This article, by Dr Jennifer Harrison, was originally published on the Queensland State Archives website, June 2012. Queensland State Archives’ collection includes significant records from the Moreton Bay convict settlement. These convict records have been officially listed on the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisations (UNESCO) Memory of the World register. Between 1824 and 1842, a place […]
This article, by Dr Shirleene Robinson, was originally published on the Queensland State Archives website, November 2012. Throughout its history, Queensland’s Supreme court has played a central role in the administration of justice in the state. It has heard some of the most notorious legal cases in Queensland’s history. It was founded on 7 August […]
The Townsville Bulk Sugar Terminal was built in 1958 and could hold 10% of Australia’s annual sugar production. On 9 May 1963, the sugar in shed caught fire. Black smoke blanketed the city and a thick, black molasses-like ooze of melted sugar poured into creeks and the harbour. Fire services were brought in from Cairns, […]
Mrs Eliza Baxter – who lived in a house on the premises of the Victoria Steam Saw Mill in the Drayton district with her husband, her stepmother and her son – became another victim of the deadly crinoline fashion on 24 March 1865. At about 7 am, Eliza – in her dress and a crinoline […]
To most of us the 3Rs connote literacy and numeracy, but did you know the initials also used to apply to the Queensland Railway Refreshment Rooms? Originally run by enterprising locals, the Railway Department, Refreshment Rooms Branch was created in June 1916. The official public announcement that the Queensland Government would run the railway refreshment […]
Copenhagan [has been rendered] … a city of turmoil … and the same exciting scenes recurred in Amsterdam. Beatlemania is coming … So watch out Australia. The Courier-Mail, 8 June 1964 Beatlemania was in full swing in 1964 and the spectacle was coming to Queensland. While the thought of the Fab Four visiting Brisbane was […]
This article, by Margaret Cook, was originally published on the Queensland State Archives website, March 2011. The first royal visitor to Australia was Prince Alfred, the second son of Queen Victoria (later to become the Duke of Edinburgh). A Royal Navy Captain on a world tour on board HMS Galatea he visited Queensland in March 1868. During his […]
Core of my heart, my country! Land of the Rainbow Gold, For flood and fire and famine, She pays us back threefold My Country, Dorothea Mackellar In this famous ode to her adopted country written in 1908, Dorothea Mackellar successfully captures the spirit of Australians battling a hostile environment in which flood, fire and famine […]
Freeman’s Journal Sat 8 March 1890 Wreck of the S.S. Quetta Fearful Loss of Life 123 Souls Perished The R.M.S. Quetta, of the British India Steam Navigation Co.’s Anglo-Australia service, was on Friday night wrecked on the Queensland coast, after striking on a sunken rock not marked on the chart. The Quetta was well known […]
Records from Queensland State Archives’ collection Photo of Kerry O’Brien courtesy of Artemis Films and Serendipity Production The fourth series of Who Do You Think You Are? (WDYTYA) is screening on SBS ONE in 2012. Episode two, air date 3 April 2012 at 7.30 pm, follows the story of Kerry O’Brien, one of Australia’s most revered television journalists. WDYTYA is a co-production by Artemis International […]