Sneyd's Shop

Caxton Street is just 500 metres in length. It ran downhill to the Paddington Cemetery (1840-75) and, later, gave ready access to the Red Hill/Petrie Terrace tram developed into the commercial centre for this early suburb. In 1868, the Terrace Hotel was built at the northern corner of Caxton Street and Petrie Terrace, thereby book-ending the Caxton Street shopping precinct. The Brisbane Gaol (November 1860 – July 1883) that was replaced in 1885 by the Queensland Police Barracks plus the army’s Victoria Barracks (opened 1864) provided regular custom for the hotel and small shops that arose around it.

During the economic boom of the 1880s, more substantial commercial buildings replaced earlier timber shops or houses. The Oddfellows (now Baroona) Hall was constructed next door to the Terrace Hotel in 1883-84. It contained two shops in its Caxton Street frontage plus a meeting hall located at the rear for the United Brothers’ Lodge, Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows. The Caxton Hotel was completed in 1884. In 1887, the Terrace Hotel burnt down and the Lord Alfred Hotel was built atop the old hotel’s porphyry stone cellars and opened in 1888. On the opposite (southern) corner, a bootmaker’s shop was constructed in the 1890s. The buildings at 19 and 25 Caxton Street, with their twin shopfronts were also built during the 1870-1880s.  

According to the Queensland Post Office Directories, there was a store on the site of 25 Caxton Street as far back as 1886. But the style of the building at 25 Caxton Street would indicate that it is not as old as the building at 19 Caxton Street, although the two buildings share similar proportions. This neighbouring two-shop, brick building has the date “1897” stamped onto its pediment but the Queensland Post Office Directories, it’s two shops were operating as early as 1878-79. 

John Braidwood Sneyd bought the site on 25 July 1864. Samuel Sneyd acquired the land on 17 August 1868. He mortgaged the site twice in 1872, and again 1883. Except for a four-year period (1893-1897), the Sneyd family maintained continuous ownership of the property until 19 February 1903. 

John Sneyd sold the property to James Edward Pedler on 26 April 1893. But on 22 March 1897, Pedler had Sneyd join him as a co-trustee in the property. This mirrored the ownership of the neighbouring building, (19 Caxton Street) which Pedler also bought on 26 April 1893. Similarly, Pedler made that building’s former owner, Charles George Berry a joint trustee in that property on 22 March 1897.

The first two shops to operate out of this building were fruiterer Margaret Latimer and tinsmith Richard Kenyson who are listed in the 1885-86 edition of the Queensland Post Office Directories.

This is a rare rendered brick two-storey nineteenth century shop building surviving it what was one of Brisbane’s earliest suburban shopping precincts.

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

2. Brisbane City Council, 1946 aerial photographs.

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

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

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

6. John Oxley Library, Brisbane Suburbs – Estate Maps

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

8. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1868-1949