John HANRAN

John Hanran and His Wife Jane (Ogle)

Young John Hanran (1824-1895) arrived in Australia aboard the Norfolk in 1835. He was only ten years of age and was accompanied by his parents, Francis and Bridget, his older brother Michael aged 13, his younger brother Patrick Francis aged three and his sister Ellen aged one. On board the ship were ten other children with their mothers. These were the families of soldiers who were assigned as the guard to escort 280 male prisoners from London. The Morning Star and Commercial Advertiser announced the Norfolk's arrival on 1st September 1835.

The Norfolk was making its fourth voyage as a convict transport and John’s father, Francis was a soldier of the 28th (North Gloucestershire) Regiment of Foot. After disembarking the convicts at Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land the troop escort continued the journey to New South Wales to join other detachments of the regiment and take charge of convicts in various parts of the colony.

Earlier departures of the Norfolk in the previous year had been put back three times after abortive attempts to sail from England, and the ship’s prisoners were finally transferred to another vessel, the Lady Kennaway after the Norfolk was condemned and ordered to be refitted. Repairs completed, the ship sailed from Sheerness on 14 May 1835 under the command of Captain John Gatenby, Master, while Dr Arthur Savage RN, ship’s surgeon attended the sick.

A Bout of Tonsillitis

The ship’s medical journal shows that John took ill before the ship left England—he complained of pains all over his body and throat, his face was flushed and his skin hot to the touch, his pulse was diagnosed as quick and he had a great thirst. In those days medical treatment was limited and according to the practice of the day, leeches were applied to the body to purify the blood. Happily this treatment appears to have been successful as John’s fever diminished and he returned to good health within ten days of receiving treatment from Dr Savage for a bout of tonsillitis.

Stayed Behind in Australia

John’s father served at several New South Wales settlements before taking ill in 1839 and, following a stay in hospital lasting some two months, the family prepared for a return to England. During their 22 months' absence in 1840-41, it seems that Michael and John remained in New South Wales while their father formalised his discharge and retirement from the army, and possibly the payment of a modest gratuity or army pension. After the parents returned in January 1842 accompanied by the two younger children Patrick Francis and Ellen, the family resided in Sydney while Francis reviewed his work prospects.

John Marries Jane Ogle

John and Jane Ogle (1832-1915) were married in the Scots Church, Pitt Street, Sydney on 9 October 1848 according to the rites of the Presbyterian Church. Jane, the daughter of William Ogle and Anna Maria (née Buller), had arrived in Sydney eight years earlier with her parents, two sisters and younger brother. The Ogle family came from the parish of Tullyallen, in Drogheda, county Louth, Ireland and spent some time in Liverpool, England, awaiting further emigration. Witnesses to the marriage included the fathers of both bride and groom, and the officiating Minister was James Fullerton LLD.

The marriage certificate described John as a bachelor, a resident of Moreton Bay and Jane, a spinster, a resident of Sydney. After the wedding, John and his bride moved northward and settled at Ipswich in 1849. Known as Limestone until 1843, the settlement, then part of New South Wales, was an inland port on the Bremer River, a tributary of the Brisbane, where passengers and cargo arrived each day by paddle steamer and docked at

A Modern North Star Hotel in Ipswich before demolition

Above is the cartoon which pokes fun at John Hanran at the London Bar. Being released, he takes a drink

wharves on the riverbank. Just how John occupied his days between 1835 and 1846 is not known but it is believed that he relocated to the Moreton Bay Settlement soon after.

An Ipswich Pioneer

John Hanran wasted no time in setting up a business in the fledgling town and in 1849 he is reported to have entered into partnership with John Barnes. The nature of the business is not clear but records show that John sued his ‘partner’ for non-payment of his share of £8/19/9d ($17.98) for ‘goods furnished’ and for another sum of £7/2/0d ($14.20) for outstanding debts. The defendant denied any partnership or receiving or ordering any goods and the case was dismissed, as the court had no jurisdiction to proceed further.

By 1850, there is evidence to suggest that Hanran had established a bootmaker shop next to the newspaper shop in Nicholas Street, Ipswich not far from the corner of Brisbane Street. Later in an 1854 newspaper classified advertisement, he sought assistance from ‘two men accustomed to strong work" and that they "can find constant employment by applying to John Hanran’. Coincidentally, in the following year, a ‘James Saunders was committed to…trial for stealing a pair of boots from his employer, Mr Hanran of Ipswich’.

