Do you remember visiting the school dental clinic? Many of us are familiar with clinics in classrooms or even mobile caravans, but did you know one of the first travelling dental clinics in Queensland was a rail car? The school dental scheme was developed by the Department of Public Instruction in the late 1920s. The […]
Interested in railways? Trainspotter at heart? This blog gives you the rundown on the records held at Queensland State Archives that can help you research your passion. This month marks the 150th anniversary since the completion of the first Queensland railway line from Ipswich to Bigge’s Camp (known today as Grandchester) on Monday 31 July […]
This May marks the 87th anniversary of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) The RFDS quickly became a lifeline for the people of outback Queensland and other remote areas. It was founded by Rev John Flynn, a minister with the Presbyterian Church with a vision to provide a ‘mantle of safety’ for people living in […]
“A picture is worth a thousand words…” is how the saying goes. In this case it’s not the picture held at Queensland State Archives but the public records that tell the stories. The tranquil ruins of the St Helena prison stores buildings conceal tales of mayhem and murder. In February 1898, warder Henry Harris Dodd […]
Today nursing is a popular career choice for many school leavers but did you know that there was a shortage of nurses during and immediately after the Second World War? And so a campaign began to recruit women into the nursing profession. On 14 January 1946, Campbell Advertising submitted an advertising campaign of slides for […]
150 years ago this month, the QGSY Lucinda steamed from Dumbarton, Scotland bound ultimately for Queensland. This extract from the Chief Engineer’s log records an estimated 80 tons of coal on board for the journey on 30 December 1884. The QGSY Lucinda arrived in Brisbane on 7 May 1885. Named for Lady Jeannie Lucinda Musgrave, […]
Fire presented a grave risk to the timber-built shops which were commonly built in Brisbane 150 years ago. Three separate fires occurred in the centre of Brisbane city in 1864 and inquests held at Queensland State Archives provide details of the origin of the fires, property lost or destroyed and witness statements. On 11 April […]
Those who experienced the trauma, endurance and grief of the Great War (1914-18) on European, African and Middle Eastern warfronts and on the Australian home front itself, were apt to gaze back on the pre-war years with deep feelings of longing and nostalgia. They wrote in general terms of the late-Edwardian period as ‘a corridor […]
On 13 August 1914, soon after the official beginning of the First World War when Britain declared war on Germany, the Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society was formed. Melbourne’s Government House became the headquarters of the society led by the Governor-General’s wife, Lady Helen Munro Ferguson. Lady Ferguson enlisted the help of […]
The Queensland Heritage Council listed the Cairns Technical College and High School building on the Queensland Heritage Register in May 2014. Designed by architect Nigel Laman Thomas of the Department of Public Works in July 1938, the following plan held at Queensland State Archives shows the layout of the building, with Ionic columns at the […]