22 Cintra Road, Bowen Hills

On 6 March 1913 Mrs. E. M. Corrigan applied to the Council for the erection of a new building, constructed of wood to a design by architect Francis Richard Hall, of Queen Street, to be erected by Dickinson and Heudesson, contractors of Latrobe Street, East Brisbane. This home, erected in Cintra Road, joined a number of new houses constructed in the street in the first decade of the twentieth century. Evidently a rental property, the house was owned by Mrs Corrigan until her death in 1922. The entire ‘Abbotsford’ property was then transmitted to Bernard Vincent Corrigan of Bowen Hills and James Francis Fitzgerald, a New Farm solicitor. Soon afterwards the land was subdivided and sold. Elizabeth Blackburn, a widow of Toowoomba, bought this parcel of 39.6 perches in September 1927 and sold it to Hubert McHugh in December of the same year. McHugh and his wife Sarah, lived in the house before selling it in 1954. An easement of just over 10.5 perches was allocated to the Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board in 1928.

Francis Richard Hall, the designer of the house, was the son of the leading architect John Hall. He trained as an architect with the Brisbane Municipal Council and as an articled pupil in his father’s practice. A capable manager, architect and surveyor, Francis Hall formed associations with creative designers such as Thomas Coutts, E. M. Myers, and J. S. Murdoch. His most noted partnership was with Robert S. Dods. Hall and Dods became “one of the most influential and productive architectural practices in Brisbane”. They designed and built a number of houses and cottages in Bowen Hills from 1895 until Dods left Brisbane in 1913. Whether designed during this partnership or soon afterwards, this house exemplifies the work of F. R. Hall at this time.

1. Queensland Certificates of Title

2. Queensland Post Office Directories

3. Brisbane City Council Water Supply and Sewerage Maps

4. John Hall & Son. Tender Books 1885 - 1912

5. Donald Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century, South Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994