THE INGHAM POST OFFICE

Ingham Post Office circa 1880. Photo source: Queensland State Library

‍

By Dr Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui

‍

Imagine a time when mail took 45 days to arrive from Brisbane, if at all, and when it arrived at the Dungeness port there was nobody there authorised to receive it.  

More often than not, residents had to rely on “the good nature of any chance passer in private boats for the conveyance of the bags up and down the river.”  

On 1st July 1871 James Mackenzie, planter and owner of Gairloch Plantation Mill, was appointed as the first official Postmaster of the Lower Herbert River Post Office. His steam launch would meet the cutter from Cardwell once a fortnight wheremail was offloaded at the Mackenzie boat landing at Seaforth. The mail and other goods were then transported by steam launch up the Herbert River.

‍

Mackenzie was “obliging” if a bit “happy-go-lucky” in his responsibilities. Mackenzie’s eventual relinquishing of the position and community dissatisfaction led to a petition being sent to the Postmaster General for an improved service. It was only with the increased traffic on the stock route prompted by the Palmer gold rush that a new post office was opened on the newly gazetted Town Reserve on Palm Creek in 1875.  

‍

‍

The Lower Herbert Post and Telegraph Office was the first public building in the Town Reserve. It was a small wooden board building wrapped by a verandah and linked to an adjoining residence accessed by a breezeway. In 1882 the name was changed to the Ingham Post Office and structural additions made in 1885.  Mail arrived by both coastal steamer and overland by horseback from Townsville.

‍

With the Commonwealth Government taking the responsibility for postal matters from the states with Federation in 1901 plans for a new, more suitable post office building were drawn up by the Queensland State Government architect.Construction began but not without disagreement between the Postmaster General and the Ingham residents over the location of the building.  

‍

The Postmaster General wanted the post office to be located on the corner facing Townsville Road (where the Commonwealth Bank stands today). Ingham residents wanted the building to face the town’s main street.  The residents won the toss and by January 1901 the new post office building was built and ready for business in the location it stands in Lannercost Street today. Once the railway line between Brisbane and Cairns was completed in December 1924 a twice weekly ‘mail’ service was introduced.

‍

‍

In 1935 yet another building replaced the original post office. Constructed of rendered masonry on brick piers it is has heritage value today being one of the last Colonial-Revival post offices in Australia. The 1935 structure with some modifications is the one we see today.  

‍

The post office range of services have, over time, included the expected post, telegraph and telephone services. Other services included a savings bank, rainfall record keeping, cyclone warning by means of a red pennant hung from the flagpole outside the post office, and once a most valued service of ringing around during flood times to those who had telephones to warn of danger as river levels rose.  

‍