page_title: TC Beirne Department Store
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: TC Beirne Department Store / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Advertisement in the Brisbane Telegraph newspaper from T. C. Beirne department store Patriotic copy on the occasion of the visit of the American Naval Squadron on a goodwill visit to Australia, March 1941.
context_page_description: The TC Beirne Department Store is a heritage-listed former department store at 28 Duncan Street, Fortitude Valley, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Robin Dods and built in 1902. Further extensions were made through to 1938 to the designs of Dods and Hennessey & Hennessey. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 12 December 2003.
context_section_description: The TC Beirne Department Store was constructed for Thomas Charles Beirne in 1902 to the design of Robin Dods. The warehouse portion of the building was extended in 1906, and further extensions were made to the structure in 1910 and 1913, also to the design of Dods. By c. 1931, architects Hennessey & Hennessey had undertaken extensive additions, and in 1938 an extra 30,000 square feet of floor space was added. In 1956 the building was sold to David Jones, and has changed ownership several times since. Geoffrey Pie undertook alterations in 1974.
  Thomas Charles Beirne was born in 1860 in Ballymacurly, Ireland, the son of farmers. He was apprenticed to a draper at the age of fourteen, and in 1884 emigrated to Melbourne where he worked as a draper's assistant and later joint manager for Eyre and Shephard and then Foy and Gibson. Less than two years later a former employer in Ireland, Michael Piggott, invited Beirne to enter into a partnership and the firm of Piggott & Beirne was established in Stanley Street, South Brisbane. By 1891 the partnership had dissolved and TC Beirne took his capital of £1200 and opened his own store in Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, in premises owned by the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane. The shop employed six staff and had a frontage of twenty feet and a depth of fifty feet. TC Beirne had married Ann Kavanagh in 1887, and the Beirne family lived in quarters above the shop.
  The success of TC Beirne's store was immediate, and within a few months of opening, the store underwent an expansion into a second and then a third adjoining shop. Beirne attempted to have the owner of the shops, the Anglican Diocese, pay to convert the shops into one store. When this request was rejected, TC Beirne purchased the Diocese holdings in Brunswick Street in 1897 for £8000 on a deposit of £50. The property consisted of five shops and a bank. Architect William Hodgen, junior designed extensive alterations to the property, and by 1900 the business was described as having "evolved into large bright looking premises with a frontage to Brunswick Street of 110ft". The same article pronounced TC Beirne & Co. to be one of the "most popular shopping places in the city of Brisbane".
  By this time, the Beirne family had moved from their quarters above the shop to "Clevelard", Moray Street, New Farm. In 1899 the family moved again to Glengariff, Hendra where additions to the residence were made in 1907 to the design of Dods. Robin Dods was also the architect of a house built for Beirne's eldest daughter, Mrs Morgan, in 1912 (now located at 9 Morgan Street, Albion).
  The growth and expansion of TC Beirne & Co. continued for the greater half of the twentieth century. Within a few years of the purchase of the Brunswick Street property, Beirne acquired adjoining properties in Duncan Street. The company was eventually to boast a Brunswick Street frontage of 146 feet (45 m), a Duncan Street frontage of 311 feet (95 m), and an Ann Street frontage of 62 feet (19 m). The shop floor areas fronted Brunswick Street, and warehousing areas were located along Duncan and Ann Streets.
  In 1902 Robin Dods of the architectural firm Hall & Dods, was commissioned to design the building that was to form the core of the present structure. Additions to the company's warehousing facilities followed in 1906 when Hall & Dods called tenders for "premises, Duncan Street, Valley, for TC Beirne & Co.". Master Builder, George Albert Baumber, completed the work at a cost of £6348. Other major work was completed in 1910 and 1913, also to the design of Robin Dods. Baumber's tender was accepted in 1909, while the work completed in 1913 included a "new storey and other additions, besides the modernising of the Brunswick Street premises at a cost of about £25,000". This work increased the number of arches on the parapet from two to three.
  Less than twenty years later, c. 1931, further extensions were made. Architects Hennessey & Hennessey were responsible for the additions. In 1938, 30,000 square feet of floor space was added by contractors GH Turner & Son at a cost o
caption: Advertisement during World War II, 1941
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