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A 10-Point Primer on the Current Boggo Road Situation
Artist's impression, Boggo Road Gaol.The Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society has recently encountered a deal of public confusion regarding the future of Boggo Road. As with an earlier outbreak this...
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Travels in East Moreton, 1859 (#3): Moggill
(Read the introduction to this series here.) (Moreton Bay Courier, 5 February 1859) 'No doubt many of the readers of the Courier have thought, as they progressed up or down the river Brisbane, per...
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Travels in East Moreton, 1859 (#4): Bulimba
(Read the introduction to this series here.) (From the Moreton Bay Courier, 16 February 1859)'IN my present endeavors to give your readers a sketch of the several very interesting localities situated...
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Travels in East Moreton, 1859 (#5): Cleveland
(Read the introduction to this series here.)(From the Moreton Bay Courier, 26 February 1859)'WELL, that designation does certainly sound with a more aristocratic twang than the old familiar one of...
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What Crimes Were People Hanged For in Queensland?
94 people were executed at Moreton Bay and Queensland during 1830-1913. These were the crimes they committed:
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The Bunyip vs Jenny Greenteeth
‘The average bush youngster has a horror of darkness, and talks in awe-struck whispers of hairy men, ghosts, and bunyips. This fear is inculcated from babyhood. The mother can’t always be watching in a...
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The Bromelton Bunyip of Beaudesert
The idea of the ‘bunyip’ as a mysterious and possibly mythical water creature was well established in non-Indigenous Australian lore by the time the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement closed in 1842. For...
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A History of Queensland Bunyips (Part One): The 19th Century
‘The bunyip, though its fame has spread over all Australia, and though nearly every large reedy swamp boasts of one, has never been captured; and it is regarded by most people very much in the same...
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Welcome to 'Inside Boggo Road'
A brand new prison history website called ‘Inside Boggo Road’ was recently launched by the Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society. You can check it out here. It’s fair to say that it is the best website on...
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Land of Coal & Corn (#2): The Progress of Ipswich (Part One)
The following is extracted from the Brisbane Courier, 2 November 1891:'Ipswich was declared a municipality on the 3rd of March, 1860, a few months after the separation of Queensland from New South...
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Land of Coal and Corn #3: The Progress of Ipswich (Part Two)
The following is extracted from the Brisbane Courier, 18 November 1891:For several years after the turning of the sod which marked the inauguration of railway works in Queensland, Ipswich enjoyed a run...
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Land of Coal & Corn (#4): Laidley, Boonah and Dugandan
Extracted from the Brisbane Courier, 26 January 1892:Laidley is entitled to first position among the many small townships in the land of coal and corn. It has emerged from its swaddling clothes and is...
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White Sharks Can't Jump: A 19th-Century Look at Sharks
The perception of sharks as 'mindless man-eaters' has changed considerably in recent decades (well, in most places outside Hollywood back lots and the Western Australian parliament). Their vital role...
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A Cooktown Shark Story
This vivid account of the capture of a huge shark at Cooktown in 1878 is extracted from the Western Champion, 1922:'In the early days of Cooktown a couple of old "whalers" had established a sort of...
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A Trip to the Gold Diggings #1: Gold Fever at Brisbane
In 1859 a wave of gold fever hit the newly independent colony of Queensland, and hundreds of men headed southwest to Tooloom, approximately 150 kilometres over the border into New South Wales. This...
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'A disgrace to civilisation': Scenes From Boggo Road, 1887
A major inquiry into the management of the Queensland prison system took place in 1887, and the final report remains one of the most fascinating documents in Queensland prison history. Barrister...
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A Trip to the Gold Diggings #2: The Fields From Timbarra to Tooloom
In 1859 a wave of gold fever hit the newly independent colony of Queensland, and hundreds of men headed southwest to Tooloom, approximately 150 kilometres over the border into New South Wales. This...
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Thoughts on the Boggo Road Redevelopment
The planning process for the Boggo Road redevelopment rolls ever onward, with the Draft Application currently still under bureaucratic consideration, and a formal public consultation process yet to...
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When Steele Rudd Met the Kenniff Brothers at Boggo Road
Steele Rudd (State Library of Queensland).The famous Australian author Steele Rudd (real name Arthur Hoey Davis) had a very unpleasant experience at Boggo Road prison on New Year’s Eve, 1902. In his...
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The South Will Rise Again: Rebels of the 4077th
(Asian American Journal)There was a big kerfuffle in the centre of Brisbane last month when a Vietnamese restaurant called 'Uncle Ho' - a nickname for Ho Chi Minh, founder of the communist Democratic...
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