154 years ago tonight Brisbane’s great fire lit the spark of an overhaul

It started exactly 154 years ago tonight about 7.40 when a boy (allegedly) knocked a kerosene lamp off a shelf in a drapery shop on the intersection of Queen and Albert streets.

Aftermath of the Great Fire of Brisbane on December 1, 1864. Source: State Library of Queensland

IT started exactly 154 years ago tonight at about 7.40pm when a boy allegedly knocked a kerosene lamp off a shelf in a drapery shop on the intersection of Queen and Albert streets.

Within a few minutes, Brisbane’s Central Business District was ablaze as the fire roared through Queen, Albert, George and Elizabeth streets.

When the bucket brigade which served as a fire department caught its breath a few hours later the “city” (it was more a town) was a pile of ashes with at least 50 houses, two banks and three hotels destroyed.

“The Great Fire of Brisbane” which erupted on the night of December 1, 1864 caused no deaths, but provided a pivotal moment in Queensland’s evolution.

It was hardly a rival for the Great Fire of London, which raged from September 2 to September 6 in 1666 devouring more than 13,000 houses and 87 churches.

Queen St Brisbane before the Great Fire of 1864. Source: State Library of Queensland

But our “Great Fire” was no isolated event. It was part of a “Year of Disaster” which pre-dated our more recent “Summer of Disaster” of
2010-11 when cyclones and floods crippled the state.

The year 1864 visited upon Brisbane no less than three major fires, one flood and a typhoid outbreak.

Yet those catastrophes helped propel the city forward.

After the “Great Fire” those spinderly, tottering wooden constructions which served as houses and public buildings gave way to the age of modernity.

Brick, sandstone and granite took over as the skilled masons began to shape Brisbane’s face, putting a stamp of permanency on the river city that is still visible today.

The years following the fire marked a rapid maturation of the colony of Queensland, which had only won its status as a separate entity from NSW five years before the fire.

Duncan Richardson is so fascinated by the period he wrote a book about it: Year Of Disaster: Brisbane 1864.

“Brisbane must have been a wild place at the time – there were plenty of pubs but you couldn’t drink the water so a lot of alcohol was used as a substitute,” Richardson says. “And there were actually tree stumps down Queen Street during that early period.

“People would just cut down trees and leave the stumps, so a big problem was running into tree stumps at night because there was no real street lighting.”

Richardson says he became fascinated by the year 1864 specifically when he read a book, published in the 1960s, which devoted just one page to the “Great Fire”.

Aftermath of the Great Fire of Brisbane on December 1, 1864. Source: State Library of Queensland

His subsequent research into the time period uncovered the two other fires and, more alarmingly, a typhoid outbreak which arrived with passengers on a ship which had come from the UK at the start of the year.

That outbreak killed between 25 and 30 people both on the ship and within the Brisbane community as the typhoid strain worked its way through the locals.

But it was the “Great Fire” which was most responsible for changing the face of Brisbane.

Back in 1864 the colony’s most influential people were the same ones who owned most of the buildings, and they were reluctant to rebuild them with better materials because of cost.

“The fire changed all that,” Richardson says.

“After the fire the colonial government and the local council had to stop arguing over who was responsible for what. They had to finally reach agreement over new laws on what materials buildings should be made out of and, more importantly, who was actually responsible for creating a fire brigade.”

Before the Great Fire, Brisbane had attempted to create a fire brigade five times, but the men in the brigades were never given enough resources to do the job and gave it up.

After the “Great Fire” the Brisbane City Council got behind a new fire brigade which proved so successful that by 1870 there was a branch at Milton and more brigades began sprouting in the suburbs.

Richardson says the local paper, the Brisbane Courier (a precursor to The Courier-Mail) also made lot of noise about the lack of a worthwhile fire brigade and supported the creation of a viable one after the fire.

The paper also devoted a lot of resources to the fire itself, running several stories on December 2, 1864 detailing the horrific event under the banner headline: “Terrific and Disastrous Fire.”

A rival Ipwsich-based paper had reported that a boy had knocked over a lamp to ignite the fire, but that was never proven in a subsequent inquiry.

The Courier journalist, whose editor clearly permitted wide boundaries in the use of language, concentrated on the aftermath of the fire in a report which could be described as just a little “florid”.

Early firefighters from the New Farm volunteers formed in 1889, long after the Great Fire of Brisbane in 1864. Source: State Libary of Queensland

“Last evening will be long remembered in the annals of Queensland as the date on which occurred one of the most disastrous and crushing conflagrations that ever brought ruin and desolation on a town,” the journalist wrote.

“Indeed, it would be almost impossible to convey with the pen anything like an adequate idea of the exciting and appalling scene, which certainly beggared description.

“At all events, the whole of the business premises and private residences which occupied what may fairly be considered the most valuable site in Brisbane, were, in a couple of hours, reduced to a heap of ruins, in spite of all that could be done by hundreds of willing and courageous men to stay the fearful progress of the devastating element.”

Email Michael Madigan