Halford's Cottages

This part of Spring Hill, one of Brisbane’s first residential suburbs, was subdivided by the Crown for private sale from 1856. In 1860, Patrick Byrne was granted just over one and three quarters of an acre stretching from Leichardt Street to Wickham Terrace. Birley Road was later added as an access road for the houses built on this land but reached only as far as Lilley Street until the mid-1890s.

Byrne soon subdivided the land on either side of Birley Street into allotments of just over 19 perches. Some were further subdivided into smaller lots of only 9.7 perches such as the neighbouring lot purchased by grocer, Daniel Kelly. Most of the allotments in Birley Street were sold prior to 1865 and by the census of 1871, 58 people were residing in the street. As was the case with most of the low lying streets of Spring Hill, these houses were usually tenanted by working class residents such as labourers, mariners and bootmakers or others on modest incomes such as widows. This pattern of cheaper housing in the hollows and valleys reflects the geographical stratification of classes in Spring Hill and other inner city suburbs such as Red Hill and Paddington.

Postal records for Birley Street commence in 1878 when the record shows ten residents on the eastern side between Leichardt Street and the end of Birley Road just beyond the intersection with Twine Street. It is likely that the cottages were built during the same period as they have similar form and detail including steeply pitched gable roofs with ‘broken back’ roof sections above the front verandahs, a central front door with window either side and simple decorative infill beneath the gable ends. 

Although, electoral records show that Halford was residing on his land in Birley Street in 1879, the cottages were occupied by a number of different residents during the 1880s, including Edward Marron, a printer. By 1893, Henry Halford had returned to Birley Street and taken up residence in the cottage (then no. 40 Birley St) on the southern end of the site, closer to the Wickham Terrace end. At this time, his occupation was given as ‘butcher’. Halford died in 1899 and the Birley Street cottages passed to his wife, Rose Halford. Mrs Halford continued living in no. 40 while the northern cottage on the site, no.36, was occupied by various tenants. After Rose Halford’s death, the property was sold in 1920 and has since had several owners, including the Centaur Memorial Fund for Nurses in the early 1980s.

A 1911 surveyor’s sketch of the cottages show them with almost identical layouts: verandahs along the front with several stairs providing access at the northern end and a smaller rear 

verandah with perpendicular stairs leading to the back yard with an earth closet near the rear boundary. By 1924, both cottages had had bathroom extensions added to the southern end of the verandahs.

These humble timber cottages provide significant evidence of the mid-nineteenth century development of Spring Hill as an early dormitory suburb, particularly as rental housing for working class tenants.

1. BCC building cards

2. Brisbane City Council Detail Plan no. 16, 1914

3. BCA Surveyor’s Field Book. C-12-112 and C12-113

4. State Electoral Roll 1879. Find My Past website, accessed 13 June 2014

5. Environment and Heritage Protection. Entries for Queensland Heritage Register: ‘Athol Place’ (600167), Moody’s Cottages (600314), ‘Theosophical Society Building’ (600169), McWhinney’s Brick Cottage (602248)

6. McKellar's Map of Brisbane and Suburbs. Brisbane: Surveyor-General’s Office, 1895

7. Department of Natural Resources and Mines. Queensland Certificates of Title and Application for Torrens Title no. 7894

8. Queensland Post Office Directories