Norman Park

History of Brisbane's Norman Park

« back to Norman Park home

Norman Park's history has been compiled by local historian, Kate Harbison, as part of the BRISbites community history project.

Aboriginal history

The Coorparoo Clan lived south of the Brisbane River and generally camped along creeks. Their name comes from 'Kulpurum', which was the word for Norman Creek or one of its tributaries. They continued to occupy watercourse campsites after white settlement, while other clans from the region began to move into South Brisbane. In 1846 there were reports of Aborigines raiding produce along Norman Creek.

In 1853, there was a fight between Ningy Ningy, Bribie Island, Amity Point, and Logan tribes at Norman Creek. A visitor in 1855 reported many camps and fishing spots between Stones Corner and the mouth of Norman Creek. In the mid 1850s Charles Meston saw 'a score or so of blacks procure, by means of their tow-rows (hand-held nets), a couple of hundred fish in a few minutes'.

Urban development

Norman Park was probably named after Norman Creek, which forms one boundary of the suburb. It appears unnamed on Oxley's map of 1823, but Lockyer names it as Norman Creek in 1825. Baker's Australian Atlas (1846) shows Gorman Creek, but this is almost certainly an error.

In 1853 the first land in Norman Park was sold at the Brisbane Post Office for three pounds per acre [0.4 hectares]. In 1856, the first of four bridges over Norman Creek was built. This improved access to the area, but development was slow. In 1880 there were only six houses on the north-eastern side of the creek and the slopes were still heavily timbered. James John Galloway owned much of this land and gave his name to Galloway's Hill. In the 1870s, Norman Park was a popular picnic spot, with visitors coming by coach or boat to sit on the slopes. In 1885 Galloway's land was bought and subdivided by the Queensland Deposit Bank, which named the streets after poets, and the directors of the bank (for example, Agnew and Kingsbury).

Development in the interior of Norman Park was even slower and practically ceased after the flooding in 1893 floods. Several dairy farms were established. Other industries that grew up were the Wilson Waratah foundry, the leather factory in Macrossan Avenue, and the broom factory in Corrie Street, which was founded by George Gunnis and operated by his descendants for many years. The tramway extended to Norman creek in 1903 but it did not go to the cemetery until 1925. By the Second World War Norman Park was still a farming district, mainly dairying. (There were two major dairies before the war.)

After World War II, many more developments took place, including the Housing Commission sites at Seven Hills, and the land became totally residential. In the 1940s and 1950s, extensive reclamation of land in the low-lying areas created parks and playing fields where once there had been swamps.

Notable residents

Among the earliest settlers were Mr and Mrs Andrew Weir, who bought land from Louis Hope on the south side of Wynnum Road. They ran a dairy farm there and also grazed cattle in Hawthorne. Their house, which may have been the first built in the suburb, was opposite the Norman Park ferry stop. Andrew Weir was a keen gardener, with a passion for roses. The Weir's property became a popular beauty spot where visitors came to picnic. The Weirs joined the gold rush in Ballarat. Their daughter, Mrs Barnett, remained in the area and erected a house on the main road near the creek. This house was occupied by four generations of Barnetts over a period of more than eighty years. In the 1893 floods Mrs Barnett's father-in-law rowed in a straight line from the house to Stones Corner.

Thomas Henry Wilson arrived from England in 1883. He and his wife owned the first house in Longfellow Street. They founded the Wilson Waratah Foundry, which manufactured a large variety of metal goods, which were widely used. In the 1920s the game lacrosse was very popular and the Wilsons introduced it to the district. Norman Park became known as a centre for the game, and their son Norm played for Queensland. The Weir's four sons took over the business after Thomas retired.

John James Galloway was born in Scotland in 1818 and came to Australia in 1837. In 1855 he was instructed to move to Moreton Bay as the surveyor. He retired from the public service, due to ill health, in 1857. In 1860 he was appointed to the first Queensland parliament. He served in the second and fourth to sixth governments and was leader of the Legislative Council for ten weeks in 1860. A convert to Anglicism, he remained a bachelor on his land at Galloways Hill until he returned to England in 1875. He died in 1883.

Mr Justice Patrick Real, a judge of the Supreme Court, was born in 1847 in Limerick, Ireland, and moved to Ipswich with his family in 1850. He became an apprentice carpenter and then worked in the railway workshops. In 1874 he was admitted to the bar and he was made a judge in 1890. In 1889 he commissioned John Hall and Sons to design his home 'Eulalia' in McIlwraith Avenue, Norman Park, where he lived until his death in 1928.

