Police Residence (former)

The house appears to have been built for Maria and Thomas Capes around 1878 when Maria gained title to the land. Land speculators Lois and Eugene Lenihan had purchased the property from James Gibbon in March 1878.

The slopes on which the residence is situated were undoubtedly familiar to the several North Brisbane Tribes which used the New Farm peninsula and ‘Binkinba’ as a favoured hunting ground. They formed an integral part of the vast stretch of ‘open undulating forest’ which Surveyor Wade depicted in his 1844 map.

While land closer to the river was surveyed and sold within several years of the Moreton Bay District being thrown open to ‘free settlement’ the sloping land of which this site forms a part was not acquired until 1861 when Governor Fitzroy ceded the parcel of 102 acres by Deed of Grant to James Gibbon an urban property speculator and a recent arrival in the new colony.

Gibbon sold small segments of his land in the 1860s, and in the 1870s offered the entire of eastern suburban allotment 54 for sale as the ‘Teneriffe Estate’. Investors took up the offer, including the Capes, who owned a number of rental properties in the city and Fortitude Valley. They did not occupy the site, instead residing in Bowen Hills. A series of tenants listed in the post office directories in the 1880s suggests that Capes had this small brick house built shortly after purchase.

Arthur Street’s proximity to the city and the slowly-growing Fortitude Valley centre made it an ideal rental location. This section of the street, between James and Chester Streets, featured a number of small houses and through the nineteenth century was mostly home to labourers, including carpenters, bricklayers, painters, artists and transport workers.

Maria died in 1880 and Thomas in 1882, while their two children were still minors. The Arthur Street property was held until Thomas junior came of age in 1891, when it passed to him. Capes, a saddler and horse owner resided nearby in Arthur Street with his wife Kate. He appears to have rented this cottage to tenants. In 1893 title to the cottage passed to Kate’s brother Thomas Hanley, who worked for Capes but had been charged with vagrancy two years earlier. Despite his accommodation troubles, Hanley did not take up residence, but kept the property until 1901.

Louisa Sparks owned the property briefly, but in October 1901 title passed to James Denis Walsh, a bricklayer. Walsh had also purchased the neighbouring house (196 Arthur Street) in 1897, but, like previous owners, did not reside in the property. 

Oral history sources have suggested that this house was once a police residence and that the existing houses at 196 and 192 Arthur Street were used as a police station/lockup and a post office, respectively. Research to date has neither confirmed nor denied this suggestion. Further research may do so.

1. Post Office Directories.

2. Sewerage Detail Plan

3. Titles Office Records

4. NLA, Trove newspapers