Carter's Piggery Residence

Horstmann went into partnership with Edgar Wright Walker and new title deed was issued to the joint owners on 14 August 1886. They then surrendered Selection 284 to the Crown and applied for a new title to be issued for this land. The new title issued on 9 March 1887, described as Portions 15 and 16 and it covered an area of land comprising 119 acres, 2 roods and 38 perches. The partners obtained a mortgage of ₤1,050 on their property on 11 March 1892. Bradshaw Barker, Arthur Anthony Robinson and Friderie Hamilton Eaglesfieed provided this loan. When Gustav Horstmann died on 16 November 1899, the land came under the sole control of Edgar Walker. Walker’s occupation, by this time, was an insurance manager. 

In 1895, Everton Park was first classified as a separate area of Brisbane and by 1898 some new rural industries such as Pullen’s Vineyard had come to the district, to join existing businesses such as Poultney’s Sawmill (established on South Pine Road in 1887). The opening of the Mayne Junction to Enoggera railway line in 1899 would have been an inducement for further settlement of the area. The first post office opened in Everton Park in that year. Thus in 1900, Walker decided to subdivide his land into small farm or residential allotments. He marketed the allotments under the banner of the Duke of Cornwall and York Estate of North Enoggera and Cameron Brothers auctioneers in the Adelaide Street Centennial Hall conducted the first public auction of Walker’s land on 18 May 1901. The first allotment was sold to Michael Kelly on 5 August 1901. 

During Walker’s subdivision of Portions 15 and 16, the land containing the site of the property at 720 South Pine Road, was redesignated as resubdivision C of subdivision A of Portion 15. This was an area of 3 acres, 2 roods and 31 perches. Edgar Walker had been issued with a new title to this component of his land on 6 July 1900. This block was further subdivided and on 30 July 1902, John Tucker, the local postmaster, purchased subdivisions 145 and 146. This was followed on 30 September 1902, by the sale of subdivisions 142, 143 and 144 to Matilda Quince, the wife of Samford farmer George Quince. On 28 March 1904, George Bentley obtained subdivision 141. Then on 26 February 1918, subdivisions 139 and 140 were sold to Job Carter and his wife Mary Elizabeth Carter.

The Carter family were farmers but their initial land purchase had gained them approximately 28 perches of land. This was far too small for a viable farm so they needed to buy up the surrounding blocks of land. Matilda Quince had sold subdivisions 143 and 144 to John Tucker on 8 November 1912. She transferred subdivision 142 to her daughter Mary Elizabeth Quince on 13 February 1918. When George Bentley died on 8 December 1911, subdivision 141 passed to his widow Mary Jane Bentley. On 26 February 1918, the Carter family bought subdivision 141 from Mary Bentley, subdivision 142 from Mary Quince and subdivisions 143, 144 and 145 from John Tucker.  

This gave Job and Mary Carter an area of uncleared land comprising a total of 1 acre and 5.3 perches of land that was bordered on two sides by Bunya (later South Pine) Road and Pullen Road. They consolidated their various land purchases under one title deed that covered subdivisions 139 to 146. After purchasing these blocks in 1918, Job and Mary Carter spent the next year clearing the land and constructing a piggery. Their house at 720 South Pine Road was built during this time. The farmhouse was completed by 1919, for, according to the 1919-20 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories, Job Carter began to receive mail at his Bunya Road address at that time. As was the norm with farmhouses, they built their home on the highest point of their land, allowing them to have views looking down Bunya road and across to the Poultney’s Sawmill. 

On 7 March 1929, the Carters split subdivisions 145 and 146 from the rest of their farm. This allowed them to have a separate title deed for the land containing their farmhouse. The Carters piggery gradually expanded in size, with the outbuildings spreading along the length of what is now Forrest Street. On 4 September 1930, they took out a mortgage on the piggery through Queensland Trustee Limited, perhaps as a means of financing further expansion. Mary Carter died on 21 August 1934 and widower Job Carter carried on running the piggery. Bob Cottrell, whose family moved into a house in Buller Street in 1935, remembered Job Carter as a grumpy old man. But Job Carter’s lack of humour was probably related to the fact that Bob and his childhood mates would build shanghais and fire rocks at the pigs at Carter’s Piggery. The piggery was a major local business in an area dominated by Poultney’s sawmill and dairy farmers. An Everton Park-Kedron Progress Association had been formed in 1917 and during the interwar period it organised a bus service, telephone and water supply and the erection of a community hall by the Workers’ Political Organisation. 

The elderly Job Carter transferred ownership of his piggery onto his son, John Joseph Carter on 21 December 1937. By 1946, the piggery comprised nine outbuildings structured behind the Carter farmhouse. Due to the accidental destruction of the certificate of title to subdivisions 145 and 146, a new title deed had to be issued for the house and land on 5 July 1965. Thus property description for 720 South Pine Road changed to Lot 2. The post-war housing boom in Everton Park that began in 1952 forced the eventual closure of many local industries, including Carter’s Piggery. The land though was retained by the Carter family. On 13 October 1988, the family home passed to Simeon John Carter. The property was sold by the Carter family in 1993. The house at 720 South Pine Road is one of the few surviving reminders of Everton Park’s rural heritage.

1. Brisbane City Council, Properties on the Web, post-1946 building approval cards

2. Brisbane City Council, 1946 aerial photographs.

3. The Brisbane Courier, 10 January 1906

4. The Brisbane Courier, 21 November 1908

5. Cottrell, Bob, interview with Dr Jack Ford, BCC Heritage Unit, 7 April 2003

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

7. John Oxley Library, Estate Maps Collection – The Lord Roberts Estate (Cameron Brothers, 18 August 1900)

8. John Oxley Library, Suburban clippings file – Everton Park

9. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1868-1949