Unity, Imperial, Cecil, Jets - however you cut it, the place seems haunted...

The Hotel Cecil c. 1984 (Picture Ipswich, Ipswich City Council)

In researching material for last week's article on the supposed ghosts of the Rosewood Hotel, I came across information on another haunted Ipswich pub that, amazingly, existed independent of any reference to "Jack" Sim or Ghost Tours.  The article, published in the Queensland Times on the 14th of November 2009, gave insight into the resident ghost of the Ipswich Jets Club, located on the corner of Downs & Lowry Street in North Ipswich.  According to the piece, the ghost is known to the staff of the Club as "Harold," & it's believed the haunting harps back to an 1890's bar fight in which a patron lost his life.   The building seems to exhibit all the usual haunted traits - disembodied footsteps heard throughout the Club, doors heard slamming even though they're locked, other random phantom sounds...& a phantasm that only inhabits a corner office on the upper floor, spied huddling in the room's corner by but a few unlucky employees.  According to the article, those staff that have unwittingly stumbled across this crouching spirit now refuse to go anywhere near the room...& in fairness, can you really blame them??

The history of the site is quite varied & interesting, & as fans of the Haunts of Brisbane page on Facebook would know, has provided for some interesting conversation over the past week!  A very common misunderstanding about the site's origin continues to this day - specifically, that the building started it's life as the Imperial Hotel, built & opened in 1887, under the control of James Cooper.  In reality, the site pre-dates the commonly known history by 7 years...back to 1880 when the Unity Hotel was built & operated by William Frederick Larter, a carpenter & joiner who'd immigrated to Australia from London, arriving in Moreton Bay aboard the Conrad on the 26th of November 1855 with his young family.  In 1883, the license for the hotel changed hands to James Cooper, a shrewd businessman who by 1886 would become an Ipswich Alderman & eventual Mayor to the town in 1909.  However life as a publican proved tough for Cooper, & in 1886 at the Ipswich Licensing Meeting held at the Courthouse, when reviewing license renewals, he was taken to task on the state of his establishment. It was put to the Board that the Unity Hotel was old & dilapidated, & needed cleaning up...less than a year later, it had been, under the new name of the Imperial Hotel - renovated, refurbished & refurnished.

Published in The Brisbane Courier, page 5, on the 8th of April 1886.

The Hotel continued under the name of the Imperial until 1891, having passed out of, & back in to, James Cooper's hands.  In April of the same year, after public pressure was placed on the authorities regarding the excessive number of public houses in Ipswich in disregard of legislation, the license was stripped from the establishment, as were two other licenses at offending Hotels in the growing town.  3 months later, however, the National Workmen's Club applied for a club license on the premises - whilst concerns existed that the establishment would not be run according to regulations, the license was still approved...& hence, the Hotel continued to trade.  A further change in 1904 saw the venue renamed the Hotel Cecil, a trading name the building carried for almost 100 years before it was again renovated & transformed into the Ipswich Jets Club in 1998...& it appears that the site's ghost has been making himself known ever since!

So, what of this ghost??  Before I delved further into the history of the site & any potential identities for the Jets Club ghost, I chose to contact the establishment with one simple question to aid in the search - I was very curious to know whether the name "Harold" was a nickname created by staff at the Hotel, or whether someone at some stage had a rough idea of the person's/ghost's identity?  The venue was very kind & open in getting back to me, with the answer that "Harold" was a given nickname - the rumour persisted that "Harold" was the ghost of a Traveller who was killed in a pub brawl years & years ago.  Again, long-term staff told of lights turning back on late at night, chilling winds blowing through the building when doors & windows were shut & doors continually opening after being closed...so, again, something otherworldly is clearly persisting in this 130 year old establishment...but why, exactly?  Let's delve back through history, to see if we can locate an event that could possibly give rise to a haunting on the site...

After scouring the historic record, the occasional Court Hearing for assaults at the Hotel crop up, however no Criminal Hearings or Inquests can be located to indicate that any fatal fight occurred on the premises...so, we can pretty much scratch the "pub brawl" theory.  However, one interesting event & two accidental deaths can be attributed to the Hotel in the first 70 years of its life.  Our one interesting event involves on of the Hotel's publicans - Alexander Gilbert Burnett.  A native of Calstone Wellington, a small village in Wiltshire, England, Burnett emigrated to Australia & finally settled in Brisbane finding work as a Storeman.  In 1908, he accepted the license for the Crown Hotel at Rocklea, moving to Ipswich a few years later to take up the license of the then Hotel Cecil.  Unfortunately, it would be on Burnett's watch that both deaths would occur...a month apart & within Burnett's first year as licensee, but we'll examine both of those shortly.  Ultimately, Burnett held the license for the Hotel for four years, until ailing health cut his life short at the Oakdale Private Hospital in Ipswich on the 13th of December 1915.  Burnett's body was returned to the Hotel Cecil, where it lay in state until 3:45pm the next day when it was conveyed to the Ipswich General Cemetery.

Published in The Brisbane Courier, page 6, on the 14th of December 1915.

So what of the deaths at the Hotel?  Well, just after 9pm on the 22nd of July 1911, two friends named Edward McMahon & Jack McDonald finished their last drinks at the bar in order to make their way home.  Exiting through the door to the footpath, Edward stumbled awkwardly on the step, likely being intoxicated after his drinking session with McDonald, and lost his balance in the process.  In an instant, McMahon pitched & fell to the footpath, the back of his head striking heavily on the ground likely rendering the poor man unconscious.  Immediately, the Ambulance Brigade were called for, & McMahon was rushed to St. Mary's Private Hospital, an establishment run by Dr Flynn out of what is now the Carrington Guest House on Roderick Street near the top of town.  Unfortunately, McMahon's head injuries were too severe, & he passed away at the hospital shortly after.  Two weeks later, at the Inquest into McMahon's death, the evidence put forward would show the fatality was no more than a very unfortunate accident.

The death of McMahon would have come as quite a shock to the licensee William Burnett, as only a month earlier he'd had to deal with discovering the body of a man in the back yard of the hotel.  At about 6am in the morning on the 10th of June 1911, Burnett had ventured out into the yard & stumbled across the body laying on the ground.  The police were immediately called for, & on investigation they were able to positively identify the man as Hubert Lenehan, a 27 year old brass finisher who had worked at the nearby North Ipswich Railway Works.  It was found that on the day prior, Lenehan had complained of feeling unwell at work, but had soldiered through his shift before finishing up & heading into town with friends for a few drinks.  When the time came for the men to go their separate ways, Hubert's mates left him alone in the yard of the Hotel apparently happy & in good health...unfortunately, Hubert would never make it back to his home in Tivoli.  A subsequent autopsy would show that Hubert had succumbed to natural causes, a result of an enlargement of both the heart & liver.

So, whilst it's always folly to try & attribute a positive identity to a ghost, short of an apparition tapping you on the shoulder & introducing himself personally, we've uncovered 3 historic events that may possibly have generated the haunting of the building.  Could the ghost possibly be that of William Gilbert Burnett, one of the Hotel's licensees, still turning lights on & off and opening the doors as he once had in life??  Did the spirit of Edward McMahon return to the Hotel, the last place he'd been conscious & happy, prior to suffering severe head injuries & passing away at a Private Hospital across the Bremer River??  Or, as the only soul who actually perished on the site, has Hubert moved indoors from the back yard, now wandering the corridors of the building??  If the ghost of the Ipswich Jets Club is Hubert, then the staff of the Hotel weren't too far off when they nicknamed him "Harold!"

