Brisbane Homes

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TLM-P owned considerable property in Brisbane. In 1854, TLM-P bought eleven lots of land in Brisbane worth £752.11.6.¹⁾ As the next map indicates, by 1887 he owned a considerable part of Kangaroo Point:

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To take up his position as Postmaster-General in 1862, TLM-P moved with his family to Brisbane. As Matilda was ill by then, better access to medical and domestic help was probably a welcome relief. Isobel Hannah states that the family first rented number 1 Hodgson's Terrace which in 1953 incorporated Kingsley Private Hotel.³⁾

At some stage, according to a number of sources, the family rented Shafston⁴⁾ in the highly desirable downtown Brisbane suburb of Kangaroo Point. It is not known when, as the heritage listing for the property states it was owned by grazier and sugar-grower Louis Hope from October 1859, and then rented out to Gilbert Eliot, Speaker of the Queensland Parliament, from 1860 to 1871. Tenants after that included Matilda's brother-in-law William Barker of Telemon Station, with no mention of a period of tenancy by TLM-P.⁵⁾

At some stage the family left Shafston. By 1864, TLM-P had commissioned prominent architect James Cowlishaw to draw up plans for a new villa residence at Breakfast Creek, Brisbane. He changed his mind as the house was never built, perhaps because he bought Maroon that year instead. Plans for the home are at the Oxley Library, Brisbane.⁶⁾.

In mid-1868, he moved closer to the ferry by purchasing (or renting?) Montpelier in Ferry Street, Kangaroo Point (there was no bridge at the time, and he had to use the ferry to get to work in Brisbane). The family lived there when parliament was sitting⁷⁾; at Maroon at other times. ⁸⁾

An undated photo of Montpelier.⁹⁾

By then he had Maroon as well. This was an essential part of the gentry ideal - a house in town and a country estate. Montpelier was demolished in 1938. The next photo is of Montpelier's parlour c. 1875, lavishly furnished in the mid-Victorian style (which assumed housemaids to do the constant dusting of so many objects): ¹⁰⁾

TLM-P died on New Year's Eve in 1892 at Whytecliffe(note that later sources spell it Whitecliffe), his rented home in Albion, a suburb of Brisbane. It was built c.1875 and is now a retirement village on Sandgate Road. His widow took over the lease after his death.¹¹⁾
Whytecliffe in 1930, from QJO.¹²⁾

¹⁾

New South Wales Government Gazette, 4 August 1854, p.1679. In 2017 values, that is roughly $59,000, Thom Blake currency conversion.

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³⁾

Isobel Hannah, 'The Royal Descent of the First Postmaster-General of Queensland', Queensland Geographical Journal, vol. LV, 1953-54, p.13.

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e.g. Kerry Heckenberg,'A taste for art in colonial Queensland: The Queensland Art Gallery Foundational Bequest of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior', Queensland Review, 25:1, June 2018, pp.119-136 states it was on in George Street

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Shafston House

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Box 15376 O/S. They were donated by E.S. M-P

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Patricia Clarke, Rosa! Rosa!p.23.

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for a view of Montpelier in 1930, see The Queenslander 18 September 1930, p.41.

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Photo provenance Tom A. & M. Therese M-P.

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Photo: JOQ

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Whytecliffe House brochure, courtesy T.A. & M.T. M-P. Note that Highlands, the home of the Lightollers (Thomas B. M-P's parents-in-law), also became part of the retirement village, pers. comm. M.T. M-P.

¹²⁾

For more photos of Whytecliffe in 1930, see The Queenslander 11 September 1930, p.41.