Landmarks

Eulalia in McIlwraith was the home of Mr Justice Real. Worley and Whitehead of Ipswich built the house in 1889 of thirty-five-centimetre-thick brick covered in plaster. The roof was imported reddish slate. The house had a double-bayed verandah, curved carriage drive, tennis court, and croquet lawn. The house stood vacant for ten years, until Stanley Hancock, a retired sawmiller, and his wife bought it, restored it, and created Early Street Historical Village in its grounds.

Real estate agent R. G. Oates named the Seven Hills region after the Seven Hills of Rome. He bought a large piece of land in the 1920s and invested time and money in development, but the depression intervened and the development was not completed until after World War II. In 1945 the Housing Commission took it on as one of their first developments, and by 1948 it had built 189 houses on the seven hills, each of which have Roman names and Roman street names.

Galloways Hill was originally called Norman Hill. In 1865 the name was changed to honour John James Galloway, a surveyor, who owned much land on the top of the hill. Originally covered in thick vine scrub, this was cleared for dairy farming. Galloways Hill was one of the first areas of Norman Park to be settled.

Norman Park State School opened on 9 July 1900 with fifty-two pupils, a principal, and three other teachers. The first principal was Mr James Keys.

Before it was bridged, Norman Creek was a serious problem for transport. People had to travel all the way inland to Stones Corner and then back out along Bennetts Road. There have been four bridges over the mouth of Norman Creek. Captain Taylor Winship erected the first one in 1856. The second was built slightly inland in 1870, the third was opened by Governor Chermside in 1902, and the current bridge was built in 1956.

The Brisbane River rises in the Brisbane Ranges and travels 355 kilometres to the sea. It began to develop its course about ten million years ago when the climate was wetter than today's. Within the last million years the river eroded deeply into its sandstone bed when the sea level dropped. The river mouth was then at Tangalooma. When the sea rose again, Moreton and Stradbroke islands were formed and the present watercourse developed. Since then the river and creeks have formed flood plain deposits, rich with mangroves and some wallum. A shallow river, it needed considerable dredging before it could be used as a shipping passage.

Early visitors reported the river's beauty. In 1823 John Oxley said 'the Scenery was peculiarly beautiful; the country on the banks alternately hilly and level, but not flooded; the Soil of the finest description of Brushwood land, on which grew Timber of great magnitude, and of various Species'. Murray wrote in 1830 of 'a beautiful river, full of graceful windings and lined on each side with trees of luxuriant foliage to the very water's edge'.

Originally closer to Brisbane, what is now Wynnum Road was called Bulimba Road, and further out it was called Wynnum Road or Lytton Road. When the bridge was built over the mouth of Norman Creek in 1856, Wynnum Road became a faster route to Cleveland and so became known as the Cleveland Road. In 1863, a Parliamentary report declared the road was impassable and people had to travel by private land. Wynnum Road was known as Cleveland Road until the 1950s.

In 1959 commemorative palms were planted along New Cleveland Road at Cannon Hill. Each had a plaque with the name of a soldier from the district. Children swinging from them destroyed the palms on the south of the road. Those on the north were removed in the 1960s when the road was widened.

Norman Creek is an important part of the south-eastern Brisbane suburbs. The catchment has an area of 29.8 square kilometres and runs from Mount Gravatt to the Brisbane River. The derivation for the name Norman Creek is unknown. It appears unnamed on Oxley's map of 1823, but Lockyer names it as 'Norman's Creek' in 1825. Cunningham's map in 1829 shows it as 'Norman's Creek'. Baker's Australian Atlas (1846) shows Gorman Creek, but this is almost certainly an error. The identity of Norman is not known. In 1839 James Warner surveyed Norman Creek from its confluence to its mouth.

By the 1860s the waterholes became polluted and gradually the swamps were drained. Near the end of the nineteenth century it was affected by sewage discharge and there has been a continuing problem with rubbish being dumped and erosion, due to cutting down the mangroves.

The first bridge across Norman Creek was built at the mouth in 1856, greatly reducing the distance people had to travel to get to Bulimba and neighbouring suburbs. Three subsequent bridges followed, the last built in 1956. In 1886, the Stanley Street Bridge was opened, creating important access to Coorparoo and Norman Park. Extensive reclamation, concreting, and piping of the swamp and creek has modified it dramatically. In the 1990s the Council and community groups began to restore and revegetate large sections of the creek. The native river mangroves are growing back. Mud crabs, mullet, and prawns can still be found in the lower reaches and an important flying fox colony lives in the trees between Coorparoo Secondary College and Churchie.

Reference: Kate Harbison, BRISbites, 2000

More Norman Park information

REIQ Profile

Take a look at REIQ's real estate profile. You can find suburb statistics, get a feel for its "character" and check out the median house prices and rents.