Queensland National Bank is a heritage-listed former bank building at 72 Mosman Street, Charters Towers City, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Francis Drummond Greville Stanley and built from 1891 to 1949. It is also known as the Charters Towers' City Hall. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 26 June 2020.
History The Queensland National Bank building was built in 1891 in Charters Towers, a city located approximately 107 km southwest of Townsville in North Queensland. It replaced an earlier 1880 timber bank building and was designed by prominent Queensland architect, Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, at the peak of the Charters Towers gold rush. The grand masonry building expressed the confidence and wealth of Charters Towers at the time. When the bank was closed in the early 1940s, it became a workers' club established by the Trades and Labour Council. This was not a success and in 1948, the property was acquired by the Charters Towers City Council and used as the City Hall, relocating from the earlier town hall in Gill Street. It continues to be a centre for local government administration.
Charters Towers forms part of the traditional land of the Gudjal people. It was established after gold was discovered at the foot of Towers Hill in December 1871 by Jupiter Mosman and Hugh Mosman, leading to the proclamation of the Charters Towers Goldfield on 31 August 1872. The settlement began with a number of shops and hotels along a track, which became Mosman Street, with the population reputedly 3000 by August 1872. In 1877 the comprising Charters Towers, centred on Mosman Street, was declared a municipality, the Town of Charters Towers.Diane Menghetti, Charters Towers, PhD Thesis, James Cook University, 1984, p. 93 In 1907 Charters Towers was proclaimed a city.
In the 1880s, Charters Towers continued to prosper and grow, becoming the most productive goldfield in Queensland. The completion of the Great Northern railway line from Townsville to Charters Towers in December 1882 boosted the town's prosperity, by lowering the cost of supplies and building materials. Procurement of gold from the deep seams of Charters Towers required substantial machinery to crush quartz and sink shafts. This required working capital to finance machinery and to pay the wages of workers employed on these time consuming processes. The Queensland Gold Fields Act 1874 and Gold Mining Companies Act 1875 allowed for combinations of leases, claims and syndicates in order to work their leases at great depths. The legislation also underpinned the establishment of permanent settlement, which would attract capital investment to the field.Menghetti, Charters Towers, 1984, p.118.
With the influx of wealth into North Queensland, several financial institutions recognised that establishing banking facilities in these mining centres would prove profitable, including the Queensland National Bank (QNB).Geoffrey Blamey, Gold and Paper: A History of the Queensland National Bank of Australasia Ltd., Georgian House, Melbourne, 1958, p.193 The QNB was the first and most successful of the three Queensland-owned nineteenth-century banks. As the colony's most powerful banking institution, the QNB dominated the Queensland economy. It was established in March 1872 by an influential group of prominent Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen who wished to secure development capital free from overseas or inter-colonial control. It commenced trading on 3 June 1872 at its first office in Brisbane. The bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage and branches opened in quick succession. By early in 1874 the bank had 10 branches. In 1878, the QNB opened a branch in London, while one in Sydney opened two years later. In September 1879 Thomas McIlwraith (Queensland Premier 1877–83, 1888, 1893), a director of the QNB, persuaded the Queensland Parliament to confer on it the whole of the Queensland Government's banking business. By 1880, the bank held 40% of the total deposits and advances in Queensland, a higher proportion than any other bank in any Australian colony. Despite financial scandals and a brief suspension of operation during the 1890s, the bank exclusively held the government's account for 42 years, until 1921.Denver Beanland, 'The Rise and Fall of Colonial Queensland's Three Trading Banks', Queensland History Journal, The Royal Historical Society of Queensland, Volume 24, No.2, August 2019, p.150.
As early as 1872, requests had been made to the QNB's Board of Directors by Charters Towers' residents "inviting them to establish a branch of their bank at Charters Towers".The Queenslander, 7 December 1872, p.10. A petition with 800 signatures was sent to the board, which decided to establish a QNB branch in June 1873. A further two branches would be opened; one in the nearby mining settlement of Millchester, and one in Townsville, which served as the mines' port town.The Queenslander, 21 June 1873, p.2. The first to open was Charters Towers in July 1873, closely followed by Millchester and Townsville respectively.The Toowoomba Chronicle and Queensland Advertiser, 5 July 1873, p.3Mackay Mercury and South Kennedy Advertiser, 12 July 1873The Brisbane Courier, 26 July 1873, p.4. Other banks in Charters Towers at this time included the Bank of New South Wales (1872) and the Australian Joint Stock Bank (1872), with the QNB purportedly "the most popular, and deservedly so, as but for its assistance, the field could not have attained, for a considerable time longer, such a state of prosperity".Capricornian, 3 April 1875, p.218.
