South Brisbane is an inner southern suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , South Brisbane had a population of 14,292 people.
Geography South Brisbane is on the southern bank of the Brisbane River, bounded to the north-west, north, and east by the median of the river. It adjoins the suburbs of Woolloongabba to the east, Highgate Hill to the south, and West End to the southwest. The river to the east of South Brisbane is the South Brisbane Reach.(). The suburb is directly connected to the central business district across the river by the following bridges (upstream to downstream):
Go Between Bridge (toll road, ) Merivale Bridge (rail, ) William Jolly Bridge (road, ) Kurilpa Bridge (pedestrian/cycling, ) Victoria Bridge (busses/pedestrian/cycling ) Neville Bonner Bridge (pedestrian, ) Goodwill Bridge (pedestrian/cycling, ).
Modern public transport services include suburban train stations at South Brisbane and South Bank, and South East Busway stations at Cultural Centre, South Bank, and Mater Hill. CityCat ferry services link South Brisbane to other riverside suburbs.
History
Pre-colonial times South Brisbane, together with West End and Highgate Hill, is known as Kurilpa (meaning water rat) by the local Indigenous people, and the area remains important in Aboriginal life. Musgrave Park has been for many years a place of congregation for the Murri peoples of south-east Queensland. It is the site of a bora ring that has been buried. The Ngundari (possibly a Turrbal group) and Jagara peoples were drawn to the river at South Brisbane for fishing and gunyah building.
19th century: European settlement The area was named South Brisbane because it was on the south side of the Brisbane River, relative to North Brisbane (now the present Brisbane central business district) during the era of the Moreton Bay penal colony (1824–1842). The name Brisbane comes from the name of the river, which in turn was named by explorer John Oxley in 1823 after Sir Thomas Brisbane, then the Governor of New South Wales.
European settlement commenced with the first land sales in 1843, followed by the development of wharves along the bank of the Brisbane River. The first street in the area was called Stanley Quay, later to become Stanley Street.
In December 1849, the Church of England obtained a block of land facing Melbourne Street and extending to Grey Street and Stanley Street (approx , now the site of the Queensland Museum), a total of 1 acre, 3 roods, 8 perches of land, on which to erect a church, a school and a parsonage. However it is not until August 1858 that the school house was constructed on the site with the expectation that it would also be used for "occasional" public worship. The building was of hammer-dressed stone. On 6 September 1858 Miss Clothier opens a school there. In 1859 it is described as an "English Church" at "South Brisbane". By May 1862 the church has a resident minister enabling regular services. The church was adversely impacted by the construction of the 1874 Victoria Bridge as the bridge was higher and the approach roads had to be built up accordingly, resulting in the church being below the new road level, forcing the parishioners to approach the church from the rear. It is unclear when the church was named for St Thomas but that name is in use by October 1877.
Commercial buildings and hotels developed around the Russell Street area. By the 1850s there were over 100 residences in the area. Due to its proximity to wharves the area became the place where bullock drovers stayed and relaxed. Thomas Baines visited Brisbane in 1855 and depicted South Brisbane in a painting titled 'South Brisbane from North Brisbane', 13 years later. South Brisbane Recreation Reserve (now known as Musgrave Park) was created in 1856.
The first Presbyterian church in the district was built in Grey Street near Melbourne Street (approx ) by John Graham. It was a small weatherboard church and was officially opened on 25 May 1851 by the Reverend Thomas Mowbray. After the congregation relocated to the Park Presbyterian Church in 1885, the Grey Street building was sold and used for storage. The old Grey Street church was sold to a private firm and used for storage. Later the site was resumed and the church building demolished for the construction of the present South Brisbane railway station.
A Baptist Sunday school operated in South Brisbane from 1857, but it was not until July 1872 that a congregation was formed, meeting in the South Brisbane Mechanics Institute. On Sunday 17 May 1974 the Vulture Street Baptist Church opened at 218 Vulture Street (corner of Christie Street, ). It was later renamed the South Brisbane Baptist Church. The church was rebuilt in 1966, reopening on 10 December 1966. In 2003 it was renamed the South Bank Baptist Church to reflect its proximity to the South Bank Parklands. It was demolished in early 2013 when the congregation moved to a new church at 859 Stanley Street, Woolloongabba, renaming itself as Church@TheGabba.
In October 1863 Bishop James Quinn called for tenders to erect a Roman Catholic church in South Brisbane. The small wooden St Mary's Church was built on the southern corner of Merivale Street and Peel Street (in the carpark of the current church, ) and was opened on 2 July 1865 by Bishop Quinn. A school was established at St Mary's Catholic Church with a lay teacher in 1866. St Mary's School opened at the school in 1870 operated by Mother Mary MacKillop and her Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. The long-running disputes between MacKillop and James Quinn, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, resulted Quinn expelling the Sisters from his diocese in 1880, but the school continued to operate nonetheless.
