Paddington is an inner suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the 2021 census, Paddington had a population of 9,063 people.
Paddington is located 4.6 kilometres (2.9 mi) west of the Brisbane CBD, by car. As is common with other suburbs in the area, Paddington is located on a number of steep ridges and hills. It was settled in the 1860s. Many original and distinctive Queenslander homes can be found in the suburb. Houses are frequently built on stumps, owing to the steep nature of their blocks.
Paddington includes the neighbourhood of Rosalie, which has its centre at the junction of Baroona Road and Nash Street (27°27′58″S 152°59′49″E / 27.4661°S 152.9969°E) and was a separate suburb until 1975.
The wooded slopes and ridges were home to the Turrbal, known by British settlers as the Duke of York's clan. In the early days Aborigines camped in Armstrong's Paddock on what is now Armstrong Terrace and also on the former Paddington Tram Depot on Enoggera Terrace.
British settlement in Paddington commenced in the 1850s and the area was known as "Ti-Tree Flats" as the first residents moved there to cultivate gardens on the flats and to cut timber. The first sale of land occurred in 1859 with the sale of fifty-five lots. The name Paddington comes from the name of the farm of Mr B, Clay who named his farm after his London birthplace of Paddington. The Paddington farm was sold and subdivided in 1864.
Petrie Terrace State School opened in March 1868 with separate sections for boys and girls. In 1875 the school was split into Petrie Terrace Boys State School and Petrie Terrace Girls and Infants State School. In 1953 there was another re-arrangement resulting in Petrie Terrace Infants State School for the younger children and Petrie Terrace State School for the older children. In 1960 Petrie Terrace Infants State School closed and the Infants were transferred to Petrie Terrace State School.
A Primitive Methodist Church opened at 244 Given Terrace circa June 1877. In 1906, a new church building was erected on the site at 238 Given Terrace with the old church building moved to one side to become the church hall. The 1906 church was burned down in 1996. Some brick fencing from the church remains on the site, now occupied by modern commercial buildings.
Paddington was in the local government area of Ithaca Division from 1879 to 1887, then Shire of Ithaca from 1887 to 1903, and then Town of Ithaca from 1903 to 1925, after which Ithaca was amalgamated into the present City of Brisbane.
The Morris family owned and operated the boot and footwear factory on the corner of Hale and Caxton Streets from the 1880s until it was sold in the 1960s. The second factory building was built in 1930 and the F.T. Morris Footwear company employed up to 180 workers and could make 630 pairs of boots and shoes a day. The company was sold in the 1960s to Dixon & Sons and while the business continued to make a profit for a while bit eventually could not compete with cheaper imports and nylon and canvas mass-produced shoes. The factory closed in 1973. The second factory building in Caxton Street was reopened in 1976 as the "Spaghetti Emporium" restaurant, complete with a giant boot on the roof. In the 1980s, the building became the nightclub "Brisbane Underground" but it was demolished for the controversial Hale Street city by-pass in 1990.
The Brisbane Tramways Company, a private enterprise formed in 1895, introduced the first electric trams to Brisbane in mid-1897. Following lobbying by the Ithaca Shire Council, a tramway was extended along Musgrave Road to Red Hill, and a line was laid along Caxton Street and Given Terrace as far as Latrobe Terrace in 1898. By 1906-7 electric trams ran along Caxton Street and the Paddington line was extended until it reached Bardon in 1937. The Red Hill line was extended to Ashgrove in 1924. The tramways substation was erected in 1929–30 at the corner of Latrobe and Enoggera Terraces.
In 1898, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Robert Dunne purchased land on the corner of Given Terrace and Fernberg Road, Rosalie (27°27′48″S 152°59′57″E / 27.4633°S 152.9993°E), to build a Catholic church called Sacred Heart at a cost of £500. It was part of the parish of Red Hill and Father Hegarty, parish priest of Red Hill, celebrated the first Mass.
Sacred Heart Parish School was opened in 1906 in a building beside the church and was operated by the Sisters of Mercy. It closed on 12 November 1995 due to the changing demographics of the area reducing the number of children wanting Catholic education.
In the 1910s, the Ithaca Town Council embarked on a programme of civic improvements which included the establishment of Lang Park (1917), the Ithaca Swimming Pool (1917), and the Ithaca Children's Playground (1918) and associated formation of roads, tree planting, construction of embankment gardens, small reserves and street gardens throughout the suburbs of Red Hill, Kelvin Grove, Paddington, Rosalie, Bardon, and parts of Milton. Because of the hilly terrain, many of the new streets were divided, leaving embankments which the Ithaca Town Council considered were cheaper to plant and beautify than to cut down. This approach placed the Council at the forefront of street beautification projects in the Brisbane metropolitan area and Australia and led to numerous requests for advice in civic landscaping from other councils, interstate as well as within Queensland.
