A burning issue led to capital city’s first crematorium site

Brisbane’s interest in cremation –  a long-held practice in many cultures – only sharpened  after the 1900 plague outbreak,  which underscored the need for  sanitary reform.

This momentum contributed to the Public Health Act 1902 and, eventually (after many newspaper column inches)  to Dr William Taylor’s successful Cremation Bill of 1912, which became law a year later.

Even so, an actual crematorium did not immediately follow, delayed by World War I and the significant cost  of construction.

Another hurdle to overcome was public sentiment, shaped strongly by religious and cultural traditions, along with general squeamishness around the not widely understood practice.

A dedicated Brisbane cremationist movement – The Brisbane Cremation Association (later the Brisbane Cremation Society) – emerged in 1915, uniting politicians, physicians, engineers and members of theosophical, rationalist and modernist groups. Brisbane City Council approved the establishment of a crematorium for the city in 1925.

But public resistance prevented  three proposed sites in Toowong, Balmoral and Lutwyche.

Eventually, the newly-formed Brisbane Crematorium Limited (formed by members of earlier cremation advocacy groups) was approved in 1933 for a site at Mount Thompson in Holland Park.

An information handbook produced by the company in 1934 outlined plans for the site – one that blended practicality with artistic ambition.

By the time construction was completed on September 7, 1934, early newspaper reports depict the site as “a landmark of the district”.

The central building was a spacious brick chapel, lined and inset with Queensland marble, with a large mural by Brisbane artist William Bustard hanging above the catafalque.

Leadlight doors opened to the columbarium garden, overlooking a lily pond and a figure by Brisbane  sculptor Daphne Mayo (who would  also provide two stone reliefs flanking the crematorium entrance).

Brisbane Crematorium opened on September 9, 1934.

At 10.30am on September 11,  Neil Richmond Rose, of Wynnum, became the first person to be cremated in Queensland.

In the first year of the company’s operations, there were 261  cremations, which were claimed “to constitute a world record for the first year at any crematorium”.

As Brisbane’s inaugural – and, indeed, only interwar – crematorium, the site marked the culmination of decades of advocacy and established cremation as a viable and dignified funerary option in Queensland.

Now known as Mt Thompson Memorial Gardens, the crematorium is still in operation today.

 Brisbane Crematorium’s 1934 handbook will be on display as part  of State Library of Queensland’s  new, free exhibition Dearly Departed: death in life, running from March 14 to August 23 this year. Find out more at slq.qld.gov.au/dearlydeparted