Visit Brisbane Places

Welcome to Visit Brisbane Places
The Walkfo guide to things to do & explore in Brisbane

  

Brisbane Places Overview: History, Culture & Facts about Brisbane

---

Brisbane history

---

Prehistory

At this time the Brisbane area was inhabited by the Turrbal people, (Turrbal) who knew the area that is now the central business district as Mian-jin, meaning “place shaped as a spike” Archaeological evidence suggests frequent habitation around the Brisbane River, and notably at the site now known as Musgrave Park.

18th century

In 1770, British navigator James Cook sailed through South Passage between the main offshore islands leading to the bay, which he named after James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton, misspelled as ‘Moreton’ Matthew Flinders initially explored the Moreton Bay area on behalf of the British authorities. On 17 July 1799, Flinders landed at present-day Woody Point, called Red Cliff Point.

19th century

In 1823 the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, gave instructions for the development of a new northern penal settlement, and an exploration party led by John Oxley further explored Moreton Bay in November 1823. Oxley claimed, named, and explored the Brisbane River as far as Goodna, 20 km (12 mi) upstream from the present-day central business district of Brisbane. Oxley recommended Red Cliff Point for the new colony, reporting that ships could land at any tide and easily get close to the shore. The convict settlement party landed in Redcliffe on 13 September 1824, under the command of Lieutenant Henry Miller – the group included 14 soldiers (some with wives and children) and 29 convicts. However, the settlers abandoned this site after a year and moved to an area on the Brisbane River now known as North Quay, 28 km (17 mi) south, which offered a more reliable water-supply. The newly selected Brisbane region, at the time, was plagued by mosquitos. After visiting the Redcliffe settlement, Sir Thomas Brisbane then travelled 45 km (28 mi) up the Brisbane River in December 1824. Governor Brisbane stayed overnight in a tent and often landed ashore, thus bestowing upon the future Brisbane City the distinction of being the only Australian capital city visited by its namesake. Chief Justice Forbes gave the new settlement the name of “Edenglassie” before it was named “Brisbane”. The Corn Field Raids of 1827-1828 was a frontier conflict in the early Moreton Bay Penal Settlement. The conflict consisted of Turrbal attempts to starve out the colony by repeated plundering and destruction of the maize fields in South Bank and Kangaroo Point. The penal settlement under the control of Captain Patrick Logan (Commandant from 1826 to 1830) flourished, with the numbers of convicts increasing dramatically from around 200 to over 1,000 men. He developed a substantial settlement of brick and stone buildings, complete with school and hospital. He formed additional outstations and made several important journeys of exploration. Logan became infamous for his extreme use of the cat o’ nine tails on convicts. The maximum allowed limit of lashes was 50; however, Logan regularly applied sentences of 150 lashes. Between 1824 and 1842, almost 2,400 men and 145 women were detained at the Moreton Bay convict settlement under the control of military commandants. Non-convict European settlement of the Brisbane region commenced in 1838 and the population grew strongly thereafter, with free settlers soon far outstripping the convict population. German missionaries settled at Zions Hill, Nundah as early as 1837, five years before Brisbane was officially declared a free settlement. The band consisted of ministers Christopher Eipper (1813–1894), Carl Wilhelm Schmidt, and lay missionaries Haussmann, Johann Gottried Wagner, Niquet, Hartenstein, Zillman, Franz, Rode, Doege and Schneider. They were allocated 260 hectares and set about establishing the mission, which became known as the German Station. Later in the 1860s many German immigrants from the Uckermark region in Prussia as well as from other German regions settled in the areas of Bethania, Beenleigh and the Darling Downs. These immigrants were selected and assisted through immigration programs established by John Dunmore Lang and Johann Christian Heussler and were offered free passage, good wages, and selections of land. Scottish immigrants from the ship Fortitude arrived in Brisbane in 1849, enticed by Rev Dr John Dunmore Lang on the promise of free land grants. Denied land, the immigrants set