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!"

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.

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??

The Executive Building: Charlie wasn't as drunk as tourists are told...

Many visitors to Brisbane who enter the CBD via North Quay on William Street or the Riverside Expressway off-ramp onto Elizabeth Street, may well formulate a false impression of the city's colonial history.  Travelling along the first stretch of Elizabeth Street, two incredibly impressive sandstone buildings loom large on either side, coaxing the onlooker into believing they are commuting between two of Brisbane's original buildings.  However, both came into existence many decades after Brisbane became a free colony, although what lies beneath holds amazing value to Brisbane Town's genesis.  The Treasury Casino to the left of Elizabeth Street was the original Treasury Building, taking an amazing 42 years to complete in 3 separate stages - during these stages, the expanding building was utilised at some point by almost every Government Department including the Premier, until the final stage along George Street was officially opened on the 4th of May 1928 by the Minister for Works, Michael Joseph Kirwan.  On completion, the building earned a reputation as one of the finest public buildings in Australia.  However, from a colonial & historical viewpoint, the building now rested on the original site of the since demolished Moreton Bay Penal Settlement's Military Barracks.

To the right of Elizabeth Street, Queens Gardens exists - a green zone with park benches & a plinthed statue of Queen Victoria & Queensland Premier Thomas Joseph Ryan.  In the bottom corner, another memorial topped by an eagle pays tribute to the R.A.A.F. servicemen & women who paid the ultimate sacrifice during Australia's involvement in the Second World War.  What appears to be a quaint park is anything but that, however - on this site, the Cathedral of St. John existed from 1854-1904, commemorated by a marble slab alongside the Queen Victoria statue marking the site of the original altar.  Later, a stone Rectory & Church Institute building was constructed in the late 1890's, however all were bought soon after by the Queensland Government.  The area behind became known as the Executive Gardens in 1905 & displayed an enviable selection of flowers, available for public view "at all hours, day & night."  During this time, the associated outbuildings were utilised by the Brisbane Criminal Investigation Branch, aiding in the buildings' survival through until 1962 when they were finally demolished in the name of progress.

However, our building of focus lies beyond Queens Gardens to the right of Elizabeth Street, but is no less spectacular than the Treasury Building in size or appearance.  Our building of note is the Executive Building, or current Treasury Heritage Hotel.  Commenced in 1901 & officially opened in 1905, the building housed the Lands & Survey Department, including the offices of the Premier on the second floor & Queensland National Art Gallery along the George Street side of the building's third floor.  Similarly, the site on which the building stands also has an amazing history dating back to Brisbane Town's early years - on the 13th of April 1851, the United Evangelical Church Chapel was opened on the site, intended to provide religious service to the massive influx of immigrants who had arrived in Brisbane as a part of Dr. John Dunmore Lang's immigration scheme.  The Chapel was eventually sold to Dr. Lang on the 7th of April 1857, & again to the Government in December 1860, becoming Brisbane's first electric telegraph office. This amazing piece of Brisbane's history was sadly demolished in June 1899 to make way for the current building.

In an article published in the Sunday Mail on the 4th of October 1998, reporter Lou Robson detailed a tour she had taken in Brisbane, which included one of the best known ghost stories of the old Executive Building - "In the public bar a drunk called Charlie, who fell to his death from the top floor, is said to open doors for patrons & fondle barmaids as they work."  Exactly 10 years later in October 2008, Jetstar Magazine published an article about the same tour, reporting an amazingly similar story, albeit with slightly modified details - "It also takes in the Treasury Casino, where a decanter of expensive whisky has a habit of being mysteriously moved. "They believe it’s the ghost of an old man who was once a regular," says Senescall [the tour guide]. "A security guard once walked in just as the whisky had been poured, and saw the bottle return to the bar without a hand holding it.""  However, like all good ghost folk law in Brisbane, historical sources rarely stand in the way of good stories.

There is a very sound historical basis to this story, however the major glitch in the telling lies in the fact that the bars in both the Treasury Casino & Treasury Heritage Hotel are only about 15 years old - how on earth, could an old drunk be haunting a bar he frequented many years before the bar came into existence?  Ultimately, Charlie does not exist & he was not an old drunk...the truth lies in the story's single detail of a fatal fall.    

