Spinks' Shop/Residence

On 5 February 1875, Patrick Mayne finalised the transfer of this the property to business partners Joseph Darragh and John Petrie. They immediately subdivided Portion 234 into suburban allotments, suitable for housing blocks and sold the first house block on the 4 February 1875. The site that is the subject of this citation was designated as subdivision 1 of just 24 perches in area and it fronted Leichhardt Street that ran down to and through Fortitude Valley. Subdivision 1 was sold, on 15 January 1876, to Brisbane resident John McColl. McColl was a pastry cook who ran a cake and confectionery business in Queen Street in the City, while his residence was in Union Street in Spring Hill. 

This steep block of land sloped downhill beside Isaac Street and remained vacant for 20 years. John McColl died within a few years of purchasing Subdivision 1, on 13 March 1878. The property was transmitted to the trustees of McColl’s estate, William Haslet, Thomas William Hanlon and Richard Bell. It was not until 7 December 1895 that the property passed back into the hands of the McColl family. Then on 3 March 1896, John McColl’s son, John James McColl mortgaged the property for just over £200 through the Bank of Queensland. He obtained a second mortgage on subdivision 1 for another £200, on 31 December 1896, this time from the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney.

It is possible that McColl used one or both of these mortgages to fund the construction of a two-storey shop and attached residence, built as an investment property. He had built a two storey brick building suitable for lease as shops or offices and an adjoining timber residence. The location was ideal as it was across from the tramline that ran down Leichhardt Street and it was close-by to the row of shops built by Charles Keid, in the 1870s, near the corner of Leichhardt and Boundary Streets. The location of a new shop and residence in this section of Leichhardt Street made use of the locality’s commercial importance. The Brisbane History Group have noted that along the length of Leichhardt Street: 

“The section between Fortescue and Rogers Streets, which became lined with shops and serviced by trams towards the end of the [19th] century, formed the heart of Spring Hill.”1

Thus the new building would contribute to the Leichhardt Street commercial precinct that was centred on this section of Leichhardt Street and which included the Alliance Tavern that had been rebuilt in 1888. The first lessee of the two-storey shop at 32 St Pauls Terrace was the Spinks family, who are listed as residents of this building in 1897. Elijah Spinks was the foreman of the Comet Packing Company, while his wife ran a fruit shop from the ground floor of the two-storey building. The family lived in the single-storey, timber residence located at the corner of Leichhardt and Isaac Streets. Their tenancy was only short, for by 1899, Richard Butler lived at this address and ran a store from there. There followed a rapid turnover of tenancies. Ludwig Hornung ran a store and wine shop from this address (1900-01), followed by fruiter Mrs Christina Guilfoyle (1902), another fruiter Mrs. B McCarthy (1903), George Priestly (1904), vacant in 1905 and James Gellatly in 1906. The property was granted a street number c1900 as it was first listed as 270 Leichhardt Street in the 1901 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories.

James Carroll, of Fortitude Valley, purchased the property on 20 September 1905. On 24 March 1908, Carroll shared ownership of the property with his wife Katherine. The shop and attached residence were only just over 10 years old, but c1908, Carroll saw a business opportunity to convert the buildings into a single boarding house. With the increasing importance of Brisbane City and the need to provide nearby accommodation for the City’s workers, a number of large, nineteenth century residences were being converted into boarding houses across Brisbane. This may explain why the buildings remained unoccupied from 1907-08, as Carroll sought the necessary approvals and made the appropriate alterations to the two buildings in order to convert them yo a single boarding house. 

As a business, Carroll had to register the boarding house with the Brisbane Municipal Council. Then he would lease the registered boarding house, usually to a woman, who would live-in and run the boarding house and care for its, predominantly single male residents. Thus in 1910 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories, the property was first listed Annie McEvoy’s boarding house. Until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the new boarding house had a rapid turnover of landladies. In 1912, it became Miss Margaret Ford’s boarding house. A widow, Winifred Mary Brady ran the boarding house from April 1913 before transferring her lease to spinster Margaret Eugenie Marian Henman in November of that year. Miss Henman, in turn, passed her lease onto a widow, Margaret Lorina, in August 1914. She was followed by Mrs. Agnes Irving through most of the period of First World War (1914-18) and Mrs Sarah Isler (c1919-21). Around 1922, when Mrs. E. Mills was the landlady of the boarding house (1922-26), the street number changed to 268 Leichhardt Street. In the 1927-28 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories, Mrs. Elizabeth Howard was listed as running this establishment and she was the last advertised landlady for the boarding house.

