Osbourne Hotel

The first sale of land in Fortitude Valley occurred in 1844. Nine suburban allotments of two and four acres each were offered at an upset price of £3 per acre. However the land at Kangaroo Point and in the centre of the settlement at north Brisbane was more sought after and when in 1846 the town limits of Brisbane were proclaimed, Fortitude Valley fell outside the limit. 

By 1854 there were about 150 dwellings in the Fortitude Valley area, stretching as far as Breakfast Creek. In 1858 Wickham Street was surveyed from the corner of Ann Street to Boundary Street. At this stage very few commercial premises had been erected, and Valley residents relied on North Brisbane traders for supplies. Despite these difficulties the population was steadily growing. A government census in 1861 showed that there was a total population of over 1300 people in Fortitude Valley by that year. 

Ann Osbourne, formerly Ann Campbell, first gained control of the site in 1862 following the death of her first husband John Campbell in 1860 and it was as a consequence of her second marriage in 1862 to a Brisbane innkeeper, Charles Osbourne, that the hotel was erected.

The Osbourne Hotel was originally built in 1863. The hotel was designed by Brisbane architect James Furnival. As an English emigrant, Furnival came to Brisbane in 1860 and practiced as an architect and civil engineer from 1861 to 1877.  His achievements include the supervision of the construction of the second Brisbane Bridge after the collapse of the first temporary structure in 1867.  

In August 1863 The Queensland Daily Guardian stated the Osbourne Hotel was being built by Mr. Teevan, the building was “a large two-storeyed public house”. The hotel was opened in 1864 and was described in the Brisbane Courier as “a new brick and stone building…in Ann Street, Fortitude Valley… The house contains several fine rooms, and a licence has been obtained under the name of “Osbourne’s Hotel”. The article continued by stating that the building of the hotel reflected the progress occurring in the Fortitude Valley area during that period. The hotel was the second to be built in the Valley; the first was the Royal George Hotel on Brunswick Street. As Ann Street was the main thoroughfare between the centre of Brisbane and Breakfast Creek to Eagle Farm areas it was a strategic place to establish a hotel. 

The original hotel was a rendered brick building with two storeys and a first floor cantilevered verandah with cast iron balustrades. 

Ann Osbourne was sole proprietor after her second husband’s death in 1864 and the hotel’s ownership was passed on through her family when her son from her first marriage, Colin Campbell, inherited the Osbourne following her death in November, 1868. 

In 1907 the hotel was leased by successful Brisbane publicans John Edward Carroll and Charles Jackson Steward. Other hotels run by Carroll and Stewart (not always as partners) included the Criterion, the Waterloo, the Paddington, the Boundary and the Albion. Stewart used his skills as a caterer to improve the quality of available meals in the hotels and this in turn increased the number of guests. The partnership held the lease for two years and the improved Osbourne hotel then passed through a succession of leases. 

In 1919 James O’Keefe, formerly an Irish farmer from Tipperary, together with Martin Scanlan leased the hotel. At this time Colin Campbell’s daughter, Catherine Murrihy owned the property. The ownership of the hotel ceased to be part of the family business when Catherine Murrihy transferred the estate in full to James O’Keefe 1927.

The hotel was extensively renovated in the 1920s. The renovations were designed by successful Brisbane architects G.H.M Addison and Son. In March 1925 a tender notice was placed The Architects and Builders Journal of Queensland for alterations to the Osbourne Hotel. The accepted Tender was from Johnsson and Humphreys. G.H.M Addison had died in 1922, so it was likely his son, George Frederick, designed the additions to the Osbourne Hotel.  

The renovations changed the character of the hotel by removing the verandahs, altering the fenestration, rebuilding the front corner to a rounded profile, and adding a parapet that concealed the original hipped roof. Although the additions altered the hotel’s original fabric they added a new “art deco” style to the building that to this day contributes to the aesthetic streetscape of this part of Ann Street. Internally the hotel is no longer intact, particularly on the ground floor. Its external fabric is very important. The street frontage and return parapets, façade, fenestration, awning and glass block stairwell are all important elements in the building that contributes to the historic streetscape in this part of Fortitude Valley.

1. Queensland Daily Guardian, dated August 18 1863

2. Brisbane City Council, Properties on the Web, website

3. Brisbane City Council, 1946 aerial photographs.

4. Brisbane City Council’s Central Library, local history sheets

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

6. John Oxley Library, Parish of Nundah, County of Stanley, L.A.D. of Brisbane map, (1899 land grant map).

7. John Oxley Library, Brisbane Suburbs – Estate Maps

8. Queensland Government, Queensland Pioneers Index 1829-1889, (Brisbane: Department of Justice and Attorney General, 2000)

9. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1868-1949