On Tuesday the 9th of February 1937, at 11:25 in the morning, 37 year old Kevin McMahon stood up from his work table in the Government Survey Office & walked into the hall on the third floor of the Executive Building towards the men's rest room on the forth floor. Kevin had grown up in Warwick, where he attended St. Joseph's Christian Brothers' College, affording him a high score in public examinations.  As a result, straight out of high school, he was offered a position as junior draughtsman in the Government Survey Office in 1917, which he pursued until a change of employer saw him move to the State Insurance Office as an assistant draughtsman in 1919.  Seven years at his second workplace elevated his experience & knowledge, resulting in Kevin finally returning to the Government Survey Office as a fully fledged draughtsman in 1926 to see out a further ten years in his chosen profession.  Focused on their work, the other 15 to 20 employees of the Government Survey Office paid little notice to his exit from the room - it would be the last time they would see their colleague alive.

Witnesses stated that Kevin looked pale & weak as he ascended the stairs toward the rest room, moving slowly & clutching the bannister for support.  A few minutes later, a horrible crash was heard throughout the building - on descending the stairs, Kevin had relied too heavily on the bannister's support & had toppled over, heavily striking a concrete ledge & the second floor stair railing.  On the ground floor, a woman & salesman Colin Campbell were sitting on a bench seat waiting to enter one of the offices - without a second's warning, Kevin's body impacted the concrete floor a few feet from where they sat.  The woman, suffering severely from shock, was escorted immediately from the scene, whilst Colin was called before the Inquest to provide evidence.  As a result of the Inquest, Kevin's brother Joseph was called upon, testifying that no underlying issues existed to hint at suicide (Kevin was happily married with four children), & the Coroner J. J. Leahy requested to personally see the stairwell before judgement, as testimony had alluded to a dangerously low stair bannister.  Ultimately, the Inquest deemed Kevin's death to be a tragic accident.

So, next time you walk past the old Executive Building (Treasury Heritage Hotel), spare a thought to Kevin & his family's loss - he wasn't named Charlie, he wasn't a drunk, & he sure as hell never frequented a bar that didn't exist for another nearly 60 years.

It was the butcher...in the basement...with the cleaver..."allegedly"...

When I first started out in the parapsychology field in Brisbane back in 1998, a number of buildings throughout the CBD held a reputation for being haunted.  However, whilst it was fairly common to be approached by Brisbane residents & told that a specific building was rumoured to have a resident ghost, when these informants were pressed on the matter further, they commonly couldn’t provide anything more than, “Well…ummm…I don’t really know anything about it…but I've heard it's supposed to be haunted.” Obviously, this made pinpointing the origin of the “haunting” & in turn the history behind it exceedingly difficult. Fortunately though, some reputedly haunted buildings had quite complex folklore associated with them, detailing the exploits of the ghost(s) in residence as well as their supposed genesis. In these cases, by backtracking through the detail, it was sometimes possible to locate an historical event that roughly matched the ghost story – hence, whilst the ghost itself still required verification though more scientific means, at least the parapsychologist could take comfort in the knowledge that the likely historic origin behind the haunting was sound.

One such ghost tale involves an area most frequent visitors to the Brisbane CBD would know well – that of Brisbane Arcade, cutting between the Queen Street Mall & Adelaide Street. Now, as far as Brisbane ghost stories go, the Arcade lays claim to a very well-known haunting of its own, however we shall savour that tale & the history behind it for a later blog. The story we will focus on this week reputedly involves an area immediately adjoining the Arcade, although the usual telling of the tale also stipulates that the establishment in which the haunting occurred no longer exists. As is the norm with the bulk of Brisbane's ghost folklore, a veritable rabbit's warren needs to be navigated in order to assemble the likely historic components that gave rise to the story - below, by virtue of solid historic research, I will pull the components of the story apart & endeavour to locate the likely events that gave rise to the tale.

