Guide 2: Tracing the History of Your House
Introduction
If you own or occupy a Queensland house you may be curious to know its history. With a little bit of research you may find out the names, occupations and history of previous owners, the date the building was constructed and the types of changes made to your house over the years.
Research will help you to understand the unique history and characteristics of your house. Any work you then undertake on your house can be designed to help protect and enhance the property's unique value. This leaflet provides general guidelines to help you research the history of your house.
Place The House In Its Historical Context
Understand The Setting
The first step is to take a good look at your property and try to understand how it fits into the surrounding landscape. The setting is an important part of a house, try to imagine how the landscape looked prior to settlement. Geography, climate and the natural environment strongly influenced early settlement patterns and house designs in north Queensland. How did these factors influence your house's design and location?
As in most Queensland towns, early houses in Townsville were constructed of timber and corrugated iron. Verandahs were added to help occupants cope with the hot weather conditions. The houses were raised above ground level and supported by timber stumps.
Local History
There are several local histories of the early settlement of Townsville. These outline the history of settlement and development in Townsville. You can then relate this information back to your own property. The type of information you are looking for includes information on early settlement patterns in Townsville such as: which suburbs and streets were settled first, where were early farms located, were they subdivided for present-day suburbs? Published diaries of early settlers describe what life was like on the frontier. Look for information on the early pioneers of Townsville and the location of their farms and homesteads.
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Examine The House
The next step is to inspect and record the property. Some suggestions for this process follow:
Create Plans
Site Plan
Draw a sketch of your property showing the location of all its features such as the house itself, sheds, outbuildings, gardens and fences. Are there any old trees in the garden? Chances are they form part of the original garden design, or maybe the remains of an old orchard.
Floor Plan
Next draw a plan of the house showing the location of rooms, walls, doors and windows. Keep one copy of the Floor Plan as a master and make a series of copies to make notes on as your research progresses. For example a previous owner may be able to tell you the location of a former doorway that was filled in. Don't forget to label your Floor Plan. Include a key, if you used one, and show the direction north.
Examine The House Itself
The house itself can tell you a lot about past alterations and additions. Carefully examine structural elements and joinery to give you clues to past works on the house. For example, floor framing may indicate an extension to a verandah. Include this information in your plan.
Take Photographs
Using the Site Plan as a guide, take photographs of the property from various angles. On your Site Plan note where you were standing when you took the photograph and what direction you were facing.
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Research
Title Deeds
Once you have placed your house in its historical context you can search for more detailed information about the owners of the land on which your house is built. The Title Office holds Certificates of Title for all transfers of land. The type of information recorded in title deeds includes: size of the land, subdivisions, easements, transfers, mortgages and leases.
To obtain title deeds for your land simply visit the Customer Services Centre, Department of Natural Resources (DNR), State Government Building, 3rd Floor, 187-209 Stanley St. Phone: 4722 1200.
When you contact the DNR, inform them that you are doing an historic title search and that you want image copies. They will ask you for a Real Property Description (RPD) of the property you are interested in. If you don't know the RPD for the property, the current address should provide enough information for the DNR to do the title search.
The DNR will convert the RPD to volume and folio numbers. These numbers are the reference that the Titles Office has allocated to each title. They appear on the face of the title deed in abbreviated form (eg. Vol. 9621 Fol. 665). You may already have a Certificate of Title with these references.
Once you have the reference numbers the DNR should be able to print out a copy of the corresponding certificate of title. DNR charge a nominal fee for this service.
Somewhere on the current title you will find a reference to a parent title. For example, it may say: Derived from Vol. 1234 Fol. 123. You can obtain a copy of this title also (for an additional fee). That title will also have a reference to a parent title and so on and so forth. You can continue requesting previous titles going back as early as you can. The first land sales and grants in Townsville were in 1865.
You can also work forward from the original title, it will refer forward to titles derived from it. However it is safer to work backwards.
How to 'Read' the Title Deeds
There is a large amount of information on the back of each title, including details of changes in ownership and references to mortgages.
A mortgage indicates that the owner has borrowed money on the security of the property, perhaps this money was used to build a house on the land. If the householder died and the property passed to a family member after probate that, too, is recorded on the title.
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Directories and Almanacs
The Post Office Directory is the equivalent of the modern day Yellow Pages and White Pages. The directory names the occupiers of a house, which may be different from the house owners. This will only be an approximate guide because the information was always one year out of date, and often old information persisted. It also specifies the occupant's trade or profession. Bear in mind that the street names and numbering, vacant blocks and subdivisions may have changed so research a whole group of houses at once in your street. Also keep in mind that yours may not be the original building on that site.
