Murrarie Community Church

From as early as the 1880s, Murarrie became an industrial area. Several meatworks, saleyards, a bacon factory, brick works, and the Powerhouse were located in the suburb by the early twentieth century. Many of the employees in these industries settled close to their work and a small village emerged beside the railway station by the interwar period.

In 1927 Frederick Blythe Turner-Jones purchased a thirty-two perch block of land on Ives Street, Murarrie. Prior to this the land had been part of a sixty- two acre holding that was subdivided from 1892 by The Queensland Deposit Bank and Building Society. Turner-Jones may have bought the land as an investment as he resided elsewhere in this period. 

In 1930 the block of land was transferred to the Queensland Stewards’ Company. This company was first established in 1913 as a non-commercial venture. The use of the term ‘Steward’ dates back to a seventeenth-century interpretation of the word in the King James Bible. A ‘steward’ was referred to as one who managed certain affairs on behalf of someone in a higher position. The Stewards’ Company, therefore, was established to act in a ‘caretaker’ role for the safe keeping of important documents such as Title Deeds for local churches that were not Incorporated. It was stated in the Brisbane Courier in 1913 that:

the objects for which the Company is proposed to be formed are for the purpose of promoting, promulgating, teaching, and practising, and in making and assisting thereof of the doctrines and precepts as in the Memorandum of Association as set forth, most surely believed, taught, and practised amongst a body of Christian Believers who adopt no sectarian name, but simply call themselves Christians…1  

The small timber Sunday school was not constructed on the site. In late 1929 the teacher’s residence from the Waterford State School was acquired by the church community and relocated to the site. Murarrie resident, David Barclay was assisted by carpenter, Gordon Rhoades, to re-establish the building on its present site. The original teacher’s residence was constructed in 1873-74, as evidenced in a Tender Notice from September of that year for “the Erection of Teacher’s Residence at Waterford Primary School, in accordance with plan specification”2 From 1929 there was a series of Tender Notices issued for the removal of the teacher’s residence from the Waterford State School; the successful Tender being from G.W Rhoades.3

In May 1933 the Queensland Stewards’ Company was recorded in the Brisbane City Council’s building register applying to make additions to a ‘church’ at Murarrie. This record suggests that there was an ecclesiastical building on the site between the time the religious group acquired the land in 1930 and before this application was received in 1933. 

The congregation at the Murarrie Sunday school was non-denominational and served the community as such until 1982 when the property was given to the Wynnum Gospel Hall Assemblies. Since then the building has been used for non-denominational church services. Now known as the Murarrie Community Church, the ownership of the building was transferred to that congregation in 2006 and continues to be a centre for religious worship in the Murarrie area.  

1. The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 27 September, 1913

2. The Brisbane Courier, September 9, 1873

3. The Brisbane Courier, Friday 15 November 1929

4. Historic Titles, Department of Environment and Resource Management

5. Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Survey Map

6. Apperley, Richard and Robert Irving and Peter Reynolds, A Pictorial Guild to Identifying Australian Architecture, Angus and Robertson Publishers, Sydney, 1989

7. University of Queensland, ‘Queensland Places: Cannon Hill”

8. Cannon Hill School of Arts: 75th Anniversary 1923-1998, Cannon Hill Community Association, 1998

9. Brisbane City Council Building Cards

10. Queensland Post Office Directories

11. Queensland Electoral Rolls

12. History of the Bulimba Electorate 1859 - 1959, Bulimba Electorate Centenary Committee, 1959, pp.19-20

13. Humphreys, Robert, 1995, Religious Bodies in Australia: a comprehensive guide, New Melbourne Press, Victoria

14. Gillman, I. 1988, Many Faiths One Nation: A Guide to the Major Faiths and Denominations in Australia, Collins, Sydney