Adversity & Resilience: Architecture

George Brockwell Gill
Architect George Brockwell Gill concluded his long career at the end of this period. One of his last major jobs was the renovations at Cribb and Foote in 1939 in association with Brisbane architects Atkinson and Conrad. He remained in Ipswich for the early years of the war but retired to live at Coolangatta in 1943.

He had practised in Ipswich for an extraordinary length of time, starting in 1886 when he and his wife Jane came to Australia from London. Shortly after their arrival, he took a position in Ipswich with the architectural practice of Samuel Shenton, a former builder.

Shenton was nearing retirement and Gill bought the practice in 1889 but said that his first year on his own was “almost a starvation one”. This soon changed and his early commissions included the new cotton mill, Ipswich Girls’ Grammar School, Congregational Sunday School and a major extension to the Town Hall.

By the early 1900s, he was a popular architect and designed many of the brick buildings of the time including the Memorial Hall and the Bell Street wing of Cribb & Foote. He also designed many houses and an advertisement in 1917 for a house sale commented “it was built under the supervision of Mr. G. B. Gill, the well-known architect, which is a guarantee of its substantiality.”

He was involved with St Paul’s Church and in many community organisations including the Technical College, IGGS and Ipswich Golf Club. He was interested in health and fitness and recorded how he invariably immersed himself completely in a cold bath on the verandah of his house, winter and summer. “It requires a little pluck these cold mornings, but the afterglow is grand,” he said. After his retirement, he swam in the sea regularly and died at 97, a day before his 70th wedding anniversary.

Will Haenke
M.W. (Will) Haenke was well-known as a local architect and, with his wife Laura, as the owner of historic Rockton in Eastern Heights. He designed and renovated many local buildings including the Commercial Hotel in Ellenborough Street and the Rising Sun Hotel at Rosewood. His local houses, including the bungalows already mentioned, show interesting and characteristic details.

He had many other talents and hobbies and later began a second career in the mining industry, buying a share in the Rhondda Mine. He eventually acquired interests in several other mines and was an early shareholder in the Blair Athol Open Cut. At the time of his death in 1952, he was Chairman of Directors of the Rhondda and Noblevale Collieries Pty Ltd.