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Defining Tulmur | Ipswich
What is Defining Tulmur | Ipswich?
Picture Ipswich contains thousands of photos, ephemera, home movies and so much more. Each item tells a story about a moment in time, about the people, places, businesses, or events. Picture Ipswich has always relied on the Ipswich community to provide the content that we make available on the website. Whilst there has been targeted collecting and significant collections enter Picture Ipswich, the collection is incomplete, and there are many stories that we have yet to discover and share.
Defining Tulmur | Ipswich is our attempt to identify and tell the stories missing from the standard Ipswich story, as well as to re-examine well known stories in a wider context through this interpretative layer.
As you explore Defining Tulmur | Ipswich on the Picture Ipswich website, you will see the beginning of this innovative storytelling endeavour. Throughout 2023 and 2024, our small team have worked to identify the historical eras, major themes, and sub-themes that run throughout the history of Tulmur | Ipswich.
Alongside the identification of these historical eras and themes, a contextual framework has been developed and built into Picture Ipswich. So far, we have incorporated existing items from the Picture Ipswich collection into the Defining Tulmur | Ipswich framework. We are now working on the ongoing process of identifying and researching primary sources and writing content to fill in the gaps, so we can tell a richer and more complete Ipswich story. As research is undertaken, changes in content will occur and the project will evolve.
How can you help Defining Tulmur | Ipswich and Picture Ipswich to grow?
With your help, we can make Picture Ipswich, and the Defining Tulmur | Ipswich interpretative layer, the primary repository for assets and information related to the history of Ipswich, benefiting family historians, researchers, students, teachers, local history groups, and the Ipswich community.
You can contribute to the Ipswich story by:
- Adding your family stories and your memories, in the form of recollections, to the appropriate historical eras and themes.
- Uploading photos from your collections directly to Picture Ipswich.
- Sharing your research on your family, family business, home, community and sports groups, suburb, and schools - contact the Picture Ipswich Digital Archivist to discuss further.
How is Defining Tulmur | Ipswich structured?
At the top level of this interpretative framework, sits the historical eras of Ipswich. The eras are of various lengths, some being short (On The Homefront covers 13 years), with others longer (Expanding Horizons spans three decades). Rather than naming the eras after a monarch or architectural style, we have given them names that succinctly summarise the era. Although some of these names could be applied to the experiences of other cities during similar time periods, we feel these names distinguish the dominate Ipswich experience at the time.
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Tulmur: Deep Time Tulmur (the name for Ipswich in the Yagara language), has been home to Aboriginal peoples for tens of thousands of years. The Traditional Owners of Tulmur mapped the terrain and the stars, made laws, and made connection to this country through song, dance, language, and stories. Colonisation of the land by Europeans since the 1820s has caused monumental disruption and dislocation to First Nations peoples who call Tulmur | Ipswich home. We are only at the beginning of our journey of understanding the ongoing impact of colonisation, and of the traditions, customs, cultures, and stories of Tulmur | Ipswich's Traditional Owners.
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Convicts & Colonials: 1827-1859 Europeans came to this district in the 1820s, in search of potential resources; agricultural land; a passage to the Darling Downs; and a location for a convict outpost to the main Moreton Bay penal colony at Brisbane. From 1827, convicts mined limestone, grew crops like tobacco, and raised animals at Limestone Station. Additional outstations at Raceview (the Plough Station) and Redbank (Red Bank) brought more convicts and soldiers to the area. In 1842, the Moreton Bay district was opened to free settlers and the first land sales occurred. Rudimentary housing, mostly of slab construction, started to line streets and businesses, like Benjamin Cribb's London Stores, began opening. This period ended with the formation of the Colony of Queensland, after our separation from New South Wales.
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Shaping Our Identity: 1860s-1870s Following separation, Ipswich's economic, political, and industrial importance began to rise. In early 1860, we became a municipality. Four years later, the first sod was turned and construction started on Queensland's first railway line. In this period other firsts included: the first defence force in Queensland (1860); the first telegraph transmission from Brisbane to Ipswich (1861); the first mining strike in Queensland (1861); the first Grammar School in Queensland (1863); the first railway workshops in Queensland (1864); the first woollen mill in Queensland (1875); and the first pumped water supply in Queensland (1878).
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Boom & Bust: 1880s-1890s The 1880s were a decade of growth in Ipswich. There was a building boom with a number of our best domestic architectural examples built during this period, many designed by architects Samuel Shenton and George Brockwell Gill. The 1890s were not as kind. Economic depression, drought, and three significant flooding events took place over several weeks in 1893. Deebing Creek Mission was established resulting in the forced relocation of Aboriginal peoples from the Ipswich district and beyond. From the mid-1890s, the Australian Colonies moved towards Federation. Ipswich voters, not convinced of the merits of an Australian Commonwealth, voted against Federation in the 1898 referendum.
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Becoming A City: 1900s-1910s On the first of January 1901, Ipswich reluctantly welcomed the Federation of the former Australian colonies. Weeks later, Queen Victoria, who had came to the throne when Ipswich was still a convict outstation known as Limestone, had died, ushering in the new Edwardian era. A minor building boom saw new Railway Workshops buildings at North Ipswich, the construction of a new St Mary's church, the Queen Victoria Jubilee Technical College in Limestone Street, construction of a new Ipswich Post Office, and a brick Flour Mill in the Top of Town. In 1904, Ipswich was proclaimed a city. With the exception of a drought that impacted rural areas between 1902 and 1904, the first decade of the 20th century was one of promise for Ipswich. Unrest in Europe would shape the next decade. Patriotic fervour swept the City, with hundreds of men enlisting (and later conscripted) to serve overseas. When the Great War came to an end in 1918, returning soldiers brought with them influenza, which reached Ipswich in 1919.
