page_title: Neal Macrossan Playground
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Neal Macrossan Playground / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Children's playground at Ithaca, Red Hill, 1918 Children using playground equipment in a park at Ithaca. The swings are mounted to wooden poles and the see-saw is a pole with a wooden seat on each end.
context_page_description: Neal Macrossan Playground is a heritage-listed playground at 14 Caroline Street in the former suburb of Ithaca now Paddington, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1918 to 1934. It is also known as Ithaca Playground. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 9 May 1998.
context_section_description: The Neal Macrossan Park, Paddington was designed as a model playground by the Playground Association in 1918. This was the first of the three early playgrounds organised by the Playground Association and was on the site of a former cemetery.
  The Playground Association of Queensland held their first meeting in 1913 and was formed to introduce concepts emanating from the United States movement toward providing public recreation parks and playgrounds. A comprehensive guide to the design and management of these new parks, written by landscape architects and social planners, Arthur and Lorna Leland was published in 1909 and many of the themes of this book were adopted by the Playground Association of Queensland in their mission statements. In a time of serious epidemics the Leland book, Playground Technique and Playcraft, promoted a revised level of care and protection of children, allowing them a better chance at success in life. The basic requirements advocated for the mental and physical well being of children were good food, air, sunshine and exercise. Of these basic requirements, the playgrounds provided for three, and were also thought to instil a love of nature and an appreciation of beautiful environments. The first playgrounds in America developed as part of this movement were in Charlesbank, Boston; Boone Park, Louisville and many examples in Chicago all planned in the late nineteenth century. Many of these early playgrounds were designed by prolific and highly skilled landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted who was earlier involved with the highly influential design of Central Park, New York City. Generally these American playgrounds were incorporated in large public recreation parks, usually with elements such as playgrounds, open air gymnasiums, running tracks and field houses, which provided covered accommodation for halls, administrative offices, libraries and club rooms.
  Unlike the large recreation parks constructed in the United States for the whole community, the playgrounds established in Queensland by the Playground Association were planned on a smaller scale, focussing solely on children and providing a playground and usually a field house. Usually the playgrounds were associated with an adjacent kindergarten or creche, and this is thought to have been due to Mary Josephine Bedford's involvement with the Creche and Kindergarten Association. This group formed in 1907 with the purpose of instituting and maintaining day nurseries and free kindergartens for the children of the poor in Brisbane. Like the Playground Association, the Creche and Kindergarten Association were successful in achieving local and Queensland Government sponsorship and funding as well as funding from various national philanthropic trust funds. The success of these two organisations can be rightly said to be due to the tireless and strategic work of Mary Josephine Bedford. Throughout her life Bedford, who is perhaps best remembered as the life long companion of Dr Lilian Violet Cooper, worked toward alleviating the stress and poverty afflicting urban dwellers. On her many study tours with Cooper, Bedford researched successful methods and programmes on the provision of family welfare in America and Europe and she is known to have attended lectures at Berkeley University on public recreation parks in about 1911, just two years before the Playground Association was established. Ms Bedford was associated with many of the early efforts in Brisbane to establish welfare; she was instrumental in increasing the scope of the Children's Hospital in 1905, she was involved with the establishment of the Queensland branch of the National Council of Women also in 1905; she and Cooper were delegates at the International Council of Women in Stockholm in 1912, and in 1916 both Bedford and Cooper served in Serbia during World War I, Bedford as an ambulance driver for which she received the 5th Order of St Sava. Ms Bedford remained an active participant of both the Creche and Kindergarten Association and the Playground Association until her death in Decem
caption: Playground, 1918
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