Pole Residence (former)

The land is part of just over eight acres of land that was granted to William Marshall in 1862. Land in this area was subdivided in various size parcels, from 1876 onwards, though most of the sales date from the 1880s. In 1882 Marshall offered the ‘Avondale Estate’ for sale, with allotments fronting Constance, Alfred, Leichhardt and Julia Streets. From this offering Mary Kelly and Mary Pole purchased 18.6 perches as joint owners, in February 1884. Kelly and Pole were the daughter and wife, respectively, of Sheldon Pole, who founded the printing company that became Pole, Outridge and Company.

The Pole family arrived in Australia in 1867 on the ship Vanguard. During the voyage Sheldon Pole produced a weekly paper of shipboard news called ‘The Man at the Wheel’. On arriving in Brisbane, Pole took up a position as a compositor with the local newspaper, the Courier. Relocating to Fortitude Valley, at that time an isolated township cut off by Duncan’s Hill, he had established the Valley’s first and only printing company in 1873, in Wickham Street. The following year he nominated as a candidate to represent the Valley Ward on the Brisbane Municipal Council. He was the successful candidate in the 1883 elections. That year he took on a partner, Frederick Outridge, in his printery, and renamed the business Pole, Outridge and Company. Among other clients, the printery was commissioned to publish the Queensland Racing Calendar, maps of Brisbane and Maryborough, and Pugh’s Almanac. Although Pole retired in 1890, his partner and son, Henry Pole continued the business for a time, eventually dissolving the partnership and establishing their own printing companies.

Mary Kelly and Mary Pole’s new Valley property consisted of two allotments facing Alfred Street, running adjacent to Constance Street. The Constance Street frontage was 119 feet wide, while the Alfred Street frontage was 97.5 feet in width. Placing the dwellings transversely across the allotments took advantage of the widest frontage and allowed wider buildings with greater access down the sides. This wise utilisation of what were allotments of less than ten perches in size also allowed the dwellings to face in the most desirable direction – north. The house on the corner was most likely erected around 1884, after Kelly and Pole obtained a £300 mortgage. The dwelling was a rental property, as the Poles resided on the printery property in Wickham Street, before moving to ‘Abbeyville’ in Leichhardt Street (now St Paul’s Terrace) around 1888. The properties were a prudent investment. Fortitude Valley, by the late 1880s, was on the cusp of a boom period which would last until the 1950s. Brisbane’s robust economy in the 1880s encouraged greater growth, and the Valley in particular became a focal point for development. Transport was improved and access to the city was opened up by cuttings to Duncan’s Hill. The area was also largely flood-protected, bringing large retailers to the swathes of available land from the 1890s, setting up their flagship branches in the Valley. Opened up by land sales, areas like Constance Street became well-populated residential areas, as commercial development began to shift inhabitants from the centre of the Valley.

Mary Pole became the sole owner of the land in 1887 and in 1889 Sheldon Pole commissioned architects John Hall and Sons to build a home in Constance Street, Fortitude Valley. The service of Hall and Sons were at this point in high demand in Brisbane, although Pole’s choice of architectural firm may have been influenced by the fact that his son Thomas was articled to John Hall and Son until late in 1893.

Mary Pole died on 12 October 1892 and the property was transmitted to her son Henry Pole and Charles Brooks. These houses were among several properties offered for sale following the death of Sheldon Pole in 1897. The two ‘substantially built wooden residences’, both rental properties, were described as being ‘comparatively new, and in first-class state of repair’. The property stayed in the family for a short time, as Pole’s daughter-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Pole (Henry’s wife), acquired the title to the property in March 1898. The houses were sold to Mary Anne Dines in 1899.

Dines and subsequent owners continued to lease the premises. From the 1920s, the two-storey house was used as a boarding house. As Brisbane’s population grew in the interwar period and pressures on housing became much more intense, boarding accommodation in inner-city areas became popular for professional, usually unmarried, business men. Although the Valley became increasingly devoted to commercial and industrial purposes from the 1920s, streets slightly removed from the centre of the Valley became appealing residential areas. They were close not only to the central business district, transport and shops, but also to the Valley’s entertainment precinct, the Exhibition grounds and recreational areas like Victoria and Bowen Parks. During the 1950s number 132 Constance Street was registered as tenements for 12 persons.

The houses continued to be used for residential purposes until the 1980s when Blackmores established an office in this two-storeyed timber building. In 2007 the allotments were reconfigured to align with the frontages of the houses.

The front walls are single skin tongue and groove V.J. boards with exposed studs and bracing. French doors and fanlights open to the verandahs, which have timber posts and balustrades, and scalloped timber valance to the lower level.

The sidewalls are sheeted with weatherboards, and the windows have decorative sheet metal hoods. Eaves are battened, and the hipped roof is sheeted with corrugated galvanised iron. Ground and upper floors and verandahs are timber sheeted. Alterations have included air conditioning units to the upper floor fanlights and possible non-original renovations to the upper verandah roof and timber balustrades.

1. John Hall & Sons Tenders Book, John Oxley Library Manuscript Collection

2. Titles Office Records

3. Post Office Directories.

4. The Queenslander, The Brisbane Courier 1870s-1950s

5. Sewerage Detail Plans, 1914

6. Watson, Donald & McKay, Judith, Queensland Architects of the 19th century, (Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994)