If the house was originally built for sale or rent the Directory won't provide the year of construction, only the name of the occupier. The Post Office Directories were produced at irregular intervals between 1868 and 1949.
Almanacs include Pugh's Queensland Almanac (1859-1927) and Willmett's North Queensland Almanac. They contain trade directories and advertisements which may help you find out more about the trade or profession of previous occupants. The Post Office Directory and the almanacs are available on microfiche at the JCU Library.
Council Records
The Council rates books have been indexed by the Family History Association of North Queensland and can be assessed for information.
Townsville City Council Sewerage Plans starting from the 1930s show the position of buildings, including outhouses and sheds. The plans are accurately dated and may prove useful. They can be inspected at Engineering Services, 2nd Floor of the Administration Building, Walker Street, Townsville, during office hours.
Birth, Deaths and Marriage Certificates
By using directories and rates records you will discover the names of people who lived in your house before you. You may wish to find out more about these people and what sort of lives they led. Where were they born? What sort of work did they do? How many children did they have?
The death certificate will tell you all sorts of information about past occupants. It details the person's full name, occupation, marriages and the ages of surviving children. Using this information you can obtain the occupant's marriage certificates, and birth certificates of any children. By examining birth certificates of several children you can determine the father's occupation. Did it remain the same or was he upwardly mobile, rising from junior clerk to branch manager?
You have now begun to build up a picture of the main events in the life of the family who lived in your house. You may even have enough information to attempt to contact living descendants to enable you to find out more about the family history.
The Family History Association of North Queensland holds indexes to the Registrar General's birth, death and marriage records. They also hold cemetery records, books and other material which may help with your research. They can be contacted on 4772 5945 for further information. Also the James Cook University Library hold selected microfiche indexes to births, deaths and marriages and have produced a booklet titled Family History a Select Guide to Sources which researchers find very useful.
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Other Records
Magazines and newspapers may contain interesting pieces of information about your house, its occupants or your street and suburb. The Townsville Knowledge Centre - City Library has copies of the Townsville Herald and the North Queensland Herald on microfilm. The JCU Library also holds publications on microfilm. Be wary though. Searching magazines and newspapers can be very time consuming and you may not uncover any information of interest to your search.
If your house was occupied, designed or built by a prominent person in the community, there may be personal papers, diaries or oral records in the Thuringowa or JCU Library.
Maps
The Townsville City Council have a series of "Historical Plans" for sale. These maps and plans are very important. They sometimes show homesteads, farm buildings, houses, fences, footpaths and so on, existing at the time when the subdivision plan was drawn up.
Oral History
Talking to older local residents and neighbours is also very useful. They often hold a wealth of information and can tell you details about what the house looked like, who used to live there, the children (you may be able to trace them in the telephone directory) and the past garden. They may even have photographs of your house.
You may want to consider writing a letter to the editor of the Townsville Bulletin to contact people who once lived in your house or street.
Dating Your House
Dating a house from its appearance can be difficult. Changes in housing styles usually happen slowly over many years, although it may be possible to use house style to date a house as belonging to a particular era.
Several classifications of house styles have been proposed for Townsville ranging from simple workers dwellings to 1970s contemporary style. But there will always be houses that don't fit neatly into any classification scheme.
The difficulties in dating your house may depend on the builder, the architect and the renovations over the years. Some builders kept to the same basic design throughout their working lives and paid no attention to the house styles of the era. Sometimes there are good examples of particular architectural styles, but some houses have been deliberately built with a mixture of new and traditional features. In addition, extensions and renovations over the years can completely disguise or obscure the original features.
A word of warning - there are problems with removed houses. As with other northern towns, many people moved to Townsville following the decline of mining in nearby centres. Thus houses fitting an earlier construction type may not have arrived in Townsville until after World War I.
This brochure has been prepared for the Townsville City Council by Natural Resource Assessments Pty Ltd, in association with Ralph Power Associates Pty Ltd.
For advice on various technical aspects of house conservation, please refer to the series Conserving the Queensland House, prepared by the National Trust of Queensland, and available from the Townsville City Council Special Projects Unit or from the National Trust Centre, Castling Street, West End.