The Murderous Maynes: Patrick surely did...or maybe didn't...hmmm...

Kangaroo Point, 1860's - from the John Oxley Library Collection.

The Murderous Maynes...Part II - following last week's article, surrounding the murder of Robert Cox. To briefly recap, there is no doubt that an horrendous murder took place on the banks of the Brisbane River all those years ago.  However, we'll travel through a little more actual history to give some more grounding on the event, an undertaking that has been fairly lacking in other published sources to date, before we jump back to examine the fiction that's been peddled recently in Brisbane...

The evidence on which William Fyfe was convicted was considered so circumstantial by all official parties involved, that all passed comment during the Criminal Trial in Sydney - from reports at the time, the Solicitor-General (prosecuting), opened that, "The evidence which he should present in their [the jurors'] notice to bring the charge home to the prisoner was entirely circumstantial," afterwards concluding the list of evidence by stating, "That a clear case must be made out for the prosecution before the Jury could convict on circumstantial evidence; and if the facts which he should prove raised a doubt in their minds, the prisoner would be entitled to an acquittal."  Similarly, Fyfe's legal defendant, Mr Holroyd, also stated, "The case before the Court was one deserving their most serious attention inasmuch as the whole case depended, as opened by the learned Solicitor-General, on circumstantial evidence.  No one of the facts stated by the numerous witnesses who had been called on the part of the Crown would be sufficient to convict the prisoner of murder; and before they could find him guilty upon the information upon which he had been arraigned they must find, not only that every fact that had been proved was sufficient to fix the prisoner with guilt, but that they must arrive at the irresistible conclusion that those facts were inconsistent with the guilt of any other party."  Furthermore, Holroyd concluded, "by urging the jury not to be led away by one or two trifling circumstances, but to consider well all the facts proved; and if those facts were reconcilable with fixing the guilt on any other party, it would be their duty to acquit the prisoner.  In this case there was no middle course; the offence was either murder or nothing - they could not reduce it to the crime of manslaughter."

Amazingly, the Judge presiding over the trial took a similar stance, almost attempting to coerce the Jury into acquitting Fyfe - "His Honor the Chief Justice then summed up with great minuteness.   He said, this was a case of the very greatest importance: for, as had been observed by the learned counsel for the prisoner, the jury must either find the prisoner guilty of murder or acquit him altogether; and if they did find the prisoner guilty of murder, he would most undoubtedly be executed.  The evidence was very remarkable - it was purely circumstantial; but were those circumstances sufficient to lead them to the irresistible conclusion that the prisoner, and no one else, could have been the murderer?"  Additionally, the Judge heavily reprimanded the Queensland Constabulary for essentially compromising the case - evidence had apparently been "overlooked," being discovered days later, the crime scene had not been locked down, and potential suspects and witnesses had not been arrested or questioned.  Sadly, the Jury adjourned for 30 short minutes before returning a unanimous guilty verdict, dooming Fyfe to the Hangman's noose.

Stories persist that a 4-page statement Fyfe had hoped to read on the scaffold had been confiscated by the authorities, and he had been refused access to broadcast his final message - in truth, William Ritchie, who had attended Fyfe on a spiritual basis at Darlinghurst Gaol, wrote a letter to the Sydney Morning Herald after the execution in the hope of its being published - in the letter, he stated that whilst the document had been confiscated from Fyfe, it had been done so surreptitiously through no less than common pick-pocketing between the cell and gallows, a dastardly act authorised by no less than Cornelius Prout, the presiding Under Sheriff...Fyfe had not realised his last statement to this world was missing until he mounted the scaffold and reached into his pocket...finding nothing.  Upon asking if he could still address the gathered crowd, the cap was immediately pulled over his head and the lever pulled - however in the haste, the quick despatch went horribly wrong...Fyfe struck the side of the scaffold floor heavily in the fall, severely grazing his hand and thigh, and shattering three ribs.  Over the next horrifying nine minutes it took Fyfe to expire, a steady stream of blood trickled from the legs of his trousers to the ground, a sight "which sickened even those most habituated to such scenes."  Fyfe was finally dead...having likely paid the ultimate price for another man's crime.

So...how's Patrick Mayne tied up in all this, I hear you ask??  Well, according to The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Brisbane's Necropolis, "One night, at a local pub, Mayne overheard a conversation that would change his life.  A drunken man mentioned that he had a large sum of money in his possession."  This statement, similar to those in Part I of this article published last week, is simply not true.  At approximately 12:30am, after the Inn had been closed for the night at 11:00pm, and Fyfe (and presumably Cox) had gone to bed - according to the Publican William Sutton - John Connell (a servant at the Bush Inn) and 3 butchers arrived on the doorstep looking to drink...the butchers were George Platt, William Lynch and Patrick Mayne.  Not one of these men (Sutton, Connell, Platt, Lynch or Mayne) claim to have seen either Fyfe or Cox whilst drinking that night...furthermore, Fyfe provided testimony that Cox had already left the establishment prior to the butchers' arrival.

Before we examine Patrick's "deathbed confession" any further, let's first jump forward 160 years to present-day Brisbane, in order to pull apart the two unfounded ghost stories attached to the Mayne family. 

The first involves the Mayne Monument located on 12th Avenue in Toowong Cemetery.  The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Brisbane's Necropolis refers to the structure as the "family vault" - similarly, Haunted Brisbane: Ghosts of the River City refers to the structure as the "family crypt."  The associated story, which can now be found blindly regurgitated on numerous pages across the Internet, is to the effect that, "At the bottom of the Mayne family crypt are air vents, which allow liquids and gases from decomposition to escape the vault. At various times, thick red liquid is seen oozing from the vents and down into the gutter on 12th Avenue…"  According to Ghost Tours' night walking tours through the Cemetery, this "crimson red liquid" is supposedly, "the blood on the hands of the Mayne family pouring from the crypt until it is all washed away..."  What Ghost Tours don't tell you, is that the story is completely fabricated, and very poorly at that - the structure is not a vault, it is not a crypt, & the vents in its base are not there to allow the gas created by decomposition to escape...after all, could you imagine the horrendous stench wafting down 12th Avenue if the products of decomposition were allowed to freely vent out into the roadway??

In truth, the Mayne Monument is just that - a monument.  Mary Mayne, Patrick's wife, was the first to be buried on the site after passing away on the 4th of September 1889.  3 weeks later at the family's request, on the 24th of September, the remains of Patrick Mayne, Evelina Selina Mayne (Patrick & Mary's infant daughter), & Mary McIntosh Kelly (Mary Mayne's mother) were exhumed from their original plots in Paddington Cemetery, and were reinterred in the family plot at Toowong - all 4 were buried, below natural ground level, likely with headstones to mark their graves.  However, in the early weeks of 1891, 18 months after the above burials, stonemasons John Petrie & Son arrived on site to erect what would become known as the finest marble monument in the colony.   Carved from the finest Canal Bianco Italian marble by renowned Italian sculptor Primo Fontana, the centrepiece was set atop a raised construction of Breakfast Creek sandstone.  Over the following 50 years, as the remaining six Mayne family members passed away, this monument would have been reopened to allow for the subsequent ground burials to be carried out - well below the overlying monument.  Hence, any insinuation that coffins exist aboveground within the confines of the structure, are simply untrue - and the stories of blood-like liquid running from the vents of the non-existent vault/crypt is complete rot, fabricated solely to create sensationalism on Ghost Tours' overpriced jaunts through Toowong Cemetery.

