Windmill Tower, Wickham Terrace, Brisbane

Windmill Tower, Wickham Terrace, Brisbane
The Windmill Tower in Spring Hill is tangible evidence of the initial European occupation of the Moreton Bay area and important physical evidence of the development of it as a penal settlement, free settlement and separate colony. It is the oldest convict-built structure surviving in Queensland and the oldest extant windmill tower in Australia.
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Location of Windmill Tower, Wickham Terrace, Brisbane

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Theme

Buildings

Time

1840s

Place

Brisbane
Related to this photo
- Wickham Terrace, Spring Hill, 1869
- Brisbane from Wickham Terrace
Source
QSA Series ID 18465, Railway Photographs
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A Brisbane icon, but one with a brutal side:

The blacks who were executed at Moreton Bay, were Nungavil and Mullan, the latter was the oldest of the two. They were executed for the murder of a man named Tuck, belonging to Mr Stapylton's surveying party. The eldest of the two cried very much when he knew that he was to be hanged; but the younger appeared to be quite indifferent until he came within view of the place of execution, on which he became very downcast and tears were observed to be falling from his eyes.

The Windmill Hill, where the execution took place, is within about a quarter of a mile of Brisbane Town, and but for the absence of water, would, in a few years, be a thriving place.

At the execution there was between two and three hundred of the aborigines around the gallows; they appeared to be very indifferent as to what was going on; and the greater portion of them attended the funeral.

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The gallows was the Windmill itself, with the two prisoners hung from the small wooden platform top left of the building.

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