Baden Powell House

The 1920s was a decade of economic growth throughout Brisbane. The Valley in particular, with its success as a commercial and industrial hub, expanded even further. Electric trams, which passed the busy corner of Brunswick and Wickham Streets, brought thousands of shoppers to the Valley.  The first stage of the McWhirters building that had been completed in 1912 was extended in 1923.  The buildings at 126-144 Wickham Street were situated away from the main retail hub centred on Brunswick Street.  However, Rhoades and Co furniture warehouse, which was sited on the southern end of this block of shops at 116-124 Wickham Street, drew customers to this end of the Valley from the turn of the century.  The sites also had the advantage of having frontages to both Wickham and Little Streets (though the incline of the land made access to Little Street more difficult) and proximity to the train line.

During the 1920s Wickham Street was affected by road widening and remodelling at the junction of Ann, Queen and Wickham Streets.  Properties along Wickham Street were resumed by the Brisbane Municipal Council in 1923, in order to create a wider road, as well as a park reserve.  The cutting on Duncan’s Hill for Ann Street was widened, opening the Valley even more to the rest of Brisbane.  In 1927, Barry Parade was constructed to link up with St Paul’s Terrace on which the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration had recently erected their new convent. 

The undertaking of road widening in the CBD to improve traffic flow, and park creation was part of a broader international town planning movement that was prominent between 1912 and 1920.1 This movement had a significant impact on the Brisbane Municipal Council, leading to the implementation of The City of Brisbane Improvement Act of 1916. Extensive plans were then detailed for the widening of the CBD’s ‘principal streets, the resumption of extensive areas of land, and the extension of the city’s parks and recreational facilities’.1 The Municipal Council borrowed £1,000,000 and work on the scheme began in 1923. The junction of Ann, Queen and Wickham Streets was completely remodelled in the next few years, creating Centenary Park.

The site, two subdivisions of just over eleven perches, was sold to Ballarat-based Frank Presnell West in 1922.  It had been part of an allotment of just over seventeen perches owned by Louisa Finch from 1915.  The remaining six perches were sold two years later to the Melrose family (now number 130).  The existing building on West’s site was tenanted by Botten Bros, house furnishers, and West continued the lease.  Architects Chambers and Ford designed a new building, which was constructed by H. Lanham, in 1927-28 for a cost of £6,000.  A sketch of West’s new building was featured in the Brisbane Courier in October 1927.  The brick building was to be two storeys on the Wickham Street frontage.

The noted architectural firm, Chambers and Ford, was the partnership of Claude William Chambers (1861-1947) with E. M. Ford.  The firm lasted from 1920 to 1951, although Chambers had relocated to Sydney in 1915 and left the business in 1935.  Chambers’ architectural work in Brisbane dates from 1887.  Chambers, who worked in Brisbane from 1887, contributed greatly to the architectural design of the city.  His work includes the former RS Exton and Co Building (1907) [601142], Perry House (1910) [600103], Smellie's Building (1896) [600097] and the former Telecommunications House (1907) [600110], as well as ‘Ross Roy’, now St Peter’s Lutheran College, Indooroopilly (1896-97), ‘Wybenia’, Mark Street, New Farm (1898), additions to the Municipal Markets, Roma and Turbot Streets, Brisbane (1900). Chambers and Ford were responsible for Holy Trinity Church (1930) and a number of elite houses in Hamilton and Clayfield during the inter-war period, one of note being ‘Gainsborough’ in Crescent Road, Hamilton (1938).  

West’s building was one of the last to join the newly-designed and constructed block of buildings along Wickham Street, between Gotha and Little Streets.  The block had developed significantly after land sales in the 1920s allowed retailers to purchase their own shops, or investors like West to buy portions of the Valley for commercial development.  Progress had been supplemented by the Brisbane Municipal Council’s road-works, although the initially detrimental effect of the works had been to block off the shops.  The retailers between Boundary and Gipps Streets renamed their stretch of the Valley ‘Broadway’ and initiated a large co-operative advertising and decorating campaign in the mid-1920s.  All the buildings between West’s (132) and Ashby’s (144) were erected in this decade, by Chambers and Ford or Addison and Sons.  The latter firm also designed Rhoades’ building and additions in the same period.  

In 1928, West signed a ten-year lease with Edward Crafti, home furnisher, formerly of Stanley Street.  In May that year, Crafti’s opened in the new building.  The building was reported to have four storeys (although this is only to Little Street), all filled with crockery, furniture of varying prices and model rooms.  The showroom was ‘on very modern lines’ and the firm had spared no expense in its new display.  Crafti’s also leased the building at number 130 and later added a factory on nearby land owned by the firm (no longer extant).  

By 1942 the building was occupied by West’s Furniture Emporium, furniture dealers, which remained its usage until the City Electric Light Company bought the property in 1951.  In 1956 the property was sold to the Boy Scouts Association, and the building renamed ‘Baden Powell House’ for the founder of Scouts Australia.  The Scouts Association made internal alterations in 1957 and 1959 and added a radio mast to the building in 1964.  The Scouts Association held the property until the 1990s.  It was purchased by its current owners in 2003.

1. Gordon Greenwood and John Laverty, Brisbane 1859-1959: A History of Local Government, Brisbane, 1959, p. 410

2. Ibid

3. Apperly, Richard, Robert Irving and Peter Reynolds. A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles and Terms from 1788 to the Present. North Ryde: Angus & Robertson, 1989

4. Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland, 1922

5. Brisbane City Council Building Registers, 1920s

6. Fortitude Valley Character and Heritage Study. Vol.2. (Heritage Unit, Brisbane City Council. 1995)

7. Brisbane City Council Property Details, BIDS, Building Cards

8. Brisbane City Council WebBASX maps – cadastre, 1946 aerial, 2001 aerial, 2005 aerial

9. Brisbane City Council Minutes, 1923

10. Brisbane Courier 1922

11. Brisbites Suburban Sites, Fortitude Valley @ www.brisbites.com/suburbview.asp accessed 7 Sep 2006

12. Department of Mines and Natural Resources, Certificates of Title

13. Greenwood, Gordon and John Laverty, Brisbane 1859-1959: A History of Local Government, The Council of the City of Brisbane, Brisbane, 1959

14. John Oxley Library Photographic Collection, Image No. 49332

15. Kennedy, Michael Owen. ‘Domestic Architecture in Queensland Between the Wars’, Master of the Built Environment (Building Conservation) thesis, University of New South Wales, 1989

16. Mahlstedt & Son, City of Brisbane Detail Fire Survey, Map No. 30, 1951

17. Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board Survey Maps, Detail Plan No. 151, 1914

18. Queensland Post Office Directories, 1894-1949

19. State Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, Buildings of Queensland, Jacaranda, Brisbane, 1959

20. Watson, Donald and Judith McKay. A Directory of Queensland Architects to 1940. (St. Lucia: U of Q Press, 1984)

21. Watson, Donald and Judith McKay. Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994