To examine the second story, we must journey back across town to the CBD - to the site of Brisbane Arcade, to be precise.  Now, the ghost of Brisbane Arcade is a well-known entity, and has been for the past few decades - I was told of the apparition that walks the mezzanine level of the Arcade back in the mid-1990's...and the story had been doing the rounds well before then.  According to folklore, the apparition of a woman dressed in black has been seen on numerous occasions on the upper floor of the Arcade - whilst some of the shopkeepers in the Arcade have caught a glimpse of this woman, she is most commonly seen by the security guards that patrol the building after dark.  According to legend, the ghost is said to be that of a millinery store owner...however two variations of the story exist.  One version claims that the woman regularly worked back into the early hours of the morning in the store's back room, sewing dresses in an attempt to meet her deadlines...late one night, whilst slaving over her sewing machine, the unfortunate soul suffered a heart attack/stroke and passed away alone, only to be discovered the next morning when the Arcade reopened.  The second version, not nearly as explicit, states the woman merely returned after her death elsewhere to look over her store and the Arcade.

So, how do the Maynes fit in??  Well, the construction of Brisbane Arcade was funded by James O'Neil Mayne and his sister Mary Emelia Mayne - built in proximity to the original site of Patrick Mayne's butcher's shop and residence fronting Queen Street (in the days when Queen Street was still a thoroughfare, and not a Mall as it exists today).  That is where the Mayne association ends...although not if you've spoken to "Jack" Sim or taken one of his CBD ghost tours in the past 5 years.  Prior to about 2007, Ghost Tours' CBD walking tours took in Brisbane Arcade and told the story of the millinery store owner's ghost...however this ghost has mysteriously changed identities in more recent years, courtesy of "Jack" Sim.  In September 2008, a segment was run on the local TV program The Great South East, interviewing the "dark historian" about the ghost of Brisbane Arcade.  In the segment, it was stated by "Jack" that, "Some say she is Patrick Mayne’s wife [Mary], who will forever walk the building as eternal punishment for her family’s sins."  By 2009, we see the same published in the Courier Mail on the 29th of March 2009 as if it were gospel truth, reinforcing the damage to Brisbane's true heritage that Ghost Tours perpetuate - "some" don't say the ghost is possibly that of Mary Mayne...only Ghost Tours' guides do...

Ironically, this is not the first time Ghost Tours have purposefully modified the identity of a ghost to suit their tours, & history in general - I encourage you all to read the article, "The Woman in Black: Solving the mystery of a vanishing ghost," a very poignant investigation of Ghost Tours' penchant for modifying ghost stories & history to boost ticket sales and add sensationalism.

So, taking all of the above into account, where do we sit at the conclusion??  Was Patrick really guilty of the crime??  Did he indeed admit to slaughtering Cox, 17 years previously, when prostrate on his deathbed??  Not really.  The entire story is no more than crafty guesswork.  What we do know from history comes from two memoirs, written in the years prior to 1900.  The first comes from Henry Stuart Russell's The Genesis of Queensland (1888), in which he stated about Cox's murder, "Some years afterwards another, in the horror of a death-bed upbraiding, confessed that he had been the guilty one, and had looked on at the execution of his innocent locum tenens! Let his name perish!"  This claim was again published in John James Knight's work, In the Early Days (1895), yet neither primary or secondary account saw fit to print the perpetrator's name.  Similarly, if the "deathbed confession" of Patrick Mayne is to be believed at all, it was to the effect that he had killed a man for which another had been sent to the gallows - Patrick did not divulge the name of his apparent victim in his confession.  Whilst we can all speculate as to who murdered Robert Cox, the depth of Patrick's involvement will always remain speculative.

For those of you have have made it this far, I congratulate you - you are now far more knowledgeable than most on the story of Patrick Mayne and his connection with the murder that led to his family's apparent "bad reputation".  However, in closing, a very recent sensational claim must be critically questioned, in light of what you've already read.  In Bloody Brisbane: Crime & Murder in the River City, Vol. 1, "Jack" Sim states categorically, "Today, sadly, it is only Patrick Mayne who gets the bad rap.  The crime is now called the "Mayne Murder" and people proudly boast of reading about how a founding father of our town was a vicious murderer as though it was fact.  In my opinion Patrick Mayne did not kill Robert Cox."  Seriously, "Jack" - the public proudly boast of reading about the "Murderous Maynes" in your two trashy books, Haunted Brisbane: Ghosts of the River City and The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Brisbane's Necropolis, which pegs you as nothing more than a massive hypocrite.

In parting, you, "Jack" Sim, appeared on Brisbane morning radio (on Channel 4BC) in 2009 [scroll down to the "Patrick Mayne" photo to listen], to discuss your "major historic breakthrough" in absolving Patrick Mayne of any wrongdoing in the murder of Robert Cox.  You state that Patrick's "deathbed confession" is hearsay, you claim again that Cox was "dispersed all over the place," you claim that Patrick was questioned on the night of the murder (which he was not)...and then boast that you are in possession of a written confession, penned 20 years after Robert Cox's murder, and 3 years after Patrick Mayne's death??  Apparently, according to the interview, this amazing fact was due to hard research and diligence...two terms I would never use to describe your "historian" status.  So...two questions, "Jack" - if you truly have this written confession, why have you never published this in the past three years, especially since you promised in the interview that it would be published in the 2010 reprint of Bloody Brisbane: Crime & Murder in the River City?  Secondly, if you're so sure that Patrick Mayne was innocent of the crime, why do you continue to tarnish his family's name with your fabricated ghost stories and your "Murderous Maynes" slogan?


I await your reply, as do the residents of Brisbane...

In the bowels of the Bridge: a Brisbane haunting lost to progress...

Story Bridge plan in the Courier Mail, published on the 3rd May 1935, p.14.

Last week we visited Brisbane's iconic Story Bridge, inspired by an incredibly poor rendition of its history published in Haunted Brisbane: Ghosts of the River City.  In the article, we exposed numerous historic inaccuracies printed in the book, a fair critique given the self-professed "historian" status proclaimed by the author...however, we were very light on information about the ghostly heritage of the site overall.   During the week, we realised we had an opportunity to give a little factual supernatural heritage back to the residents of Brisbane, when Sean, a fan of the Haunts of Brisbane, commented on the article via our Facebook page.  Sean posed a very valid question regarding the early construction period of the Bridge - "Does anyone have any info on the houses that were moved to make way for the Story Bridge?  I live in one and it has alot of activity here."  Being aware of a known haunting in the vicinity, & with the Story Bridge's construction still in mind, I decided to dig a little deeper...

At the earliest point of European settlement, during Moreton Bay Penal Settlement's absolute infancy, the entire peninsula back past current Vulture Street was a mix of heavily forested highland surrounded by swampy lowland draining into the Brisbane River.  Suitable land was quickly cleared in the area on which the Story Bridge now rests for maize & wheat crops to feed the incarcerated souls & their overseers, increasing the yield of similar fields which sat across the river where QUT's Garden Point Campus now resides (hence the name Garden Point).  At the same time, the Kangaroo Point cliffs (which are also iconic in Brisbane) were quarried for stone, in order to build the fledgling colony.  Quickly after the Colony was opened for free settlement, huts sprang up around Kangaroo Point - the murder of cedar getter Robert Cox, which has taken on folkloric status in the history of Brisbane, occurred where the Story Bridge now resides in 1848 - a story which will play a cameo in next week's Haunts of Brisbane article.

