The Pomona Police Station and Court House is a heritage-listed former police station at Red Street, Pomona, Shire of Noosa, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1934. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 27 May 2005.
History The police and court house precinct at Pomona is bounded by Red Street and Rectory Street, and contains three significant 1930s government buildings, all of which are still in use in some form. The close spatial relationship of the wooden police residence (& former station), court house, and lock-up is typical of pre-World War II Queensland police precincts, and the history of the site reflects the history of the Pomona district.
In the 1850s the area was used for cattle runs, but by the 1860s timber getting was a local industry. The Unoccupied Crown Lands Act 1860, and the Crown Land Alienation Acts 1868 aided this process. Access to cheap land assisted the harvesting of kauri, cedar, hoop pine and beech, and hastened closer settlement. The discovery of gold at Gympie by James Nash in 1867 also stimulated development in the district. In 1868, the main road to Gympie ran a couple of miles west of the current Shire, but an alternative route ran through Tewantin, which was surveyed in 1871. The Gympie-Cooran rail link established in 1889 was used to transport timber from the Kin Kin and Pinbarren Scrub areas, and the Eumundi to Cooroy line was built in 1891. The Co-Operative Communities Land Settlement Act 1893 also led to two experimental communities being established in the shire.
Pomona was established to give settlers in the scrublands better access to the 1891 North Coast railway line. Before Pomona was surveyed in 1900, the bend where settlers hailed the train to send their goods to market was called the "Pinbarren siding". As the name Pinbarren was already taken by another settlement, Pomona, the name of the Roman Goddess of fruit, was chosen for the new town. The Pinbarren Provisional School (1897) became the Pomona State School in 1908. The current Noosa Shire was created in 1909, and covers the towns of Cooran, Pomona, Cooroy, Tewantin and Noosa, and the Shire Council office was based in Pomona until 1980.
In the first decade of the 20th century, industry in the area shifted from timber to dairying. In 1907 the Cooroy estate was resumed from a sawmiller, enabling close settlement by New South Wales dairy farmers, and fruit, sugar cane, and maize was also grown. Kin Kin was opened up for dairying after 1904, and trees were cleared for pasture. Until the establishment of a butter factory at Kin Kin (1912–1937), cream was sent by road to Cooran, and then by rail to Gympie's butter factory, established in 1898. Butter factories were also opened at Cooroy in 1915 (closed 1976), and at Pomona in 1919 (closed 1970).
However, bananas were also an important crop in the Shire after 1908, peaking in the 1920s before being decimated by "Bunchy Top" disease in the 1930s. With the decline of banana growing, dairying was the main industry in the Noosa Shire from the 1930s to the 1960s, when competition from margarine, the loss of butter markets, and pasture decline saw dairying replaced by beef cattle. By the 1990s, Pomona was relying on fruit and furniture manufacture for its livelihood.
As the district developed and evolved, so too did the system of policing in Queensland. The Police Act 1863 centralised the system under a Police Commissioner, and in 1864 the Victorian model was applied to the police force. The ranks of Chief, District and Mounted Constables were replaced with those of Inspector, Sub-Inspector, Sergeant and Constable. The Police Department was a sub-department of the Home Secretary until its 1952 move to the Health and Home Affairs portfolio. It was shifted around in the 1950s and 1960s, until the Police Act 1970 created a separate Police Department.
The police commissioner at the time the first police station was established in Pomona (1927) was William H. Ryan (January 1925 to May 1934), and he appears to have also pushed for the building of the 1934 Police Station and court house. During the building of the latter in late 1934, Cecil James Carroll was Commissioner (May 1934 to July 1949). Carroll reorganised the police force, and increased its numbers, efficiency and morale.
Pomona had been agitating for a police station since at least 1910. In February of that year, the manager of the Commercial Bank of Australia at Pomona wrote to the Home Secretary complaining that the nearest police officer was in Tewantin. The two banks at Pomona were the only permanent banks between Emundi and Gympie, and held in cash between them. Also in February 1910, Eugene Von Blanckensee, a carpenter and local Justice of the Peace, wrote that Pomona needed a police station. The only response was that the town was visited by an officer from Nambour each Monday, and by one from Gympie each Thursday. Police Commissioner William G. Cahill (April 1905 to December 1916) did not act on the recommendation of Maryborough District Inspector Marrett to temporarily station an officer at Pomona until a station was built at Cooroy. Marrett had recommended a police station in Cooroy in December 1909, giving as a reason the rapid development of the area in the preceding two years.
Pomona was persistent, however. In June 1910 a Pomona delegation consisting of A.P. Curran, J.W Napier, and J.J. Wilkinson travelled to Brisbane to see John Appel, the Home Secretary, to press their case for a police station. In July 1910 Maryborough District Inspector P. Short reported that Pomona's location was roughly halfway between Cooroy and Cooran, and halfway between Gympie and Nambour, and that it was from nearest policeman at Tewantin. Short noted that the Noosa Shire's population was rapidly increasing due to timber getting, and the influx of settlers and their labour; that undesirables were also passing through Pomona on their way to Gympie; and that Pomona had two banks, two butchers, two stores, a hotel, a state school and a newspaper. Short offered several potential central sites in Pomona for a police station.