In the early 1880s, the gold mines in Charters Towers continued to have high yields and the town prospered. In the main streets, more substantial structures were built, reflective of the confidence in the town's success at that time. In July 1880, following the QNB's purchase in 1876, of two adjoining lots with frontage to Mosman Street, a new timber bank building had been completed. It was designed by Colonial Architect, Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley, and built by local contractors, Fraser Brothers. Although not as grand as the masonry QNB building constructed in Townsville in the late 1870s, also designed by Stanley, the new structure was nonetheless an attractive addition to the Mosman Street streetscape, and the Northern Miner claimed "the permanence and stability of Charters Towers appear to rest on as sure a foundation as those of Townsville".The Northern Miner, 13 July 1880Menghetti, Charters Towers, 1984, p.184.
The wealth of the Charters Towers goldfields grew in the following years, particularly following the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London where specimens of Charters Towers gold were featured. Almost immediately English investors seized the opportunity to be part of the Charters Towers gold prosperity. Mining companies were formed, managed by Charters Towers' mining agents and share-brokers, and while some shares were held by English interests, many local people prospered through their investments, leading to an expansion of banking facilities and mining exchanges. Banks and gold buyers purchased the gold and minted it into sovereigns in Australia and England. The sovereigns were held in the vaults of banks in Melbourne, London, Berlin, and New York and then shipped to pay international debt.
By 1889, Charters Towers was producing 1/6th of all of Australia's gold, and Queensland became the most productive gold producing colony in Australia.CW Collyer, An Economic History of the Charters Towers Goldfields, 1872-1913, Masters Thesis, University of Queensland, November 1985, p.13. Enormous amounts of gold were purchased by banks such as the QNB, which played a vital role in this process of wealth creation and distribution. At this time, the QNB had 14 branches on the Queensland mining fields. Charters Towers and Gympie were the premier mining branches transacting more than half of the bank's mining business. Their aggregate deposits and advances exceeded £0.5 million, making them highly profitable branches.
By the early 1890s, Charters Towers (known colloquially as "The World") had grown to be the second largest centre in the colony, after Brisbane, with a population of almost 25,000 people.Collyer, An Economic History of the Charters Towers Goldfields, p.46. Amidst this optimism, the QNB desired to better reflect its prominence as one of the town's primary banks by having a new, grand bank building constructed. It was hoped it would rival other stately banks that had been constructed in the centre of town, in particular the Bank of New South Wales building in Gill Street, which had been built in 1889.Cairns Post, 21 February 1891, p2 Stanley was engaged to design the new QNB building.
FDG Stanley was a gifted and prolific architect. He was Queensland Colonial Architect between 1873 and 1881, and in 1888 became the inaugural president of the Queensland Institute of Architects. He designed many large and prestigious public and commercial buildings, including a number of banks. These include the Australian Bank of Commerce building in Charters Towers, the Queensland National Bank building in Cooktown, Ipswich & West Moreton Building Society building in Ipswich, the Commonwealth Bank building in Mackay and the Australian Joint Stock Bank building in Maryborough. In early 1891, Stanley accepted the tender from North Queensland building contractors, Spane and Hansen, to erect the new QNB bank building for £4595.Brisbane Courier, 11 April 1891, p.5
From November 1890, whilst the construction of the building took place, a temporary bank was set up in commercial premises on the corner of Gill and Deane streets. This position was not ideal and it was stated "that any of the junior officers of the Bank will be able to write a brilliant and interesting essay on the odours that arise from the Deane Street open sewer".The Northern Miner, 21 November 1890, p.3 The QNB's 1880 timber building was sold to the Union Bank of Australia and moved onto the adjacent lot in 1890, then refitted as their bank building.The Northern Miner, 11 December 1890, p.3The Northern Miner, 12 January 1891, p.2.
In the course of its construction, The Queenslander described the QNB's new bank building as "palatial".Queenslander, 28 February 1891, p.402. By December 1891, the new masonry building had been completed and at the time, it was stated that "the building has just been erected at a cost, with the land, of nearly £9000, and is one of the architectural ornaments of the town. It is situated at the corner of Gill and Mosman streets, and therefore occupies a most central position".Northern Mining Register, 24 December 1891, p.22.
QNB's new two storey bank building was depicted in a photograph as a prominent feature of the street, with a symmetrical street elevation and Classical architectural ornamentation. Its street elevation had a central pediment and entry, and colonnaded ground and first floor verandahs, framed by corner pillars inscribed to appear as ashlar. The entablature over the first floor contained "QUEENSLAND NATIONAL BANK LIMITED 1891" in large lettering, and a balustrade parapet concealed the roof from the street.Union Bank and Queensland National Bank in Mosman street, Charters Towers, , State Library of Queensland, negative number 16998. Early plans show the building provided banking facilities on the ground floor, including entrance hall, gold room, manager's office, main banking chamber, stationery room, and a strong room; and the first floor accommodated a manager's residence comprising two bedrooms, drawing room, and a rear verandah with bathroom enclosure.The Queensland National Bank Limited, Charters Towers, plans, GG Teasdale, undated.