‘Homelea’, Paten Street North Ipswich 1918 and 2009 – Image courtesy of Picture Ipswich
On Saturday the 6th of August, 2016 Ipswich Libraries hosted a special event in conjunction with the Queensland State Archives and Ipswich City Council. The event “Looking Back: Your home and its history” was held at the Ipswich Central Library and was well attended by a wide variety of local residents, who had come to learn how they could discover the history of their home. The session kicked off at 10.00am in the Barry Jones Auditorium with attendees lined up out the door waiting to hear some of the interesting tips and nuggets of knowledge that a number of the speakers had to report on. The first speaker of the day was Cynthia Cochrane of the Queensland State Archives, who talked to our audience about what resources the Queensland State Archives have that could assist with researching the history of a house and how these resources can be found online and at the archives. The archives have a wide selection of original government documents that the public can access including rates books, land agents’ records, land tenure records, Queensland Housing Commission records, Crown Land records and much more. All of these records can assist one way or another in tracking down the elusive history of your house.
The next speaker, Danny Keenan from the Ipswich City Council, developed an interesting discussion around the importance of maintaining the history of Ipswich’s post-war houses, especially as these structures are to be the future of Ipswich’s heritage. Danny talked particularly about “Bleak House” and the development of Cribb Estate, formerly located between Blackstone Road, Stuart Street, Olmai Avenue and Grange Road. Danny reported on the processes and forms of research that the council undertook when discovering the history of “Bleak House” and the land on which it was located, all of which provided valuable insight to satisfactory outcome. As discussion moved towards researching the history of Ipswich’s post-war houses Danny came to discuss prominent Ipswich Architect Karl Langer who designed a number of post-war houses in Ipswich, including a rather luxurious residence for the McQueen family in Raceview, which now stands as testament to architectural styles of the early 1960s.
Lounge and dining area of John McQueen’s residence,Edwards Street, Raceview, Ipswich as designed by Karl Langer, 1963 – Image courtesy of Picture Ipswich
To wrap up this insightful session Sally Hetherington, Ipswich Libraries Digital Archivist, spoke briefly about the range of beautiful houses in and around the Ipswich area, and the constantly growing new estates that are being developed in our regional suburbs. Sally used Picture Ipswich, our online image database, to provide attendees with a glimpse of the sites photographs, whilst also showing participants how people furnished their houses in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. These interesting photographs were enjoyed by many in attendance with some even bringing back warm memories of their own early lives in Ipswich during this by-gone era. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who attended and to extend our thanks to both Cynthia Cochrane and the Queensland State Archives, Danny Keenan and Tanya Jen of the Ipswich City Council, and Sally Hetherington of Picture Ipswich. We hope that all who were able to join us on the day learnt something new and received a healthy dose of inspiration for their future house history detective work!