1902

Townsville’s former Customs House is located on the corner of Wickham Street and The Strand. Completed in 1902, the building was designed by George David Payne of the Government Architect’s Office in the Queensland Department of Public Works. Payne was a London-trained architect who had emigrated to Australia around 1887. Payne designed an impressive Romanesque-style building with a semi-circular corner entrance and low tower for shipping observation. The two-storey, L-shaped building was designed to suit the tropical climate with high ceilings and fanlights to maximise airflow and broad, colonnaded verandahs to provide shade for the interior rooms. Tenders for construction were called in early 1900 with the tender of £26,642 submitted by Brisbane contractors Messrs Crawford and Cameron being accepted in March 1900. The building was constructed of local bricks from the North Queensland Brick and Pottery Company and faced with granite quarried at Cockle Bay, Magnetic Island. The roof tiles were manufactured locally, and timbers sourced from throughout north Queensland, such as cedar and silky oak, were used internally. The ground floor plan included a circular entrance hall, a Long Room with a public counter and work area, general offices, storerooms, two safes, two small strong rooms, and a large office for the Sub-Collector of Customs. The upper floor was designed to house offices for the Deputy Registrar, Harbour Master, and Stamps and Titles offices. A large strong room with a fireproof door was located at the end of the Titles office. The Strand frontage contained two entrances for access by the public, while the Wickham Street elevation contained two private entrances. One private entrance was for the exclusive use of the Sub-Collector of Customs, while the other was for the use of boarding officers and tide waiters. Although intended as functional plans, Payne’s hand-coloured drawings are also visually very beautiful. Subtly different colours have been used to represent the different external building materials of granite, brick and stone. Interestingly, Payne’s signature does not appear on the plans. The only signature discernible on the Townsville Custom House plans are that of A.B. Brady, the Queensland Government Architect. Though Payne was obviously a talented architect, at this time he was just one of a number of draftsmen who worked for the Department of Public Works, so his drawings were signed by the senior officer, Brady. Source: jculibrarynews.blogspot.com/2020/05/50-treasures-townsvil...

Previously ... The electric lamp and telegraph poles might help with dating.

yes it's Derry and it's the monument to George Walker

We have seen a Clonbrock photo from Derry before. In the comments on the below, I noted that CLON2084 nearby in the catalogue is in Derry, between 1902-1919. The sequence 2080 to 2085 are all around Derry.

Dark clouds over Derry

O Mac It's strange after looking at so many Lawrence images where they carefully photoshop the sky out of the image to see clouds in this one. I remember Hinde postcards from when I was a kid, and the sky would be a ridiculous primary blue with fake white clouds...

Simple and modest beginnings for the great cause.

Adavale District Hospital, Queensland, ca. 1921. This hospital, established in 1902 had accommodation from five patients. It finally closed around 1968. Source: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StateLibQld_2_52032_Adava...