Molly Malones (Tattersalls Hotel) History

Click here to view the original document

The City of Townsville was established in 1864 as a port for rapidly developing pastoral districts in the hinterland. John Melton Black, who had pastoral runs in the Cleveland Bay area, formed a partnership with Robert Towns to secure financial backing for plans to establish a port at the mouth of Ross Creek.

The port was proclaimed in October 1865 and by the end of the year the population was between 100-200 people. Townsville was proclaimed a municipality in 1866 and became the centre of substantial and continuous growth, particularly with the discovery of five major goldfields in the vicinity within six years.

Wharves, stores, shops, hotels and housing were rapidly established at the new port. The land now at the corner of Wickham and Flinders Streets proved an ideal location for a hotel. Opposite the wharves, the site was first developed by Hermann de Zoet & Company as the ‘Townsville Boarding House, Cleveland Bay’ in 1865. In December 1865 de Zoet applied for a licence for the Townsville on the same site at the corner of Flinders and Wickham Street.

The original hotel was a single storey timber building of simple design incorporating two sitting rooms and four bed rooms with an awning facing both streets. In 1866 Joseph Fletcher and Bernard O’Neill purchased the property, retaining the hotel for six months before selling in December to Alexander Mollison. In March 1867 the township experienced its first cyclone which destroyed the hotel and much of the town.

Mollison rebuilt the hotel in a matter of weeks and reopened with ‘a Grand Ball’. However by the time he reopened the hotel he had exhausted his funds and he died the following year. The place was purchased by James Evans who renamed the hotel Tattersall’s.

This name evoked the model of sporting clubs established in Britain and their connection with horse racing, a sport which Evans was actively involved in. At this time Townsville’s Tattersall’s Hotel was only the second Tattersall’s in Queensland, a club having been established in Adelaide Street, Brisbane in 1856.

On 11 April 1868 the Cleveland Bay Express featured a tender notice for a two storey extension to the hotel. The decision to expand was probably due to both economic and environmental factors.

In July 1869 Evans advertised that the hotel had received ‘extensive improvements and additions’ and could accommodate ‘a much larger circle of patrons in ‘first-class style’; [it] had ‘cool’ ale, spirits, porter and wines always on hand as well as ‘first class stabling’.

Evans left Tattersall’s in 1872 to supervise the building of his new ‘Queens Hotel’ on the Strand. James McGrath became the licensee of Tattersall’s in 1874 beginning a long association of the extended McGrath family with the hotel. Following his death in 1878, his son Daniel McGrath became the licensee. In that year, Thomas Enright, who became a leading community figure associated with Tattersall’s hotel, became the licensee of the Post Office Hotel, Townsville. Enright had come to Townsville in 1878 working with his father, Thomas Enright senior on a variety of civil infrastructure projects.

In June 1895 a right of way added to the rear of the property, presumably to enable better service access. It is unclear whether the partial demolition of the non-balconied 1868 extension occurred at this time or whether it was severely damaged during Cyclone Sigma in 1897. The remaining section was rendered from the street frontage, presenting a blank wall and the roofline totally altered. Images taken soon after Cyclone Leonta in 1903 reveal this remnant section, detached from the main hotel. It remains the oldest identified building in Townsville.

The North Queensland Herald regard the new Tattersall’s as ‘an architectural acquisition to Flinders Street’. Enright remained as landlord for three years transferring the licence to his brother-in-law George Sullivan in 1902. During the 1930s the hotel was renamed ‘Ramages’ while Sid Ramage was proprietor however its name reverted to Tattersall’s after his departure. The exterior of the hotel has changed little with the exception of the original curved valance which was replaced with a horizontal profile during the 1960s. The hotel was renamed ‘Molly Malone’s’ in the late 1990s and themed as an Irish bar and grill.