By the 1880's, Kangaroo Point was littered with stately homes, the preceding 20 years having seen massive economic expansion in Brisbane due to the influx of immigrants from England & Sydney with money to burn - those of political power & social note took advantage of the land placed on offer, & constructed what literally would have been mansions to the many less fortunate residents across the river in the steadily growing city.  Gilbert Elliott, first Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, had owned a house here....in time, ownership of the property passed to Captain John Mackay, the explorer who discovered the area on which the city of Mackay now stands.  Next door stood the house of Robert Porter, Brisbane alderman & one-time Mayor,  responsible for the construction of the original Victoria Bridge sadly destroyed in the floods of 1893.  James Warner had also lived here, the colonial surveyor who mapped Brisbane & its surrounds - early in Brisbane's history, he had cleared a mountain on Brisbane's outskirts of all but one tree for a trigonometrical station...that mountain became known as One Tree Hill, & in turn Mt Coot-tha.  Nearby lived Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior (Member of the Upper House & Queensland Postmaster-General), William Thornton (Member of the Queensland Legislative Council & Collector of Customs), William Henry George Marshall (long-standing Brisbane Town Clerk)...the list goes on.

However, by the 1930's, many of these stately homes had already been demolished in the name of progress - those that still stood had been enveloped by cottages & boarding houses as the population of Brisbane expanded rapidly.   In the early stages of the Story Bridge's planning, it was apparent that property resumptions would be required along the Kangaroo Point peninsula - by May 1935, properties standing in the way of the bridge had been resumed, & all were placed under the control of the Bureau of Industry who held the responsibility of considering compensation claims.  In addition, the Bureau also held the task of auctioning the resumed properties for removal or demolition & salvage - these auctions took place in batches between the 8th & the 29th of June.  Most residences, given their nature of construction (stone, brick & concrete), were demolished on-site & salvaged for materials...however a few were removed for relocation.  On the 27th of June, a crowd gathered along Main Street to watch a large weatherboard house being towed up the street for relocation - the spectacle was reported in the Courier Mail the next morning, noting that many of the Chestnut & Bauhinia trees lining the road required considerable lopping in order to let the house pass.  This may well be Sean's current house, although without further in-depth research it is difficult to say.

However, another important event took place in Main Street the day before on the 26th of June -  the auction of the mansion Nunnington.  Built in the early 1850's by Frederick Orme Darvall, who went on to become the Registrar-General of the Supreme Court of Queensland, the residence was named after Nunnington Hall in his wife's home town of North Yorkshire in England.  In the late 1870's the mansion changed hands, bought by renowned pastoralist William Barker for his family...25 years later, the building would be sold again to Arthur John Carter, Member of the Queensland Legislative Council & Consular Agent to France & Norway - by the early 1930's, Arthur's son Major Hubert Reginald Carter, Boer War & Gallipoli veteran & also Consular Agent to France like his father, shared the property with his wife & family...& one other house guest that was a little less tangiable.  By the 1930's, three members of the family, including Major Carter, claimed to have witnessed an apparition they called the 'Grey Lady' within Nunnington.  Furthermore, the Carters also claimed to be in possession of a family photo taken on the front lawn, in which a spectral figure was plainly visible that had not been seen at the time the photo was taken...incredibly sadly, both mansion & photograph have since been lost to the progression of time, but we can still examine the likely origin of the Nunnington spectre.

In it's day, Nunnington was a social hub in Brisbane - it played host to parties frequented by Brisbane's elite, it played host to foreign dignitaries, it witnessed its fair share of births & especially marriages...however it also witnessed a number of deaths:  Ernest White on the 10th of December 1884, William Barker on the 22nd of December 1886, Arthur John Carter on the 4th of November 1917, & Lieutenant-Colonel Hubert Reginald Carter on the 14th of July 1934...however, only 1 woman is recorded as having passed away in the house.  On the 5th of July 1900, Elizabeth Barker & wife of Nunnington's second owner, passed away after a short malady surrounded by her sons in the same house her husband had breathed his last 14 years earlier.  Whilst it is always folly guessing at the true identity of a ghost, especially given the number of people both resident & visitor that crossed the threshold of Nunnington during its existence, Elizabeth is a candidate...unfortunately, we will never know.  However, one big question still remains, regardless of the ghost's identity...does the Nunnington spectre still inhabit the area below the Story Bridge where its residence once stood on Main Street, or did the apparition climb aboard one of the houses moving past on their way to greener pastures, in turn dodging the demolisher's hammer??

Brisbane's Story Bridge: There's far more to the actual "storey"...

Recently, whilst flicking through the book, "Haunted Brisbane: Ghosts of the River City," the final chapter immediately caught my eye.  Chapter 13, entitled "THE STOREY BRIDGE,"  stood out like a sore thumb for one very glaring reason - the name of one of Brisbane's most iconic landmarks is spelt incorrectly!  After some further flipping, most ironically given the chapter number, I discovered that the Story Bridge's name had been misspelt not once, but 13 times throughout the book...not once had the correct spelling been used.  Most surprisingly, the error was located in the 3rd Reprint Edition of the book, meaning this error has been perpetuated for 6 years since first published in 2005, through 3 separate print runs - obviously, given that the self-professed "historian" author could not even get the landmark's name correct, I was very keen to read over the chapter to see what other historic facts had been horribly bungled.

Firstly though, a little actual history...throughout its construction, the Story Bridge was atually known as the Jubilee Bridge, in honour of George V...it was not until the opening of the bridge on the 6th of July 1940 that the name Story Bridge was bestowed, after Public Service Commissioner and member of the Bridge Board, John Douglas Story.  At the time, a further bridge across the Brisbane River was little required, however the project was championed on the grounds of generating employement at a time of interwar depression. Designed to emulate the Jacques Cartier Bridge across the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal, Canada, the contract fell to Evans Deakin-Hornibrook Constructions Pty Ltd to undertake the mammoth task - construction began on the 24th of May 1935.

Now, back to the book...

Hoping the bridge's repeatedly misspelt name would be the only error in the chapter, I was quickly disappointed as further ridiculously basic errors arose.  Barely into the chapter (which only manages 2 pages), the first glaring error arose - a detail any resident of Brisbane, familiar with the Story Bridge, could deduce after a little thought.  According to the book, "Boxing for the concrete foundations of the bridge had to be laid on the bottom of the Brisbane River.  Special pressurised chambers were built deep under the water in which men worked."  As anyone looking out over the Brisbane River can easily observe, the Story Bridge rests upon three pillars - one at the northern Fortitude Valley approach, & two at the southern Kangaroo Point approach...not one of these pillars are sunk into the bottom of the Brisbane River.  The northern pillar is built on dry land adjacent to the old Water Police Barracks, with the bridge anchored to the overlying cliff, while the southern pillar is also built on dry land in Captain Burke Park with the anchor pillar further up the slope adjacent to the Story Bridge Hotel - anyone who has taken an "adventure climb" on the Story Bridge will know this.

The only truth in this statement lies in the use of pneumatic, pressurised chambers during the initial stages of the bridge's construction.  The piers for the bridge were constructed first, through the closing months of 1935 into the middle of 1936.  In order to support the massive 12,000 tonnes of steel framework that would eventually rest atop them, it was necessary to set the foundations for the southern piers 40 metres below ground level - which clearly posed a major dilemma especially where the Captain Burke Park pier was concerned.  Given the portion of land on which the pier would sit was not far above water level, the Brisbane River running only a stone's throw away, digging down 40 metres through alluvium & well below water level would only end in a flooded pit.  So, a sealed, pneumatic chamber called a caisson, an engineering feat utilised for building piers below water at depth, was constructed - men dressed in deep-dive suits worked at pressures 4 times that of normal surface pressure, & dozens of bends cases required treatment in an on-site decompression hospital...as a diver who has suffered from decompression sickness, I can only appreciate the hardships these men faced every day!