The most common version of the story tells of a haunting that was supposedly an occurrence in a butcher's shop fronting Adelaide Street, built behind the Brisbane Arcade. This butcher's shop is said to have traded at the location since at least the turn of the century (1899 - 1900), & apparently continued to trade for a number of years thereafter. However, as usually results from the march of time, the butcher's store finally closed its doors and was lost to progress - the story insinuates that this closure occurred some decades ago. So, what do we know about the ghosts of the site? It is said that at some stage of the shop's operation (no version of the story provides even a rough estimate as to when the event took place), a fight broke out between the butcher & his apprentice - in a rage, the butcher unleashed a cleaver in the direction of his underling, striking him in the head & killing him instantly. Ultimately, from that time after, both subsequent owners & customers alike occasionally heard spectral sounds of a fracas followed by screams from the back of the store.

So, how do we investigate an apparent haunting such as this? No butcher's store exists nowadays alongside Brisbane Arcade & the story itself documents that the store was closed many years ago, & no information exists regarding the supposed time period in which the event occurred - it's now necessary to look at what we do know, historically, about the site itself. Primarily, after scouring all available historic sources, no record of a butcher's apprentice dying from wounds inflicted in a shop in Adelaide Street (or elsewhere in the CBD) can be located. Had a butcher killed his apprentice around the turn of the century (a rough estimate, given the scant details provided in the ghost tale), the sensationalism of the case would have ensured extensive media coverage - none exists. Furthermore, information confirming the existence of a contemporary butcher's store in the vicinity is also very lean - the story is already on shaky ground, or is it? Fascinatingly, some truth exists regarding a butcher's store on the site, however it pre-dates what would be expected given the details of the original tale.

The site on which the haunted butcher's shop allegedly existed, & Brisbane Arcade in general, had originally been a butcher's shop back in the very early years of Brisbane Town. In September 1849, a recently married Irish immigrant name Patrick Mayne purchased a butchery fronting Queen Street. Having arrived in New South Wales penniless in 1841, he moved north shortly after given the opening of Brisbane Town for free settlement. At the time, Brisbane was no more than a frontier town, ripe for the picking for immigrants willing to apply themselves - by 1846, Patrick had secured employment as a butcher at Kangaroo Point. However, on the night of the 25th or early hours of the 26th March 1848, it is postulated that Patrick horrifically murdered & dismembered a cedar-cutter named Robert Cox at Kangaroo Point's Bush Inn for the sum of £350. A year later, this stolen money was supposedly used to buy Mayne's butcher's business on Queen Street, which operated from 1849 until 1871 - the business was continued by Patrick's wife Mary, proceeding his death on the 17th August 1865, at which time Patrick allegedly admitted to the prior murder on his deathbed. For the full story, I cannot recommend highly enough Rosamond Siemon's book, "The Mayne Inheritance."

Please Note:- Much has been written about the Mayne Family & their incredibly unfortunate history in the recently published schlock-horror fiction series of books produced by Brisbane's Ghost Tours, in blatant contradiction & mockery of Rosamond's heavily researched work, & Brisbane's history in general - for the record, Rosamond holds a PhD from the University of Queensland in History & is a highly respected Alumni. Not only did she donate the entire publisher's advance she received for her book, but she also donated a percentage of the book's royalties to the University of Queensland's Annual Appeal to advance kidney research at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

Given Patrick's reputation in Brisbane at the time, including further unsubstantiated rumours that he may have unscrupulously killed more early Brisbane residents during his lifetime, his original store on the site most likely gave rise to the story of a butcher's apprentice who suddenly died on-site, hence giving rise to a "haunting" of the building. However, given that no information exists to verify the untimely & unusual death of a butcher in the vicinity, where do we now stand? Well...we stand pretty close, actually - about 300 metres away, to be exact. On Boxing Day 1931, Brisbane was waking up on the flip-side of Christmas, although the staff of the Criterion Hotel, which backs onto Burnett Lane, felt something was amiss - staff taking cigarette breaks & garbage runs in the laneway behind the establishment reported smelling a strong scent of gas. Both Police & Ambulance were called for at 6:45am, & the gas leak was isolated to the door of a butcher & smallgoods store in Burnett Lane.

