past events

22nd Feb 2025 including the launch of the new Society logo Presented by: Michael Moy Vicki Howard Ben Pritchard Gerard Benjamin We have quite a number of interesting speakers lined

23rd November 2024 WHO remembers the Christmas window displays at McWhirter’s, Waltons and T. C. Beirne—or the end-of- year workplace and children’s parties in New Farm Park? At our November

26th October 2024 | by Miriam King Uncovering the fascinating story about a trail-blazing young woman was initially and literally like“pulling teeth”! Martha Burns, who was born and bred in

9th November 2024 MEET US at the bus stop adjacent to the To Be Thai restaurant, 92 Merthyr Rd. This is the starting point for a 90-minute walk which will

Please note : This event is now CANCELLED, due to family reasons. 16th November 2024 The walk will wander in and around the woolstores of Teneriffe. Attendees will be afforded special

14th November ( Thursday) Join Society President, Desley Garnett , for a welcome afternoon tea for all new members. Held monthly, this event is open to anyone, whether new, long-standing,

28th Sept 2024 | presentation by Claire Moore Brisbane’s oldest house has recently re-opened after a $6.6 million renovation. The grand 1846 building was previously home to the fabulously wealthy

19th Oct 2024 Join this historical tour setting out along Oxlade Drive to walk a half-circle of the peninsula.. MEET US at the bus stop adjacent to the New Farm

14th Sep 2024 Come join us at Teneriffe for a fascinating event exploring the history of woolstores and warships. Discover the rich heritage of these iconic structures and the vessels

21st Sep 2024 A walking tour from the flats of Newstead to the vistas offered by Teneriffe Hill. It’s history all the way… MEET US in the Plaza at Newstead

24th August 2024 Tucked away at the back of New Farm Park, in the area behind where the kiosk once stood, is the place you can expect to find people

each Thursday in Sep 2024 Guided by knowledgeable historian Robert Allen who will bring the past to life, sharing intriguing tales and little-known facts about the hotel’s storied past. Commemorating

3rd Aug 2024 Come join tour guide – Ben Pritchard-  for an interesting walking tour from Gasworks Plaza to Commercial Road. Explore the rich history of this area with our

13th-14th July 2024 Brisbane Open House (BOH) returns in July and this year there’s a special focus on New Farm’s heritage. BOH is an annual weekend celebrating notable buildings and

27th July 2024 Brisbane City Council’s Brisbane Greeters program connects residents and visitors with enthusiastic locals who lead free walking tours. It’s a fantastic opportunity to discover the city through

22nd June 2024 The New Farm and Districts Historical Society will acknowledge 30 years. Gathering information from the past …Preserving it for the future at their monthly public meeting on

Sat 29th June 2024 Spend a Saturday afternoon exploring the fascinating history of Fortitude Valley’s oldest hotels. Most of Brisbane’s oldest pubs are long gone, but Fortitude Valley still retains

Sat, 6 Jul 2024 Join this historical walking tour over Bowen Hills, for a closer look at where Cloudland was once top spot. MEET US in the Plaza at Newstead

18th May 2024 MEET US at the bus stop adjacent to the To Be Thai restaurant, 92 Merthyr Rd. This is the starting point for a 90-minute walk which will

25th May 2024 | by Mark (Brizzypix) Coleman Mark Coleman is a freelance photographer specialising in low light and night photography and is founder of Brizzypix. He will showcase his

Saturday, 1 June 2024 Join the Princess Theatre’s historian Robert Allen for a behind-the-scenes tour of Brisbane’s oldest performing arts venue. Born as a community hall in 1889, the Princess

20th April 2024 MEET US at the bus stop adjacent to the New Farm Park Ferry Terminal. This is the starting point for a 90-minute walk along Oxlade Drive as

27th April 2024 | Speaker: Tamsin O’Connor 2024 marks the Bicentennial of Moreton Bay, a notorious penal station established on the northern fringes of the vast territory the British had

Saturday, 20th April 2024 Come and explore the social and retail history of one of Fortitude Valley’s main arteries with professional historian Robert Allen. Beginning at Centenary Place Park and

24th February 2024 Fortitude Valley’s Centenary Place will be the subject of the society’s first talk for 2024. Located at the city end of Valley, the heritage listed park is

Sat 9th March 2024 Join the Princess Theatre’s historian Robert Allen for a behind-the-scenes tour of Brisbane’s oldest performing arts venue. Born as a community hall in 1889, the Princess

