Brick War Service Home

There were also complaints that the houses were too expensive for veterans, and some suggested they be allowed to pick their own designs and locations, or be allowed to buy existing homes. Unemployment, the need to follow seasonal work, and sickness, meant that some tenants of WSHC houses could not keep up payments and had to abandon the properties, leading to a high rate of vacancies. For example, the Fourth Progress Report of the WSHC noted that of 16 homes in Bundaberg, only 2 had been taken up by soldiers, 5 were let, and 9 were vacant.

Some of the six brick cottages in Graceville had different tenants at different times before they were sold, and some also stood vacant at certain periods between the wars. Three of the six were not purchased by veterans until after WWII. In fact, brick houses were seen as too expensive, and less suitable to the Queensland climate than wooden houses, and for this reason only six brick WSHC homes were built in Queensland, out of  a total of about 1300 houses, by October 1921.

The six houses in question would appear to be the six brick houses in the WHSC’s holding of Group 7, Graceville. In 1919 the War Service Homes Commission purchased a number of allotments facing Strong Ave, Magee St, and Allardyce St, for a total of 900 Pounds. In September 1919 tenders were invited for 6 cottages to be built at the Magee Estate, Graceville (Brisbane Courier). 

In WSHC correspondence of the time, letters regarding a temporary water supply for Magee St refer to 6 cottages being under construction (2nd December 1919) and the need for water during construction of brick cottages (16th December 1919). A 10th February, 1920 letter also mentioned that a temporary supply had been arranged for the “first two brick cottages”. A letter on 30th of November 1920 deals with extending the water mains to (the existing brick cottage at) 39 Magee St, and by December 1920 it is noted that, since local building has finished, the temporary water pipe could be disconnected. 

We can thus assume that they are referring to the building of the six brick cottages. All but one of the six share two similar designs, having a single gable with a hip-roof veranda, some facing the road and some at right angles to the road. The above information also gives us a build date for the cottages of between November 1919 and December 1920.

However, Strong Ave and Magee St do not appear in the Brisbane Street Directory until 1926.  By then, three of the cottages are occupied by the people who had purchased them in 1925-26, and three (not purchased until after WWII) appear to be occupied by tenants.

The house at 27 Strong Ave varies in design from the other 5 brick homes. It was purchased from the War Service Homes Commissioner in 1926 by Richard James Jones, (ex-Private, 16th Battalion), who was living there in 1926, according to the Street Directory. But by 1940, according to WSHC records, it was back in the WSHC hands. The house was sold to Emmett J.O. Dwyer (ex-RAN, enlisted in Graceville 1942, served on HMAS Moreton) in 1952.

1. Title deeds, Department of Natural Resources and Mines

2. Walter Taylor South Character and Heritage Study, BCC Heritage Unit, 1997

3. Queensland Post Office Directories

4. Brisbane City Council Water Supply and Sewerage Detail Plans

5. Brisbane Courier, June 1919-June 1921

6. Australian War Memorial, Nominal Roll

7. “War Service Homes Scheme- Agreement Made Between War Service Homes Commissioner and the Commonwealth Bank”, Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, General, Session 1917-1918-1919, Vol. IV, p. 1133

8. “Fourth Progress Report Upon the War Service Homes Commission (QLD)”, Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, General, Session 1920-1921, Vol. V, p. 61