25 Virginia Avenue, Hawthorne

During the 1860s and 1870s land in the district remained in large holdings of generally around 50 to 100 acres and was mainly used for farming.  Bulimba residents and farmers travelled to Brisbane using an overland track that passed through Galloways Hill before joining the track that linked Brisbane and Cleveland. From 1864 a licensed ferry operated between Bulimba and New Farm. 

Pollet Cardew resold almost 73 acres of his land in 1874 to William Baynes who resold it to Robert Stewart in May 1875.  In the 1880s Brisbane’s economy boomed and immigrants poured into the colony. A suspension bridge across the river linking Hawthorne to New Farm and Fortitude Valley was proposed and numerous large land holdings were subdivided and sold.

Robert Stewart subdivided his land and it was offered for sale as the Hawthorne Estate by Arthur Martin & Co from early 1885. Comprising 378 “superior allotments” the “really magnificent property” was “situated almost equal distances from Norman Creek and Bulimba Ferry, and was “only a few yards from site of the proposed suspension bridge”. The ‘half-a-mile’ of river frontage had been divided into large blocks varying from 1 rood to 3 acres and the agent had been instructed “to sell every lot by public auction” even though there had been “several requests to sell particular lots privately”. Although many smaller allotments were purchased in the second half of 1885, the subject allotments were part of 13 allotments totalling almost 2 acres purchased by Alfred Edward Harris in May 1887. Harris subdivided and sold the land soon afterwards. 

This holding of two subdivisions was purchased by John Tregenza in March 1888. Tregenza, a messenger with the Queensland National Bank, had this house constructed around 1889-1890 and is recorded as receiving mail here in 1891. Although there was an economic downturn, exacerbated by the 1893 floods, in the early years of the 1890s, by the end of the decade residential development in the Bulimba area continued to consolidate. By 1898 Oxford Street had developed as a commercial centre with a store, Post Office, stationer, fruiterer, newsagent , millinery, fancy goods and boot warehouse in the first block from the ferry. There were concentrations of housing in Brisbane Street, Pine, Princess and Quay Streets and Riding Road. The river frontages of New Cleveland [now Wynnum] Road and Virginia Avenue were also popular with finer residences built there by some of Brisbane’s leading citizens. An indication of the growth of the population in the district can be seen in the enrolment numbers of the Bulimba State School which, at the turn of the century, totalled 83 children from 62 families.

Tregenza sold the house and land to Bridget and John Joseph Howard in February 1919. A mortgage, taken out on the house at the time of sale, for £450 indicates at least a portion of the purchase price. The Howards owned the property for ten years. During the 1920s the area was well developed as residential suburbs. Commercial development spread along Oxford Street, including the ‘Avro Picture Dome’ and in 1922 the Hawthorne Picture Theatre was built as an ‘open air barn’ until it was enclosed in 1927. It was later called the Balmoral theatre. In 1924, just before its amalgamation into the greater Brisbane City Council, the Balmoral Shire had an estimated population of 10,000 and 2,300 improved properties.

The house and land were sold in 1929 to John Irwin who took out a mortgage in 1937, possibly to have additions made to the house. Following his death, the Union Trustee Company of Australia Limited, nominated as trustee under Irwin’s will, was granted permission to sell the house in 1953.

A large significant fig tree in the front yard appears to have been planted circa 1940s.

1. Brisbane City Council Bulimba District Character Study, July 1996

2. John Oxley Library, Hawthorne Estate Maps

3. Queensland Certificates of Title