Tales of Brisbane

  • Self-government: “Colonisation on the cheap”

    Self-government: “Colonisation on the cheap”

    After much agitation around Moreton Bay, the British Government in London allowed the region north of the Tweed River to break away from New South Wales and become a colony in its own right in 1859. The head of state of all the Australian Colonies, Her Majesty the Queen, immodestly…

  • Gracious Contessa Diamantina Roma, wife of the 1st Governor

    Gracious Contessa Diamantina Roma, wife of the 1st Governor

    The first governor of newly-independent Queensland was that 38 year old Sir George Bowen. He was a highly educated, intellectually minded official not renowned for incisive decision-making who, like many later governors, came from a Protestant Irish Establishment background. He was, by most signs, an earnest but rather dull man. He…

  • Grim murder launches a dynasty

    Grim murder launches a dynasty

    It was near a seedy hotel in Kangaroo Point that a brutal murder and robbery took place in the early hours of Sunday 26th March 1848, subsequently so thoroughly investigated and reported in rich detail by Rosamond Siemon in her book The Mayne Inheritance. It was a murder that created…

  • The Europeans arrive

    The Europeans arrive

    The first European settlers arrived in Brisbane in 1824, just over 200 years ago. It was an altogether messy, poorly planned affair. Lieutenant James Cook sailed past Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island on 15th May 1770 in the British Royal Navy research vessel HMS Endeavour on his four-month journey…

  • Nature’s Bounty

    Nature’s Bounty

    South east Queensland’s variable subtropical climate plays a critical role in the sort of vegetation that grows in Brisbane, along with the quality of the soils. Before the arrival of white settlers, most of the Brisbane region was covered in lush subtropical plant life. A convict amongst the very first…

  • “On steamy afternoons, the rain would pelt down”

    “On steamy afternoons, the rain would pelt down”

    Brisbane is close to the protruding eastern extremity of the world’s oldest continent. That means it pokes its nose into the warm Eastern Australasian Ocean current nestled on some very, very old rocks. The guidebooks say that Brisbane has warm humid summers and mild sunny winters but among locals there…

  • Water, water, everywhere

    Water, water, everywhere

    Brisbane is hot and sultry in the early months of the year. Humid. Our bodies cope by perspiring, or in these modern times, turning on the air conditioner. So we welcome the afternoon thunderstorms which refresh the land and the mood, before it turns sultry again. Well, mostly. Very once…

  • The Battle of Brisbane erupts between allied troops in 1942

    The Battle of Brisbane erupts between allied troops in 1942

    There was an almighty punch up in Brisbane city centre in the middle of the second world war as niggling irritations sparked by the presence of large numbers of American soldiers erupted into a riot. It was hushed up at the time for fear of damaging already fragile morale. The…