South Brisbane State School opened around 1865. At some time, it split into South Brisbane Boys State School and South Brisbane Girls and Infants State School. In 1929, the Boys School and the Girls and Infants were amalgamated to form two new schools, South Brisbane State School for Preparatory to Grade 5 and South Brisbane Intermediate State School for Grades 6 and 7. In 1953 the Intermediate School was amalgamated into South Brisbane State School. The school closed in 1963.
South Brisbane Wesleyan Methodist Church opened in July 1866.
The South Brisbane Congregational Church was officially opened in Grey Street on 13 January 1867. The congregation was originally established at the Mechanics Institute in Stanley Street on 9 July 1865 and this was their first church building. It was made of timber. It was badly damaged in the 1893 Brisbane floods and subsequently demolished as the congregation decided to abandon this low-lying site.
In 1874, John Cani established St Kilian's College in Raymond Terrace at the site now occupied by St Laurence's College. On Tuesday 20 December 1904 it was partially demolished in a severe storm and its buildings were sold for removal.
In October 1875, the congregation of St Thomas' Anglican Church decided to erect a new church in a more "central" location, apparently desiring a more elevated site and a more "pretentious" church. In November 1877 a building site was obtained on the corner of Vulture Street and Cordelia Street (). In June 1878 the church officials selected Andrea Strombuco's design for the new church. The foundation stone for the new St Andrew's Anglican Church was laid on Saturday 30 November 1878 by Queensland Governor Arthur Kennedy. After delays in construction due to insufficient money, the new church was officially opened and dedicated on Wednesday 6 June 1883 by Bishop Matthew Hale assisted by Archdeacon Benjamin Glennie with over 500 people present. St Thomas' church then closed.
In 1884, the railway to the south was opened with a terminus at South Brisbane. As a result, South Brisbane experienced a construction boom. In 1888, South Brisbane became an independent municipality, initially as the Borough of South Brisbane and then becoming the City of South Brisbane in 1903. In 1925 the City of South Brisbane was amalgamated into the City of Greater Brisbane.
The South Brisbane Reach portion of the Brisbane River was once the city's main port, located along riverfront underneath today's Captain Cook Bridge. Depots and wharves were gradually closed over the following century, culminating in the area's transformation for Expo 88. The South Brisbane Dry Dock was opened in 1881, now the Queensland Maritime Museum.
By the 1880s, the Presbyterian church in Grey Street had grown too small for its congregation. In October 1884 a foundation stone for a new church was laid. On 11 October 1885 the new Park Presbyterian Church was opened at 31 Glenelg Street on the corner of Cordelia Street () by Robert Steel, senior member of the Presbyterian Church in Sydney. The name Park reflects the location of the church directly opposite Musgrave Park. It was designed by architect FDG Stanley and could accommodate 550 seated in the church and 300 seated in the Sunday school in the basement. Over time the area became increasingly used for industrial and commercial purposes and families moved away to more residential areas. The congregation sold the church in early 1950 in order to build a new Park Presbyterian Church in the more residential location of 21 Hampstead Road, Highgate Hill. The church at Glenelg Street was used by the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church for some years, then for commercial purposes, and as at 2020 by the iSee Church (Pentecostal).
Similarly St Mary's Catholic Church became too small for its congregation. From 1884 to 1889 the Catholic Church had acquired more land adjoining St Mary's Catholic, eventually owning all of the northern end of the block bounded by Cordelia, Peel and Merivale Streets, enabling it to raise funds for a new St Mary's church in 1890. Architects George Simkin and John Ibler prepared designs for a cruciform church with Italianate and Romanesque Revival features able to seat 800 people. The foundation stone was laid by Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran on 25 September 1892. When the second St Mary's Church () was blessed and opened by Archbishop Robert Dunne on 2 July 1893, St Mary's had already cost £2,150 to build and it had been decided to defer the construction of the tower, transepts and chancel to a later time, but they were never built. However, in 1929 a sanctuary (including vestry and sacristy) designed by architects Cavanagh and Cavanagh was added to the eastern side of the church. The Sisters of Mercy opened a new St Mary's School in 1909. The school closed in 1964.In June 1888 the first Catholic Apostolic Church in Queensland was opened at 16 Manning Street (). Designed by architect Leslie Corrie, the church interior was with one third of its length used for the chancel. The building was designed with the expectation of enlarging it at a later stage. The church was burned down on Saturday 21 July 1917. In October 1917 architect George Addison called for tenders to construct a new brick church on the site. Their minister Joseph Todd Young died on 22 February 1932 and the church continued to operate under its deacons until the death of the last deacon in 1957. In 1962 the church building was bought by the Anglican Church.
South Brisbane was badly affected by the flood of the Brisbane River in February 1893. It is estimated that were inundated in South Brisbane. The water rose up to and only the tops of some roofs remained visible. Stanley Street, then the main thoroughfare, was described as "one long stretch of ruin and desolation".