up camp in York’s Hollow waterholes in the vicinity of today’s Victoria Park, Herston, Queensland. A number of the immigrants moved on and settled the suburb, naming it after the ship on which they arrived. Free settlers entered the area from 1835, and by the end of 1840, Robert Dixon had begun work on the first plan of Brisbane Town, in anticipation of future development. The Roman Catholic church erected the Pugin Chapel in 1850, to the design by the gothic revivalist Augustus Pugin, who was then visiting the city. Letters patent dated 6 June 1859, proclaimed by Sir George Ferguson Bowen on 10 December 1859, separated Queensland from New South Wales, whereupon Bowen became Queensland’s first governor, with Brisbane chosen as the capital. Old Government House was constructed in 1862 to house Sir George Bowen’s family, including his wife, the noblewoman Diamantina, Lady Bowen di Roma. During the tenure of Lord Lamington, Old Government House was the likely site of the origin of Lamingtons. During the War of Southern Queensland, indigenous attacks occurred across the city, committing robberies and terrorising unarmed residents. ‘Reprisal raids’ took place against the ‘Duke of York’s clan’ in Victoria Park in 1846 and 1849 by British soldiers of the 11th Regiment, however the clan had been wrongfully targeted as the attacks on Brisbane had not been committed by the Turrbal themselves but other tribes farther north. In 1855, Dundalli, a prominent leader during the conflict, was captured and executed by hanging at the present site of the GPO. In 1864, the Great Fire of Brisbane burned through the central parts of the city, destroying much of Queen Street. The 1860s were a period of economic and political turmoil leading to high unemployment, in 1866 hundreds of impoverished workers convened a meeting at the Treasury Hotel, with a cry for “bread or blood”, rioted and attempted to ransack the Government store’s. The City Botanic Gardens were originally established in 1825 as a farm for the Moreton Bay penal settlement, and were planted by convicts in 1825 with food crops to feed the prison colony. In 1855, several acres was declared a Botanic Reserve under the Superintendent Walter Hill, a position he held until 1881. Some of the older trees planted in the Gardens were the first of their species to be planted in Australia, including the jacaranda and poinciana. It is claimed that all jacaranda trees in Australia are descended from the original jacaranda tree that grew from a seed imported by Hill in 1864. Charles Tiffin was appointed as Queensland Government Architect in 1859, and pursued an intellectual policy in the design of public buildings based on Italianate and Renaissance revivalism, with such buildings as Government House, the Department of Primary Industries Building in 1866, and the Queensland Parliament built in 1867. The 1880s brought a period of economic prosperity and a major construction boom in Brisbane, that produced an impressive number of notable public and commercial buildings. John James Clark was appointed Queensland Government Architect in 1883, and continuing in Tiffin’s design for public buildings, asserted the propriety of the Italian Renaissance, drawing upon typological elements and details from conservative High Renaissance sources. Building in this trace of intellectualism, Clark designed the Treasury Building in 1886, and the Yungaba Immigration Centre in 1885. Other major works of the era include Customs House in 1889, and the Old Museum Building completed in 1891. Fort Lytton was constructed in 1882 at the mouth of the Brisbane river, to protect the city against foreign colonial powers such as Russia and France, and was the only moated fort ever built in Australia. The city’s slum district of Frog’s Hollow, named so for its location being low-lying and swampy, was both the red light district of colonial Brisbane and its Chinatown, and was the site of prostitution, sly grog, and opium dens. In 1888, Frog’s Hollow was the site of anti-Chinese riots, where more than 2000 people attacked Chinese homes and businesses. In 1893 Brisbane was affected by the Black February flood, when the Brisbane River burst its banks on three occasions in February and again in June in the same year, with the city receiving more than a year’s rainfall during February 1893, leaving much of the city’s population homeless. In 1896, the Brisbane river saw its worst maritime disaster with the capsize of the ferry Pearl, between the 80-100 people onboard there were only 40 survivors.

