463 Bowen Terrace, New Farm

New Farm, originally an area farmed by convict labour, was subdivided and sold in the 1840s and 1850s.  Landholders purchased large estates, which were also gradually subdivided and sold.  The Suttons’ land derived from the estate of John Sargent Turner, who had purchased just over sixteen acres of New Farm in 1865.  Most of the Turner Estate was sold in the early twentieth century, though Robert Langlands Armour had bought six acres three roods and nineteen perches of the estate in 1880, including the land which the Suttons were to own.  

In 1891, Duncan MacDiarmid purchased subdivisions 1-3 of Armour’s estate, mortgaging the land for fifteen hundred pounds in 1893.  This land, totalling 48 perches, was sold in 1910 to Joseph Power, who owned ‘Ballydavid’ on the adjoining property.  Like Sutton, Power was an electrical engineer working for the Postmaster-General’s Department for the government of Queensland.  Power had built ‘Ballydavid’ in 1904 and resided there until the early 1910s.  By this time, Bowen Terrace had become a prestigious address, home to such notaries as the manager of the Queensland National Bank, E.R. Drury; Chief Justice of Queensland, Sir Pope A Cooper and politician Edward Granville ‘Red Ted’ Theodore.  It was also easily accessible, with the tram service having been extended from the Barker Street terminal to Ella and Langshaw Streets in 1885.  The Brisbane Courier described Bowen Terrace in 1906: 

’Tis a rare and beautiful picture which spreads before those who care to make the easy climb to the terrace named after Queensland’s first Governor.  It is something, in fact, for Queenslanders to boast of and to describe in their very best language to the world, for there are not many such views anywhere.1

Title to 36 perches on the corner of Bowen Terrace and Moreton Streets in New Farm was passed to Emmeline Lamberta Sutton, wife of Joseph William Sutton, in July 1913.  The Suttons engaged important and influential architect Thomas Ramsay Hall to design their new wood residence.  Hall was the son of the late John Hall, also a prominent architect in Brisbane.  Hall and George Gray Prentice formed a partnership in 1913, though Hall went on to partner Lionel Blythewood Phillips in 1930.  Over the course of his career, Hall’s firms designed buildings including Brisbane City Hall, Tattersall's Club, Ascot Chambers and Shell House.  

Hall called for tenders for the wood residence in New Farm in January 1914, and builders Dickenson and Henderson of Latrobe Terrace were the successful bidders.  The building appears to have been finished by 1915, as the Suttons are first listed in the Post Office Directory on Bowen Terrace, adjacent to Moreton St, in 1915.  

The Sutton families played a prominent role in developing Brisbane, particularly New Farm, Kangaroo Point and Chelmer.  Joseph William Sutton senior arrived in the 1870s with wife Mary (nee Hurley).  They appear to have resided in a house in Bowen Terrace, New Farm called ‘Stonehenge’, which no longer exists.  Sutton’s nephew Charles Evans Sutton is listed as resident of Stonehenge in the 1886 electoral rolls.  In the late 1880s Sutton commissioned the construction of ‘Hurlton’ at Chelmer, where their four daughters and one son were raised.  Sutton, an engineer, was a partner in Hipwood and Sutton, which practised from about 1871 to 1877, and later established J W Sutton and Company, an iron foundry and ship building company at Kangaroo Point.  The foundry was across the river from the Bowen Terrace house.  On his death in 1914 he was described as one of the ‘pioneers of the industries’ in Queensland.

Joseph William Sutton junior was born in 1874.  Like his father, he became an engineer, although Sutton junior specialised in electrical engineering.  Sutton was heavily involved in the automation of the Brisbane telephone system.  In 1904 the assistant engineer in the Electric Telegraph Department was sent to Thursday Island to construct the Thursday Island telephone line.  In 1924 he gave a demonstration of the wireless telephone system for the Acting Premier William Neil Gillies, in his Bowen Terrace residence. Sutton rose from that role to State Engineer of the Postal Department, to Acting Deputy Director of Posts and Telegraphs in Queensland, Superintending Engineer of the Postmaster-General’s Department and in 1933 was appointed Superintending Engineer of New South Wales, a post that was more prestigious than its Queensland equivalent.  However, in December 1933 he took sick leave and extended this to six months’ leave.

Emmeline Lamberta Fowles, born at Clermont in 1876, was the only daughter of William Lambert Fowles.  Fowles was a prominent figure in nineteenth century Brisbane, one of the passengers on the Fortitude which reached Brisbane in 1849.  A solicitor who served his clerkship under Charles Lilley, Fowles was elected Registrar of the Supreme Court in 1869.  The Fowles family had also resided in Bowen Terrace in the 1860s, before moving to Clermont where Fowles practised law and was elected to represent Clermont in 1879.  Offered the position of Registrar of the Supreme Court in 1879, Fowles returned to Brisbane but died in 1880.  Daughter Emmeline married Joseph Sutton in 1899 and the couple had two daughters: Alma and Roma.  Mrs Sutton died at the Bowen Terrace residence in 1931 and her estate, valued at £13,924, passed to her husband Joseph.  The property passed to Minnie Hayden in 1936, although Sutton continued to reside there until 1938, when title was transferred to Gordon and Eileen Neal in 1938.  Sutton died in 1941.

In 1939 the Post Office Directories listed ‘Khandallah Flats’ at the site where the Suttons had resided.  Turning large residences into flats became common, particularly in the postwar period as owners of larger residences took advantage of the housing shortage.  Flats had developed slightly earlier in New Farm, with Marlborough Mansions situated on another corner of Bowen Terrance and Moreton Street from 1926.  Several more blocks of flats were constructed in New Farm in the 1930s, including the State heritage listed Julius Street Flats [601895].   Khandallah continues to be used as multi-unit dwelling.

1. The Brisbane Courier (Qld: 1864-1933), Sunday 12 May 1906, page 12

2. Brisbane City Council Building Registers 1914

3. Brisbane City Council Building Cards

4. Brisbane City Council Detail Plans

5. Certificates of Title.

6. Musgrave, Elizabeth, Kaylee Wilson and Brisbane City Council Heritage Unit. New Farm and Teneriffe Hill: Heritage and Character Study. October 1995

7. Post Office Directories.

8. The Brisbane Courier, Thursday 19 August 1880 p2

9. The Brisbane Courier 15 October 1886

10. The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 6 September 1931, p14

11. Watson, Donald and Judith McKay. A Directory of Queensland Architects to 1940. (St. Lucia: U of Q Press, 1984)

12. Watson, Donald and Judith McKay. Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994