The Great Fire of Brisbane in 1864

The Great Fire of Brisbane in 1864 was a major turning point for this city. Before the fire, a lot of convict buildings were still in use, but this event really marked the beginning of their replacement, helping transform this old convict settlement into a city recognizable to anyone from the 1960s or 70s.

There aren't many images of the fire itself. The only one I could find was an engraving by a recently arrived migrant named Richard Watt. This image shows a view looking towards North Quay, with former convict barracks visible. There were no photos, of course, as photography was still very new. The day after the fire, the Brisbane Courier ran a headline about "Terrific and Disastrous Fire, 50 tenements destroyed," describing it as one of the most disastrous conflagrations Queensland had ever seen.

Brisbane had only just become the capital of the new colony in the late 1850s. The State Government then repealed Governor Gipps' restriction law, which had stopped Brisbane from spreading and had set aside areas for indigenous people. Gipps himself had said Brisbane didn't need money for new buildings, calling it just a colonial outpost. Locals really didn't like that description.

The city was experiencing a population explosion, with enormous growth between 1861 and 1864. Accommodation was drastically short, with up to seven ships a week arriving in Moreton Bay. People were pitching tents and building humpies of bark and tin, some of which were then rented out at very high rates.

There were also some serious issues with sanitation. Water was delivered and paid for, with no plumbing system, and it wasn't very clean. It came from a pond in Roma Street, which was fenced, but animals still got in, drank from it, and died in it. Rubbish and industrial waste weren't removed, and there were fumes from tanning. Despite this, there was still a lot of bush visible within the CBD.

It was a pretty devastating 12 months for Brisbane. A map shows not only this December fire, but also fires in April and September, and areas where houses were destroyed by a cyclone in March. Boats were sunk in Moreton Bay and people were killed.