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 its founders was George Brown, a self-made businessman who was a pioneer of the Queensland timber industry. To tell us all about George and the business at the Society’s meeting in May will be George’s great-grandson, Boyd Brown.
The firm enabled Queenslanders to buy a ‘Queenslander kit home’, complete with a book of instructions — which began: “First peg out on the ground the positions of the corner stumps of the proposed building, as shown on the working drawing…”
Come and enjoy Boyd’s address at the meeting to be held at the Uniting Church Centre, 52 Merthyr Rd, New Farm, at 2.30pm on Saturday, 28 May. A sumptuous afternoon tea will follow. $10 (members $5). All are welcome.
Enjoy the talk here.
My father Kelvin Sydney James worked there for over 20 years until his retirement aged 65, sometime in the 1970’s.
I believe he had a job slicing and matching veneer.
My sister Shirley James also worked there.
I was wondering if there were any records kept of when they started and finished.
Thank you
Robert James
Hi Robert
I will pass your enquiry on to Boyd Brown and ask him to contact you. I hope you enjoyed the presentation
kind regards
Desley Garnett
President
NFDHS
Hello, My name is Rune Christiansen son of Bendt Rudolph Christiansen. Reading up on some family history and i noticed correspondence from Brown and Broad. It turns out my father was the General Manager for North Queensland and specifically two mills. The letter of employment was dated 28.05.64 and signed by the then Managing Director E. Hancock I think???? The writing is a bit illegible. If you would like to contact me regarding this:
runechristiansen@bigpond.com
Hello Rune
thank you for contacting us with this information. I will pass your comments on to Boyd Brown and to our historian who may want to contact you for further information.
I hope you enjoyed Boyd’s presentation, particularly in the light of your family connection to the business.
Regards
Desley Garnett
President, NF&DHS
Desley,
My name is Alan Stamp and I worked at B&B in 1963>1964 after being transferred from Hancock &Gore at Ipswich Road. Stan Hancock was the CEO at that time with George Vallance as Manager and Don Revie as Sales manager? I started as assistant to the paymaster Mac— and can recall Earl Dunning as accountant, a driver named Jack who used to drive a grey Austin A40. We used to play serious cards ‘500’ most lunchtimes. I learned a lot about timber and plywood products manufacture. My daily round of saw, peeling, planing/slicing mills, gluing, sanding sections collecting time sheets and production reports. Making up cash wages payroll was a a rewarding exercise, particularly
when you had no tenbob notes or small silver or copper left over. If you were short it meant a troll through a hundred or so pay packets until you found some lucky bugger who had more than he should have had. There was also a payroll made up for Roy Cook who ran a team of painters and dockers and ships carpenters servicing shipping at Hamilton and Bretts wharves. Roy would collect maybe 15-20 paypackets stick them inside his shirt under his jacket and make the rounds of the ships being worked upon. No way could you do this now. No ships and security nightmare. My dad wotked at Rheem in Bulimba an would drop me off to catch the ferry across the river for my trek past the wool stores through the railway yards past the gasometer and into B&B. So different now. My big break came when it was discovered that Mac— was running some phantom employees and given the push. New job for a 19yearold as Paymaster and 20 quid a week to boot. B&B was taken over by PGH industries Mid 64 and that left me without a job as they had a spare Certified accountant doing nothing. Stan hancock gave me a good bonus send off as I then started my 32 year Journey in the airline industry with Ansett ANA then Ansett in crew scheduling and operations. Back to 12 quid a week and later a wonderful career which started before jet aircraft started flying domestic schedules and finished soon after a magical 3 years working for/with Nikki Lauda in Vienna in the late 90’s. Such is reminiscing and the memories it brings and the joy of shating it with you. Kind Regards ,Alan Stamp…
Hello Alan
So lovely to read your story Alan. It is an interesting picture of employment and wages as it was within our living memory. How old were you when you started work?
Would it be OK with you if we used it as a ‘reminiscing piece’ in our newsletter? Do you regularly receive our newsletter?
Kind regards
Desley
Hi Desley,
Glad you found my snippet of the past interesting. It was a formative part of my life and as you say ‘within our living memory’ is special.
I attended Wynnum State High School to Senior and a start at Hancock & Gore came in Feb 1963 as a clerk at age 18 1/2. In the Ipswich road premises tucked up under the railway line as it was then but now the busway runs through the site.
I can clearly recall a few things that we dont experience in that area of Newstead these days.
The smell of the woolstores on a sunny summer morning, the smell of gas and steam from the goods yard and the wonderful smell of fresh cut timberfrom B&B as I walked to work from the ferry. Seeing traffic waiting while a flagman with his red flag lead a steam engine across the fiveways intersection and the tram lines, pushing wagons of logs into the yard. The different sounds and rythms of each machine in the mill. Huge saws and belt driven monster lathes that peeled the logs into a continuous strip. The whole complexity of machinery for a dedicated use straight out of the industrial revolution and controlled by a hands on workforce.. Men and women from a wide range of countries hard at work and the different languages and accents struggling to communicate against the cacophony of the machinery, and then the subdued sounds of chatter at knock off time as these workers punched their cards and walked out the gates with a wave and a tip of their hats. We rarely see that now as manufacturing industry wanes. Now as I fast approach my four score years
and rarely pass through the Newstead area any more I still have a flush of pride when I look back to a time when you could see, and were part of, ‘stuff being made’!