The success of his business venture meant that by 1851 he was in a position to purchase a 32 perch block of land in Bremer Street, Ipswich for £4/8/0d ($8.80). At subsequent sales of Crown land he speculated on three additional parcels of land in South Street, Brisbane Street and Nicholas Street, Ipswich and a half-acre in Gipps Street in the village of Alfred, now known as Calvert. In 1854 Hanran advertised for sale ‘an allotment of ground…[in] Bell Street…[together] with…a six-roomed house’ which just goes to show that the boot-making trade can be a profitable venture. By this time Hanran qualified for inclusion on the electoral roll as he was the ‘owner of a dwelling house’, and on the jury list for the Assize District of Brisbane. Another newspaper advertisement reveals that John had an interest in horses and he offered a reward for the return ‘of a dark bay horse’ which had strayed or had been stolen in the week preceding.

The Catholic population of Ipswich was without a church at this time and John donated £10 ($20), a not inconsiderable sum of money to the Ipswich Roman Catholic Church Building Fund. The Rev. Fr W. McGinty, in acknowledging Hanran’s subscription, among others, reported that the building fund stood at £548/12/0d ($1097.20) as at 22 October 1855.

Cricket was a popular pastime with the locals and as a member of the inaugural Ipswich Cricket Club, John played for the Townsmen against the Squatters’ XI. In 1857 Hanran played with the North Australian Cricket Club which defeated the Moreton Bay Club (Brisbane Town) by 23 runs at Churweh, North Ipswich. In a return match played in October 1859 at Green Hills, Brisbane, Ipswich lost to Moreton Bay.

Civic Duties

After arriving in Ipswich, Hanran soon became very active in local affairs and along with others, he was a signatory to several petitions to the government of the day. One such petition sought funds to build a bridge over the Three Mile Creek at Little Ipswich to facilitate travel to the Darling Downs. Another request was for funds to purchase requirements for the School of Arts and Sciences while others were to appoint a local Police Magistrate and a Land Commissioner’s office and to select a representative at the then-approaching election on the question of Separation from New South Wales.

Hanran Street, Townsville 1938

Mine Host at the North Star

A significant milestone in Australia’s history was reached in 1859 when the colony of Queensland was proclaimed and separated from New South Wales. Thereafter, Ipswich prospered and became known as a city of pubs and churches. There were many impressive churches and certainly a good number of ‘watering holes’—55 pubs existed in 1865 when Queensland’s first railway opened from Ipswich to Bigge’s Camp (now Grandchester). John Hanran became one of those hotel statistics when, in 1855, he managed the North Star hotel on the corner of Ellenborough and Brisbane Streets, next door to the surgery of a Dr Challinor. The hotel was owned by George Thorn with Hanran, the licence-holder from 1860 until 1870 when he moved to Townsville to join his brother, Patrick Francis.

Cobb and Co advertised that their ‘Royal Mail coaches [left] Hanran’s North Star hotel for Brisbane at 5:45am and 1:45pm daily. Fare six shillings. Parcels forwarded without delay'. And to the delight of locals in the hot weather leading up to Christmas of 1866, Hanran advertised that he had ice for sale, a relatively new and luxurious item for Ipswich. Shops traded until late and the Volunteer Band sometimes stationed itself on the North Star verandah and played for the passers-by. The hotel was rebuilt in 1888 and the demolition of the second North Star in 1986, just two years short of reaching the century mark, witnessed the removal of one of Ipswich’s oldest intact buildings. A large shopping complex replaced the hotel.

Snippets from the local news:

In the course of a couple of hours the
whole of the buildings between Nicholas-street and Ellenborough-street were burned down, with the exception of Mr. Hanran's, North Star Hotel; and had it not been that the night was so calm, one-half of the town would by this time have been destroyed. (The Weekly Times, 14 Mar 1863, p3).

IPSWICH POLICE COURT.

Tuesday, November 15.

(Before the Police Magistrate.)

An aboriginal pleaded guilty to stealing half-a crown from the till of Mr. Hanran's North Star Hotel, and he was sentenced to a month's imprisonment with hard labour. (Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 17 Nov 1864 p6.