20th century

When the colonies united in a federation in 1901, celebrations were held in Brisbane to mark the event, with a triumphal arch in Queen Street. In May that year, the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) laid the foundation stone of St John’s Cathedral, one of the great cathedrals of Australia. The University of Queensland was founded in 1909 and first sited at Old Government House, which became vacated as the government planned for a larger residence. Fernberg House, built in 1865, became the temporary residence in 1910, and later made the permanent government house. In 1912, Tramway employees were stood down for wearing union badges which sparked Australia’s first General strike, the 1912 Brisbane General Strike, which became known as Black Friday, for the savagery of the police baton charges on crowds of unionists and supporters. In 1917 during World War I, the Australian Government conducted a raid on the Queensland Government Printing Office, with the aim of confiscating copies of Hansard that covered debates in the Queensland Parliament where anti-conscription sentiments had been aired. Russian immigration took place in the years 1911–1914. Many were radicals and revolutionaries seeking asylum from tsarist political repression in the final chaotic years of the Russian Empire; considerable numbers were Jews escaping state-inspired pogroms. They had fled Russia via Siberia and Northern China, most making their way to Harbin, in Manchuria, then taking passage from the port of Dalian to Townsville or Brisbane, the first Australian ports of call. Following the First World War, returned servicemen of the First Australian Imperial Force were focused upon socialists and other elements of society that the ex-servicemen considered to be disloyal toward Australia. Over the course of 1918–1919, a series of violent demonstrations and attacks known as the Red Flag riots, were waged throughout Brisbane. The most notable incident occurred on 24 March 1919, when a crowd of about 8,000 ex-servicemen clashed violently with police who were preventing them from attacking the Russian Hall in Merivale Street, South Brisbane, which was known as the ‘Battle of Merivale street’. Over 20 small municipalities and shires were amalgamated in 1925 to form the City of Brisbane, governed by the Brisbane City Council. A significant year for Brisbane was 1930, with the completion of Brisbane City Hall, then the city’s tallest building and the Shrine of Remembrance, in ANZAC Square, which has become Brisbane’s main war memorial. These historic buildings, along with the Story Bridge which opened in 1940, are key landmarks that help define the architectural character of the city. Following the death of King George V in 1936, Albert square was widened to include the area which had been Albert Street, and renamed King George Square in honour of the King. An equestrian statue of the king and two Bronze Lion sculptures were unveiled in 1938. In 1939, armed farmers marched on the Queensland Parliament and stormed the building in an attempt to take hostage the Queensland Government led by Labor Premier William Forgan Smith, in an event that became known as the ‘Pineapple rebellion’. During World War II, Brisbane became central to the Allied campaign when the AMP Building (now called MacArthur Central) was used as the South West Pacific headquarters for General Douglas MacArthur, chief of the Allied Pacific forces, until his headquarters were moved to Hollandia in August 1944. MacArthur had previously rejected use of the University of Queensland complex as his headquarters, as the distinctive bends in the river at St Lucia could have aided enemy bombers. Also used as a headquarters by the American troops during World War II was the T & G Building. About one million US troops passed through Australia during the war, as the primary co-ordination point for the South West Pacific. Wartime Brisbane was defined by the racial segregation of African American servicemen, prohibition and sly grog, crime, and jazz ballroom’s. In 1942, Brisbane was the site of a violent clash between visiting US military personnel and Australian servicemen and civilians, which resulted in one death and hundreds of injuries. This incident became known colloquially as the Battle of Brisbane. Post-war Brisbane had developed a “big country town” stigma, an image the city’s politicians and marketers were very keen to remove. In the late 1950s, an anonymous poet known as The Brisbane Bard generated much attention to the city which helped shake this stigma. In 1955, Wickham Terrace was the site of a terrorist incident involving shootings and bombs, by the German immigrant Karl Kast. Despite steady growth, Brisbane’s development was punctuated by infrastructure problems. The state government under Joh Bjelke-Petersen began a major programme of change and urban renewal, beginning with the central business district and inner suburbs. Trams in Brisbane were a popular mode of public transport until the network was closed in 1969, in part the result of the Paddington tram depot fire, leaving Melbourne and one line in Adelaide as the last Australian state capitals to operate trams until Sydney began operation of a new system in 1997. Between 1968 and 1987, when Queensland was governed by Bjelke-Petersen, whose government was characterised by social conservatism and the use of police force against demonstrators, and which ended with the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption, Brisbane developed a counterculture focused on the University of Queensland, street marches and Brisbane punk rock music. In 1971, the touring Springboks were to play against the Australian Rugby team. This was at a time of growing international opposition to South Africa’s racist apartheid policies, and The Springbok’s visit allowed the Queensland Premier, Bjelke-Petersen, to declare a state of emergency for a month. Police violence erupted when several hundred demonstrators assembled outside a Brisbane motel on Thursday 22 July 1971 where the Springbok team was staying. A second protest saw a large number of demonstrators assembled once more outside the Tower Mill Motel and after 15 minutes of peaceful protest, a brick was thrown into the motel room and police took action to clear the road and consequently disproportionate violence was used against demonstrators. In the lead up to the 1980s Queensland fell subject to many forms of censorship. In 1977 things had escalated from prosecutions and book burnings, under the introduction of the Literature Board of Review, to the statewide ban on protests and street marches. In September 1977 the Queensland Government introduced a ban on all street protests, resulting in a statewide civil liberties campaign of defiance. This saw two thousand people arrested and fined, with another hundred being imprisoned, at a cost of almost five million dollars to the State Government. Bjelke-Petersen publicly announced on 4 September 1977 that “the day of the political street march is over … Don’t bother to apply for a permit. You won’t get one. That’s government policy now.” In response to this, protesters came up with the idea of Phantom Civil Liberties Marches where protesters would gather and march until the police and media arrived. They would then disperse, and gather together again until the media and police returned, repeating the process over and over again. The Fitzgerald Inquiry between 1987 and 1989 into Queensland Police corruption, was a judicial inquiry presided over by Tony Fitzgerald. The inquiry resulted in the resignation of the Premier Bjelke-Petersen, the calling of two by-elections, the jailing of three former ministers and the Police Commissioner (who also lost his knighthood). It also contributed to the end of the National Party of Australia’s 32-year run as the governing political party in Queensland. In 1973, the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in the city’s entertainment district, was firebombed that resulted in 15 deaths, in what is one of Australia’s worst mass killings. The 1974 Brisbane flood was a major disaster which temporarily crippled the city, and saw a substantial landslip at Corinda. During this era, Brisbane grew and modernised, rapidly becoming a destination of interstate migration. Some of Brisbane’s popular landmarks were lost to development in controversial circumstances, including the Bellevue Hotel in 1979 and Cloudland in 1982. Major public works included the Riverside Expressway, the Gateway Bridge, and later, the redevelopment of South Bank. Starting with the monumental Robin Gibson-designed Queensland Cultural Centre, with the first stage the Queensland Art Gallery completed in 1982, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in 1985, and the Queensland Museum in 1986. Brisbane hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games and World Expo 88. These events were accompanied by a scale of public expenditure, construction, and development not previously seen in the state of Queensland. Brisbane’s population growth far exceeded the national average in the last two decades of the 20th century, with a high level of interstate migration from Victoria and New South Wales. In the late 1980s Brisbane’s inner-city areas were struggling with economic stagnation, urban decay and crime which resulted in an exodus of residents and business to the suburban fringe, in the early 1990s the city undertook an extensive and successful urban renewal of the Woolstore precinct as well as the development of South Bank Parklands.

