The beginning of 1850 was a time of much excitement in Brisbane Town. The Commissariat Office was seeking tenders for purchase of the “Old Windmill,” a venerable structure of some twenty-two years’ standing, and if no-one bought it, the Government was inclined to knock it down. The post office had received a small supply ofContinue reading “The Fatal Race.”
Category Archives: Brisbane hospital
The Man who was Restored to the World.
Guns were a dodgy prospect in the 1840s – they seemed to go off accidentally in all sorts of situations. James McClelland was cleaning a pistol loaded with ball when it went off and injured him in the thigh. Pierre Louis Raul was walking through long grass carrying a gun loaded with buckshot when theContinue reading “The Man who was Restored to the World.”
The Health of the Colony – Free Settlement
FROM CONVICT HOSPITAL TO GENERAL HOSPITAL Sick people – please advise The years 1841and 1842 saw settlers, servants, merchants and labourers moving into or through the township. It seems to have escaped the notice of the Government that these people might need services and infrastructure in order to carve out their existence in Moreton Bay.Continue reading “The Health of the Colony – Free Settlement”
The Health of the Colony – the Convict Era
The Convict Hospital When the Moreton Bay penal colony closed for business in 1842 and became a town, the official records dispersed, mainly to Sydney. Many were lost, some fetched up in unusual places, but a remarkable number of documents survived the ensuing 200 years. The records of the Moreton Bay Hospital have largely survivedContinue reading “The Health of the Colony – the Convict Era”
Please, Governor, may we have a hospital?
In January 1848, Captain Wickham, Government Resident for Moreton Bay, received a letter from the Colonial Secretary’s Office in Sydney, ordering the closure of the Convict Hospital at Brisbane. The result was that everyone and everything had to go – patients, paupers, medicines, furniture – the lot. What couldn’t be sold was to be shippedContinue reading “Please, Governor, may we have a hospital?”
Who Lives in a Place Like This? Part 1.
The Sketch Map of Brisbane Town in 1844, and the stories behind it. A rough, sketched map of Brisbane town in 1844 reposes in the John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. It is attributed to Carl Friedrich Gerler, who arrived in Brisbane as a missionary to the Zion Hill establishment in 1844. The buildingsContinue reading “Who Lives in a Place Like This? Part 1.”
The Brisbane Hospital 1885
If the early 1880s had been trying for the Brisbane Hospital, 1885 was a nightmare. Staff went missing, patients went missing and money went missing. The Hospital was the subject of a daring undercover story in the Courier, and an unfavourable Auditor-General’s Department report – the first conducted, apparently, in eighteen years. The year beganContinue reading “The Brisbane Hospital 1885”
How we lived and worked – 1859-1865
Separation from New South Wales occurred in 1859, and the new Colony of Queensland was proclaimed. It was a time of rapid social and economic change, and intrepid photography enthusiasts set about capturing and preserving daily life with an authenticity never seen before. Go west! Goondiwindi, on the border with New South Wales, was whereContinue reading “How we lived and worked – 1859-1865”
Death of Dr Ballow – 29 September 1850
THE MORETON BAY COURIERSATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1850 WITH deep regret we record in this issue the death of Dr. Ballow, who expired at the Quarantine Station at about eleven o’clock on Sunday morning last, after a few days’ illness from typhus fever, which disorder he had contracted in the performance of his duty, as ActingContinue reading “Death of Dr Ballow – 29 September 1850”
A New Hospital announced – 16 September 1866
If you were ill or injured in Brisbane Town between 1842 and 1866, this was the place you went. A relic of the convict settlement, it opened its doors under Dr Henry Cowper, and was stewarded into free settlement by Doctors Kinnear Robertson, David Ballow and Stephen Simpson. By 1860, as the picture shows, the place was run-downContinue reading “A New Hospital announced – 16 September 1866”
Moreton Bay and More 