Anzac Cottage

The costs associated with the establishment of the cottages were funded from the profits made by draws three, four and five of the Queensland lottery, the “Golden Casket”, which had been set up by the Queensland War Council to assist the war effort. This was an initiative of the Anzac Committee headed by Harry Coyne, MP. 

The committee was also responsible for allocating the houses. A prerequisite for occupancy was that the widow was to be of ‘good character’, remain unmarried and respectable. The widow was to pay a small rent of 1/6 per week as well as the rates and other expenses. The rental monies were accumulated to fund the ongoing maintenance of the cottages. If the widow was to re-marry it was required that the cottage be vacated. The land was to be held in perpetuity by the Public Curator, with the widow or dependant signing a lease. 

In Brisbane thirty-eight Anzac Cottages were built, with the first one opened in 1917. 

In June 1923 the Queensland War Council decided to use the balance in the ‘Anzac Cottage’ fund to build ‘TB’ homes. TB homes were intended for returned soldiers and sailors suffering from tuberculosis (‘TB’) and were rented for 8/- per week. Only married servicemen who did not own or were not buying a home were initially eligible and they were required to be members of the TB Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen’s Association of Queensland. 

Homes were designed and built under the auspices of the Workers’ Dwelling Branch and were of a standard type, different to Anzac Cottages, costing around £700. The Public Trustee managed them in a similar way to Anzac Cottages. By October 1924 nine TB homes had been built. 

The design of the TB home shared similarities with precut houses produced by firms like Campbell’s and particularly Brown & Board. Both firms were recorded as supplying materials to the Anzac Cottage scheme and produced designs which conformed to the requirements of the Workers Dwelling Act.

The cottage at 120 Ashgrove Avenue was built in 1924 on land in what was then Three Mile Scrub Road. The opening ceremony was held on 13 July 1924, and attended by the Home Secretary, Mr J Stopford and representatives of the Queensland War Council, the Returned Soldiers’ Labour League, the president of the Queensland Branch of the R.S.S.I.L.A., the secretary of the Maimed and Wounded Soldiers’ Fund and representatives from the TB ex-Sailors and ex-Soldiers’ Association and from the Lands Department. It was reported that the Anzac Committee with “characteristic energy” had found sites for TB homes and that nine were in the process of completion. In 1924 it had been unanimously decided to devote the £17,000 in the possession of the Queensland War Council to building homes for soldiers who had sufficiently recovered from TB enough to leave Stanthorpe and take up normal civic life again. 

The house in Three Mile Scrub Road was presented to Mr George Calvert, an “old TB sufferer who had sufficiently recovered to take up once again the reins of civic life”. Mr Calvert, his wife and three children would occupy the house and are listed in postal records as receiving mail in the newly renamed Ashgrove Avenue in 1925.

 

In 1927 the War Council agreed to build 23 more homes and terminate the scheme. Proceeds from the Golden Casket in 1929 were allocated towards the construction of more cottages. In 1932, the War Council passed control of the TB Homes and Anzac Cottages to the Public Curator who became the Trustee of the Anzac Cottages Trust. From this time both TB homes and Anzac Cottages were collectively called Anzac Cottages. The War Council was disbanded in November 1932 and the Anzac Cottage Committee ceased to exist.

The cottages continued to be rented to the descendants of Anzac soldiers and administered by the Public Trustee’s office.  During 1956 all Anzac Cottages in Brisbane and nearby were inspected and it was estimated that repairs and painting would cost £17,000. As it was becoming increasingly difficult to find eligible homeless widows of soldiers or soldiers still suffering from TB, the Public Curator suggested that some of the vacant houses be sold to fund repairs. In 1960 the Queensland Legislative Assembly passed the Anzac Cottages & TB Homes Act which permitted the Public Curator to sell lands held in trust for the construction of Anzac Cottages or TB Homes and to sell vacant cottages for which no eligible occupant could be found. At the time it was reported that three cottages were vacant, 14 let to ineligible tenants and 33 to Anzac widows. Of the 26 TB homes, 22 were in Brisbane, one in Ipswich and three in Stanthorpe.

The last tenancy for an Anzac Cottage commenced in October 1978. By 1983 all but one cottage had been sold. The house at 120 Ashgrove Avenue remained in the hands of the Public Trustee until 1993 when it and its two lots of land were sold. The new owners made alterations and additions in 1994 and subdivided the land. Further alterations and extensions were made in 2011. 

The Anzac Cottages Trust was wound up in 2000. The fund from the sales of land and cottages was distributed to six charitable institutions providing housing for veterans and used to construct, repair or improve rental units. In 2000 Strathearn in Alderley, the last Anzac Cottage constructed on donated land and administered by the Public Trustee was sold. It was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register in February 2007.

1. ‘Enduring Monument. Houses for TB Soldiers’ Brisbane Courier, 12 July 1924, p.7

2. http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/rendition/nla.news-article20429346.3.html?followup=d66c47201d9a724f574d0681af67c0f9&print=true

3. Brisbane City Council Water Supply and Sewerage Detail Plans

4. Brisbane City Council. Heritage Unit, research file – Anzac Cottages

5. Brisbane City Council Properties on the Web

6. Department of Natural Resources, Queensland Certificates of Title and other records

7. Miles, J. and Rechner, J.  Anzac Cottage “Strathearn” Conservation Plan (Brisbane: Miles & Rechner, 2002)

8. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1868-1949