page_title: Watson Brothers Building
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Watson Brothers Building / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Watson's Building, Margaret Street, Brisbane
context_page_description: Watson Brothers Building is a heritage-listed warehouse at 129 Margaret Street, Brisbane City, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Richard Gailey and built from 1887 to 1918. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 23 April 1999.
context_section_description: This three-storeyed brick warehouse was constructed in 1887 for the successful Brisbane plumbing firm of Watson Brothers. It was designed by prominent Brisbane architect Richard Gailey, who in the 1880s and 1890s made a substantial contribution to Brisbane's central business district with his designs for commercial and industrial buildings such as shops, offices, hotels, warehouses and factories.
  Watson Brothers Plumbing and Gasfitting Company was established by George Watson, senior, a Glasgow plumber who migrated to Brisbane in 1862, and by the mid-1860s had established a small plumbing business in Albert Street. In 1880 George retired leaving his four sons: George Watson, junior, Thomas, James and John Douglas, to continue the business. By the mid-1880s the firm, now known as Watson Brothers, was well established as plumbers, gasfitters and galvanised iron and lead works, with workshops in Edward Street and stores and an office in Eagle Street. George Watson Jnr was soon to take a prominent role in Brisbane's civic affairs: he was an alderman on the Brisbane Municipal Council from 1891 to 1896, and Mayor of Brisbane 1892-93.
  Queensland's economic "high" of the 1880s produced an unprecedented building boom, especially in Brisbane. Watson Brothers plumbing and sanitary supplies business flourished, and in late 1885 the brothers purchased land in Margaret Street to accommodate a larger warehouse and workshop. Importantly, the site remained central and was close to the wharves along Eagle Street and Petrie Bight.
  Watson Brothers' 1887 building was erected during a period of great change in the low-lying, swampy district of inner Brisbane known as Frog's Hollow - the ground between George and Edward Streets, bounded on the west by Elizabeth Street and on the east by Alice Street. The area was farmed by convict labour during the penal settlement of the 1820s and 1830s, and in the 1840s and 1850s was sparsely settled with cottages erected on the higher land. In the busy post-Separation decades of the 1860s and 1870s, an ad hoc process of land filling was undertaken as Frog's Hollow became more densely populated by the working classes, and shophouses, house-workshops, small factories or workshops, boarding houses and hotels were erected. During the boom years of the 1880s, these residences and small workshops were replaced gradually with large and imposing commercial and industrial premises, as Frog's Hollow, conveniently located near the wharves, emerged as Brisbane's principal light-industrial and warehousing precinct. Factories and workshops specialising in clothing, footwear, saddlery, furniture, building, printing, brewing, milling, confectionery or biscuit manufacture, coachmaking, ship-fitting and metal-working, as well as substantial importer and manufacturer warehousing, either were established or expanded. By the late 1880s, engineering and ironfounding firms were particularly prominent in the lower Edward, Alice and Margaret Streets precinct, and included Smellie & Co., Smith, Forrester & Co., Harvey Sargeant & Co., and Overend & Co. Watson Brothers incorporated a small workshop at the rear of their 1887 warehouse, which was appropriately located in the metal-working precinct of Frog's Hollow.
  The Watson Brothers Building (1887), with its three storeys and ornate facade, was one of the more imposing of the Frog's Hollow warehouses. The upper level of a two level workshop at the rear of the property was accessed by a laneway at the side of the building. Similar warehouses/factories erected at this period included the 1887 speculative warehouse at the corner of Edward and Mary Streets (later Coal Board Building); Smellie & Co.'s 1888-89 warehouse at the corner of Edward and Alice Streets (now Old Mineral House); and George Myers & Co.'s warehouse (1889–90) in Edward Street (now the Metro Arts Theatre). All four were designed by architect Richard Gailey.
  Gailey conducted a highly successful and prolific architectural practice in Brisbane for nearly 60 years, from 1865 until his death in 1924. While hotels were his spe
caption: Ground floor: originally warehouse, carriageway, and offices
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