23rd March 2024 Join this historical walking tour through the Heart of popular New Farm, taking a closer look at beautiful homes and landmarks. MEET your guide, Gerard Benjamin, near

23rd March 2024 TradeCoast Central Heritage Park is at the heart of three heritage sites at the location of Brisbane’s former Eagle Farm Airport. Bob Tucker from the Interpretive Centre

25th November 2023 our backyards before sewerage… Laugh along with Denis Stirling Also –  Book signing – “New Farm: 50 Stories” When people heard that there was a new book

Sat 18th Nov 2023 Join the Princess Theatre’s historian Robert Allen for a behind-the-scenes tour of Brisbane’s oldest performing arts venue. Born as a community hall in 1889, the Princess

7th October 2023 MEET US in front of To Be Thai Restaurant at 92 Merthyr Rd, New Farm, for a 90-minute walk along the less-travelled streets of New Farm and

23rd September 2023 Before multinational soda giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi dominated the market, Brisbane had its own thriving soft drink industry. Hauritz (or Horitz) drinks in Longland St, Newstead, was

Wed 27 Sep 2023 Join the Princess Theatre’s historian Robert Allen for a behind-the-scenes tour of Brisbane’s oldest performing arts venue. Born as a community hall in 1889, the Princess

Sat 28th October 2023 Building Brisbane’s new underground has meant digging deep in the city at a variety of locations. During excavation, demolition and removing rubble from worksites, a number

12 Aug 2023 | FULLY BOOKED Grab some mates and come spend a Saturday afternoon exploring the fascinating history of Fortitude Valley’s oldest hotels. Many of Brisbane’s oldest pubs are

Mon 21st August 2023 Join the Princess Theatre’s historian Robert Allen for a behind-the-scenes tour of Brisbane’s oldest performing arts venue. Born as a community hall in 1889, the Princess

26th August 2023 (incorporating AGM) Lisa Jones, Curator of the Qld Police Museum, will present Policing in New Farm and Fortitude Valley. Policing in New Farm and Fortitude Valley since

8 Jul 2023 This walking tour will be lead by Ben Pritchard, who has lived and worked in the area for more than 20 years. He has seen the area

15th-16th July 2023 Brisbane Open House is an annual event which allows you to explore heritage, religious and cultural buildings, places and spaces you may not otherwise see. It is

22nd July 2023 Looking ahead to our July Meeting Our Guest Presenter in July will be Emeritus Professor Roly Sussex OAM who is a specialist in language, communication and culture,

29th July 2023 Enjoy this historical walking tour through the Heart of New Farm, taking in landmarks and homes, and lots of stories. MEET US in front of New Farm

click to watch recording of the Event on Vimeo 24th June 2023 Come for a virtual walk with Gerard Benjamin For a certain generation, Cloudland ballroom evoked magic, renowned for

17th June 2023 Join this historical walking tour over Bowen Hills, for a closer look at where Cloudland was once top spot. MEET US in the Plaza at Newstead Gasworks

Sat 20th May 2023 The next meeting will be held on Saturday 20th May at 2.30pm at the Uniting Church Centre, 52 Merthyr Rd New Farm. The meeting will feature

22nd April 2023 | Speaker: Brian Martin Brian will talk about the PENSACOLA CONVOY, seven American military transport ships and their escorting warship which were making a routine voyage to

15th April 2023 Join this historical tour setting out along Oxlade Drive to walk a half-circle of the peninsula. MEET US at New Farm Park adjacent to the Ferry Terminal.

30th April 2023 The history and stories of New Farm and Kangaroo Point, viewed from New Farm’s ‘Riverwalk’. Join us for a 1.5 hr leisurely stroll along New Farm’s ‘Riverwalk’.