We now move on to the next remarkable statement in the chapter - "Legend persists to this day that the victims of several unsolved Brisbane murders were disposed of in the building of the Storey Bridge.  The most famous of these was the mysterious disappearance of Majorie Norval, personal assistant to the Premier of Queensland, who vanished in sensational circumstances in 1938.  Her body has never been found; local legend maintains her corpse was cemented into the foundations of the bridge by her killer or killers so it would never be found."

So...let's pull this statement apart, without going into too much detail on the Marjorie Norval case - for those interested in further reading, Murder & Misadventure: Terrifying True Tales from Australia's Past will give you a far better rendition of the case than "Jack" Sim's Bloody Brisbane Crime & Murder Tour ever will.  For a start, similarly to our 13 "Storey Bridge" spelling errors, Marjorie Norval's name is spelt incorrectly (spelt Majorie in the "extensively researched" book, as per the direct quote above).  Secondly, Marjorie Norval was not the personal assistant to Queensland Premier William Forgan Smith, but was in actual fact the social secretary to William's wife Euphemia.  Thirdly, all pier work had been completed on the Story Bridge by mid 1936...the approaches on both the northern & southern sides had been completed by late 1937, & the steel superstructure for the bridge was well underway by mid 1938.  Marjorie Norval disappeared on the 11th of November 1938 from Central Station in Brisbane...if "Jack" Sim's "local legend" is to be believed, whereby she was interred within the bridge's construction, her body could only have been sealed into the deck of the bridge which was not laid until the steel framework had been completed in October 1939...almost 12 months after Marjorie had disappeared.

Finally, we reach the ghostly section of the chapter, which contains a very vague reference to a grey apparition apparently seen atop the bridge & a very generic mention of the Water Police who served in the quarters below the bridge.  In nearly 14 years of researching ghosts throughout South-east Queensland, I admit that I have never come across a single story of ghosts on the Story Bridge...which is not to say folklore doesn't exist.  That being said, I have spoken to many Water Police during my lifetime who served below the Story Bridge - their stories tell of suicides, bodies in the river & other countless tragedies that were relayed to me in confidence & should not be publicised for some time coming - thus is the respect any historian should show when publishing their research.  That said, not one of them believed in ghosts or ever experienced ghost phenomena from the Story Bridge as a result of their occupation.

As a final note, I discovered an amazingly ironic statement in the introduction to Haunted Brisbane: Ghosts of the River City, signed off by no other than "Jack" Sim the "dark historian" himself - "The stories and tales in this book do not come from Google, internet searches or from imagination."  Imagination aside, it's an absolute shame you didn't utilise Google or internet searches when writing your book, "Jack"...if you had, then perhaps your tale of the Stor[e]y Bridge would have been accurate, & you could have saved yourself further embarrassment by ensuring your poor research & bogus history didn't need to be corrected yet again...

HISTORY MURDERED: Conveyed to South Brisbane Cemetery Morgue for post-mortem

 South Brisbane Cemetery from the Brisbane River, ca. 1896

During the past week, South Brisbane Cemetery has experienced some very good...and some very bad.  The very good came on Wednesday night, with the exposure of an old ghost story of the cemetery which has become horribly jumbled, published on The Chris Dawson History Blog entitled, "The Woman in Black: Solving the mystery of a vanishing ghost."  The very bad came the next night, on Thursday, when the female toilet block within the cemetery was set on fire by an arsonist just prior to 10pm - whilst the fire was extinguished soon after, the building was significantly damaged.  

So, with jumbled ghost stories and cemetery buildings at the forefront of South Brisbane Cemetery news this week, one particular puzzling tale immediately comes to mind.  For some years now, a ghost story has been told on the commercial tours of the cemetery regarding a building that once stood alongside Section 6B - over the space of this article, we'll collate all the necessary historic information required & investigate why this tale is so intriguing.  The story, as relayed to me by those who have taken this tour, goes:

A wooden building used to exist on the site up until a couple of decades ago, when it was demolished to make way for the current cemetery buildings alongside Section 6B.  For the vast bulk of the 1900's, up until its removal, the building was utilised as the Sexton's office, & earned a solid reputation for bizarre incidents & ghostly occurrences.  Items within the building were regularly upset or moved, tools vanished & weird sounds were frequently heard.  Now, it seems that the building's mere situation within the cemetery grounds was not the cause for these supposedly haunted happenings - prior to its conversion into the Sexton's office around 1900, this wooden building had acted as the State Government morgue - the very room in which the cemetery staff would consume their lunches had been the room in which the autopsies had been performed.  Bodies were brought from all over Queensland for the purpose of post-mortem examinations - most notably to the history of Brisbane, those who had lost their lives during the terrible 1893 floods were conveyed to this morgue for autopsy & identification.

Keeping this in mind, we need to delve into the annals of history for some perspective.  Throughout February 1893, multiple drowning deaths occurred as a result of the devastating 1893 Brisbane floods.  The details of each drowning, & subsequent Magisterial Inquiries, were documented in the Brisbane Courier - George Brown, who drowned about the 4th of February & was located a week later at Gardens Point, was taken to the hospital morgue; Alexander Freese, who drowned in Grey Street on the 6th of February, was taken to the hospital morgue; Katie Maher, who drowned near Queen Street on the 11th of February, was taken to the hospital morgue; Michael Joyce, who drowned near the Brisbane Wharves on the 11th of February, was taken to the hospital morgue; Patrick Casey, who drowned near Breakfast Creek on the 17th of February, was taken to the hospital morgue; Sydney Hollyman, who drowned in Edward Street on the 19th of February, was taken to the hospital morgue. Whilst further drowning deaths occurred as a result of the 1893 floods, 6 examples are adequate to aid in our investigation.

Two further records must be mentioned before we get to the crux of our investigation, as they are of major importance - on the 9th of September 1896, residents alerted the police to the body of a young girl floating in the river at the foot of the South Brisbane Cemetery.  The police responded immediately, recovering the body from the water, & conveyed the remains to the hospital morgue. After a post-mortem examination was conducted, the body was identified as that of Lottie McCrea, a servant girl who had resided on Boggo Road (now Annerley Road).  4 years later, on the 25th of April 1900, the body of a man was recovered from the river below the South Brisbane Cemetery in an advanced state of decomposition.  The remains were conveyed to the hospital morgue for an autopsy, however all attempts at identification were unsuccessful - the unfortunate soul was buried, possibly back in South Brisbane Cemetery, the next day on the 26th of April.  In both of these cases, & especially the second, the bodies required transport over fair distance to the hospital morgue by either watercraft or by road via horse-drawn hearse - why not transfer these bodies onto land at the foot of the cemetery & traverse the couple of hundred metres to the State Government morgue within the cemetery grounds??

