The Gympie Town Hall is a heritage-listed town hall at 2 Caledonian Hill, Gympie, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Department of Public Works (Queensland) and John James Clark and built in 1939 by Marberete Company Pty Ltd, Department of Public Works, and Joseph Jew. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 12 August 2011.
History
The Gympie Town Hall was opened in 1890 on land which had been chosen by the Gympie Town Council in 1883 and was designed by Clark Brothers, who designed several other buildings for the town. It was extended in 1938–1939 by Brisbane architect C H Griffin. The town hall was opened by William Smyth MLA on 4 March 1891 and the first council meeting held in the new chambers took place on the same day.
In 1930, following the 1905 incorporation of Gympie as a city, the new Gympie City Council was considering the construction of a larger town hall to accommodate the growing populations needs. Additions were made to the town hall building in 1938 which included a new post office and reception hall. The Gympie Town Hall's additions were officially opened by the State Treasurer (Mr Frank Cooper) on 21 October 1939.
The completion of the Gympie Town Hall in 1939 was part of a wider pattern of civic building that took place during the second half of the 1930s when numerous town halls were constructed across Australia as an expression of civic pride when the economy was once again on a more secure foundation after the Great Depression.
Between 1977 and 1982 internal alterations to the Gympie Town Hall were undertaken and included architectural work; mechanical and electrical alterations to the auditorium; internal telephone extension relocation and switchboard installation; internal painting of the ground floor; reconstruction of the World War I remembrance alcove; new floor coverings; office equipment; and glass and timber panel partitions.
In 2009 the Gympie Regional Council recommenced meeting in the Gympie Town Hall, after many years of meeting in the former Queensland National Bank building in Channon Street. The remainder of the building continues to be used as office accommodation for council staff.
Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic The former Gympie Maternal and Child Welfare Clinic is located in the Town Hall Reserve, facing Mellor Street in central Gympie. It is a concrete rendered building, with an entry portico flanked by four columns, with a rib and pan profile iron roof, including the original fleche. Designed and built by the Department of Public Works, and opened on 24 April 1926, the building is one of ten regional clinics built to a standardised design, of which, only nine remain.
The establishment of baby clinics throughout Queensland following the introduction of the Maternity Act 1922 was part of a national and international movement to improve the health of mothers and babies. The Act also initiated the establishment of a network of free maternity hospitals throughout Queensland, managed under the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund. Financed through the profits of the state run lottery, the Golden Casket, established in 1920, the Act sought to decrease the death rate for mothers and babies; to increase the birth-rate; to expand outback settlement and to train mothers how to care for children and essentially develop a healthy population.
The first baby clinic in Brisbane was established in 1908 and attended by paediatrician Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner, who saw up to 100 babies a week, free of charge. Dr Jefferis Turner was the first resident medical officer of the Brisbane Children's Hospital, appointed in 1889. He made a significant contribution to the development of a diphtheria antitoxin and identified lead in paint as a significant factor in lead poisoning in children. These advances impacted on the reduction of infant mortality rates, but Dr Jefferis Turner was aware that diarrhoeal disease was still a major factor the demise of many babies. There was a higher death rate during the summer months, which could be attributed to poor infant feeding and he embarked on a public health campaign to educate mothers in the hygienic preparation of food, particularly for those infants not breast fed.
Following a conference on child welfare in Sydney in 1916, representatives of women's organisations, benevolent societies and the Creche and Kindergarten Association lobbied the Home Secretary, John Huxham to establish a network of baby clinics in Queensland. In August 1917 he announced that three clinics would be built, which was later expanded to four. At that time the first baby clinic had just been built in Victoria, while New South Wales already had eleven. All were based on the philosophy of New Zealand Doctor, Frederick Truby King, which promoted breast feeding, the training of nurses in maternal and infant welfare and the education of mothers in domestic hygiene.
A national agenda for public health and social reform was implicit in the growth of the town planning movement. The second Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane in mid 1918 included a display illustrating the proper care of babies. The organiser of this conference was Charles Edward Chuter, an officer of the Home Secretary's Department, who was to have a significant impact on local government and on the health system in Queensland. He had managed the finances of the Brisbane General Hospital from 1917, and sought the means to implement the social policies of the recently elected Labour government of T J Ryan. Chuter established the Motherhood, Child Welfare and Hospital Fund, which was financed through the Golden Casket Lottery. He also had significant input into the drafting of the Maternity Act. The decision to operate a regular lottery from 1920, with the profits deposited into the Hospital Trust Account, financed a major building program in maternity hospitals and baby clinics.