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Adversity & Resilience: 1920s-1930s The "Roaring Twenties" never made it to Ipswich. There was a brief world-wide recession in the early 1920s that impacted the town: Council dismissed all temporary employees, 150 men were retrenched from the Railway Workshops, and the coal industry was depressed. As employment levels began to stabilise, and the effects of a drought subsided, the New York Stock Exchange crashed in October 1929, starting the Great Depression. Migration virtually ceased, unemployment rose, and house prices plummeted. Council's Depression Relief Work projects included landscaping around Cunningham's Knoll, stone kerbing and guttering, other roadworks, the planting of Jacaranda trees at Goodna and the construction of the Denmark Hill water tower. The Walter Burley Griffin designed incinerator at Queens Park was also built at this time. |
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On The Homefront: 1940s-1953 When war broke out in Europe in 1939, Ipswich again heeded the call. Men and women enlisted for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Nursing Corps. The Redbank Rifle Range was transformed into a major Army camp, training and housing local enlistees and later U.S. Servicemen. Plans for a Royal Australian Air Force base at Amberley were underway from 1938 and by June 1940, the Base was in full operation. Brick air raid shelters were constructed in Limestone and East Streets, schools dug trenches, and families constructed Anderson Shelters in their backyards. Scots Foundry began manufacturing hand grenades. Rationing restricted the availability of meat, butter, sugar, fabric, petrol, and building materials - as a result, limits were placed on the size of any new homes constructed until rationing was lifted in 1953.
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Dreaming Of Tomorrow: 1950s-1960s Even before the war ended, The Queensland Times was selling the idea of the 'post-war dream home' to Ipswich readers. With rationing finally at an end, people were building houses, having babies, and buying the latest in labour saving devices for the home. Ipswich started expanding to the east, with new estates at Redbank, Ebbw Vale and Riverview. In 1961, Limestone and Brisbane Streets became one way, and traffic lights were installed in the CBD. A new concept in shopping occurred in Ipswich with the opening of the Big W Family Centre in Booval in 1969. Cribb & Foote reacted by opening our first multi-story carpark in the same year.
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Expanding Horizons: 1970s-1990s Ask anyone who lived in Ipswich in the 1970s to name one defining moment of the decade and their answer will be the 1974 flood, when a 341mm deluge over 24-hours inundated low-lying suburbs and cut the city off for days. In 1975 Prime Minister Whitlam came to town to open the Civic Centre. Fast food chains Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Pizza Hut, Hungry Jacks and McDonald's, shook-up our dining experiences, as did restaurants offering Chinese menus. Reid's Department Store (formerly Cribb & Foote) burnt down in 1985, leaving a physical and symbolic hole in the heart of the city-centre. By the end of the 1980s, the Kern redevelopment had completely reshaped the town. A revolution in technology in this period culminated in 1995 with Ipswich City Council launching Global Info Links (GIL) - the first community based internet service provider in the country. Ipswich's boundaries grew substantially when the city amalgamated with Moreton Shire Council in 1995.
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Adapting To Change: 2000s-2020s Since the beginning of the new millennium, Ipswich has experienced floods and water restrictions. A global financial crisis and a global pandemic have both had an economic impact on the city. Terrorism attacks and political unrest overseas were responded to by resident members of the Defence Force. Closer to home, Council purchased and began the redevelopment of the Nicholas Street Precinct, now, in 2024, nearing completion. Urban growth in areas like Springfield, Ripley, Redbank Plains, Deebing Heights, and Spring Mountain has brought a wealth of new residents to our city. In 2018, the sitting Mayor and Councillors were dismissed, bringing an era of Administration to the City that ended in 2020 with the election of our 51st and first female Mayor, Teresa Harding and the appointment of our first female CEO, Sonia Cooper. Historians usually write from a distance, not in the here and now - it is a challenge to write of our collective experiences of the present. With a few years remaining in this decade, what will come next in the Ipswich story?
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The Future: 2030s & Beyond What will Ipswich be like in the 2030s and 2040s? Knowledge of the past and present can help us to speculate on the future. We know that the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games will bring international visitors to events held here, as our City will be showcased on devices across the globe. We can anticipate the continued growth of artificial intelligence and the disruptive impact it is likely to have on work and culture. Climate change models warn us of increased extreme weather events - from droughts to floods and storms. Our City Planners can project population and housing growth estimates. How else will the 2030s and beyond impact and shape the Ipswich story? Will there be electric flying cars? Will there be an "Ipswich" on Mars? What do you think the future will bring?
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Underneath each era (with the exception of Tulmur - which will have its own unique themes) sit five universal themes, which are further broken down into sub-themes:
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The Future of Defining Tulmur | Ipswich
Defining Tulmur | Ipswich is a framework for interpreting the Tulmur | Ipswich story within the Picture Ipswich website. We will continue to curate and build on the identified historical eras and themes. We will look for opportunities to engage with historians, other experts, community groups and organisations, and students who can help us to fill in more of the story, and look for ways to share Defining Tulmur | Ipswich with our community and beyond. In time we will add curriculum-aligned school resources, a series of short documentaries providing an overview of each era and other exciting and innovative features.