I possess countless records or murder, suicide & accident victims whose remains were conveyed to one of Brisbane's hospital morgues for post-mortem & identification between the years of 1870 when South Brisbane Cemetery was declared open & 1901, when we are expected to believe that the cemetery morgue was converted to a Sexton's office - not one record mentions the South Brisbane Cemetery Morgue.  So...why did the State Government Morgue, the prior site of which is visited every weekend by Ghost Tours' South Brisbane Cemetery Tour, see little if any action as the State Government Morgue??  The answer is very simple - no morgue, State Government or otherwise, ever existed within the grounds of South Brisbane Cemetery!

Photo taken from the Friends of South Brisbane Cemetery website,

showing the flood height in cemetery during 2011 Brisbane floods.

Almost all of this tale is a fallacy - almost all.  To get to the 2% truth in the story, we need to once again head back into the annals of history to uncover the scant details from which this story was concocted.  From the above, we know that many of the 1893 flood victims were conveyed to hospital morgues & not a morgue in South Brisbane Cemetery - given that the lower sections, & buildings alongside Section 6B, of South Brisbane Cemetery were inundated during the floods earlier this year (picture above) at a flood height of 4.46 metres, in comparison to the 1893 floods which peaked at 8.3 metres (almost 4 metres higher) we can only imagine what would have happened to a wooden morgue building in the cemetery grounds on this same piece of ground...it's clear that even if the wooden building had miraculously survived, it would have been in no condition to have officially held bodies from the floods, unless they had fortuitously washed in whilst the building was completely submerged.  Similarly, I have attended ghost tours in Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales & Queensland that visit actual morgues - never once have I ever come across a morgue that was built in anything but stone or concrete - a timber morgue exposed to the summer heat of Brisbane is a truly novel concept, in an age prior to refrigeration!

So to the 2% truth - the story of the South Brisbane Cemetery Morgue seems to be an amalgamation of two unrelated stories of the cemetery...& an amalgamation of very scant details at best.  The tale consists of a little concerning the Sexton's office, a little concerning the cemetery tool shed, & a lot concerning a non-existent morgue.  From the Heritage Listing on the Department of Environment & Resource Management's website, "Work on the cemetery was halted by wartime shortages of labour and materials, but recommenced in 1945 when a survey of the cemetery noted lavatory blocks for men and women, two shelter sheds, a timber sexton's cottage, a timber tool room, motor shed and men's room. A brick staff amenities block was constructed in 1954."  Here, we find no mention of a timber Secton's office, however the Sexton's cottage mentioned was a different structure that existed until 15 years ago in a different section of the cemetery, until it burnt down.  The old wooden tool shed existed near the front gate, but was pulled down in the 1980's - finally giving us the "demolished a few decades ago" part of the story.  All in all, we have yet another story of South Brisbane Cemetery that has lost its way.

As a postscript, I came across a quote, on Ghost Tours' website of all places, that I think links in with this story precisely - "Many other ghost tours fail to record or preserve this historical information (because in most cases it does not exist), instead relying on either the sensational improvable impressions of questionable psychics or merely tell scant stories from clients on tours. This does not justify a site as haunted and is misleading. It brings disrepute to a unique type of cultural heritage tourism which is growing in popularity worldwide. Clients on such tours expect and need to demand to know whether claims made have been substantiated."  Never a truer word has been spoken - as the paying public, people on Ghost Tours' tours need to demand that claims made have been substantiated, & whilst these demands are yet to be met by Ghost Tours who provided this very advice on their website, the Haunts of Brisbane will always be there to pick up the slack.

Brisbane's "Gruesome" Courts: when horrible research breeds terrible journalism

 

The original Supreme Court building, ca. 1879 

This time next year, the current Brisbane Supreme & District Court Building will lay vacant.  The new Brisbane Supreme & District Court building, taking shape across the road from Roma Street Station & due for completion in the middle of 2012, will take its place at a cost of $570 million.  As reported in the Courier Mail on Thursday (8th December 2011), the Queensland Government is about to seek tenders for a new inner-city development on the site including a hotel & cinema complex.  However, fresh talk about the future utilisation of this site brings to mind an article published in the Brisbane Times on the 24 February 2010, "If you ask staff at Brisbane's Supreme and District Court building - the place is haunted."  So, on what collective ghostly evidence has this haunted classification been handed down??

Apparently, according to the article, the Courts building is haunted due to its "gruesome" nature - "It's a place where stories of violence and horror have been heard and ghosts are often drawn to these sort of places. Their spirits get trapped there."  So clearly, there's on ongoing basis of died-in-the-wool haunted activity within the walls of the building, given cases that have been tried within its confines - & in being completely fair (please follow me through the Brisbane Times article to make sure I don't miss anything), here is a list of otherworldly phenomena that are intrinsic to the building in order of publication (similar instances have been amalgamated): 

i)     Unexplained "whooshes" of air. 
ii)    A seemingly-possessed elevator. 
iii)   A Judge's chair that mysteriously spins in the night. 
iv)   Unspecified "spooky and freaky" incidents. 
v)   Unspecified "supernatural incident" in the basement (dealt with below). 
vi)   Isolated hand-dryer starting in toilet. 
vii)  Isolated Exit doors shaking (stiff breeze on the night?). 
viii) Feeling of not being alone? 
ix)   Portraits & dressed dummies that cause apprehension.

Ok...So, let's remove the spooky feeling of not being alone (subjective), unexplained "whooshes" of air (subjective), unspecified "spooky and freaky" incidents (subjective), possible Brisbane City thoroughfare-induced winds shaking Exit doors (subjective), & portraits/plastic dummies that cause apprehension (subjective).  We can also easily dismiss the "unspecified" supernatural incident where "two painters were in a sealed-off room in the building's basement doing maintenance work when, they claimed, a gust of icy cold wind "whooshed" past them."  This not only falls into the "whooshes" of air (subjective) category, but defies logic - how do workers carry out painting (with fumes) in a supposedly sealed-off room...& how did they get into it in the first place?!?  So, what are we left with?  A seemingly-possessed 30 year old elevator, a Judge's chair that mysteriously spins at night & a one-off hand-dryer incident.  As can be seen, the evidence collected for this article is very shaky at best.  Furthermore, the ridiculous notion that the Courts Building is most likely haunted due to its "gruesome" nature goes to show that both the Brisbane Times journalist, & "Jack" Sim of Ghost Tours notoriety, completely failed to do their homework before the article went to publication.

Stories of the resident ghost have been told throughout the corridors of the Courts Building for years now - even yesterday morning (Saturday, 10th of December), whilst discussing the upcoming refit of the building, a cheeky editorial article appeared on p.43 of the Courier Mail, wondering, "what will happen to the famous court ghost?"  However to get to the more likely genesis of this haunting, we need to delve back through 185 years of history - & believe it or not, we won't be placing our bets on the "gruesome" nature of the Queensland Justice System!

According to the Brisbane Times, "Mr Sim, author of the book Haunted Brisbane, has interviewed several staffers who claimed to have witnessed ghost activity in the building, particularly in the basement.  He said the workers believed the ghosts belonged to prisoners who died in the cells of the original court building built in 1876.  The structure was burnt down by an arsonist in 1968 but some of the original basement cells were kept and form part of today's court building, he said."  In truth, only a section of the original building, officially opened on the 6th of March 1879, was damaged by arson on the 1st of September 1968.  By this time, the decision had already been made to clear the site to make way for a modern structure - a further 8 years passed until October 1976 when the remainder of the building was demolished to make way for the current Court District Precinct, with the new Supreme & District Court Building finally opening officially on the 3rd of September 1981.  Period records show that in the mid 1870's, the site was leveled in order to construct the original building, with no mention of cell blocks being constructed below ground level - given the absolute lack of automated earth-moving equipment in the 1870's, the existence of underground cells is highly dubious. Furthermore, given the number of basement levels in the current building, if original cells had existed below the Supreme Court building, they would have been destroyed during construction of the current Courts.

