Cairns Courthouse History

Background

The Cairns Court House complex, comprising the former court house and the former Public Offices (now the Cairns Regional Art Gallery), is an important illustration of the growth of Cairns in the period between the First and Second World Wars, when Cairns was transformed from a late 19th century town to a progressive post-war city.

The city's spectacular growth at this time is due mostly to the Queensland Government's confidence in Cairns as an important regional centre. The complex is located on a 2 acre site reserved since 1876 for police purposes, and up until 1992 the Cairns Police Station was located adjacent to these two buildings. The government had a contiuous presence here from 1876 to 1992.

The single storey Court House and the two storey Art Gallery are both constucted in masonry, and are fine examples of the public architecture of the time.

History

The city of Cairns was first established in 1876 as a port to service the newly discovered goldfields on the Hodgkinson River. In these early years the town was a shanty town of tents and temporary timber dwellings. However in 1885 the government announced that Cairns would be the terminus for a new railway to the mining and agricultural centres of the nearby Atherton Tablelands. This gave a tremendous boost to the local economy and much of the early structures were replaced by more permanent ones.

The first court in Cairns was a temporary timber building and was probably located on the customs reserve, as suggested by early survey plans from 1877 and 1878.

The "temporary" courthouse remained in use for several years, but was replaced with a more substantial timber court house erected in 1884 on the Esplanade, but facing Abbott Street, on the police reserve. By 1890, however, the local court had outgrown its court house, and the building was in a state of disrepair.

In 1917, AB Brady, Government Architect and Under Secretary for Public Works, finally acknowledged that the Cairns Court House was beyond renovation and that a new building was necessary. Plans were prepared in the government architect's office in 1918, working drawings were completed by January 1919, tenders for the supply of materials were called early in 1919, and construction was commenced in May that year.

As a post-First World War initiative by the state government to create employment for returned servicemen, the new court house at Cairns was constructed using day labour, under the supervision of the District Foreman of Works, EJ Oakley. The construction period stretched over two and a half years, with the Cairns community attributing the slow progress of the building to the use of day labour.

Some of the joinery was made in government workshops in Brisbane and shipped to Cairns, but the remainder of the timber used in the construction was secured from the Cairns hinterland. Particularly impressive were the silky oak fittings in the court room. The roof was of fibrous-cement tiles with terracotta ridge capping. This roof was replaced with corrugated fibrous-cement roof sheeting in 1953, at which time the roof ventilators were removed.

By November 1921 the new court house, which had cost over £13,500, was completed, and the court room was used for the first time on 17 January 1922.

In 1968, the building was extended at a cost of approximately $53,000, with the extentions rendered to match the existing facades, and the roof re-clad with corrugated iron sheeting. The remodelling created a second court room and a magistrate's court.

The building continued to be used as the city court house until completion of a much larger police station and courthouse complex in Sheridan St in 1992. The building remained vacant for several years before being renovated as a hotel in 1998, and the current management took over in September of 2004.