The city block bounded by The
Strand, Flinders, Wickham, and King Streets was once home to a hotel on every
corner. The Criterion Hotel, the former Queens Hotel and Tattersall’s Hotel are
all still standing, while the Imperial Hotel stood on the now vacant corner
until 1938, when it was destroyed by fire.
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| Two horse-drawn vehicles outside the Imperial Hotel, corner of Flinders and King Streets, Townsville, c. 1889. Photo: State Library of Queensland. |
Early hotels played an
important role in the development of regional towns, as they offered accommodation
and meals for both locals and travellers alike, as well as served as a place to
hold community meetings before purpose-built facilities existed.
The Criterion Hotel on The
Strand was the first hotel in Townsville, with the first license issued in 1865
to William Ross, who was among the first party of white settlers in Cleveland
Bay. The first meeting of the newly formed Townsville Municipal Council was
held there in 1866. The Criterion catered to wealthy visitors, while
Tattersall’s Hotel on the diagonal corner was more of a working man’s pub,
boasting its own bowling alley.
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| Horse and buggy outside the Criterion Hotel, The Strand, c.1902. Photo: State Library of Queensland. |
The first Queens Hotel was
constructed for James Evans in 1872. A two-storeyed timber structure, extended
in the 1880s along Wickham Street, it was considered one of the best hotels in
Queensland and often hosted many important guests, including visiting
Queensland Governors.
In 1899 John Henry Tyack took
over the hotel and began planning to replace the existing hotel with a much
more elaborate building. In 1901 he purchased adjoining land that eventually
gave the hotel a 60-metre frontage to The Strand. The final stage of the hotel
was not completed until 1925, twelve years after Tyack’s death.
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| Queens Hotel, The Strand, c. 1900. Photo: State Library of Queensland. |
An early rival of the Queens
Hotel was the Imperial Hotel, which was built in 1882 for David Buchanan. The
Imperial enjoyed a prime position close to the bustling wharves on Ross Creek, which
ensured a regular flow of customers.
But in 1900, this prime
position proved a disadvantage, when, despite strict quarantine regulations,
one of the hotel’s employees contracted bubonic plague. Peter Backland, a
33-year-old yardman at the hotel, died within 24 hours. His duties included
collecting and transporting the luggage of hotel guests to and from the wharves
– the likely source of the infection.
When Backland was diagnosed,
the Imperial Hotel was quarantined and 35 guests, 16 servants, and 7 members of
the licensee’s family were isolated. One newspaper reported:
“The Imperial hotel is such
an institution in Townsville that its compulsory sequestration for five hours,
to say nothing of five days, would be regarded as a calamity.”
The livelihood of the hotel’s
licensees, Mr and Mrs Edward Byrne, was threatened because they were unable to
trade during the period of quarantine. Mrs Byrne expressed her frustration in a
letter to her son:
“For a few days while the
fumigation business was going on we breathed phenyle, swallowed nothing else
but abominable fumes, and everything and everybody was stamped with a look of
sulphury and melancholy dejection.”
