page_title: Queensland National Bank, Maryborough
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Queensland National Bank, Maryborough / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Queensland National Bank, Maryborough Originally owned and occupied by Toward, Bryant &amp; Co. (1860s) and then demolished ca. 1914 for the new bank building. (Description supplied with photograph.).
context_page_description: Queensland National Bank is a heritage-listed former bank building at 327 Kent Street, Maryborough, Fraser Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Frederic Herbert Faircloth and built from 1914 to 1915 by James Treevan and N C Steffensen. It is also known as Burrum Shire Council Chambers and Woodstock House. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
context_section_description: The former Queensland National Bank building is a substantial two-storey masonry building designed in a classical revival style. Originally constructed for William Southerden in c.1863 to a design by Brisbane builder, James Treevan, the building was substantially reconstructed for the Queensland National Bank (QNB) in 1914-15 to the design of architect, Frederic Herbert Faircloth.
  
  Settlement at Maryborough commenced in September 1847 when George Furber established a woolstore on the south bank of the Mary River at the head of navigation. He was followed in June 1848 by ET Aldridge and Henry and RE Palmer, who established their own wharves on the opposite riverbank, at a location now known as the original Maryborough town site at Baddow.
  In 1850 a new town site was surveyed to the east, at a downstream position which provided better access for shipping. The first sale of land at this new site occurred in 1852, but most residents did not shift to the current centre of Maryborough until 1855 and 1856. Maryborough was gazetted a Port of Entry (the Port of Maryborough) in 1859 and was proclaimed a municipality (the Borough of Maryborough) in 1861. During the 1860s and 1870s it flourished as the principal port for the nearby Gympie goldfield and as an outlet for timber and sugar. The establishment of manufacturing plants and primary industries sustained growth in the town into the twentieth century when the QNB building was constructed.
  The QNB was the first and most successful of Queensland's three indigenous nineteenth century banks. Established in March 1872 by a prominent and influential group of Queensland squatters, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen anxious to secure development capital free from overseas or intercolonial control, the bank attracted widespread Queensland patronage including in 1879 when it secured all of the Queensland Government's banking business. The bank's first offices were opened in Queen Street, Brisbane in 1872. By the 1880s QNB dominated the colony's economy.
  
  The land on which this former bank stands was originally granted to Edmund Blucher Uhr in 1852. By 1863, the land was in the possession of Maryborough businessman William Southerden. That year, he accepted a tender for £2000 to erect a two-storey brick store covering an area of 60 by 30 feet (18.3 by 9.1 m). The Maryborough Chronicle (9 June 1864) described the building as follows:
  "On the ground floor is first, on entering, a large store forty-two by thirty feet (13 m by 9 m); at the back of this a capacious office and private room; on the upper storey, which is reached by an easy flight of stairs, is one large room intended for reserve stock. The appearance of the building from Kent Street is very chaste, and from its loftiness very imposing. The lower part is furnished with two large plate-glass windows, surmounted by a handsome cornice, and above this are three sash windows, each having a single sheet of glass, and on the Richmond Street side five similar windows. The front towards Kent Street is stuccoed." 
  In 1872, the recently formed QNB acquired the land. However, the bank did not operate from Southerden's former store but initially occupied a small timber building to the rear and then a purpose-built bank (no longer extant) facing Richmond Street. The bank leased the former store on the corner of Richmond and Lennox Streets to Stoward, Bryant and Co. and subsequently a number of other commercial operations before finally moving into the building in 1903.
  In 1914, the bank embarked on a substantial reconstruction of the building to the design of FH Faircloth. The Maryborough Chronicle (16 May 1914) reported that the original building would "form the base or skeleton of improvements and alterations that will completely transform the appearance of the old structure ..." A later article (15 June 1915) described the work as "dismantling and re-erection". The reconstructed building occupied the same area as the previous building and the upper level window openings were located in the same positions.
  
  The Chronicle described the com
caption: The original building circa 1910 prior to 1914 reconstruction
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