Our target lies back in early 1827, the Moreton Bay Penal settlement having just been founded. From its first days, the penal settlement began to earn a reputation for its high mortality rate - as published in a an earlier Haunts of Brisbane blog, "What lies beneath: The forgotten souls of Moreton Bay," excessive floggings for minor breaches of conduct oft times proved fatal, whilst malnutrition & tropical disease delivered many more to an early grave.  Over the following years, the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement would record a higher mortality rate than any other penal settlement in Australia, the first year of operation being so brutal that the need for a hospital was vital.  Built aside from the main settlement complex, the hospital functioned in a penal capacity until Brisbane Town was opened to free settlement in the early 1840's, finally becoming a public hospital to cater to the growing free population.  However, as the population rapidly expanded, as did cases requiring urgent medical attention, it became clear that the hospital facilities were grossly inadequate.  In 1867, a new larger hospital was opened in Bowen Park (which in time became the Royal Brisbane Hospital at Bowen Hills), & the old hospital site was handed over to the constabulary for use as a police barracks.

By the early 1870's, the 1828-buit Convict Barracks which was now serving as a makeshift courthouse was also in dire need of repairs - the old hospital site appeared perfect for the construction for a new, purpose-built Court building.  Thus, in 1875 the constabulary were moved to the old military barracks at Petrie Terrace (the currently refitted Police Barracks site at the top of Caxton Street), & the former convict hospital at North Quay was demolished...the next year construction began on the beautiful Supreme Court building pictured at the top of this blog, which would serve the growing metropolis of Brisbane for almost the next 100 years...and as they say, "the rest is history!"

So, the next time someone tells you the Supreme Court building is haunted due to its "gruesome" nature (or because a few prisoners allegedly perished within their cells beneath it), remind them of the hundreds of convicts & free settlers who actually drew their dying breaths on that very same site, many under horrific circumstances, in Brisbane's first hospital 150 years ago.

Some bushrangers, a double execution & a modern-day restaurant: Cleveland's addition to the haunted register

In late 1899, The Queenslander published a number of articles penned by Thomas Archer, underneath the collective title, "Recollections of a Rambling Life - Pioneering in Queensland."  Thomas, one of seven brothers collectively known as the Archer Brothers, played an amazing role in the early history of Queensland, as did his siblings.

Of the brothers, Charles escorted Ludwig Leichhardt to the family property at Durundur (current-day Woodford) in 1843, where the famous explorer resided for a number of months & became a lifetime family friend; William, along with brother Charles, were the first Europeans to discover the Fitzroy River (through Rockhampton), which they named after the New South Wales Governor Charles Augustus Fitzroy; David accompanied Charles Darwin on a kangaroo hunt, unsuccessfully, outside Wallerawang in the Blue Mountains in 1836 as part of Darwin's legendary world voyage;  Archibald became a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, & acted as Colonial Treasurer & Minister for Education; Colin went on to become a shipbuilder, constructing the vessel Fram in which Fridtjof Nansen undertook his famous Arctic expedition.  In amongst these achievements, this band of brothers were responsible for exploring & opening up vast areas of Queensland for grazing from the Darling Downs all the way to the Fitzroy - the brothers eventually settled in the Fitzroy region & established Gracemere Station in league with my great great grand uncle Robert Pacey, whose family went on to further their own amazing cattle empire in the region...part of this vast property is now the site of the current Queensland city of Rockhampton, & also gave name to the township of Gracemere beyond the city's limits.

In one of Thomas's articles in The Queenslander, he documents a fascinating story of early Australia, regarding a young man named Francis Edward Bigge whom he'd met whilst exploring the Stanthorpe area for viable grazing land.  In mid-1842, Francis & company had taken delivery of horses in the vicinity of Penrith in New South Wales, for delivery to Moreton Bay.  After suffering through 400km of harsh country & weather, the group of men successfully navigated their way to the vicinity of Tamworth on the 18th of August...however, their journey was about to take a colourful detour - suddenly, 3 men galloped into view, guns drawn, & demanded the party immediately dismount & disrobe.  Not one to be insulted in such a way, Francis emphatically refused & drew 2 pistols from his belt.  Outraged at Bigge's act of defiance, the bushrangers opened fire at close range, Francis returning fire in kind.  Miraculously, the bushrangers having expended their ammunition, Bigge managed to chase them off, taking possession of their abandoned horses & equipment.  However, the altercation came at a cost - during the melee, Bigge was shot through the shoulder which led to a 5 day stint in bed, & his clothing exhibited numerous bullet holes where he'd come within millimetres of further injury.

Ultimately, 2 of the 3 highwaymen, George Wilson & Thomas "Long Tom" Forrester, were arrested shortly after, Bigge having personally assisted in the manhunt - Wilson had arrived in the colony aboard the Moffatt on the 17th of August 1835, after having been sentenced to life at the Old Bailey in London.  However, on the 9th of February 1841, he had escaped from a chain gang & had joined up with Thomas Forrester - the two had taken to bushranging in northern New South Wales, & by the time of the altercation with Bigge had already had a £20 bounty placed on each of their heads by the Government.   At the Maitland Assizes on the 18th of March 1843, both prisoners registered a guilty plea, despite the Judge's repeated attempts to sway their decision, as a charge of "wounding with intent to murder" carried the death penalty.  After Bigge's deposition had been read, & both prisoners insisted they were guilty of the crime, the Judge had no other option but to sentence the pair to be hanged.  On the 25th of April 1843, both George & Thomas went to the gallows - it is said George stated that Mr. Bigge was surely the pluckiest man in the country & he did not mind swinging for such a man - as the newspaper of the day so poignantly reported, "The drop fell, and both were launched into eternity, for which they declared themselves prepared."

So, where's this week's ghost, you may ask?? Well, let's jump forward 10 years to 1852 & change location to Cleveland, just south of Brisbane, on the shores of Moreton Bay.  By this time, Francis Bigge had become a very wealthy landowner, businessman & elective member of the first New South Wales Legislative Council for the Pastoral Districts of Moreton, Wide Bay, Burnett & Maranoa.  Amongst other properties he owned in Cleveland, Francis purchased land in Paxton Street on which a brick building was constructed in 1853 to house workers for his various business interests nearby.  However, by the mid-1850's, Bigge's business interests at Cleveland were beginning to falter in favour of those in the rapidly expanding centre of Brisbane nearby, & the decision was made to downsize - the Paxton Street residence was rented to the Commissioner of Police for a courthouse & lock-up, & Francis took a sojourn to England in about 1856.  Whilst abroad, he married Elizabeth Ord in 1857, a devoutly religious woman & daughter of the Reverend Thomas Ord, before returning to Cleveland with his new bride in June 1858.  After a further 15 years spent in Cleveland, having accepted membership to the Queensland Legislative Council, Francis & Elizabeth returned again to England, where they saw out their days until both passed away in 1915 & 1914 respectively.