By all means use my words and memories as you wish. I was previously unaware of your organization but now please include me in your mailing list.
I now live in Thornlands and don’t get to Brisbane very often but there are a few parts that haven’t changed much over the years.
Cheers,
Alan Stamp.
ps. Feel free to contact me directly if you wish. Question?- Do you remember the finicular that went up to Cloudland or even Cloudland itself? I have a friend now in his Nineties who had a dance band that played on the final night at Cloudland. Funny world eh!
Hi Desley
I am Lloyd Hancock, son of Eric Stanley (Stan) Hancock who was Managing Director of Brown & Broad from 1937 and then CEO until 1966. After leaving B&B he, with my mother , Sheliah, started the Earlystreet historical village at Norman Park . He was President of the National trust of Qld when the Bellevue hotel was demolished and was part of the saving of ANZAC square and St Martins Hospital group.
Some time ago you very kindly put me in contact with Boyd Brown who gave a wonderful talk about his grandfather George Brown who started Brown & Broad. Boyd covered part of the story.
I am the last living family member who worked in the organization so I am able to add a little Boyd’s story of the company . I have some original letters, reports and price lists from when Hancock & Gore brought the company from George Brown. I also had a letter book of George Browns of approx. 1903 which shows copies of the daily letters of business transaction of the company some written by George himself.
The story of the two families had a number of links.
My grandfather Josias Henry (Harry) Hancock, (Stanley’s father) started Hancock & Gore . The family’s story is fascinating. Two brothers seeking gold unsuccessfully at Gympie started to pitsaw timber. This led to the starting of two very big timber companies, Hancock Brothers in Ipswich and Hancock & Gorem in Brisbane.
It is a long story, and I gave a talk about it last year to a History Group so if it is of interest let me know.
But back to George Brown. George worked for my great grandfather Josias Hancock . (Josias and his brother Thomas Jnr were the two Hancock Bros.)
George Brown was put in charge of the timber yard at the Buranda end of Wellington Road, Woolloongabba. My grandfather Harry Hancock had just left school and worked under George so they knew each other. In the floods of about1893 the timber years were washed away. I think about this time or a bit later George left and formed Brown & broad Homes. Boyd’s talked about the company while George was running it
During the depression of the 1930’s all companies were struggling for many years to survive. Hancock & Gore by cutting all executives wages and cost savings were profitable, but B&B had a series of losses over many years. In 1936 George Brown who was unwell approached Harry Hancock and asked if he wished to buy his company since he wished to retire. Since negotiations were confidential, he selected one of his sons in the business to examine the proposition. My father, Stanley, was given the task of looking at the books of B&B and assessing if it could be brought and made profitable. The decision was made to buy it initially by cash and then later by a share exchange. Stanley since he had been involved developing the business plan was tasked with “making the company profitable” and appointed as Managing Director.
WW2 came and he was manpowered since timber and Plywood were essential for all sorts of war use. Many ships had to be worked on to install dunnage for cargoes and for building of life rafts on ships. Stanley was given a pass allowing him in war time to go to ships and I have that pass.
In one of the posts Alan Stamp mentions Roy Cook who was in charge of a team of carpenters who worked on the ships. The rumour was that he picked up business at ‘His office” at the breakfast creek hotel.
Alex Valance was the General manager and Bob Revie was the Company secretary. Eric Gray ran the Joinery shop; Freddy Werner ran the log yard and his brother Reg was the saw doctor. “Happy”’ Appleton ran the garage looking after the fleet of trucks, fork lifts and Jeepneys (a motorised platform which could move loads of material) . I think it was Norm Pickering who ran the Hardware shop.
The company had huge boilers which came from the Chillagoe gold fields which generated steam which was used for driving big electric generators , drying kilns and the hot presses for making plywood. Once when blackout occurred B&B had its lights blazing and questions were asked . It was just after the war.
The company was self sufficient since it could make almost anything. This is shown by the number of trades. It had sawyers, carpenters, cabinetmakers, plumbers, electricians, glaziers, fitters and turners, lathe operators, chemists, sales men , accountants ,typists and machine operators, crane drivers, watchmen, truck and fork lift drivers, storemen and lots of other skilled people.
This was only at Newstead. The company had country mills and mill townships where it provided the school and store and community hall. These were at Monsildale, Beerwah and Carruchan in Nth Qld, Townsville .
There was a woodwool factory at Meandah . This was a type of fine wood shavings used for packing fruit.
There were two rail spurs crossing Breakfast Creek Road one went to the gas works, the other went through B&B yards where logs were unloaded and continued to the petrol wharf behind B& B where trains were loaded then sent across the road where shell had its depot, then dispatched to country and other areas. The Rail man with a red flag and a bell was a common sight as he escorted the trains across a busy road
Lloyd Hancock
70 Richmond St
Chelmer 4068
chelmerhoney@gmail.com
Mob 0498395352