Blackburne Residence

In 1936 Marjorie Jean Thomson, a spinster, purchased a twenty-nine perch block of land on the crest of a hill in St. Lucia from Walter Maskrey, a Brisbane builder. In August of 1936 Marjory Thomson married Godfrey Aveling Blackburne, the respected Brisbane architect and partner in the firm Blackburne and Gzell. The wedding was announced in The Courier Mail on the 8 August 1936, the wedding being a very small and quiet one. The article stated “Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Blackburne left immediately by car for Sydney, and on their return they will take up residence in the new home which has been built to Mr. Blackburne’s own design at Austral Street, St. Lucia”1. In July 1936 Blackburne received building approval for the new house that was estimated to cost £1250. In 1937 Godfrey Blackburne was first listed at the address.

The architectural firm of Blackburne and Gzell can be attributed to building some of Brisbane’s most fashionable interwar residences; these included several ‘Old English’ designs in suburbs such as Ascot, Clayfield, Coorparoo, Graceville and St. Lucia.     

Godfrey Blackburne and Vitaly Gzell established their practice in Brisbane in 1934, continuing their partnership until 1953. Blackburne had earlier received the student gold medal of the Queensland Institute of Architects for 1931. The firm became known for their designs in the latest interwar styles, some of which were featured in the social magazines of the era such as the Steering Wheel. 

6 Austral Street was designed in the interwar ‘Old English’ or ‘Mock Tudor’ style. As the names suggest, these houses imitated the white rendered walls and half timbering of 16th century English architecture. Other characteristics of this style which appear in 6 Austral Street include a tiled gabled roof, asymmetrical massing, oriel and bay windows with leadlight glazing, herringbone brickwork, catslide roof and the 

jettying of the upper storey. 

The property stayed in the Blackburne family well into the 1970s.

1. The Courier Mail Saturday 8 August 1936 p23

2. Judy Gale Rechner, Brisbane House Styles 1880 to 1940: a guide to the affordable house, Brisbane: Brisbane History Group Studies No. 2, 1998

3. Historic Titles, Department of Environment and Resource Management

4. Queensland Post Office Directories

5. Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Survey Maps

6. Queensland Electoral Rolls

7. Brisbane City Council Building Register 1936

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