Background to the University of Queensland Archaeological Services Unit's Lang Park Salvage Excavations

Background to the University of Queensland Archaeological Services Unit’s Lang Park Salvage Excavations: History, Significance Assessment and Methods Kevin Rains1 and Jonathan Prangnell2 1 School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia 2 University of Queensland Archaeological Services Unit, School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia Brisbane’s major football venue, Lang Park, is undergoing a $280 million redevelopment. As part of this project the University of Queensland Archaeological Services Unit (UQASU) developed a cultural heritage management plan for the site. UQASU identified that the Lang Park site once housed a number of historic cemeteries, dating from the 1840s, and an early brick drain. These were assessed to be of high cultural heritage significance, and in 2000 UQASU formulated policies and strategies for their management. In 2001, UQASU began the salvage of those parts of the culturally significant elements that were to be deleteriously affected by earthworks and building activity. To date 397 burials have been exhumed. Introduction In November 1999 the Queensland Government announced a major redevelopment of the Lang Park football ground to provide Brisbane with a purpose-built rectangular stadium comparable to the Millennium Stadium in Wales. The Lang Park redevelopment site is situated in Milton, an inner western suburb of Brisbane, some 1.6km from the city centre. It covers 7.4ha bounded by Caxton, Hale, Chippendall and Castlemaine streets (Figure 1). The Department of Communication and Information, Local Government, Planning and Sport formed a Stadium Development Group to oversee planning for the project (HOK Sport and PDT Architects 2001:4). From December 2000 to May 2001, the University of Queensland Archaeological Services Unit (UQASU) was contracted by Sinclair Knight Merz Pty Ltd and the Stadium Development Group to assess the potential subsurface deposits at the Lang Park football ground and make recommendations for their management during the various phases of redevelopment. The results of this assessment were submitted in a report that dealt specifically with non- Figure 1. Location of Lang Park. Indigenous heritage (Prangnell and Rains 2001). Aboriginal heritage assessment was conducted separately Lang Park: A History by the Turrbal Association Inc. (2001) but the results were During the early years of European expansion in later included in a combined Turrbal Association Inc. and Queensland, the Lang Park site contained a number of UQASU report entitled Summary Cultural Heritage cemeteries collectively known as the Old Management Plan for the Proposed Lang Park Paddington/Milton Cemeteries, or North Brisbane Burial Redevelopment (2001). Since the completion of UQASU’s Grounds. The site was surveyed by September 1843 and cultural heritage study, work on the redevelopment has was the first cemetery to serve the newly established commenced, with UQASU being retained to undertake settlements of North and South Brisbane when free monitoring, sampling, salvage and analysis of recovered settlement was proclaimed in 1842. It remained the materials. principal place of interment for a period of 34 years (Fisher In this paper we present the background to the 1994:35-36). development of the cultural heritage management plans for The North Brisbane Burial Grounds were situated the Lang Park redevelopment. This includes the within a swampy drainage basin on the western boundary documentary and physical evidence, the establishment of of Brisbane Town, that later become the suburbs of the sequence of landscape changes that occurred on the Paddington and Milton (Fisher 1994:36; The Telegraph 11 site, the assessment of the heritage significance of the place October 1962:25). Following cemetery design current at and its components and the development of policies and the time, the site was laid out as a formal urban burial strategies for the management of the cultural heritage ground based on the principle of denominational values. We also outline the methods employed by UQASU segregation (Fisher 1994:38) (Figures 2-3). Seven separate in the initial stages of the salvage operation and detail areas were initially set aside; six held in trust by various preliminary results. religious denominations and one unconsecrated section for Rains & Prangnell q a r | Vol. 13 | 2002 | 21 Figure 2. 