Brisbane | Short History |
Brisbanes historical timeline:
1770
Captain James Cook sails up Queensland coast with botanist Joseph Banks; names Cape Moreton, Point Lookout and Glass House Mountains. Takes possession of eastern Australia, naming it New South Wales.
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1799
Captain Matthew Flinders explores Moreton and Hervey bays; names Red Cliff Point (now Redcliffe), Pumice-stone River (now Pumicestone Passage). Also lands on Coochiemudlo Island.
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1823
Emancipated convicts John Finnegan, Richard Parsons, and Thomas Pamphlett were shipwrecked off Moreton Island while looking for timber (a fourth person, John Thomson, died at sea). Following a quarrel, Parsons continues north while others stay on the island.
Surveyor-general John Oxley arrives at Bribie Island to evaluate Moreton Bay as a site for penal settlement. Discovers Finnegan and Pamphlett who guide him to the Brisbane River; names Peel Island, Pine River and Deception Bay.
1824
Oxley discovers Parsons and returns him to Sydney.
First commandant Lt. Henry Miller arrives at Red Cliffe Pt from Sydney with soldiers, a storekeeper and their families, John Oxley, botanist Allan Cunningham, stock and seeds.
First settler born in colony named Amity Moreton Thompson.
1825
Shipping channel via South Passage found; settlement moves to Brisbane River; first convict buildings built along William St.
Edmund Lockyer of 57th Regiment explores Brisbane River. Notes flood debris 100 feet above river levels at Mount Crosby, finds first coal deposits. Names Redbank after soil colour.
1826
Captain Patrick Logan takes over as commandant of colony. Achieves extensive stone building program using convict labour. Discovers Southport bar and Logan River
1827
Allan Cunningham leaves Hunter Valley to seek link via New England Tableland to Darling Downs.
Indigenous resistance leader "Napoleon"exiled to St Helena Island. Aborigines raid maize plots, resist advances. Frequent conflict until 1840s.
1828
Cunningham discovers gap in Great Dividing Range, providing access from Moreton Bay to Darling Downs. Also explores Esk-Lockyer basin and upper Brisbane Valley in 1829.
1829
Moreton Bay Aborigines seriously affected by smallpox.
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1830
Captain Logan mysteriously murdered near Esk, commemorated in folk song, "The Convicts Lament".
1831
Moreton Bay settlement population reaches 1241, including 1066 convicts.
1833
Ship Stirling Castle wrecked on Swain Reef; first of many ships to wreck on Queensland coast over next 40 years.
1836
Quaker missionaries report Moreton Bay Indigenous population infected with venereal disease from American whalers.
1837
Brisbanes pioneering Petrie family arrives in Moreton Bay. Andrew Petrie (builder and stonemason) is clerk of government works; stays on with wife Mary and five children after penal settlement closes. Son John Petrie becomes Brisbanes first mayor; other son Tom writes sympathetically about local Indigenous people.
1839
Calls to cease convict transportation successful; Moreton Bay is closed as a penal settlement. 2062 men and 150 women served sentences at the settlement, half of them being Irish; 10 percent died, fled, 98 never recaptured.
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1840
Escaped convict John Baker surrenders after 14 years of living with Indigenous Australians.
1841
Indigenous people Merridio and Neugavil are executed at Wickham Terrace windmill for the murder of surveyor Stapylton and his assistant in Logan.
1842
New South Welsh Governor George Gipps proclaims Moreton Bay a free settlement. Land is offered for sale from Sydney.
1846
Squatter and entrepreneur Evan Mackenzie succeeds in making Brisbane a port independent from Sydney.
Recorded population of Moreton Bay area is 4000 Aborigines and 2257 migrants.
1848
First 240 government-assisted British migrants arrive in Brisbane. First Chinese labourers arrive.
