Wooloowin, Brisbane)

ROYAL PICTURE THEATRE (Wooloowin, Brisbane)

AUSTRALIAN VARIETY THEATRE ARCHIVE: RESEARCH NOTES See last page for citation, copyright and last updated details.

aka Royal Pictures / Wooloowin Picture Theatre

(1923-1933 ) Dixon Street (near Wooloowin Railway Station).

Built by Wooloowin Amusements Ltd on the site of the former Elite Picture Gardens, the Royal Picture Theatre is believed to have opened for business in late-October or early November 1923. Little information regarding live entertainment has been located to date. However, the proprietors reportedly designed venue with concerts in mind, along with special provision for dances, skating and similar entertainments (including dressing rooms). Seating capacity was said to be 1,400. Although the Royal initially attracted audiences due to its close proximity to Wooloowin railway station and the nearby Lutwyche Road tramline, competition from an increasing number of other cinemas from surround suburbs - notably Albion, Lutwyche, Clayfield, Kedron Park, and Kalinga saw the Royal eventually struggle. The situation was not helped by the Great Depression.

► See also: Elite Picture Gardens (Wooloowin)

Brisbane Courier 9 June 1923, 10.

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• 1921: In October the Daily Mail published an article about a proposed purchase of the Elite Picture Gardens by the newly-formed company Wooloowin Amusements Ltd. No further details have been located until the same newspaper announced two years that a new theatre was to be erected shortly on the site of the old Elite Picture Gardens. While little information has been found relating to William Healy's venture during its final years, the theatre appears to have continued operating up until at least March 1923. The Brisbane Courier records, for example, that a lantern lecture was to be presented at the Wooloowin Picture House on 30 March.

• 1923: The Wooloowin Amusements Company Ltd announced on 5 June via the Daily Mail newspaper that it would shortly erect a new fully-enclosed theatre on the site of the old Elite Picture Gardens. The article contains many details relating to the design.

• 1927: On 10 September an explosion occurred in the projector room of the theatre, and allegedly caused almost total blindness to the projectionist, Thomas Scott.

• 1929: An application for the installation of a dance floor was accepted by the local council but it is unclear if this went ahead.

• 1930: Two former theatrical identities from the Capricornia region of Queensland, reportedly took over the lease of the "Wooloowin Picture Theatre" towards the end of the year.

Charles Robert (Bob) Raine (1888-1952) was a pianist/theatre manager from Mount Morgan whose career saw him associated with West's Pictures, Brisbane, during the silent film era. At some stage while living in the Queensland capital he was also employed as manager of the Comino Brothers' tobacco department in Petrie Bight.1 Raine's obituary records, too, that he once managed a theatre in Mount Morgan.2

A.E. (Bully) Carroll was a prominent Rockhampton theatre proprietor, producer and boxing promoter. He is associated with the Strand (later the Tivoli) and the Arcadia theatres.

• 1931: 26 year-old Algy Nash, of Merrivale Street, South Brisbane was charged in the Summons Court with using the Royal for the purpose of skating without having a license. There is currently no information available regarding Nash's involvement with the theatre.

General location of the Royal Pictures, Dickson Wooloowin train station Street

Map source: Harris' Street and Road Directory, 1916-1917 John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

1 Petrie Bight is the small pocket of land that runs from under the Story Bridge's northern point and around the Brisbane River to Customs House. 2 "Death of Mr. R. Raine."Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 29 Apr. 1952, 5. Wooloowin: A Brief History to World War II:

An inner-northern suburb of Brisbane, Wooloowin is located approximately five to six kilometres from the central business district. It is hemmed in on the south by Albion and Windsor, to the south-west by Lutwyche (including part of Lutwyche Road), to the north-west by Kedron, to the north by Eagle Junction and Kalinga, and to the east by Clayfield. The author of a 1931 Brisbane Courier article on the suburb writes: "old residents state that the name is of aboriginal origin, and means 'running water'."3

The Wooloowin area, which originally lay within the boundaries of Lutwyche, slowly developed a suburban identity from the 1880s, when the larger estates were subdivided, but was still considered an outlaying district for several decades to come.4 The main subdivisions of rural holdings (largely pineapple, banana and mango farms) occurred in the 1880s. This was due in large part to the extension of the Sandgate rail line in 1882.

Of major importance to Brisbane was the "Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act" of 1885 which prevented the building of terrace houses (with the exception of Petrie Terrace). The act also enforced a minimum property size of 16 perch (405m2), thereby allowing suburbs like Wooloowin to develop their own suburban identities through different styles of architecture and urban planning.

By the turn of the century Wooloowin had become burgeoning Catholic community. The Order of the Sisters of Mercy opened its Holy Cross Retreat in 1889 as a home for unmarried mothers, disabled girls and infants, and soon afterwards began operating the Magdalen Asylum of Holy Cross Laundry. The Anglican Church also played a strong part in the suburb during this period.5 When the tramline from the city was extended along Lutwyche Road to Kedron in 1914, Wooloowin really boomed as a residential working class suburb. Among the more significant developments in the Wooloowin area were a racecourse at Kedron Park6 and the building of the Diamantina orphanage. The Wooloowin Progress Association was formed in 1911, and the Wooloowin primary school in Lutwyche Road was opened the same year that the tram line was extended. Kedron Park Road (south from Norman Street) also emerged as Wooloowin's local shopping area. The post office directory recorded four stores, a grocer and a blacksmith in 1924. Most of the original houses in Wooloowin were interwar Queenslanders built on large allotments.

Brisbane Boys College was founded in 1902 on Old Sandgate Road, now Bonny Avenue. The were four students in the first intake. Two years later the school moved to the new Sandgate Road in Clayfield (where Clayfield College is now located). The boys relocated to Toowong in the early 1930s, and the Clayfield campus thereafter became a school for girls.

3 Other secondary sources also mention pigeon or fish as a possible origin for the word Wooloowin. 4 The area which is now known as Wooloowin was once the northern-most part of the Shire of Windsor (1887-1925). Windsor had itself been part of the Ithaca Division but was proclaimed a shire in 1887, and in 1904 became the Town of Windsor. It amalgamated into the City of Brisbane in 1925. 5 The Anglican Church later donated land where a shopping area (comprising a post office and local stores) was established by the 1920s. 6 The site is now home to Kedron State High School.

One of Wooloowin's most prominent residences was Alfred Lutwyche (1810-1880).7 He had been appointed resident judge in 1859 of was then the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales, and became sole Judge of the new Supreme Court of Queensland two years later. In this role he occupied the bench unaided until 1863, when the first Chief Justice, Sir James Cockle, arrived. Lutwyche owned vast tracts of land in the area. Kedron Lodge, his magnificent heritage-listed residence, still stands to this day in the neighbouring suburb of Kalinga. Lutwyche also donated land in Kedron Park Road for an Anglican church.

Portrait of Alfred Lutwyche by unknown painter. Held by the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. Source: Wikipedia

Early aerial view of Wooloowin and Kedron Park, 1920. Source: Brisbane from the Air Illustrated, 1920