1870 view of North Brisbane Burial Grounds (JOL neg. 3493). By 1861 the Anglican cemetery had expanded to four acres and absorbed the Aboriginal burial area, the latter becoming redundant because of the diminishing number of Aboriginal people within the Brisbane area (Fisher 1994:38). The Presbyterians had also enlarged their reserve and the Baptists had acquired a parcel of land to the north of the Congregationalist/Wesleyan reserves (Fisher 1994:38). The Primitive Methodists applied for a site but failed to secure one. During the 1850s and 1860s, Brisbane witnessed a rapid and unanticipated increase in population and urban development, and the cemeteries were soon bordered by streets and allotments (Brisbane Courier 15 March 1864). The cemeteries themselves became overcrowded with gravesites and fell into neglect. Ad hoc, shallow, or water- logged burials were reported and the entire site posed a health risk due to its flood-prone hollows and proximity to the Milton water reserve (Brisbane Courier 15 March 1864; Fisher 1994:41). Considerable public pressure mounted to regulate burial procedures and establish a larger general cemetery at a site further from the town centre (Brisbane Courier 30 December 1862:2, 6 February 1864; Fisher 1994:37-38, 41). In 1865 a Cemetery Act was passed by the Queensland Parliament that permitted the closure of the North Brisbane Burial Grounds (Fisher 1994:38, 41). By the 1870s new Figure 3. Location of burial grounds (after DNR CS7 cemeteries controlled by the municipal council were 1860 and DNR 1861). established at other locations in the greater Brisbane region (Fisher 1994:36). However, because of ease of access, Aborigines (QGG 1862 3(67), 1864 5(27):219, 1864 familiarity and lower burial costs, the North Brisbane 5(56):426, 1867 8(60):319; QPP 1914 (2):407). An acre Burial Grounds continued to be used as a place of each was apportioned to the Anglicans (Episcopalian), interment by Brisbane residents until it was officially Roman Catholics and Presbyterians, while half acre lots closed on 1 August 1875, although there is mention of were given to Independents (Congregationalists), Jews, sporadic burials occurring through to the 1890s (Fisher Wesleyans and Aborigines (Fisher 1994:37). 1994:44; Hayman 1994:67). 22 | 2002 | Vol. 13 | q a r Background to the UQASU’s Lang Park Salvage Excavations Figure 4. Lang Park with Milton Drain and landscaping (QPP 1914 (2):407). Between the 1870s and 1890s, physical changes to the a park was supervised by the Lands Department (QPP 1914 Burial Grounds occurred. Between 1875 and 1877, 40 to (2):407). The public was notified of the proposal for the 50 bodies were exhumed as a result of the closure (Fisher establishment of a ‘people’s park’, and a period of one year 1994:52). Three streets (Judge, Caroline and Caxton) came was given for concerned relatives to apply for the remains to dissect the site from east to west (Fisher 1994:44, and/or memorials of deceased family members to be 1995:111). Caxton Street ran across part of the Jewish transferred to other cemeteries (Fisher 1994:47; QSA PRV section, necessitating the complete removal or re-situating 9892/1 28 July 1914). The cost of exhumation and re-burial of some remains (Fisher 1994:52). Residential was defrayed by the Department. development and a new Petrie Terrace Boys School (built in 1888) encroached upon the Burial Grounds from the north while blocks of land immediately adjacent to the cemeteries were given over for government and recreational use (Fisher 1994:46, 1995:112; The Telegraph 11 October 1962:25). In 1886 the open brick Milton Drain was dug along the western boundary to help drain the swamp (Figure 4) (The Builder and Contractor’s News 15 July 1887:156). This structure was designed by William David Nisbet and J.B. Stanley. Nisbet was the Engineer in Charge of the City Drainage and he is credited with the design of much of the drainage of the inner city area (Richard 1980:4-7). Despite these various alterations to the site, all the reserves except the Jewish cemetery survived reasonably intact through to the end of the nineteenth century. Over Figure 5. Landfill overlying the Roman Catholic section time, though, the problems of vandalism and neglect in the 1930s (JOL neg. 106336). manifested themselves (Fisher 1994:46; QSA PRV 9892/1 4 June 1913, 28 July 1914) and the site became the focus of more public debate (Fisher 1994:46). Formal graveyards were now viewed as obsolete and ugly, while reformist movements in civic planning highlighted the need for open parkland in the densely inhabited working-class suburbs that the area now supported (Brisbane Courier 3 May 1975:8; Fisher 1995:129). Despite the construction of the Milton Drain, there were also sanitation problems posed by stagnant pools persisting within the disused graveyards. A change of use from burial ground to recreation grounds was mooted in 1910 (Fisher 1994:47; QSA PRV 9892/1 28 July 1914). Approval for the conversion came with the passing in 1911 of the Paddington Cemeteries Act and the cancellation of all previous denominational grants Figure 6. Lang Park athletics oval in the 1940s (JOL (Fisher 1994:47). The conversion of the old cemeteries to neg. 67706). Rains & Prangnell q a r | Vol. 13 | 2002 | 23 Presbyterian, Roman Catholic and Jewish sections, was turned into a public park (QGG 1914 102(145):1541) (Figure 7). This constituted an area of 15 acres 1 rood 34 perches (50 hectares) and was duly named Lang Park in memory of the early Queensland pioneer, Dr John Dunmore Lang (QPP 1914 (2):409; QSA PRV 9892/1 21 April 1914).

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