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

---

[1] Brisbane Courier, 16 October 1884.

The Range Hotel Graves

At the foot of Hervey Range, just outside Townsville, is a lonely little cemetery that lies hidden under wild scrub and lantana, and contains what may be the oldest headstone in the region.


The grave of Francis John Earl, who died in March 1866.  Photo: T. Fielding

The cemetery was associated with the Range Hotel, which was located at the bottom of Thornton's Gap on the old Hervey Range Road. Built by James Mead in 1866, the Range Hotel provided a rest stop for travellers before they made the dangerous journey up Hervey Range. At that time, the only road from Townsville to the goldfields and hinterland involved an arduous trip, first by crossing the Bohle and Alice Rivers, and then by ascending Hervey Range at Thornton's Gap. Travellers and carriers would stop overnight at the Range Hotel before attempting to travel up the range the next day. A trip with loaded wagons would have taken an entire day. Once at the top of the range, the Eureka Hotel awaited the weary travellers.

Hervey Range Road, c.1900. 
Photo: CityLibraries Townsville Local History Collection.

The grave of Francis John Earl, a squatter who died of a fever, aged 25 on 12th March 1866 at the Range Hotel, is possibly the oldest extant headstone in the region. (The earliest headstone at Townsville's West End Cemetery dates to 1868, although burials occured there before that date). Two other headstones also lie in this cemetery, that of Mary Langton and John Henry Bell, which date to the 1870s.

The Range Hotel Cemetery, after clearing of scrub in August 2008. The Earl grave is on the right, the Bell grave is set back, slightly to the right of the centre of the photo, and the Langton grave is lying flat on the ground, and can be seen on the left.  Photo:  T. Fielding.

The layout of the graves suggests that there may have been more burials there, but no other markers now remain.  Given the positioning of the graves, there may have been as many as 21 plots, in three rows of seven.

The graves are a reminder of just how harsh pioneer life could be.  Mary Langton was 28 years old, with three small children to care for while her husband John Langton was often away working for long periods of time. John was a carrier who carried goods from the port of Townsville to the Dalrymple township. Perhaps living such an isolated life led to despair, as Mary committed suicide by taking poison and died in December 1873.

The third gave is that of John Henry Bell, second son of Charles and Mary Ann Bell, who died 11th May 1875 from inflammation of the lungs. Little John was four months old.


The headstone of John Henry Bell, died May 1875. Photo: T. Fielding

The Range Hotel closed in 1884 and its precise location is now a matter of speculation, although a bottle dump, thought to have been associated with the hotel has been located. An archaeological study of this site conducted by James Cook University in 2008 found over 400 glass bottle necks/finishes of varying colours.