Albion Public Hall (former)

The former Albion Public Hall was built in 1887-88 to the design of architect Victor Emmanuel Carandini for the Albion Public Hall Company Limited. A photograph taken in 1909 shows the date 1887 on both pediments of the building. Additions were made in 1890, also to Carandini’s design. Although based in Brisbane, Carandini’s designs appear throughout many parts of Queensland. Some of his most notable works include the Townsville Fire Station (1887-88), Centennial Hall in South Brisbane (1887-88) and the Post Office Hotel in Maryborough (1889-90). 

During the 1890s, Albion Hall was a popular venue for dances. These are said to have been attended by ‘nice people’, unlike many of the other suburban and city dances where the amusement was reputed to be of a more boisterous and working-class nature. Other, more sober, events were also held here. The local Presbyterians are said to have met here from when the hall was first completed and the local Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows Lodge Chapter, The Royal Prince Albert Victor, No. 39 also met here during most of the 1890s. 

In 1893 the Albion Public Hall Company raised a £1000 mortgage over the property but only four years later the mortgagee, Queensland National Bank, obtained title of the property, presumably as a result of a default on payments. Numerous transfers followed; some sales, another due to insolvency, and others due to the deaths of owners.

By around 1918 a picture hall was operating from the building, in addition to several shops on the street level including newsagents, tailors, boot makers and cafes. The building remained in continuous use as a cinema for almost the next five decades, known from the mid 1920s as the ‘Empire Picture Theatre’, and from the mid 1930s until after 1949 as the ‘Capitol’. For several years during the late 1920s a billiard saloon also operated on the premises, possibly in the part of the building previously occupied by the hall which disappeared from the Queensland Post Office Directory in the mid 1920s. 

In 1929, the Albion Hall was in danger of being closed as, according to the Sunday Mail, it had ‘become inadequate for the recreational needs of the district’ and the Greater Brisbane Council had given its approval for the construction of a new £20,000 picture theatre and block of shops. However, the building remained in place and continued to operate as a theatre until around 1966 when the building was converted into shops and offices. 

 

1. Kerr, John 1988, Brunswick Street, Bowen Hills and Beyond: The Railways of the Northern Suburbs of Brisbane, Australian Railway Historical Society

2. Lawson, Ronald 1973, Brisbane in the 1890s: A Study of an Australian Urban Society, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia

3. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1887-1949

4. Sunday Mail, 10 March 1929, p. 21

5. Watson, Donald & Judith McKay 1994, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia