Go back in time when Brisbane was named after a river

Wed 11 Oct 2023

The Brisbane River and Moreton Bay have continually shaped south-east Queensland’s history. From the time of the First Australians for the Turrbal and Jagarra people, the river, known as Maiwar, has been a meeting place, a highway and a source of food. A critical conduit for early settlement and subsequent industry and development, the winding river and bay of islands have inspired artists for generations.

200 years ago when the explorer John Oxley visited Moreton Bay in 1823, he named the river Brisbane in honour of the then Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane (1773-1860). Later, in 1825, a settlement on its banks to house Sydney’s most unruly convicts was called Brisbane.

Early depictions of Brisbane and the river that runs through it that gave the town its name are rare, nevertheless the Gallery’s collection of watercolours and sketches by both Conrad Martens — the only major colonial artist to work in Queensland — and Silvester Diggles who recorded views of early European settlement, give us a glimpse of Brisbane prior to it being proclaimed a municipality in 1859 and becoming the capital of newly independent Queensland that same year.

John Oxley’s plan of the river Brisbane & chart of Moreton Bay 1823

Plan of Brisbane Town 1839

Still standing today in Brisbane’s Central Business District are two buildings referenced in the Town Plan of 1839. The Commissariat Store in William Street was used for distributing food, clothing, tools and other requirements (No. 9) (illustrated) and built in 1828-29, and the Windmill in Wickham Terrace, Spring Hill (No. 36) (illustrated) also built in the late 1820s to grind sufficient grain to sustain the settlement, however by 1855 was converted to a signal station now known as The Observatory.

Also listed, the Government Gardens at Gardens Point was established in 1828 for planting crops and provided food for the town before a botanic curator was appointed when the gardens officially opened in 1855 as Brisbane’s Botanical Gardens.

Commissariat Stores

The Windmill (The Observatory)

Botanic Gardens

Early depictions of Brisbane

London born Conrad Martens (1801–78) based in Sydney from 1835 was the most proficient and prolific landscape artist in the Australian colonies. In 1851 the economic depression in Sydney prompted Martens to make a sketching tour of areas of northern New South Wales that now fall within Queensland. Martens arrived in Moreton Bay in November 1851 and by March 1852 the artist had completed over ninety drawings, valuable records of Queensland. Returning to Sydney he completed around seventy commissions working from his field sketches, these watercolours combined with the sketches are a unique record of Brisbane and its river.

Conrad Martens

The panoramic view North and South Brisbane from the South Brisbane rocks 1851 (illustrated) is perhaps Conrad Martens’s most important historical document of Brisbane and is taken from the top of the cliffs at Kangaroo Point opposite the Botanic Gardens. It includes South Brisbane to the left clustered around Stanley and Russell Streets, the wharves where ships from Sydney berthed, animals grazing on the Gardens site in the foreground, and the Convict Barracks in Queen Street (No. 33 in the Brisbane Town Map of 1839).

Conrad Martens North and South Brisbane from the South Brisbane rocks 1851

Detail of South Brisbane

Detail of Convict Barracks, North Brisbane

Convict Barracks

In 1862 Martens sent the painting View of Brisbane (in 1851) (illustrated) to Charles Darwin, his shipmate on HMS Beagle in the early 1830s, to mark the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859). Martens may have chosen this subject because their mutual friend and shipmate on the Beagle, Captain JC Wickham, was Police Magistrate in Brisbane at the time of Martens’ visit.

Conrad Martens View of Brisbane (in 1851) 1862

The view of North Brisbane from Kangaroo Point (illustrated) is from the ferry stop at Kangaroo Point that looks across to the original Customs House, built 1849–50 (illustrated). The new Customs House was completed on the same site in 1889.

Conrad Martens North Brisbane from Kangaroo Point 1852

First Brisbane Customs House

Conrad Martens Kangaroo Point, Brisbane 1852

Conrad Martens Brisbane 1855

Brisbane

European settlement of Brisbane was developed around present-day William and Queen Streets. The first buildings were temporary, constructed of slabs, and were subsequently replaced by larger structures of brick and stone. When the town was surveyed to prepare for free settlement in 1842, the largest structure, the convict-built Prisoner’s Barracks, determined the position of Queen Street and the layout of the future city.

Settlement initially spread in areas closest to the former penal station site and the river at North Brisbane, South Brisbane and Kangaroo Point, all linked by ferries. With shipping as the main means of access and communication for Brisbane and the settlements inland, Brisbane gradually developed as a port.

Views of Brisbane 1860s

Plan of the city of Brisbane 1865

Pictorial maps of Brisbane 1880s

Silvester Diggles

Silvester Diggles (1817–80), painter, professional photographer, musician and naturalist, moved to Brisbane from Sydney in 1854, after emigrating from England in 1853. He taught art and music and was drawing master at the Brisbane Grammar School in 1869–70 and at All Hallows School in 1870. Diggles took an active part in the cultural life of Brisbane, helping to establish its musical societies, its first scientific society (the Queensland Philosophical Society) and the Queensland Museum.

Silvester Diggles View from Kangaroo Point 1858

Silvester Diggles Fortitude Valley 1858

Silvester Diggles Kangaroo Point 1858

Silvester Diggles North Brisbane from the south side 1858

Buildings

Early European buildings were small and inexpensive, on small allotments, built of readily available materials in a simple, easily constructed style — bark huts could be built in a day. More comfortable was the slab and shingle structure, cheaply erected of local timber, and later the sawn timber buildings. Generally, modest houses were built in lower lying areas, with more substantial structures on higher ground.

Later buildings reflected — in size, style, ornamentation, materials and position — the extent of their owners success and their faith in the future of the new northern settlement. Generally there was some adaptation to the local climate. Larger and more ornate homes set in spacious grounds and in the best locations began to appear. These included ‘Bulimba’ (1849–50) and ‘Newstead’ (1845–46), both stone riverfront residences with large and impressive grounds.

‘Bulimba House’ (illustrated) was the grand Brisbane residence of David Cannon McConnel, the first squatter to settle east of the Great Dividing Range, at Cressbrook. ‘Bulimba House’ still stands on the opposite bank of the Brisbane River to Newstead House (illustrated), built by Patrick Leslie in 1846.

Bulimba House

Newstead House

Curatorial extracts, research and supplementary material compiled by Elliott Murray, Senior Digital Marketing Officer, QAGOMA