Ipswich & Family History

Microfilm Available in Ipswich Central Library Local History Room
Moreton Bay Courier	1846 – 1861
The Courier	1862 – 1865
Queensland Daily Guardian	Apr 1860 – Dec 1868
Ipswich Punch	1866 – 1871
Ipswich Observer & Moreton Advocate	1870 – 1879
Daily Observer & East & West Moreton Advocate	Jan 1879 – Dec 1879
Rosewood Register & Marburg Mail	1911 – 1954
Ipswich Adviser	Jan 1960 – Dec 1965
Rural Times	1985 – 1992
The Satellite	1978 – 1994
Goodna – Redbank Weekly Times	1987 – 1994
Super Southsider	1991 – 1993
Valley Times	1993
James Ivory Diaries & Letter Book
Queensland State Archives Immigration Department Registers of Migrants	1848 – 1912
Ipswich Advertiser	Jan 1981 – Dec 1996
Queensland Times	Jan 1918 – June 2020

The European history of Ipswich began with the exploration of the Bremer River in 1827 by Captain Patrick Logan, the commandant of the convict settlement at Brisbane. He discovered hills of limestone along the banks of the Bremer, and in the following year, sent an overseer and five convicts to quarry limestone and erect a lime-burning kiln. This settlement was known as Limestone Station. The convict period began in 1827 and lasted for fifteen years. It was initially little more than a convict camp for supplying lime and sheep for Brisbane’s needs. However, in 1842 a site for a town was surveyed.

In 1842, following the opening up of the region to free settlement, Limestone Station was transformed into a town and the following year it was renamed Ipswich. Being at the intersection of routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley gave Ipswich strategic significance and for a time townspeople and graziers alike hoped that it would become the capital port on the river. However after Queensland separated from New South Wales, Brisbane leapt ahead and became the new state’s capital city.

While the colony of Queensland was struggling for independence, so too was the fledgling settlement of Ipswich, which gained municipal status in 1860. In the early 1860s, the first railway line in Queensland began construction and by 1865 the line from Ipswich to Bigge’s Camp (later known as Grandchester) was officially opened. However, it was another decade before the line between Ipswich and Brisbane was completed. But for the shortage of cotton during the American Civil War, the town might have been seriously hindered, due to droughts, floods, high unemployment and depression which the people of Ipswich faced in the late 1860s.

Because of the demand for local produce and manufacturers, Ipswich was commercially buoyant by the end of the 1870s and enjoyed prosperity during the boom of the 1880s. As coal was required for the increasing number of steam engines employed in boats, trains, mills and works, there was a remarkable growth of mining to the north and east of the town from the mid-1870s onwards, swelling the population of the Ipswich area.

By the 1870s, however, America had regained its economic impetus, so that local farmers turned increasingly to dairy farming. In 1893 floods and severe economic depression were once again having a serious effect on the Ipswich area. Nevertheless, Ipswich was partially insulated by its diversified economy.

The Local History Rooms at Ipswich Central and Rosewood Libraries contain extensive resources to assist with local and family history research.

The purpose of the Local History Rooms is to ensure the preservation of information and resources specifically related to the history of Ipswich and the surrounding region for present and future generations.