Hello and welcome

Brisbane History West is a collaborative resource set up to provide an internet presence for the history groups in the inner south western suburbs that don’t have their own dedicated website.  Its purpose  is to supplement existing activities and encourage community awareness and participation in the study and recording of local history.

Each of the groups focus on specific geographical areas which jointly cover the present day suburbs of Chelmer, Corinda, Graceville, Indooroopilly, Oxley, St Lucia, Sherwood and Taringa. Arbitrary boundaries aside, with some subtle variations the area shares a common history.

If you are unfamiliar with the blog format this Home page has all the articles uploaded to date in chronological order. Each has been categorised so if you are looking to minimise scrolling click on the relevant Topic (right hand side margin for PC users). The articles are a mix of frequently asked questions, meeting notices, research notes and papers,  and general news items.

Please feel free to contact us if you are working on a project and are wondering how to share your research effort, contributions are welcome. The site is self-funded and supported by the participating groups and societies which rely solely on volunteer resources. The individual groups retain their independence.

The publication Brisbane Spreads West– A local history 1840 to 1901 is the combined work of a number of local groups and societies, drawing on their research of the history of the western and south western suburbs of Brisbane. It is available from the participating groups or from the State Library Book Shop

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Indooroopilly & District Historical Society August Meeting

5 for 5.30pm Wednesday 28 August 2019 at the Meeting Room, Indooroopilly Library, Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, Indooroopilly. General discussion meeting including a follow up on last month’s presentation. All welcome

Richlands, Inala & Suburbs History Group August Meeting

9.30 for 10am Tuesday 13 August 2019 at the Meeting Room, BCC Inala Library, Inala Civic Centre, Inala. For further details contact secretary@rihghistory.org.au

Oxley-Chelmer History Group August Meeting

9.30am Friday 9 August 2019 at the Sherwood-Indooroopilly RSL Sub-Branch, Clewley Street, Corinda. This month will be a ‘Members Day’ with several of our  members giving short talks on a variety of topics of local interest. Members may also bring along objects of interest for a ‘Show and Tell’ segment. As this will be a catered morning tea event, please advise if you will be attending. For further details please contact Marion on 3379 1967 or ochginc@gmail.com

Taringa History Group August Meeting

3pm Saturday 3 August 2019 at the Community Meeting Place, Josling Street, Toowong. This month Oxford Terrace resident Georgina Dove will talk about the history of her house and some of her neighbours homes. All welcome

A Taringa Childhood

Mid 1950s view from the southern end of Manchester Terrace overlooking Moggill Road and its intersection with Musgrave Road. Today’s outlook from the same position is now dominated by the Indooroopilly Shopping Centre
(Walter Marggraf)

Much has changed in the neighbourhood Eric Marggraf grew up in in the 1930s and 40s.

In Wounded in the trenches Eric presents his early childhood memories of Taringa and beyond. Starting with the Manchester Terrace environs, the family home was No 62, his horizons gradually extended to include the Princess Street home of his paternal grandparents, and Taringa State School where he was enrolled in 1935. Then he got ‘wheels’ and his adventuring extended along Moggill Road, from Toowong to Brookfield, and over the Indooroopilly Bridge out to Chelmer and Graceville.

As with his description of the Victory Picture Theatre, Eric demonstrates his builder’s eye for detail and provides us with a snapshot of some of the characters and businesses operating in Taringa Village and beyond. From the early days of European settlement Taringa had been a commercial and social hub for the local community, and the seat of local government until 1925.

Eric’s contemporaries will recognise this glimpse into everyday life, many aspects typical of a Brisbane suburban upbringing of the times, a period when being home for meals and in before dark set your boundaries.

Charles Street, a shopkeeper of nineteenth century Brisbane

View along Queen Street c1864
(State Library Queensland Neg 139497)

In 1865 Devon born Charles Street was 42 when he and his wife Elizabeth (nee Stanton) boarded the Flying Cloud  bound for Brisbane. He had spent the previous 20 years in America. Initially employed there as a clerk, by the time the 1860 US census was taken he had obviously prospered, his profession being described as ‘Merchant’.

He was a self-funded migrant, travelling saloon class, and on arrival was eligible for government land orders for himself, his wife and accompanying children. They had a comfortable passage and settled in Brisbane on arrival where he opened his drapery business in Queens Street. He used his land orders towards the purchase a number of large blocks of land at (what would become) Taringa and Indooroopilly,

Turtle Soup made in Oxley – really ?

Canning sausages at the Oxley Bacon Factory in 1942
(Oxley-Chelmer History Group, donated by Phil O’Brien)

Yes, made from giant turtles transported all the way from the Great Barrier Reef. Local livestock was used for the more mundane canned sausages, pigs trotters, and pork brawn.

For nearly a hundred years the Foggitt and Jones Oxley Bacon Factory on Blunder Road, or Hutton’s as it was known to baby-boomers, produced hams, bacon sides and a variety of canned products for the local, Australian and International market.

Now with historical records becoming more easily accessible the Oxley-Chelmer History Group has decided to update and supplement The History of the Oxley Meat Factory authored twenty years ago by group member Lona Grantham.

Can you help (no pun intended) ? We are particularly interested in memories of the factory, good or bad, for the period between the Second World War and when it closed in 1992. Also in any photographs or old newspaper cuttings you may have.

For further details or if you have something to share please contact us on  gonebush6@bigpond.com or ochginc@gmail.com and we will be in touch