Some mystery surrounds the operations of the boarding house during the years of the Great Depression (1929-39). While there is no record of the buildings being demolished or destroyed, they simply disappear from the listings within the Queensland Post Office Directories. Some confusion occurred because the two blocks of Leichhardt Street that run between the corner of Isaac Street and the corner of Union Street were listed as a single block. As well, the first listing of St Paul’s Terrace in the 1932 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories saw a new street numbering system that had the boarding house allocated a street number somewhere between Number 32 and Number 50 St Paul’s Terrace. The section of Leichhardt Street that ran from Boundary Street to Brook Street was renamed St Paul’s Terrace in 1922, in deference to the importance of St Paul’s Cathedral (completed 1889)

 

During the interwar period (1919-1939), the popularity of boarding houses in Brisbane gradually declined as flats and apartments that offered more living space and privacy became desired accommodation for City workers, particularly singles. Thus the new ‘Vallima’ Flats’ began offering inner-city accommodation next-door (at 44 St Paul’s Tce) to the boarding house in 1935. So by 1937, the buildings at 32 St Paul’s Terrace had changed from a boarding house into three self-contained flats. Among the tenants of these flats was a Miss. E. Spinks, possibly a relative of Elijah Spinks. The 1938 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories was the first occasion when the property was listed with the street address of 32 St Paul’s Terrace. By the outbreak of World war two, the flats were rented to a hairdresser, a chemist and a painter, all of whom may have worked nearby in the City.

The Carroll family retained ownership of the property until 1947, though it changed hands as a result of a death in the family. When Katherine Carroll died on 28 February 1923, the property had returned to the ownership of her husband James, as well as James Denis Carroll and Margaret Jane Carroll. After James Denis Carroll’s death on 19 September 1926, the property was retained by James D. Carroll as well as being entrusted to Gertrude Margaret Jane Carroll and Eileen Mary Winifred Carroll (both spinsters). James Carroll, who had turned Spinks’ Shop and residence into a boarding house, died on 26 December 1928. Apart from Gertrude and Eileen, the new trustees became Patrick Thomas Carroll, Martin Francis Carroll and Bernard Maurice Joseph Carroll. Not only did the Carroll family continue to obtain rent from the property but they also used it as collateral for mortgages in 1929, 1930 and 1934.

On 15 July 1947, the flats at 32 St Paul’s Terrace obtained new owners, a widow Ellen Sarah Gould and a spinster Phyllis Ellen Gould. They returned it to a multiple-accommodation establishment that they dubbed the Lancaster Guest House. As a guesthouse, the property may have been marketed towards the short-term needs of the tourist and commercial traveller market rather than in providing accommodation for more permanent residents. When Phyllis Gould married William Harold Osmond on 6 February 1950, her new husband also became part owner of the property. The influx of post-war European migrants into Brisbane during the 1950’s is reflected in the change of ownership of this property. Thus Luigi and Camillo Cantarella took control of the property on 6 July 1951. They transferred ownership to Antonio Amato, Salvatore Farfaglia and Domenico Bellino on 27 August 1959. 

Since then title to the property has changed in 1973, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984 (twice), 1987, and 1994. By 2001, it had reverted back to a modest inner-city boarding house. Realignment of the busy thoroughfare of St Paul’s Terrace by the Brisbane City Council in 1957 and 1958 resulted in compulsory resumption of parts of subdivision 1 which has resulted the size of the property being reduced 607 square metres. The property was re-subdivided in c2006, so that it was converted from Lot 1 on RP 10497 to Lots 1 to 4 on SP 175611. Thus the property returned to being two separate but adjoining buildings, with the Spink’s residence remaining as 32 St Paul’s Terrace but Mrs Spink’s two-storey fruit shop becoming 7 and 9 Isaac Street.  

 

The property at 32 St Paul’s Terrace has been identified as a building of interest in a number of publications. In 1981, it was featured in Jack Murphy’s Spring Hill Re-Sprung that included a watercolour illustration of the rear of the property done by artist Clare Glazebrook. It was identified c1992, by the Brisbane City Council in its first-ever Heritage Survey of Spring Hill. In 1993, the Brisbane History Group listed the property as Stop Number 1 in its Spring Hill Heritage Tour – St Pauls Terrace to Gregory Terrace. 

Along with the Hansom Horse & Cart Cab Company (former) building at 58 St Paul’s Terrace, the Alliance Hotel (320 Boundary St) and the Spring Hill Hotel (100 Leichhardt St), the Spink’s Shop & Residence are the only surviving remnants from what was Spring Hill’s nineteenth century commercial heart.

1. Brisbane History Group, Spring Hill Heritage Tour St Pauls to Gregory Terrace,  (Brisbane: Brisbane History Group, 1993)

2. Brisbane City Council, Properties on the Web, website

3. Brisbane City Council, Sewerage Map 145, 31 October 1911

4. Brisbane City Council, 1946 & 1938 aerial photographs

5. Brisbane City Council, Spring Hill Heritage Survey, c1992

6. Brisbane City Council, Brisbane Images photograph archive website

7. Brisbane City Council’s Central Library, local history sheets

8. Brisbane City Council, Keid’s Shop 150 Leichhardt St, CPHR draft citation, May 2002

9. Department of Natural Resources, Queensland Certificates of title and other records.

10. Murphy, Jack, & Glazebrook, Clare, Spring Hill Re-Sprung, (Ascot: Boolarong Publications, 1981)

11. John Oxley Library, Brisbane Suburbs – newspaper clippings file on Spring Hill

12. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1868-1949 editions