My connection to ‘The Valley’ from the late 1850s

I’ve become very interested in the early settlement of Fortitude Valley since discovering I have ancestors who lived there before and after Queensland separated from New South Wales in September 1859.

Denis James Guerin, with his wife Margaret, and eight children, moved to Moreton Bay between 1856 and 1857 to take up a job as a weigher with HM Customs. This was quite a change for the Guerins as before leaving Sydney, Denis was the licensee of the Corporation Arms Hotel in Old South Head Road Sydney. Agnes Guerin, the ninth child, was born in Brisbane in 1857, followed by John, also born in Brisbane in 1860—hence, the family’s migration north fits into the 1856-57 timeframe.

The family was living in Fortitude Valley, street unknown, and with another child on the way, when Denis fell ill and died unexpectedly on 3 February 1861. He had been promoted to locker, earning a salary of 118 pounds a year and must have been held in high regard as the Collector of Customs, Mr Thornton, along with Rev. Dean Rigney, started up a subscription to raise funds for Margaret and her large family. In April that year a committee raised £149 19s. 6d., with a further £70 expected, allowing for the purchase of an allotment with a small cottage on Amelia Street, Fortitude Valley. The funds helped enlarge the home to accommodate Margaret Guerin’s growing family and provide a base from where the widow could earn a living [1] The child Margaret was carrying at the time of her husband’s death was Isabella, born 5 September 1861, seven months later.

The generosity shown to Margaret Guerin astounds me for the times. Even though she was a worthy cause, I’m sure there were many families living hand to mouth. The Ipswich newspaper stated, ‘Subscriptions collected at Ipswich on behalf of the widow and family of the late Mr Denis Guerin, who have been left utterly destitute and in most distressing circumstances; the eldest child being a helpless cripple, the third a deaf and dumb idiot, six too young to be able to do anything for their living, and the widow about to give birth to the tenth.’[2]

There’s a fascinating article titled ‘Fortitude Valley, The Cinderella of the City’ by Charles Melton, which gives us a rare insight into The Valley, as it was known in the 1850s and 1860s.[3] Written in 1919, Melton interviewed residents who arrived in Brisbane on the barque, Fortitude in 1949. The Fortitude emigrants were apparently denied promised land grants and forced to move from York’s Hollow, near Wickham Terrace, to a marshy, low-lying flat called The Valley.[4]

They described how roads and footpaths were undefined and often used as grassy playgrounds for white and black children alike. ‘The slopes were timbered with box, ironbark and gum trees, while the lower levels held swamp oak and tea tree. Steers grazed on the hillsides, and dairy cows pastured on the flats’. There was no Wickham Street in the 1850s, and ‘much of the land bounded by Ann, Brunswick, Leichhardt and Boundary streets were still in blocks as originally surveyed by the New South Wales Government.’ It was in the 1850s that the first surveyed road to Fortitude Valley was built, and a road was also built over a swamp in Newstead. Those first streets and footpaths were marked by iron-bark posts. Water crossed Ann Street near James Street, and at one time, the Council built a bridge over Ann Street to accommodate traffic, hence Bridge Street. Land between Wickham and Ann Streets, bordering Constance, East and Bridge Streets, was low-lying and swampy.

By the late 1850s, Fortitude Valley had some 100 to 150 houses and ten years later, The Valley could boast a Methodist church, a primary school, a free reading room and a locally supported alderman representing the district on the Brisbane town council. In 1864, Thomas Finney established a drapery business on Ann Street, lending the growing town an air of progress.[5]

Two years widowed, Margaret married John Roy in 1863, himself widowed the year before, and a parent of six children. Continuing to live in Amelia Street, it seems John Roy sold his seven-room stone cottage with a garden back and front in James Street, to live with Margaret. Margaret was a busy lady. She played the piano, possibly taking students in for lessons and ended up running a cab business.

Horse transportation was expanding in the early 1860s, even Cobb & Co had moved into Queensland in 1865 and that same year, Margaret Guerin Roy, along with her daughter Ellen, were cited in the papers as being cab proprietresses. [6]  Ellen, a woman in her early 20s was fined 10s with costs for allowing her cab to operate with only one lamp lit.[7] Margaret was operating a cab business the year before, employing son Gregory to drive for her. Margaret’s activities came to light when they witnessed a fire in a grocer’s store on Wickham Street called Little Wonder, and Gregory was noted as working for his cab proprietress mother.