18th March 2023 International architectural trends transformed colonial New Farm. BOOK TICKETS During the Inter War period (1918-1939) local architects drew inspiration from the Californian bungalow and Mediterranean aesthetic, while

4th March 2023  Join this historical walking tour through the Heart of New Farm, taking in landmarks and homes, and lots of stories. MEET US on the Brunswick St/Sydney St

25th February 2023 — WATCH THE TALK: https://vimeo.com/802210612 Or…how a place that exists only in my memory, can hold and ground me more than many structures where I’ve lived. Speaker

Saturday 26th November 2022 — VIEW THE TALK HERE. Guest Speaker – Dr. Bill Metcalf Brisbane: Utopian Dreams and Dystopian Nightmares tells the stories of little-known, and rather peculiar aspects of

Saturday, 22 October 2022 — VIEW THE TALK HERE. COME and hear about the key role played by COAST-WATCHERS during WWII in the lands and seas just to the north of Australia. Commander

Saturday, 24 September 2022  — VIEW THE TALK HERE. The “Three Ladies of Moreton Bay”, Mirimar, Mirana and Mirabel, are well remembered by the people of Brisbane for their bay and river

Saturday, 27 August 2022 —— VIEW THE TALK HERE: https://vimeo.com/743880853 THE landmark Prince Consort Hotel in Wickham St, Fortitude Valley, celebrates its 134th birthday this August.  Hear all about this princely pub

Saturday, 23 July 2022 —— Enjoy the talk here. IF a picture is worth a thousand words, then John McDonnell’s Lost Brisbane Facebook Community site, which is chockful of images

Saturday, 25 June 2022 —— Enjoy the talk here. HISTORIC Dovercourt, on the prime hilltop location at 124 Sherwood Rd, Toowong, was built at the same time (1865) and by the same

Saturday, 28 May 2022 —— Enjoy the talk here. On Breakfast Creek Rd near the gasometer once stood the venerable business of Brown and Broad, Newstead Homes (est. 1898).  One of

Saturday, 23 April 2022 —— Enjoy the talk here. FOLLOWING Pearl Harbour and the fall of Singapore, the tremendous war effort meant that Americans forces soon ‘occupied’ Brisbane. All up, it

Saturday, 26 March 2022 —— Enjoy the talk here. BRISBANE HISTORIAN Helen Gregory is to be the guest at our first meeting for 2022. She will speak about ‘The People of Newstead

Exhibition Opening The opening of the “Two to the Valley” exhibition is set for 5pm on Thursday, 17 March, at the Maud Street Photo Gallery, 6 Maud St, Newstead. You

Coronet Court Flats Revisited :: View the talk here. Coronet Court at 995 Brunswick St, a New Farm landmark since 1933, was the subject of a talk to the Society

Saturday, 27 November 2021 —— Enjoy the talk here In February 2018 when digging up William St in Brisbane in preparation for the new Queen’s Wharf project, workmen made an amazing

Saturday, 30 October 2021 —— Enjoy the talk here At our October meeting, historian Sr Anne Hetherington will present ‘The Bells of St Stephen’s’, centring on the St Stephen’s site

Saturday, 25 September 2001 :: View the talk here. The Canada Cycle and Motor Agency was established by long-term New Farm resident, Alexander Vaughan Dodwell of Moray St. With branches

Saturday 24 July 2021, 2.30pm — View Steve’s talk here…  BRISBANE’S love affair with swimming from early colonial days to the present will be in focus at the July meeting of

ACCORDING to speaker Col Hester from Urban Utilities on Sat 26 June 2021 at New Farm: “What allows you to have a nice quality of life and not drop dead

Saturday 26 June, 2.30pm — View the presentation here. “THE Long Story of How Brisbane was Sewered” is the intriguing title of our June meeting when our guest is to be

Saturday 22 May, 2.30pm — View the meeting here. “IT would be a pleasure to share some of my research about Joshua Jeays, an important early resident and builder in

24 April 2021 — View the meeting here. AT our April meeting, the presenter will be Noel Adsett OAM who has researched the lives of most of the soldiers, doctors

27 March 2021. View the presentation here. AT our March meeting, historian, presenter and teacher, Mark Cryle, will explore the origins of Anzac Day. In 2016 Mark was awarded a Q

27th February 2021 THE FEBRUARY MEETING of the New Farm & Districts Historical Society will take you aloft for an insider’s peek into the fascinating occupation of air hostess. Imagine

28th November 2020 WHEN you build a town on a floodplain, you must be prepared for it to flood. That is the proposition underlying Dr Margaret Cook’s popular book, A

HEAR all about the McWhirters era when writer Melissa Fagan is the guest speaker at the coming October meeting of the New Farm & Districts Historical Society. Join us for the

Here’s your chance to revisit the McWhirters era when writer Melissa Fagan addresses the October meeting of the New Farm and Districts Historical Society.  Melissa is a great-great-granddaughter of the