On arrival, Sergeant Collis of the Brisbane CIB immediately kicked in the door to discover the inevitable - a body was located lying on a number of sacks in the storeroom of the shop, the head in close proximity to a number of gas bottles of which one was open. On an examination of the dead man's pockets, £15 in notes, silver & copper were discovered, along with a loaded revolver & bottle marked "poison." Further investigation identified the man as the owner, 29 year old butcher Leonard Victor Wiltshire. During the subsequent Inquest, Leonard's wife testified that he had left for the shop some time after 3am on Christmas Eve, & she had worked alongside him until late that night. Early the next morning on Christmas Day, he had returned to see to the store refrigerator alone, & had not returned. It was lodged before the Court that Leonard had owned the store for about 6 months, after owning previous stores throughout the city. He had been suffering from "nervous troubles" for two years, & whilst it did not appear that he suffered from financial issues during this time, it is highly likely Leonard's death was unofficially considered a suicide - official sources record the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning & asphyxia.

So, next time someone tells you that Brisbane Arcade may be haunted by the ghost of a butcher's apprentice, point them in the direction of the newly renovated Criterion Tavern - not only will they be able to get a good steak sandwich & cold beer, but they may just catch a glimpse of a ghostly butcher that died just behind the establishment, yet supposedly haunts the other end of the Queen Street Mall.

Brisbane City Hall: The Liftman was innocent.

Brisbane City Hall - formally opened by his Excellency the Governor Sir John Goodwin on the 8th April 1930, the grandiose building at the heart of our city had already celebrated multiple milestones in a gradually increasing capacity since 1927 (at which time it had been partially occupied amid ongoing construction) by the time of its official inauguration.  The site on which the City Hall now stands had been purchased in 1877, however the site had been deemed unsuitable for a municipal hall in preference of a more elevated location.

Considered a low lying, flood prone, swampy tract of the emerging Brisbane business district, there is no doubt that regular flooding of the Brisbane River reinforced this concern - in the 40 years leading up to 1900 (in 1841, 1844, 1890, 1893 & 1897), Brisbane had been inundated by 5 major flooding events that rivaled & exceeded the recent 2011 flood levels earlier this year. Whilst other suitable sites had been recommended & another purchased for the specific purpose throughout the early 1900's, a shift in opinion coupled with nearly 2 decades of economic stagnation saw the original site again championed for the role.  Thus, the legendary architectural partnership of Hall & Prentice were approached to design the structure, with the foundation stone being laid in 1920 by Edward, Prince of Wales - Edward eventually ascended to the throne on the death of King George V in early 1936 as King Edward VIII, however abdicated later the same year after announcing his intention to marry an American socialite who was yet to divorce.  His brother Albert stepped into the role, assuming the title of King George VI (as outlined in the recent blockbuster, "The King's Speech").

So...where do the ghosts fit in??  Brisbane City Hall has earned a local reputation for housing at least 4 ghosts - one ghost is said to be female & frequents the foyer, foyer stairs and mezzanine balcony overlooking the foyer; one ghost is rumoured to haunt an entire wing of City Hall that was subsequently shut down for decades as a result, before being converted into a childcare centre; one ghost is alleged to be that of a WWII American sailor who was embroiled in a fight over a woman with another sailor, & was stabbed to death in the Red Cross Tea Rooms beneath City Hall.  All of these legends are based & perpetuated on an element of truth, however we can savour them for a later date - for now, we shall focus on the 4th reported haunting: the Lift Attendant's phantom that haunts the renowned tower of City Hall.

This legend has been retold extensively over the past 13 years, however the details differ slightly - a lift attendant or workman at City Hall, perished in his dereliction of duty (differing versions of the story claim he either fell, jumped, or was crushed by the lift during installation) early in the building's history around the 1930's - hence, his ghost rides the elevator of the tower & causes ongoing mechanical issues.  Let's survey the history: in June 1998, the Queensland Independent reporter Louise Rugendyke, reported that, "One [ghost] has been continually riding the lift since the 1930's (he was killed while installing it)."  In 2008, 10 years later during renovations of City Hall, an article written by Kelmeny Fraser published in the City News on the 21st November stated, "When the clock tower was renovated a construction worker claimed to have seen a ghost which presented as [a] silhouette of a man standing in an area off-limits to the public."  By 2009, Nicole Carrington reported in the City News that, "[The ghosts of City Hall include] a maintenance man who rides the lifts who is rumoured to have died in a freak accident."

