Young's Shophouse

Petrie Terrace was a well-populated area by the 1860s. It had been on the edge of Brisbane town in the 1840s, hosting only the cemetery. However, its proximity to the central business district and a population boom in Brisbane combined to make the area much more desirable from the 1860s onwards. Residences, hotels, shops and a school were quickly built on small, tightly-packed lots. A jail was also opened on Petrie Terrace, giving the area a somewhat mixed reputation. Houses on the slope towards Milton were predominately occupied by working class owners and tenants. Princess Street, on the western slopes, was home to labourers, cab and dray proprietors, carpenters, bootmakers and seamen.

Despite the area’s popularity it does not appear that O’Carroll constructed a residence before the land was transferred to John William Young in March 1878. Young, an English-born builder and bricklayer, began work on this shop/house almost immediately. He had arrived in Queensland with his family in 1874 after travelling to Africa and the United States. In Queensland, Young’s construction skills made him a prominent builder, with commissions including ‘The Grange’ (1877) and ‘Kirkston’ (1888-9), both in Windsor. Both residences still stand and are listed on the Queensland Heritage Register (600347 and 600351 respectively). 

Young kept a journal and recorded the process of building the shop/house over eight months in 1878. As a bricklayer his material of choice was brick, in contrast to the timber residences which dominated Princess Street. The shell of the house was finished in two months and the Young family moved there in June 1878. Initially a store operated downstairs while the family resided upstairs, but the shop was closed to accommodate Young’s growing family. Two-storey shop-houses were relatively rare in Brisbane. When built, they were most often seen in Petrie Terrace and other inner city areas. Land in Petrie Terrace was in high demand and the more common practice was to maximise space by erecting small dwellings or terraces on small allotments. 

The Young family moved out in 1881 and sold the property in 1884 for £175. It was leased to tenants through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The two subdivisions were sold separately in 1888. Subdivision 26, a seven and a quarter perch site which contained the shop/house, passed to Alexander Butter. Because the construction of the house and subdivision of the block predated 1885, the sale avoided the Undue Subdivision of Land Act of 1885. This legislation attempted to prevent the creation of slums in high density inner city suburbs by imposing minimum site sizes and street frontages, but did not apply retroactively.

The shop/house was advertised for sale in 1896, though its multi-purpose use appears to have been dropped as it was described as a ‘good brick cottage of four rooms’. Petrie Terrace was by this time a densely populated suburb. The closure of the jail, introduction of services along the ridge and a tram line helped make it a desirable residential area. The status of the area did not necessarily extend down the slopes, and Butter had difficulty selling the property. It was eventually purchased by George Townsend in 1904, who leased the property to tenants.

In the twentieth century the appeal of Petrie Terrace diminished. It developed a reputation as a run-down, inner-city suburb offering cheap rental accommodation. Townsend and later his wife owned the Princess Street property until 1959. It subsequently passed through a number of owners before being acquired by its present owner in 1982.

1. Brisbane City Council aerial photographs, 1946, 2012

2. Brisbane City Council City Architecture and Heritage Team, citations

3. Brisbane City Council, Properties on the Web, Building Cards

4. Brisbane City Council Water Supply and Sewerage Detail Plans

5. Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Queensland Certificates of Title

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

7. National Library of Australia, Trove newspapers, Brisbane Courier, Telegraph, Courier Mail, Queenslander, Sunday Mail

8. Queensland Places: South Brisbane (website)

9. Queensland Post Office Directories

10. Woolcock, Steve, & Fisher, Rod, Petrie Terrace Brisbane 1888-1988, (Brisbane: Boolarong Press, 1988)