The first government baby clinic opened in a rented cottage in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley on 8 March 1918, managed by Matron Florence Chatfield of the Diamantina Hospital. Three more clinics opened shortly after at Woolloongabba, Spring Hill and West End. Nurse Chatfield travelled north in October 1920, seeking suitable sites to build clinics in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton, preferring a central location, close to the shopping areas and close to public transport. She also sought support from at least one doctor in each town to act as the Honorary Medical Officer, attached to the clinic.
Between October 1923 and November 1924, new baby clinics were erected at Rockhampton, Townsville, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Cairns, Maryborough and Bundaberg. The Fortitude Valley Clinic, which opened in 1924, included a training school for nurses. The training centre staff had been educated in both New Zealand and Sydney and the centre produced eight graduates in 1924 and eleven in 1925. Thirty-five maternity wards were built in hospitals across the state at this time. Between 1926 and 1930 clinics were erected at Gympie, Mackay, Charters Towers and Warwick, with new substantial brick clinics built at Woolloongabba and Herschel Street in the Brisbane central business district. Another large clinic was planned for South Brisbane but was never built.
Ten regional clinics were based on a standard plan produced by the Department of Public Works. These included: Rockhampton, Townsville, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Gympie, Mackay, Charters Towers and Warwick. The Rockhampton clinic was the first to be opened on Saturday 27 October 1923. It was described in the 1924 Queensland Parliamentary Papers Report of the Department of Public Works as:A compact tile-roofed one-storey reinforced cement plaster building of attractive design, containing waiting hall 16 ft by 16 ft; a doctor's room 12 ft by 11 ft; treatment room 13 ft by 11 ft; retiring and nurses rooms 11ft by 10 ft with water closet, lavatories, store, press etc. Modern fittings and furnishings have been installed throughout and a septic system provided for conveniences.The Cairns clinic which opened in January 1924 was not of the standard design, being a larger high set timber structure, built on part of a railway reserve fronting Martyn Street.
The selection of a site for a baby clinic for Gympie occurred during the early part of 1925 with regular correspondence between the local Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for Gympie, Thomas Dunstan, the Assistant Minister for Works and the Home Secretary James Stopford. The Under Secretary George Chuter and the Mayor Alderman George Thomas undertook a site inspection on 7 March and agreed that part of the Town Hall Reserve facing Mellor Street was the best location. The council agreed to allocate a site within the Town Hall reserve, because the clinic would be of benefit to the district. It passed the resolution on 19 March 1925, and verbal agreement was made by the council that it would provide fill for the site. The architect Willian Ewart visited in April and assured the Town Clerk that the plans and specifications were in hand and the building would be completed as soon as possible. The proposed building was specified as a concrete one storey structure with a Marseilles tiled roof and Doric pillared entrance, including a waiting room for mothers, infant's treatment room, kitchen, bathroom, ladies' retiring room and day room for the nurses. The standard design baby clinics were all founded on the same plan drawn up in January 1923, with some amendments to suit each individual site. The Gympie Clinic was built with two toilets; one accessible from within the clinic, and one with an external door, adjacent to the Town Hall, accessible to the public. (A separate men's toilet was located nearby.) Two nurses were appointed to the clinic, with one stationed at the clinic and the other largely devoted to visiting mothers in their own homes within the district.
The building, which cost , was opened on Saturday 24 April 1926 by the Minister for Works, James Kirwan. He referred to the clinic as the "Temple of the Babe", an analogy first used by the Assistant Home Secretary Mr Frank Brennan at the opening of the Toowoomba Baby Clinic in December 1923. Kirwan reiterated the government policy promoting motherhood and child welfare, indicating that the clinic had already begun operation prior to the official opening. Nurse McGrath had already begun her rounds of the district, visiting 83 babies, and 25 mothers had consulted the clinic. He said the building, was a beautiful structure which was an architectural adornment to the city of Gympie. When the Director of Infant Welfare, Dr Jefferis Turner wrote his first annual report in June 1927, he indicated that the Gympie Clinic had a good relationship with the local maternity nurses, and it had outperformed some older ones in the state, in terms of the numbers of new born babies visited by the clinic sisters.
In 1933, the Gympie Town Clerk advised the Department of Works that a large amount of spoil had been generated in the process of excavating for a new sewer. This had been used to fill the Town Hall Reserve, but had in fact filled part of the lower flight of steps at the rear of the baby clinic. It advised that the landing would be extended to provide easier access to the clinic and the remainder of the lower steps would lead to the yard. During the early 1930s the clinic sister experienced difficulties sleeping because of the constant noise from the public toilet in the clinic building adjacent to her bedroom. At that time it was agreed to lock the female toilet at 11.00pm.
The back landing was enclosed with lattice in 1936. By 1941, heavy rain had caused subsidence of this and earlier fill, causing damage to the back steps and requiring the installation of a concrete slab at the foot of the stairs.