Where did Andrew Petrie live?

Layout of Brisbane Town
Moreton Bay, c 1839¹

Brisbane was a very small settlement in the 1840s.

Everyone knew all of their neigbours and which house belonged to whom. So it seems odd to suggest that there could now be any confusion over the location of the residence of Mr Andrew Petrie, the well-known and much-admired Supervisor of Works in the fledgling outpost of free settlement of the New South Wales Northern Districts.

But that is apparently the case.

In 2019, Queensland State Archives launched a new website, Q-Album², to promote greater public awareness of, and access to, significant records in the collection. Distinguishing it from ArchiveSearch Catalogue or Image Queensland ³, Q-Album seeks to place each featured object in a context that enhances understanding and encourages futher exploration. Among other strategies it draws together related material in other repositories (such as the State Library of Queensland and The National Archives, UK).

However the most prominent contextual factor presented to a visitor to the Q-Album site is spatial, usually explemplified by a matching pair of now and then photographs with the "now" image derived from Google StreetView.

A search on Q-Album for "Andrew Petrie's residence" returns four photographs. Three relate to locations indirectly associated with Petrie, but the fourth is exactly what is required and is labelled as Andrew Petrie's Residence, 1859. On the detailed display page⁴, the user is shown that historical image above a contemporary view of of the south-west corner of the Casino (Treasury Building) seen from the end of Victoria Bridge.

This seems incongruous because the caption printed onto the 1859 image clearly describes the location of the dwelling at the spot where Queen and Wharf Streets now junction, that is, on the bank of that section of the river then known as Petrie's Bight. (Since modern mapping practice eschews apostrophes, the current name is rendered as Petrie Bight.) Yet, the modern image shows the junction of Queen Street and Queens Wharf Road on the bank of the Town Reach. As the crow flies, these two locations are more than 1200 metres apart at opposite ends of Queen Street.

Wharf Street or Queens Wharf Road?⁵

As additional context, Q-Album offers an extract from an 1872 newspaper obituary for Andrew Petrie under the heading News of the Day. Although that provides no indication of where he might have lived, perhaps earlier issues of The Moreton Bay Courier might.

The edition of Saturday 25 March 1854⁶ described in detail the ceremonial progress into Brisbane of Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, described in the article as the Governor-General of Australia although His Excellency's formal title was Governor of New South Wales. FitzRoy had disembarked from HMS Calliope at Newstead, the home of Captain Wickham the Government Resident, and proceeded through the settlement of Fortitude Valley until the river was encountered once again where crowds were assembled at the Kangaroo Point Ferry and at Mr Petries' home to cheer His Excellency. The official party is then described as following the rise of Queen Street into the heart of North Brisbane. Clearly in 1854, Andrew Petrie lived on Petrie's Bight.

In December 1904, The Brisbane Courier⁷ published extracts from the reminiscences of Tom Petrie (son of Andrew) in which he recalled the family living for a time on the site of what is now the GPO while their home was built on the riverbank with a garden bounded by the saltwater creek from which Creek Street takes its name. That description matches the location shown in Gerler's sketch Brisbane in 1844 which lists the Perie home as the first of 48 named buildings.

Map of Brisbane, 1844⁸

Its location at the northern end of Queen Street is unmistakable, although the German artists representation of the town's main boulevard made it appear shorter, wider and straighter than it actually was!

Every historian, and even casual users of the resources of the Queensland State Archives, will welcome initiatives to make those important artefacts more widely known and readily accessible. But "popularisation" carries with it a very real risk that must be managed. Given the tendency of modern school pupils (and their teachers) to "grab an image off the web", it is essential that every record be presented in its correct context.

I dread the situation where dozens of school projects (their "relevance" dictated by the highly-publicised Queen's Wharf development) describe how the great pioneer builder and architect, Andrew Petrie, once lived on the site of the Treasury Building!

References:

1. Queensland State Archives, Digital Image ID 5212 released to Public Domain https://flickr.com/photos/60455048@N02/36883175655
2. https://qalbum.archives.qld.gov.au
3. http://www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/Search/BasicSearch.aspx
4. https://qalbum.archives.qld.gov.au/qsa/andrew-petries-residence-1859
5. https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=17/-27.46892/153.02616
6. The Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 - 1861) 25 March 1854: 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page542487
7. "EARLY QUEENSLAND." The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933) 30 December 1904: 6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19316762
8. Map of Brisbane, 1844 State Library of Queensland: hdl.handle.net/10462/deriv/108532 released to Public Domain https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland/32794220838/in/photostream/