Above: the North Star Mark 2, 1888-1986 (Ipswich City Council

The London Bar

Being a keen racing fan and the owner of horses, John sometimes conducted a refreshments booth at the Grange Road Racecourse. His London Bar was featured in a cartoon (courtesy Robyn Buchanan below) from Ipswich Punch, an 1860s newspaper that clearly linked the two interests. Ipswich was the scene of some big race meetings in the 1860s with Boxing Day, the May Sweepstakes and the month of June being among the more popular racing events. The naming of Hanran Court, Bundamba recognises Hanran’s association with Ipswich on two counts—his contribution to local cricket and his association with contemporary racing. Officially, the street naming rights were directly attributable to his cricketing days.

Business Interests in Townsville

Hanran and his family arrived in Townsville in 1870, a year which was marked by severe cyclone damage in the area between Townsville and Bowen. He occupied the Criterion hotel on The Strand for the next two years and officially took over the licence from Prudence Houle in 1873.

The Criterion

The Criterion, Townsville’s first legal hotel, opened its doors in August 1865 and the landlord of the day advertised it as ‘The Criterion Hotel, Castletown, Cleveland Bay, with two storeys, twenty-five rooms, a balcony four metres wide and a billiard table’. The hotel was a popular meeting venue for the emerging township—it was possibly the first north Queensland hotel to employ barmaids; J.R. Cowan, first solicitor, commenced practice in the rooms of the hotel; the company that took over the town’s newspaper, the Cleveland Bay Express, was formed there in 1867; electioneering meetings for the first Kennedy elections centred on the Criterion as did the formation of the first hospital committee, first gold committee and first Masonic lodge. Many early milestones in the city’s history were celebrated with banquets at the Criterion: visits by colonial governors, the anniversary of the first land sale, to name a few.

When Cobb & Co started business in the mid-1870s their first coach service to Ravenswood and Charters Towers left from the Criterion. This arrangement was due, no doubt, to the influential John Hanran who had held similar staging rights as licensee of the North Star at Ipswich! Hanran relinquished the Criterion hotel licence in 1879.

The Commercial

Meanwhile, his son, John (Jnr) was being groomed for the hotel industry. The Commercial, a triple-gable façaded hotel was erected in 1867 in eastern Flinders Street, on the site of the present-day Mad Cow Tavern (formerly Lang’s hotel). After 1870, the hotel passed rapidly through the hands of several licensees and it was not until 1876, when John Hanran (Snr) purchased the property, that a landlord remained long enough to provide the hotel with the stability of continuous management. Because John (Jnr) was Secretary of the Townsville Turf Club and a racing enthusiast, the hotel inevitably became the focus for the town’s racing fraternity. Two years later in 1878, the hotel became the centre of great activity when the Cobb and Co terminus was relocated from the Criterion site to an office next to the Commercial. Prospective customers were advised that ‘Coaches departed on three days per week at 8:00am’.

A New Hotel and Furniture Warehouse

Within ten years of takeover, the Commercial had become very run-down. John Hanran (Snr) had it re-built in 1886 as a fine two-storeyed brick edifice with an adjoining furniture showroom at a cost of £3500. Both buildings were subsequently leased to John Hanran (Jnr). The new hotel boasted first-class hostelry, equal to any of the finest hotels in Sydney and Melbourne. In 1889, John Hanran (Jnr) transferred the licence to his father who continued trading until the following year. It is understood the original 1886 cast-iron balustrading still adorns the verandah but much of the original decorative parapet has vanished. A wide verandah extending over the footpath has replaced the original cantilevered balcony at the front, though the original balcony is believed to remain on the eastern side. The hotel was renamed Lang’s in the 1950s and, more recently, the Mad Cow.

Business Interests on the Wane

John (Snr) underwent an operation for cancer of the tongue in 1894 and his family and friends were informed that ‘the operation might prolong his life but that the disease might recur’. At the time of his death one year later, John’s business and speculative interests were reported to have declined in the previous few years.

John and Jane’s Family

Eleven children, including twins, are known to have been born to Jane and John during their stay in Ipswich. They were—

An un-named female (c1849/50)
Francis (1851-1851)
Catherine (1852-)
John (1854-1905), husband of Susannah Parker (1858-1889)
Anna Maria (1856-1933) who married John Carr (c1849-1902), Woodstock Station Manager
William (1859-1915), husband of Gertrude May 'Minnie' Collins
Michael (1861-1861)
George (1863-1876) who died as a teenager
Joseph Patrick (1865-1903) who married Annie Krowley
Mary Ann (1865-1865), twin sister
Henry Thomas (1868-1932), husband of Margaret O’Reilly (c1871-1927).

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