However, although both Cooran and Cooroy had police stations by 1920, Pomona was still lacking. In November 1926, Maryborough District Inspector J. Mann recommended a station at Pomona, and Commissioner Ryan visited Cooran and Pomona on 15 April 1927. On 22 April 1927 Constable Howie from Cooran reported that a Mr Blanckensee was willing to build a house for the police in return for a 3-year lease. He needed 3 months notice to build it, and could rent it to the police for 27 shillings and 6p per week (by June the price was 30 shillings). The offer would stand to 1 August 1927.
The Police Commissioner recommended this offer to the Home Secretary in June 1927. On 9 July 1927, Pomona residents became indignant when the Co-op Stores and Hanlon's Store were broken into, and this may have prompted the police to accept Blanckensee's offer on 23 July 1927. Blanckensee built a four-room house with kitchen, bathroom and front and back verandas, along with a stable and feed-room, on his of land at Sub 32 of allotments 1 and 2, Section 3. The house still stands behind the current police precinct, at 1 Railway Parade.
On 3 September 1927 the vacancy for an officer at Pomona was advertised in the Police Gazette, and the new police station was rented from 1 October 1927, in the name of Ivy Elizabeth Von Blanckensee, for 30 Shillings per week. On 10 October 1927 a Short Lee-Enfield rifle and revolver, baton, tools, horse tack, a lantern, pouches and other equipment was requisitioned for the Pomona Police Station, opened on 3 November 1927 by Constable Harry England Brown (stationed at Pomona until 1932).
On 27 May 1927, the Noosa Advocate reported a visit to the area by Attorney General John Mullan and Undersecretary to the Department of Justice, G. Carter. They were deciding on a site for a Court of Petty Sessions in the Noosa Shire, and local businessmen promoted Pomona as a central location in the butter, timber and banana producing area. Both Pomona and Cooroy had lobbied for a court in 1915. In December 1927 Constable Brown wrote that since Pomona had been appointed by the Governor on 15 December 1927 to hold Courts of Petty Sessions, starting on 2 January 1928, it would need a cell. A removable single-cell lock-up and an earth closet were built by the Department of Public Works on Blanckensee's property by 9 September 1928.
On 11 January 1928 Under Secretary G.A. Carter accepted an offer from the Pomona School of Arts, built in 1926, to permit the Acting Clerk of Petty Sessions (Constable Brown) to use the office attached to the School of Arts. The weekly rent would be 7 shillings and 6p, with free use of the hall for court sessions. By July 1930 Constable Brown was complaining that this arrangement lacked privacy, that a new station and court house was needed, and that the current 30 Shillings per week rent for Blanckensee's house was too high.
In August 1930 Commissioner Ryan recommended the idea of a new station and court house to the Home Secretary, given that Pomona was at the centre of the Cooroy, Cooran and Tewantin Divisions, and that the Court of Petty Sessions was held there. Since January 1928, 63 people had been arrested at Cooran, Cooroy, Tewantin, and Pomona, and 24 Police summons cases had been dealt with. Ryan stated that Pomona was important as a farming and dairying centre, and suggested building on the Police Reserve at Pomona. However, in October 1930 the Blanckensee lease was instead renewed for 3 years, at the reduced rate of 27 shillings and 6p; the amount first suggested by Blanckensee in April 1927.
Brown tried again in December 1932, shortly before Constable Robert H. Sabien, who was to be stationed at Pomona until 1940, replaced him. Brown argued that since the Blanckensee lease would expire in October 1933, a new police station and court house, a second cell, a stable and an earth closet should be built. He mentioned that the earth closet and single cell lock-up from the Blanckensee property could be reused. With regard to his current Court of Petty Sessions office, he stated he had "put up with" a lot of interruptions in the previous 5 years, because of the use of School of Arts hall by community groups during the day. The number of people appearing before Queensland's magistrate's courts fell from 30,000 to 25,000 between 1930 and 1933, only to increase to 35,000 by 1939.
On 26 April 1933 a memorandum to the Under Secretary of the Home Department reported that about 2 and a half roods of suitable land had been found from the railway station, near the 1927 police station. The owner, L. Horrocks, wanted for it. The memorandum stated that the Police Reserve on the South West of Pomona was from the business centre, which could be a problem when moving "obstreperous" prisoners. By this time the Court of Petty Sessions office at the School of Arts was being provided at no cost to the police.
By October 1933 Blanckensee was only willing to renew the lease on the station for a minimum of 2 years, as he claimed that other tenants were interested. However, the police seem to have gained an extension for a year, since the final lease was set to expire on September 30, 1934.