1849
Rev Dr J.D. Lang, local clergyman and journalist, brings his first English, Irish, Welsh and Scottish migrants with unauthorised promise of land grants. Government rations issued to prevent starvation. Lang envisages a colony of self-sufficient, thrifty and hard-working farmers, workers and artisans.
Brisbane School of Arts established.
William Pettigrew arrives in colony. He later becomes the mayor of Brisbane in 1870 and is a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly between 1877-94.
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1850
Areas beyond inner Brisbane suburbs, such as Bulimba, Coorparoo, Enoggera, Nundah, Sherwood and Stafford are used for agriculture and grazing until the 1880s.
Displaced aborigines from Bribie Island, Redcliffe peninsula and Wide Bay make gunyah camps in Breakfast Creek/Eagle Farm region (until 1860s).
Arthur Lyon sends sample of cotton from New Farm to The Great Exhibition in London.
1851
Influenza epidemic hits Brisbane (lasting in 1852).
1855
Nearly 1000 German migrants arrive in Brisbane after political unrest and the introduction of compulsory military training; most settle in the Nundah area.
(5 January) Aboriginal resistance leader Dundalli hanged near current Post Office. Large-scale protests by Indigenous tribes.
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1862
Old Government House is completed.
1866
11 September, food riots that were instigated by the recently retrenched workers.[12]
1867
Parliament House opens.
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1885
Horse drawn tram system commences operation.
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1893
Brisbane flood.
1897
Electric trams introduced.
1899
Queensland Museum leaves the old State Library Building to move into "Exhibition Hall"(later called the Old Museum), at Gregory Terrace, Bowen Hills.
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1901
Celebrations held to mark Federation, on New Years Day.
Fire alarms and pillar hydrants introduced to Brisbane city streets.
1902
Central Railway Station in Ann Street, Brisbane completed.
Brisbane officially designated city status by the Government of Queensland.
1909
Government House opens at Bardon
University of Queensland opens near Parliament House.
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1922
Queensland Government purchases privately owned tram system and establishes the Brisbane Tramways Trust.
1925
Amalgamation of 25 local government areas to form the City of Greater Brisbane.
Queensland Government transfers responsibility for the tram system from the Brisbane Tramways Trust to the Brisbane City Council.
1927
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary founded
1928
Sir Charles Kingsford Smith lands in Brisbane, from San Francisco, USA, after the first flight across the Pacific Ocean.
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1930
Brisbane City Hall opened.
Forgan Smith building completed at the St. Lucia campus of the University of Queensland. (Forgan Smith building was named after the, then, Premier of Queensland)
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1940
Story Bridge completed
1942
General Douglas MacArthur arrives in Brisbane and takes offices in the AMP building (later called MacArthur Central) for the Pacific campaign during World War II
1946
Following a delay caused by World War II the University of Queensland began its move from George Street, Brisbane, to its St Lucia campus, which it completed in 1972.
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1964
Adoption of first Brisbane Town Plan
1965
Queensland Institute of Technology (later Queensland University of Technology) established
1968
Brisbane City Council announces conversion of tram and trolley-bus systems to all-bus operations
1969
Tram and trolley bus systems close, new Victoria Bridge opened
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1974
Brisbane River flooding, the result of continual heavy rain from "Cyclone Wanda", causes major damage across city
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1982
Commonwealth Games
1984
Queensland Performing Arts Centre opened at the Queensland Cultural Centre
1986
Queensland Museum moves to the Queensland Cultural Centre
Tennyson and Bulimba coal-fired power station closed down
Gateway Bridge completed.
1988
State Library of Queensland leaves the old State Library Building to move to the Queensland Cultural Centre
World Expo 88 held at reclaimed industrial land at South Brisbane
1989
Queensland Institute of Technology changed status to Queensland University of Technology.
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1995
Treasury Casino opens
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2001
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), scheduled for Brisbane, but postponed after heightened security concerns resulting from terrorist attacks on New York City. Instead it was held in Coolum in early 2002
Goodwill Games
2011
Brisbane River flooding
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