On 25 February 1922, Sir Matthew Nathan, the Governor of Queensland unveiled the Ithaca War Memorial (27°27′31″S 153°00′02″E / 27.4585°S 153.0006°E) to commemorate local people who had died in World War I.
Prior to 1925, the suburb was administered by the Ithaca Town Council. In that year the council was amalgamated with 24 other councils to form the Brisbane City Council.
In 1927, the water tower at Garfield Terrace was opened. At the opening the President said it had always been the aim of the Water Board to afford facilities to provide a full water supply to all residents on elevated land. For a time the area was referred to as Paddington Heights, supposedly to differentiate it from the more traditional working class Paddington.
Archbishop James Duhig wanted to establish a monastery and school in Rosalie for the Marist Brothers. On 29 July 1928, the foundation stone was laid by B. Catteneo at a site opposite the church on Fernberg Road (27°27′50″S 152°59′57″E / 27.4638°S 152.9992°E). Building work was completed in time for Marist Brothers College Rosalie to open on 28 January 1929 with an initial enrolment of 135 boys. The school was officially opened on 20 February 1929 by Archbishop Duhig. The monastery was also used as a boarding school until 1940. On Sunday 6 June 1948 the foundation stone for the new Brothers school building was laid by Duhg accompanied by Éamon de Valera, who was travelling around Australia to speak and associate with the many Irish immigrants who had made Australia their home, at the end of his term of office of Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland. De Valera's visit was controversial given his role in the Irish War of Independence against the British Government and there was reluctance to hold civic receptions in his honour. Nonetheless, a crowd of nearly 2.000 people attended the laying of the foundation stone including the Labor Premier of Queensland (and staunch Catholic and local resident) Ned Hanlon and the Works Minister, Bill Power. At the ceremony at Rosalie, de Valera said "...the new school was part of the evidence of the magnificent works of charity and community effort that he had seen in every capital of the Commonwealth." On 2 October 1949 Duhig formally opened the new school building which had cost £35,000. The school closed in 2008 despite considerable protests from families currently and formerly associated with the school.
In the early 1960s, Lord Mayor Clem Jones of the Labor Party embarked on an ambitious programme to "sewer" Brisbane and within five years all the residences were sewered. Occasionally "outhouses" can still be seen in back yards. Following on from that over the next 10 years or so bitumen was laid to the sides of all roads. Bitumen used to extend to curbs only on the main roads.
Until December 1968, electric trams, operated first by the Brisbane Tramways Company and later the Brisbane City Council, operated along all four main thoroughfares in the suburb. A tram depot (garage) was located on Latrobe Terrace between 1915 and 1962, when it was destroyed in one of Brisbane's largest fires. The cause of the Paddington tram depot fire is not known however arson and public corruption has been rumoured for years. Sixty-five of Brisbane's trams were destroyed which was a large proportion of its fleet. After the fire Old Dreadnought trams were pressed into service, and eight replacement (Phoenix) trams were built, but Lord Mayor Clem Jones began to close lines almost immediately. The destruction of the depot is generally seen as the beginning of the end for Brisbane's tram system, providing the justification for the subsequent closure of four tram routes, the gradual encroachment of bus operation on other tram routes with the final closure of the tram system occurring on 13 April 1969.
The 1974 Brisbane flood which ravaged much of Brisbane largely left Paddington proper alone. The main roads and shops of Paddington were on the ridge tops and it was only the houses in the gullies and dips that were affected.
In 1975, the suburb of Rosalie was merged into Paddington with Rosalie being accorded neighbourhood status within Rosalie.
In the 2011 census, the population of Paddington was 7,987, 52.2% female and 47.8% male. The median age of the Paddington population was 32 years of age, 5 years below the Australian median. 73.6% of people living in Paddington were born in Australia, compared to the national average of 69.8%; the next most common countries of birth were England 4.5%, New Zealand 3.5%, Ireland 1.1%, United States of America 1%, South Africa 0.9%. 86% of people spoke only English at home; the next most common languages were 1.3% Italian, 0.8% German, 0.8% French, 0.8% Spanish, 0.5% Mandarin.
In the 2016 census, Paddington had a population of 8,562 people.
In the 2021 census, Paddington had a population of 9,063 people.
History info courtesy of Wikipedia