So, to our ghost - the courthouse was purchased as a private residence in 1882, & continued as such until it was converted to tea rooms in the 1960's.  In the late 1970's, a very ambitious project was undertaken by the owner to expand the property for use as a restaurant, for which the site has been utilised until the present day.  Best summed up on the Brisbane History website, "Stories of the Old Cleveland Courthouse Ghost (a middle-aged woman in a white gown, her dark hair gathered in two tight buns over her ears) have circulated for generations. No one knows for sure who she is, but most people believe it is Francis Bigge's wife, Elizabeth. The spectre is normally well behaved, content to amuse herself tapping staff and diners on the shoulder or blowing gently in their ears but she has been know to lose her temper on rare occasions, hurling items about the restaurant, switching lights on and off, fiddling with taps and causing valuable pictures to crash to the floor without, curiously, the glass in the frames ever breaking."  A quick look at The Courthouse Restaurant website provides more information, "Mrs Elizabeth Bigge is said to still wander the premises.  She died of hanging in England, but her spirit has returned to the place where she was the happiest.  There have been many sightings, as she seems to just co-exist peacefully, whilst keeping a watchful eye on the place when we are not here..."

So, what do we make of this??  There is clearly no doubt that the site has a resident ghost, although it is very debatable as to "who" is responsible for the haunting. What's more intriguing is the tale that Elizabeth Bigge "died from hanging" in England - it is highly dubious that a woman of such social status was hanged in 1914, nor is it likely that a devoutly religious daughter of a Reverend would take her own life by hanging (she would likely have been in her 80's at the time)...I would love to hear from anyone who can confirm the validity of this?  Ultimately, why Elizabeth's ghost would return to a building in Cleveland, after living abroad for 45 years, is anyone's guess...

However one very intriguing factor comes into play - for those who believe that spirits attach themselves to objects & places, the old courthouse houses something very special that may very well have given rise to the haunting.  During the 1977-78 renovations, suitable materials had to be sourced for the construction of the building extensions - amazingly, a fireplace fitted to the verandah extension was sourced from the sadly demolished Bellevue Hotel, a magnificent building that stood on the corner of George & Alice Streets & was a social hub for the elite in the Brisbane CBD.  Additionally, the main feature wall of the restaurant was constructed using brick & sandstone salvaged from the old Supreme Court Building in Brisbane after it had been gutted by fire - unfounded claims have been made about the haunted nature of the Supreme Court site recently, for the most ridiculous of reasons, however we'll be sure to examine the site's actual haunted history in a future article. Regardless, The Old Courthouse exhibits all the hallmarks of an ongoing haunting, & has every reason to do so given its colourful history...unfortunately, however, we may never know whose soul wanders amongst the tables during dinner service.

O' 13th Avenue, Where Art Thou??

12th Avenue within Toowong Cemetery - amongst all other Avenues, this Avenue has always held a special place in my heart as I have family buried there.  At the bottom of the hill, alongside 8th Avenue & almost in line with 12th Avenue, the first wife of my great grandfather, who died in childbirth, is interred (mother to 5 children, half-siblings to my grandmother - 4 of them are interred nearby).  At the top of the hill, just past the end of 12th Avenue at the intersection of 2nd & 3rd Avenue, my grandfather's aunty & family are interred.  My great great grandparents & 6 of their children are interred within an area known as "the grove" alongside 12th Avenue, an area heavily overgrown with Bunya Pines & Camphor Laurel trees, & populated with amazing monumental masonry that has always fascinated me.   Most importantly, which will become apparent shortly, another grave housing my great great grandparents & 1 of their children, lies alongside 13th Avenue.  Needless to say, I know this section of Toowong Cemetery incredibly well, given the number of family interments within its confines.

Searching for stories of Brisbane ghosts & hauntings as I regularly do, my interest peaked recently whilst reading an article published in the City South News, reporter unlisted, on the 13th of September 2010 entitled, "Tour issue dead and buried."  The article itself was unengaging aside from a sadly downplayed parting comment by the Greater Brisbane Cemetery Alliance Vice-President Kelvin Johnston, stating more should be done to prosecute cemetery trespassers - only one year prior, vandals had gone on a rampage through a section of the cemetery, resulting in the destruction of over 80 graves.  Sadly, after a protracted court case, the 4 individuals were acquitted of charges on the back of inadequate cemetery laws.  However, my interest was instantly drawn to a public comment posted about the piece by "Jason" - "Just compare a Ghosts of Toowong map to a real one of Toowong Cemetery to see how Mr. Sim has relocated 13th avenue." 

So, what of these claims of a "relocation" of Toowong's 13th Avenue??  A quick Google search on "toowong cemetery 13th avenue" brought up a blog site, which stated, "At the corner of 12th and 13th Avenue it is said that the Angel of Death stands and hisses whoever comes near."  From this lead, various related search strings pulled up further hints, including testimony from one of the tour guides of the Toowong Cemetery tour  - "While I waiting on the hill alone above the intersection of 12th and 13th Avenue (the place where The Angel is said to appear) I heard a male voice whispering to the right behind me."  Yet another personal blog site stated, "At the corner of 12th and 13th Avenue, said to be the middle point of the graveyard (there is no street sign to mark 13th Avenue as it is the most stolen street sign in Queensland) we joined hands and summoned the Angel of Death.  He must have been taking a night off."  Here, another very important factor wades into the mix - the 13th Avenue sign, allegedly "the most stolen street sign in Queensland".  After some more detective work speaking to extended friends who had taken the tour of Toowong Cemetery, I discovered that the intersection of 12th & 13th Avenue was located above the Mayne monument at the high point of 12th Avenue - I was assured that this "fact" was verified by the "angel" story & Toowong Cemetery map in the book, The Ghosts of Toowong Cemetery: Brisbane's Haunted Necropolis.

Seeking out the story & map in said book, I located the section about the "angel of death" on page 23 - there I found the reference again, as clear as day - "At the intersection of two roads - Twelfth and Thirteenth Avenues, a crossroads in the dead centre of the cemetery..."  I then flipped to the associated map of Toowong Cemetery on page 37, which clearly showed the intersection of 12th & 13th Avenue (marked at Figure 8 above). For reference, the photo at the top of this article shows the intersection, complete with 12th Avenue sign & jagged bracket below where the 13th Avenue sign has supposedly been torn free by thieves.  So - you're likely wondering where I'm going with this?  Well, having family buried alongside both 12th & 13th Avenues & knowing the area of the cemetery extremely well, I can categorically state that no such intersection between the two Avenues exists!  A simple search of the Brisbane City Council website provides a link to the official map of Toowong Cemetery - this map clearly shows that the intersection in question is actually between 12th Avenue & 11th Avenue. 13th Avenue exists much further along 8th Avenue at the bottom of the hill, & in no way comes anywhere near the top of 12th.  Furthermore, the intersection is far from the centre of the cemetery, as claimed.  Conveniently, the missing sign at the top of 12th Avenue belongs to 11th Avenue, not 13th.

How such a glaring error could possibly be made (& continues to be made), given the ease with which the Council's official Toowong Cemetery map can be accessed, is anyone's guess.  However, given that the associated ghost tale hinges wholly on the location of the crossroads between 12th & 13th Avenue (which clearly does not exist), one can only call into question the overall legitimacy of the supposed haunting.  There is no doubt that 12th Avenue is an amazing place, made even more so by the almost mystical grove located down its side...changed street names & the attachment of tall tales only aid in cheapening the historic & potentially paranormal nature of the site.  As a final note, one solitary tidbit of information did come to light whilst investigating the "crossroads" claim, found on a forum site - "I know a friend who told me that a certain 13th avenue either disappeared or appeared (bad memory) at toowong cemetery..."  Perhaps this rumour explains my inability to locate the fabled crossroad...or then again, perhaps it is just as fictitious as the intersection itself??