The Old Windmill is a heritage-listed tower mill in Observatory Park adjacent to Wickham Park at 226 Wickham Terrace, Spring Hill, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built in the 1820s by convict labour in the Moreton Bay penal settlement and is the oldest surviving building in Queensland. It is also known as Brisbane Observatory and Windmill Tower. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. Today it is the centrepiece of Observatory Park and a lookout over parts of the Brisbane CBD.
History The oldest convict-built structure surviving in Queensland, the windmill tower has accommodated a range of uses. Constructed in 1828 to process the wheat and corn crops of the Moreton Bay penal settlement, it had a treadmill attached for times when there was no wind but also as a tool for punishing convicts. The mill ceased grinding grain in 1845 and the treadmill was removed sometime before 1849. From 1855 the tower was reused as a signal station to communicate shipping news between the entrance of the Brisbane River and the town. Substantial renovations were made to it in 1861 including the installation of a time ball to assist in regulating clocks and watches. Twenty years later a cottage for the signalman was constructed to the immediate west of the tower, with a detached kitchen erected to the south two years after that. Both were later demolished. The windmill tower was used as a facility for early radio, telephony and television communications research from the 1920s and underwent substantial conservation work in the 1980s and 2009.
Grain grinding In May 1825, after eight months of occupation at Redcliffe, the contingent of convicts, soldiers, administrators and their families comprising the Moreton Bay penal settlement relocated to the site of present-day Brisbane's central business district. The growing settlement was to be self-sufficient in feeding its residents by cultivating corn (also known as maize) and wheat crops at the government farm, which were then processed into meal and flour by hand mills.Heritage Unit, p. 9 & 11. By 1827, with a substantial crop to process, the settlement storekeeper recommended a treadmill be erected to grind the crop into flour. Commandant Patrick Logan indicated at this time that such a device at Brisbane town would be of service and also provide an avenue for the punishment of convicts.
There is little evidence confirming details of the windmill tower's planning and construction. In July 1828, Peter Beauclerk Spicer, the Superintendent of Convicts at the time, recorded in his diary that convicts were "clearing ground for foundations for the Mill" and proceeded to dig a circular trench that reached bedrock and had a circumference of approximately . Allan Cunningham noted soon after that construction was in progress. The mill was constructed on the highest point overlooking the settlement on what is now Wickham Terrace. By 31 October 1828 the first grain was being ground at the site by a mill gang; however it is supposed that this was done by a treadmill as the rotating cap and sails associated with the wind-powered operation of the mill were not brought to the site until November. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the wind-powered grinding of grain did not begin until December.
There were two pairs of millstones inside the tower, each driven independently by the treadmill and sail mechanisms. The former was located outside the tower, a shaft connecting the treadwheel and the mill cogwheels inside. Two sketches from the early 1830s show the windmill tower and its sail stocks in place, while an 1839 description depicts a tower built from stone and brick, comprising four floors, a treadmill and windmill. From 1829 the windmill tower was said to be continually requiring repair, possibly because its equipment was all made from locally available timber rather than iron.
The treadmill was an important component of the mill, for use as punishment without trial, and for times when there was no wind but the amounts of grain sufficient to sustain the settlement still required processing. No plans exist of the Brisbane treadmill; however, the Office of the Colonial Architect produced a standard Design for Tread Mill Adapted for Country Districts Average Estimate £120. Between 25 and 30 men worked at the mill at any one time. Sixteen operated the treadmill, although as there are no plans, it is uncertain whether it comprised a standard 16-place treadmill, or two 8-place sections connected to a common shaft. Each man would climb five steps to get onto the wheel, standing on the treads and holding on to the rail. The men would then work as though ascending steps to operate the treadmill. Some undertook this task while in leg irons, while the more able used one hand to hold on and the other to draw sketches of people, animals and scenes on the boards of the mill. The men would work from sunrise to sunset with three hours rest in the middle of the day in summer, and two hours in winter. The first casualty of the treadmill, which produced the first official record of its existence, occurred in September 1829 when prisoner Michael Collins lost his life after being entangled in the operating mechanism. Maps of 1840s Brisbane feature a rectangular structure attached to the outside of the tower, Robert Dixon's in particular showing a structure, probably the treadmill, located on ground that was to become Wickham Terrace.
In February 1836 the windmill tower was struck by lightning, causing severe damage throughout, including to the treadmill. A convict millwright was brought from Sydney in June for the repairs, which amounted to a major rebuild of the structure that was not completed until May 1837. In April 1839, with the closure of the Moreton Bay penal settlement being planned, the windmill tower was one of the buildings recommended for transfer to the colony. This was approved in 1840–41 but it continued to sporadically process grain until 1845, when due to crop failure, a stagnant population and the availability of imported flour, it finally ceased being used. The penal settlement had officially closed in February 1842. The treadmill operated until 1845 and had been removed by October 1849.