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Common Townsville House Styles
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Simple Workers Dwelling Gabled Roof
(mid 1860s to mid 1910s) Hale Street, City
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Queensland Bungalow (1880s to late 1920s)
Castling Street, West End - 'Currajong'
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Simple Workers Dwelling Hipped Roof
(late 1860s to 1910s) Tenth Avenue, Railway Estate
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Simple Workers Dwelling Pyramid Roof
(1880s to 1920s) Shaw Street, West End
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Villa Residence "David House" (1880s to 1910s)
Paxton Street, North Ward
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Larger Villa "Warringa" (mid 1890s to mid 1930s)
Cleveland Terrace, Melton Hill
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Asymmetrical Villa (1880s to 1910s)
Victoria Street, Stanton Hill
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Workers Bungalow (mid 1910s to mid 1940s)
Boundary Street, Railway Estate
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Californian Bungalow (early 1920s to late 1950s)
Rose Street, North Ward
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Modern Movement (1930s to 1950s)
Nelson Street, South Townsville
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Post War Austerity (mid 1940s to mid 1950s)
Lancaster Street, Garbutt
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Double and Triple Fronted (mid 1930s to mid 1960s)
Woolcock Street, Hyde Park
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Ranch Style (mid 1950s to mid 1970s)
Landsborough Street, North Ward
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Contemporary Style (1950s to mid 1970s)
Yarrawonga Drive, Yarrawonga
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Further Reading
BELL, P 1984, Timber and Iron: Houses in North Queensland Mining Settlements, 1861-1920, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia.
BRAYSHAW, H 1990 Well Beaten Paths, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville.
FISHER, R and CROZIER, B 1994, The Queensland House, a roof over our heads, Queensland Museum, Brisbane.
GIBSON-WILDE, D M 1984, Gateway to a Golden Land: Townsville to 1884, History Department James Cook University, Townsville.
GIBSON-WILDE, D M and GIBSON-WILDE, B C 1988, A Pattern of Pubs: Hotels of Townsville 1864 to 1914, History Department James Cook University, Townsville.
GIBSON-WILDE, D M and DALTON, B J 1989, Townsville 1888, History Department James Cook University, Townsville.
HAMMOND, M (ed) 1988, The Townsville and District Pioneer and Biographical Register, Townsville.
HOGAN, J 1978, Building Queensland's Heritage, Richmond Hill Press Pty Ltd, Richmond.
HOULDSWORTH, M 1996, The Morning Side of the Hill, James Cook University, Townsville.
NATIONAL TRUST OF QUEENSLAND, 1994-1996, Conserving the Queensland House (the series), National Trust of Queensland, Brisbane.
MATHEW, J 1995, Highways and Byways: The origins of Townsville Street Names, Townsville Library Service, Townsville.
TOWNSVILLE CITY COUNCIL 1996, The Character of Townsville: a community photograph book, Townsville City Council, Townsville.
The North Queensland Resister Christmas Number, 1939. (has photographs of early Townsville street scenes).
The Townsville Bulletin, Jubilee Souvenir, Wednesday, August 27, 1913, (copy located at Townsville Museum).
WATSON, D and MACKAY, J 1985, A Directory of Queensland Architects to 1940, Queensland Museum, Brisbane.
WATSON, D and MACKAY, J 1994, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century, Queensland Museum, Brisbane.
WOODS BAGOT and GIBSON-WILDE, D M 1993, Urban Conservation Study of South Townsville and the Residential D Suburbs of Townsville, Brisbane.
Research Agencies
James Cook University Library
The James Cook University Library maintains a North Queensland Collection, which includes Archives. The Archive is a regional collection of the significant records of organisations and individuals relating to north Queensland, and includes old street maps which can be of great assistance. The North Queensland Collection is indexed and listed in the Library's catalogue and can be searched remotely via the Internet. Members of the public may use the resources of the library subject to demand by members of the university community.
Phone: 4781 4663 for further information.
James Cook University Department of History and Politics
The Photographic Collection and Oral History Collection may be accessed in the Department on the Western Campus. Phone 4781 4733 for an appointment.
CityLibraries
All branches of the Townsville City Council CityLibraries have a range of available resources. Click on the link for more information.
National Trust of Queensland
Castling Street Heritage Centre
5 Castling Street, West End
Opening Hours:
10am to 2pm Wednesay
1pm to 4pm Saturday and Sunday
Phone: 4771 5873
Townsville Museum
231 Hugh Street, Currajong
Opening Hours:
10am to 3pm Monday to Friday
10am to 1pm Weekends
(Open Public holidays except Christmas and Good Friday)
Phone: 4772 5725
Family History Association of North Queensland Inc
5 Baker St, Hermit Park
Post Office Box 3659, Hermit Park, Qld 4812
Phone: 07 4728 2833
Web address: http://www.fhanq.org
Email: fhanq@fhanq.org
Open Hours: Saturday to Thursday, 10am to 2pm
For more information, please phone 4727 9000 or contact the Special Projects Unit.
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