Marie Ville

Marie Ville is built on the lower slopes of Toorak Hill at Hamilton, overlooking Kingsford-Smith Drive (once named Hamilton Road) and the Brisbane River. During Brisbane’s penal period, this area was the thoroughfare leading to the Female Factory at Eagle Farm. In the decades after free settlement, the district became one of Brisbane’s most elite residential enclaves, with the construction of the stone mansions of Toorak and Eldernell (later Bishopsbourne) on Toorak and Hamilton Hills in the 1860s. The Ascot/Hamilton area was soon a social hub of Brisbane as regattas, picnics and race days at the Brisbane Turf Club filled the calendars of the city’s wealthiest families. Development in the area continued during the boom years of the 1880s when ornate mansions such as Nyrambla (1885-86, Henry Street, Ascot), Palma Rosa, (1886-87, Queens Rd, Hamilton) and Windermere (circa 1886, Sutherland Ave, Ascot) were built. 

The land on which Kate Quinlan built Marie Ville was part of a five acre portion deeded to John James Perry and William Anthony Brown in 1855. This portion of land changed hands before being subdivided in the 1860s. Over two roods were purchased by the family of politician and auctioneer, John Buckland, who by the 1870s had built a home Runnymede (later extended to become Lochiel) adjacent to the site of Marie Ville. In 1887, the neighbouring parcel of over two acres was purchased by several men, including George Wilkie Gray, a merchant and importer. Some 120 perches of this land were transferred to Kate Quinlan in 1889. In addition to being Kate Quinlan’s business partner and manager of the Castlemaine Brewery, Wilkie Gray was married to Kate Quinlan’s niece.

In 1871, Kate Quinlan’s husband, Michael, had formed the shipping agency and general merchandising company Quinlan, Donnelly and Co. The company was soon flourishing and Quinlan and Donnelly decided to expand into the brewing industry. They began negotiations with Edward and Nicholas Fitzgerald of the successful Castlemaine breweries in Victoria and New South Wales to establish a brewery in Brisbane. Before this plan came to fruition, Donnelly sold his share of the company to Michael Quinlan who died soon after. His widow, Kate, took over the company taking George Wilkie Gray as a new partner. They began trading as Quinlan and Gray and proceeded with the plans to establish a brewery.

In 1877, Quinlan and Gray joined with the Fitzgerald brothers to form Fitzgerald, Quinlan and Co., purchasing the Milton Distillery from Robert Forsythe in September. In August 1877, the new company, named the Castlemaine Brewery & Quinlan, Gray and Co. (Brisbane) Ltd was incorporated. By September of the following year, a new brewery had been built on land adjoining the old distillery at Milton and the first batch of Castlemaine XXX Sparkling Ale was on sale.  

 

Another achievement of the company was to install Queensland’s first telephone, linking the brewery at Milton with their city office. Quinlan, Gray and Co were the Queensland agents for the Bell Telephone Company. 

The contribution of Kate Quinlan to the founding of Castlemaine Brewery (Castlemaine Perkins after the 1928 takeover) at Milton has been documented by historians of brewing in Australia and has become part of the folklore associated with the famous brewery.  Kate Quinlan’s role in the history of the company is acknowledged on the official Castlemaine Perkins website and in the audiovisual display of talking “historical” heads shown to tourists in the brewery’s Alehouse Visitor Centre. The Milton brewery and its internationally recognised XXXX beer have achieved iconic status as a symbol of Brisbane and Australia and are inextricably linked to the identity of the city.

Although title to the land at Hillside Crescent was not transferred to Kate Quinlan until 1889, she engaged the Brisbane architectural firm of John Hall and Son in 1887 to design a “villa” for the site. Postal records indicate that Kate Quinlan was living in her new home, which she named Marie Ville, by 1889. It seems that an arrangement between Kate Quinlan and her business partner and relative, George Wilkie Gray, enabled her to assume ownership of the land prior to the registration of the land transfer. Kate Quinlan mortgaged the property for £1,500 in 1902. Kate Quinlan is a significant figure in Brisbane’s history as a successful businesswoman in the late 19th century when women faced social, financial, and professional constraints which endeavoured to confine their influence to the private sphere of the home and family. During this period, commerce and the professions were predominantly the preserve of men.

The architectural firm of John Hall and Son was established in 1883 when John Hall took his son, Francis Richard Hall (F.R. Hall), as a partner just before his death. John Hall had been practising as a private architect in Brisbane from the 1860s. After his death, his son continued to work for many of the firm’s existing clients. This included the Quinlans, as John Hall had designed a warehouse in Queen Street, Petrie Bight in 1875 (and later additions) for Quinlan and Co.  John Hall also had a longstanding association with the brewing industry. He designed the City Brewery in Mary Street in 1869 and the original distillery at Milton for W. Samwell in 1870-71. F.R.Hall continued this tradition, designing several hotels in Brisbane, including the Oriental Hotel (1885-86), the Pineapple Hotel, Kangaroo Point (1886-87) and the Treasury Hotel (1887-88). He also designed many other residences including Waratah (since demolished) in Toorak Road, Hamilton, for the Hon. M.B. Gannon. 

Kate Quinlan resided at Marie Ville until her death at 86 in 1917. Her death notice appeared in the Brisbane Courier on 29 July:

The death is announced at a great age of Mrs Kate Quinlan, widow of one of the founders of the old-established Brisbane firm of Messrs. Quinlan, Gray and Co. The deceased lady resided at Marie Ville, Toorak Rd, Ham. [sic] She was predeceased by her sister, Miss Keene, and her niece, Mrs G.W. Gray, both of whom died within the past 12 or 13 months. The funeral will take place today.

After Kate Quinlan’s death, Marie Ville passed to George Boulderson Gray, a pastoralist, and presumably, a relative of Kate Quinlan and George Wilkie Gray. In January 1919, the title to the property was transferred to George Boulderson Gray’s wife, Muriel Beatrice Gray. 

Marie Ville changed hands again in 1920, when it was sold to Clara Jane Wippell. A sewerage detail plan from 1927 shows that Clara Wippell renamed her home Eltham. After the death of Clara Wippell in 1934, part of the rear of the block was subdivided and sold and the rest of the property remained in the Wippell family until the 1960s. An aerial photograph of the house taken in 1946 shows a footprint that is similar to that depicted in the 1927 plan.

Since the 1980s, the house has been substantially extended at the rear and two dormer windows have been added to the front roof of the house. According to the present owner, other changes to the residence include alterations to the roofline, the replacement of the original slate roof with tin and colourbond, partial enclosure of a side verandah and the replacement of some balustrading, timber handrails and exterior walls and floors. Despite these changes, the house is easily recognisable as the residence built by Kate Quinlan and provides valuable historical evidence of the development of Hamilton in the late 19th century. Historical photographs from the early decades of the 20th century reveal a residence which is substantially the same as it is today, the major point of difference being the two dormer windows.

1. Brisbane City Council Water Supply & Sewerage Detail Plans

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

3. Deutsher, Keith M. The Breweries of Australia: A History. Port Melbourne: Lothian, 1999

4. John Oxley Library. Photographic collection – Hamilton

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

6. Nolan, Caroline. Brisbane’s North Eastern Suburbs. Our Heritage in Focus. South Brisbane: State Library of Queensland, 1995

7. Donald Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century, South Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994

8. Queensland Post Office Directories

9. Yesteryear Publications. Transmission of Real Estate by Death Index. Vol. 6. 1915-1919