The windmill tower in Brisbane is the oldest of its type left standing in Australia and further distinguished by having been built by convict labour. The earliest standing stone windmill towers extant around the country date from the 1830s and include: one built in 1837 in South Perth, Western Australia; another built in the same year at Oatlands in Tasmania which operated until 1890; and another built at Mount Gilead near Campbelltown in New South Wales in 1836. Most were built to process grains into flour. Other surviving mill towers are the one built in 1842 by FR Nixon at Mount Barker in South Australia; Chapman's mill built around 1850 at Wonnerup in Western Australia, and another built at a similar time on an island in the Murray River near South Yunderup in Western Australia. None of the nineteen windmill towers that characterised the early settlement at Sydney have survived. Technological developments, most particularly steam power which was more dependable than wind power or that generated by convict labour at a treadmill, rendered wind-driven mills largely redundant.
Surveying Indicative of the prominence of its physical position, the tower served as one of the stations for the trigonometrical survey of the Moreton Bay district conducted by Robert Dixon, Granville Stapylton and James Warner from May 1839 in preparation for the area being opened to free settlement. Land leases in the wider Brisbane area were issued under s.28 of the Regulations of 29 March 1848 and were nominally one mile square sections within a grid defined by (magnetic) north/south/east–west section lines. The grid had its origin at the convict-built windmill in Brisbane.Shaw, Barry, 1947–; Brisbane History Group (2010), Brisbane : people and places of Ashgrove (1st ed.), Brisbane History Group, p29
Executions On 3 July 1841 the windmill was the site of the first legal executions in Brisbane. The local Foreman of Public Works, Andrew Petrie, converted the disused structure into a gallows by running a beam out of the upper window to which was attached the nooses. The condemned were two Aboriginal men named Mullan (also known as Merridio) and Nungavil (also known as Neugavil), who had been convicted in Sydney of being accessories to the murder of Assistant Surveyor Granville Stapylton and one of his party near Mount Lindsay on 31 May 1840. After their conviction, Mullan and Nungavil were returned to Moreton Bay and hanged with about 100 Aboriginal people present, most of whom attended the funeral afterwards.
Landmark After the cessation of milling operations there were discussions about possible future use of Brisbane's windmill tower. In December 1849 the tower was put up for auction and bought by a government official who promptly sought tenders for removal of it and its machinery (the auction terms required it to be cleared away by three months after the sale). Ownership of the place quickly reverted to the Crown because of a legal problem with the sale, but not before some dismantling had occurred. In a January 1850 article the Moreton Bay Courier continued its appeal for the windmill not to be pulled down and secured by the town, arguing that aside from its landmark and picturesque qualities it was the "best fixed point for land measurement in the district". In this vein the site was the most accessible viewing point for the picturesque landscape of Brisbane and its environs. Despite earlier calls to erase evidence of Brisbane's convict past, "sentiment and pragmatism combined to override the detrimental taint of convictism" saving the tower from destruction. The sails were still in place in 1854 and appear in a painting of the windmill completed in 1855.
Signal station and observatory
By 1855 Brisbane was the leading Queensland port and it became important to establish signal stations to communicate shipping news between the entrance of the Brisbane River and the town, one of which was set up on Windmill Hill. This required modifications to the tower to include a semaphore station connected to the electric telegraph. Information on ships entering the river was converted to semaphore signals using flags hoisted on a mast erected on top of the tower. The renovations were undertaken by John Petrie in October 1861 to plans by colonial architect Charles Tiffin and included the removal of the windmill stocks or arms and wheels; the laying of floors on each storey; new doors and windows; a weatherproof floor on the top of the tower with an iron railing; a new winding staircase from bottom to top; repair of stone, brickwork and plastering; and the installation of a high flagstaff to fly signals. The tower's renovation at this time also fitted it out as a public observatory and it became known by that term.
A cottage for the signalman was constructed in 1883 to the immediate west of the tower to plans prepared by Government Architect FDG Stanley and on part of the Waterworks reserve. Two years later a detached kitchen was also constructed behind it to the south of the tower. Use of the signal station was discontinued in 1921 by the state government, which then sought a new use for the structure and land. Despite this the flagstaff remained in place until 1949. From January 1893 the Fire Brigade implemented a nightly observation post from a specially constructed platform on top of the tower. This was used until around 1922.
Museum On 20 January 1862, the Old Windmill became the first home of the newly founded Queensland Museum; serving this purpose until 1868 when other accommodation was provided in the old convict barracks or parliamentary building on Queen Street.
Time keeping