21st century

The Brisbane River did not reach the same height as the previous 1974 flood, but still caused extensive damage and disruption to the city. The Queensland Cultural Centre was also expanded, with the completion of the State Library and the Gallery of Modern Art in 2006, and the Kurilpa Bridge in 2009, the world’s largest hybrid tensegrity bridge. Major infrastructure including the Howard Smith Wharves, Roma Street Parklands, Queens Wharf, the Brisbane Riverwalk and the Queen’s Wharf casino and resort precinct have been completed or are under construction.

Brisbane etymology

Brisbane is named after the Brisbane River, which in turn was named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, the governor of New South Wales from 1821 to 1825. The demonym of Brisbane is “Brisbanite” Popular nicknames for the city include “Brissie” and “River City”

You can visit Brisbane places with Walkfo Brisbane to hear history at Brisbane’s places whilst walking around using the free digital tour app. Walkfo Brisbane has 249 places to visit in our interactive Brisbane map, with amazing history, culture & travel facts you can explore the same way you would at a museum or art gallery with information audio headset. With Walkfo, you can travel by foot, bike or bus throughout Brisbane, being in the moment, without digital distraction or limits to a specific walking route. Our historic audio walks, National Trust interactive audio experiences, digital tour guides for English Heritage locations are available at Brisbane places, with a AI tour guide to help you get the best from a visit to Brisbane & the surrounding areas.

“Curated content for millions of locations across the UK, with 249 audio facts unique to Brisbane places in an interactive Brisbane map you can explore.”

Walkfo: Visit Brisbane Places Map
249 tourist, history, culture & geography spots

---

–

Brisbane historic spots	Brisbane tourist destinations	Brisbane plaques	Brisbane geographic features
Walkfo Brisbane tourism map key: places to see & visit like National Trust sites, Blue Plaques, English Heritage locations & top tourist destinations in Brisbane

  

Best Brisbane places to visit

---

Brisbane has places to explore by foot, bike or bus. Below are a selection of the varied Brisbane’s destinations you can visit with additional content available at the Walkfo Brisbane’s information audio spots:

Visit Brisbane plaques