John Roy passed away in 1868, so Margaret would have also been responsible for his children as well as her own. In 1869, Margaret lost a horse after it fell into a deep culvert on Brunswick Street and raised a petition, getting signatures from several residents in Fortitude Valley, to mitigate her loss ‘as she was a widow in poor circumstances, and had no means of replacing the horse.’

Ellen, the eldest of the Guerin children, died at her mother’s home in Amelia Street on 25 June 1866, aged 23. Only a few months prior to her death Ellen was summoned to court for allowing her cab to ‘loiter’ in the public streets and fined 10s plus costs. Operating a cab was a risky business. The police didn’t want too many horse-drawn carts taking up space on the main roads where it was easier for a passenger to flag them down.

In 1877, the Geurin/Roy household, still living in Amelia Street, saw Mary Elizabeth, the Guerin’s seventh child, marry John Cruickshank Aitkin in the Catholic church, also situated in Amelia Street. The Aitkins were well-known to the Guerins, because in Sydney, George Cruickshank Aitkin ran a grocery business next door to the hotel in South Head Road. Several members of the Aitkin family had moved to Brisbane, establishing grocery stores and other businesses in Spring Hill and South Brisbane.

Mary Aitkin inherited her mother’s energetic ability to earn a living. She was musical like her mother but also was the postmistress at West End for a while before her family, along with her husband John, moved north to Maryborough.

Margaret Guerin Roy died on 30 October 1883, and in the following month, auctioneer David Love received instructions to sell all her household items. The auction took place on the premises of Margaret’s home in Warry Street, Fortitude Valley. Everything from vases, a mirror, pictures, crockery—the lot was to be sold. I can’t understand why this would happen unless she was in debt. You would think some of the daughters would have taken at least some of the items. 

Margaret is buried in Toowong Cemetery, along with five of the Guerin women who lay in rest together or next to each other. The headstone is very impressive, decorated with delicate marble carving on a four-sided pillar noting the women interned beneath. On the front is Margaret Guerin Roy and her daughter, Isabella Gordon Guerin, who died in 1876. Turning to the right-hand side is Bridget Catherine (Scheilkowsky), who died in 1926, with Margaret who died in 1945. On the left-hand side is Agnes Guerin, who died in 1938, sharing the marbled space with Mary Elizabeth (my paternal great-grandmother), who died in 1943.

I am still looking for John Roy, and the Guerin sons including Ellen, Margaret and Dennis’ first born.  Someone told me there was once a little Catholic church and cemetery underneath the Suncorp Stadium. Another ‘rabbit hole’ to dive into in my continuing search about my early Fortitude Valley ancestors.

[1] “Local Intelligence” The North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser (Ipswich, Qld: 1856 – 1862) 15 February 1861: 3. Web. 10 Oct 2024. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article77433619.
[2] “Advertising” The North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser (Ipswich, Qld: 1856 – 1862) 5 March 1861: 2. Web. 10 Oct 2024 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article77433279.
[3] Fortitude Valley: the Cinderella of the city, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland Vol 2 issue 2: pp. 74-80 Melton, Charles. Brisbane, Qld. Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 1923
[4] Buddy, P. Paul Buddy History, Philosophy, Culture. The early roads from Brisbane Roads during the convict period. Available online at https://paulbuddehistory.com/convict-history-of-brisbane/the-early-roads-from-brisbane/
[5] Centre for Queensland Government, Fortitude Valley. 2018. Available online at https://queenslandplaces.com.au/fortitude-valley
[6] Moreton Bay and More, Stories from our past. Coaches, Railways, Cabs and New-Fangled Automobiles. Jan 2022. Blog at WordPress.com. Available online at https://moretonbayandmore.com/2022/01/19/coaches-railways-cabs-and-new-fangled-automobiles/
[7] “CENTRAL POLICE COURT. “The Brisbane Courier (Qld: 1864 – 1933) 2 June 1865: 2. Web. 10 Oct 2024 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1273124.

Margaret Canavan Roy Guerin and other Guerin family lie in rest in Toowong Cemetery Brisbane. Unfortunately, tree roots are spreading underground, cracking the cement above