and swung with a thunderous crash into the surge. Although the northern end was not under water as was the southern half, the force of the current on that bank was twice that on the southern side. College's Crossing bridge was also destroyed. On 10 February 1893, further heavy rain sent a second flood down the River. Flood levels were lower than the first flood which had registered thirty feet and four inches on the gauge at the old Port Office at the end of Edward Street. The record level of the first flood was almost surpassed by a third flood later in the month which registered twenty eight feet nine inches. By then, however, there was little which had not already been damaged and the third flood went almost unnoticed.

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