W.J. Castling Memorial

The next time you stop for an ice cream at Gelatissimo on the Strand, take the time to walk across the road and admire the magnificent craftsmanship that went into this memorial.

W.J. Castling Memorial, Anzac Park, The Strand. Photo: T. Fielding, 2010

Erected by public subscription in 1908, it was a fully functioning public drinking fountain, that was originally located diagonally opposite the former Customs House, on the Strand. The structure was built to commemorate the life of a prominent Townsville citizen, William Joseph Castling, who drowned in Ross Creek in 1906. Castling settled in Townsville in 1876 and became a very successful businessman, as a partner in the butchering firm Johnson and Castling.

Castling was very active in the municipal affairs of the community and served several terms as Alderman on the Townsville Council in the 1880s. He was also a member of the Thuringowa Divisional Board, the Townsville Building Society, the Fire Brigade, the Chamber of Commerce, the Ayr Tramway Board, was a trustee of the Townsville Grammar School, and one of the original trustees of the Sports Reserve. Castling also served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Townsville from 1896 to 1899.

W.J. Castling Memorial, in its original location opposite the Customs House, no date.
Photo: CityLibraries Townsville Local History Collection

At the official opening of the fountain in November 1908, Castling was described by his friend Mr R. McKimmin, ‘as a man who was respected and beloved by all who knew him’. The Townsville Daily Bulletin wrote:

The late W.J. Castling was a very worthy citizen who had devoted a great deal of his time to public duties, both as Parliamentary representative and in municipal affairs. He had started in a small way and borne the heat and burden of the day, and when he had succeeded he did not hesitate to give freely to deserving objects, and that was the best thing that could be said of a man.

The memorial fountain was designed and expertly crafted by local monumental masons Melrose and Fenwick. The fountain was constructed of marble and freestone (in this case sandstone from Pyrmont in Sydney). A pedestal and four basins are made from marble, and topped with four beautifully carved sandstone columns, which in turn are topped by a circular dome. Crowning the entire structure is a richly carved octagonal finial. 

 

One of the marble basins. A patch in the sandstone shows
where a tap was originally positioned. Photo: T. Fielding



A closeup of the richly carved sandstone adorning the memorial.
Photo: T. Fielding

The fountain was moved to its present location in Anzac Memorial Park in the mid 1920s. The four taps were removed and the resultant holes in the sandstone patched, so that it is no longer a working fountain, but continues as a memorial, both to the man it was erected to honour, and to the monumental masons that crafted it.

Lead lettering on the memorial. Photo: T. Fielding

 

An 1880s Observatory on The Strand

Yesterday’s solar eclipse and all the excitement that went with it, got me thinking about how a telescope used by the British to track the Transit of Venus from southern Queensland in 1882 ended up in a private observatory on the Strand, in Townsville.

Edwin Norris, town solicitor and amateur astronomer, purchased the astronomical telescope and then had an observatory built to house it, at his residence on the corner of King Street and The Strand (opposite the Criterion Hotel).  Norris went to great lengths to ensure that the telescope was housed correctly, studying the design of other observatories before commissioning his own.  He visited the government observatories in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, as well as a number of private ones.

This image shows damage to buildings on The Strand after Cyclone Sigma in 1896.  It shows the Criterion Hotel at the corner of The Strand and King Street, (roughly centre right). 
Photo: CityLibraries Townsville Local History Collection.

At the time, the telescope was more than twice the size of the telescope in the government observatory at Brisbane and was described as being ‘a very fine achromatic equatorial telescope’.  In 1884 the Brisbane Courier printed this information about the observatory:

“The observatory consists of a room 13ft. by 13ft., with walls 8ft. 6in. high from the floor. The wall plates of hardwood are continued 7ft. beyond the building north and south, and form a railway from end to end supported from below and well braced. There are eight small railway wheels 4in. in diameter, which were specially made at the Townsville foundry for the purpose, fitted into iron frames morticed into the     plates to which the roof is fixed. The roof is made of American pine boards 3 1/2 in. by 1in. tongued and grooved, upon a strong light frame of Oregon pine and covered with galvanised iron, and forms the segment of a circle from the east wall over to the west wall, and is divided in the middle east and west, one half running north, the other south, on the railway, so that the observer can separate the two parts of the roof a little and adjust a canvas, or other light shutter or screen, over the parts not in actual use, and thus well see the sun, planets, and many of the principal constellations, including Orion, which, in our latitude, always attain a good meridian altitude, or he can run the parts of the roof out to the full extent, north and south, leaving the whole of the room uncovered, and conduct his observations in the open air, and without otherwise interfering with the integrity of the room.”[1]

Norris died in April 1892 and his telescope and other astronomical instruments were listed for sale in January 1897, along with an extensive portfolio of real estate.  Norris owned valuable freehold land on the Strand, Palmer Street, Flinders Street and also in Bowen, and held shares in the Townsville Land and Investment Company.  Norris was also a keen yachtsman, and owned the yacht Maud. 

Another observatory existed in early north Queensland at Irvinebank, a tin mining town near Herberton.  Around 1910, Dr William Evan McFarlane built an observatory with a rotating dome behind his home, to house his 7 inch telescope. The John Oxley Library has an image of this observatory at http://hdl.handle.net/10462/deriv/204140

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[1] Brisbane Courier, 16 October 1884.