Tragedy on the water

There are millions of stories in the vast amount of records held at Queensland State Archives. Manager of Public Access, Niles Elvery, tells an otherwise undiscovered story of tragedy and frustrated heroism, all from an innocuous-looking 1880s inquest file.

Shearing sheep, Barcaldine District, c 1948

Barcaldine dead farm file

The file Barcaldine: 156 – Item ID70850 (Dead Farm Files – Series ID14050) is a favourite because it is very much alive with details of rural life on a 9000 acre grazing selection in the first decades of the twentieth century. It reveals the struggle to meet selection conditions of fencing and stocking during the severe […]

The community factory

Ruth May tells us about the Kingston Butter Factory and how it’s transformed from the dairy collective building of the early 1900s to the dynamic arts and community centre of today. Find Ruth’s favourite records in Image Queensland.

A teacher’s bid for land

My favourite record is a three-foolscap-page correspondence of James Dempsey, a noted Queensland educator and the long-serving head teacher at Junction Park, Annerley. The correspondence is a report to the Department of Public Instruction, dated 29 August 1891. At the time the institution was called the Thompson Estate State School. On the surface, it appears […]

The great escape

In researching Stewart’s Creek Prison (Townsville) a favourite story relates to the escape from the prison confines by Frank Lionel Holloway, alias Huxtable. He is thought to be the first escapee from within the prison walls, as others had legged it while working on outside gangs previous to this. Holloway had secreted himself in a […]

Finding my family in the school registers

I started coming to the Queensland State Archives to look at the school admission registers and to find the dates my siblings and I started school. It was a great thrill to find the details of all four of us at our little one teacher sized school and to recall others who also attended at […]

Family history in the files

From the 50km of records at Queensland State Archives, Elizabeth Hawkins picks records about her family during the 1860s and reveals a story of financial success, ruin and tragedy.

Moreton Bay Prison’s past

Congratulations to Queensland State Archives achieving its 50 kilometre mark. All that storage – all those stories. Should Moreton Bay’s firstborn white child Amity Moreton Thompson’s application for land be selected? Despite plaintive ‘Choose me, Choose me’ urgings, a more comprehensive document has won my heart. The Chronological Register of Convicts at Moreton Bay, listing […]