Ultimately though, the most popular & widely disseminated version of the story fingers the Lift Attendant as the ghostly culprit.  Rumour has it that the unnamed Liftman either jumped to his death or slipped an fell from the tower in 1932, sparking an ongoing haunting and series of mechanical failures of the lift itself.  A recently published book penned by a self-professed local "historian" (who has consistently perpetuated the "true" story of the tragically killed Lift Attendant for many years now), even goes so far as to admit that whilst there is no evidence to verify the death of a Liftman at City Hall, said man's alleged death elsewhere (away from City Hall) is clearly the confused origin of the tale (and in turn the haunting?). That being said, however, no evidence is put forward in the book to either qualify the Lift Attendant's death away from City Hall, or to verify that the unnamed Lift Attendant even died at all.

From historic records, we can unarguably verify that the tower lift experienced mechanical failures entirely of it's own making from the moment of installation - in July 1929 a fire broke out in the lift well as a result of the lift being started suddenly at full power, causing dense smoke to pour from the well giving the impression of a major fire - the situation was quickly contained by workmen without the need for the fire brigade.  Again, in April 1930 only 2 days after the City Hall had been formally opened by the Governor, a fire again broke out in the lift well requiring Attendants to jump to the rescue.  Apart from these early teething issues, no further failures appear in the records outside what would be considered normal operational problems - & definitely nothing in the ballpark that would indicate that the lift itself had a mind of it's own as a result of a maligned spirit.

So, with the ghost legend & some background history aside, where's the truth behind the rumour, you ask??  The truth, which most likely led to the story of the haunted Tower, occurred on no more an ironic/iconic day as Halloween. On the 31st of October 1935, building contractor George Edward Betts (incorrectly listed as George Edward Botts on Qld BDM's website) left his home in Bardon at about 7am on his way to work.  At the time, he was working on a construction project erecting two workers' dwellings, & had appeared in high spirits when he'd bid farewell to his wife for the day.  On his departure, he had mentioned to his wife that he planned to visit the doctor on the way to work, & at some stage during the day would need to visit City Hall in order to pay Council for water connection work at a building site in Annerley.  George worked throughout the morning on-site, however at lunchtime he changed his clothes and advised the other builders that he needed to go into town on business.

At about 2:15pm at the City Hall, Liftman George Jones accepted two passengers for a trip to the observation landing of the tower - a man (George Betts) & a woman, who on appearance seemed to be strangers to one another.  About 5 minutes later, the woman entered the lift once more & was transported back down to the ground floor.  A couple of minutes transpired where George Betts was left alone on the observation landing - it can only be assumed as to what took place at the top of the tower during those short few minutes, however a loud crash was heard by those on the lower levels of the Hall soon after.  On investigation, a large hole could be seen in the roof of the Hall facing King George Square.  A room search was immediately conducted, resulting in the discovery of George's body - he had plummeted over 40 metres from the observation landing, through the galvanised iron roof of City Hall, coming to rest on the concrete floor of a chamber off the record room.  Subsequently, his brief bag was located alongside the telescope at the top of the tower.

An inquest was conducted shortly after the accident, at which a number of witnesses were called.  At this hearing, the safety of the observation landing was immediately called into question - were the installed safety railings adequate to prevent sightseers from accidentally falling from the tower?  Evidence was given that it would not be possible for a sightseer to fall over the rail whilst on the observation landing - "the only way one could fall from the rail would be to climb up to look out at something." Constable Fursman of the Brisbane Police provided testimony that he had thoroughly examined the safety rail, and that, "It would be impossible for anyone to fall over the grill support near the telescope under ordinary conditions unless he climbed upon it."  In his opinion, there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.  To that end, the Inquest was closed.

We can only postulate the events that led up to the accident that fateful day, but the main question remains - what possessed George Betts to climb over the safety rail leading to his subsequent fatal fall?  Perhaps his visit to the doctor earlier that morning had resulted in bad news about his health, convincing him to take his own life later that afternoon?   Regardless, it's safe to say that previous tales guessing at the historic origins of the City Hall Tower ghost can now be put to rest - the mystery Lift Attendant, who at no stage came to an untimely end in the City Hall in the dereliction of duty, has been proven beyond reasonable doubt not guilty!