26th Sept 2020 Hoadley, MacRobertson and Sweetacres! They were once household names for kids of the baby-boomer generation — so we are pleased to announce that the “Sweet history of lollies”

Well ahead of the start time, the hall at Merthyr Road was ready for attendees to be suitably physically distanced. By 2pm, around 40 members were seated. The two cameras

22nd Aug 2020 OUR FIRST PUBLIC MEETING post-COVID isolation. Jill Barker will share information about the Japanese House in New Farm. This remarkable residence was pre-fabricated in Japan in 1886

Considering the pandemic situation, I am sure that it will come as the increasing gravity of the no surprise to hear that the committee, after carefully considering the implications of

28th March 2020 view announcement here Here’s something very different for the meeting of the New Farm & Districts Historical Society on Saturday 28 March. Come to enjoy an historic

22nd February 2020 Mrs Lores Bonney, wife of Harry Bonney, a wealthy leather goods manufacturer, appears  a to have led a fairly conventional life in their comfortable home in Jordan

23rd November 2019 Jacarandas are pictured in bloom at Sir Samuel Griffith’s grand residence, Merthyr, which had frontages to Moray Street (between Merthyr and Sydney Sts) and the river. The

5 October 2019 Gerard will conduct an Historical Walk around Teneriffe on Saturday, 5 October, 9-11.30am. Meet from 8.30 onwards at Dot210 Cafe at 53 Vernon Terrace. It will include

26th October 2019 A new book entitled Brisbane Bricks by local authors Joanne Heath and Virginia Russell has had people looking afresh at an astonishing variety of the city’s landmarks.

28th September 2019 But for urban renewal in Teneriffe, the pleasing lines of buildings such as the London Woolstore (pictured above) may have been reduced to rubble. The 1991 federal

31st August 2019 Interested in a walking tour around the streets of New Farm? Here’s a chance to view a selection of local landmarks and to hear a little of

24th August 2019 The late Dr Harry Windsor—who once lived in a house on Merthyr Road—recalls as a child accompanying his father on his medical rounds. Pointed out to him

27th July 2019 At our July meeting we welcome back George Symons with more stories about his Greek background,this time from the other side of the family in Melbourne. “My

22nd June 2019 This suburb’s crime past… New Farm hasn’t always been the suburb that rates a nine out of 10 for tranquillity. Go back 30 or more years and

25th May 2019 Once upon a time, a grand house named Dara stood overlooking Fortitude Valley just across from All Hallows School. The account of Dara and how the site

27th April 2019 FOR our meeting closest to Anzac Day, we have invited Associate Professor Martin Crotty to talk about those returning home from war. We often hear about the

23rd March 2019 How many ghosts does your house have? What kind of characters owned your property since it was built in 1895? Your house was once divided up into

23rd February 2019 Guest Speaker: Caylie Jeffery You’re renovating your old New Farm Queenslander and after you pull up the lino, you can’t help taking a closer look at the

24th November 2018 Once upon a time there was a modest learning institution in Moray Street, affectionately dubbed ‘The Little School that Time Forgot’. The New Farm Private School was

3rd Nov 2018 Both Brisbane and Fremantle saw scores of allied submarines based in these ports during the war years. A large facility was created in New Farm and Teneriffe,

13th October 2018 Unlock the history of the Winchcombe Carson Woolstore, the oldest surviving woolstore in Queensland. This attractive Federation era design building contains over one million bricks! Following the

September 2018 marks the 120-year anniversary of the opening of McWhirter & Son, the cash drapery that went on to become one of Queensland’s biggest and best-loved department stores. In

13th October 2018 Not that long ago, the narrow spaces around Fortitude Valley were just that — spaces, not vibrant laneways. These days, however, the area boasts not one, not

27th October 2018 Even those of us with no Italian will hazard a  fair guess as to the meaning of: “Associazione Nazionale Famiglie Emigrati”. ANFE was started in Italy after

22nd September 2018 SEPTEMBER’S meeting of the Society will feature Marisa Vecchio AM telling the story of Hanworth House, the grand residence dating from 1864 which stands at 109 Lytton

25th August 2018 A Young Englishman arrives to work on an outback sheep station and ends up writing a “fast-paced, suspenseful” novel that has melodrama, romance and comedy, with many

28th July 2018 THE speaker at the Society’s July meeting will be Julie Hornibrook, granddaughter of Sir Manuel (1893-1970), a name synonymous with master building in Queensland. “It’s remarkable that