Victory Hotel, Brisbane

The claim

A brick corner pub in the Brisbane centre, licensed to Michael Costello as the Prince of Wales on 4 September 1855 and renamed the Victory in 1921, for the end of the war. Richard Gailey added to it twice in the 1880s. Fire gutted it in July 2008 and it was rebuilt close to its old shape, reopening in March 2009. The council calls it the oldest surviving hotel in the city centre.

What the records show

This one rests on a licence. Brisbane City Council's heritage citation, written in January 2008 for a listing that took effect on 1 January 2009, records that Michael Costello applied in August 1855 for a publican's licence for the Prince of Wales Hotel and that it was granted on 4 September 1855, and quotes his first advertisement in the Moreton Bay Courier offering a large and conveniently arranged house for boarders and families that would be second to none in the colony. The citation reads the 1862 photographic panorama of Brisbane as showing that the hotel of 1855 is the basis of the building standing now, and a photograph of the 1864 flood in the John Oxley Library shows the Prince of Wales on its corner. It stood in Frogs Hollow, the low marshy quarter by the wharves, and drew its trade from the working men of the warehouses around it — the citation is careful about which room they drank in, the public bar rather than the private bar kept for residents. Richard Gailey, the architect Brisbane hotels went to, added to it in 1882 and again in 1887, and the name changed to Victory in 1921, thought to be for the end of the war. Of thirty-two hotel sites in the central business district in 1951 seven survive, and the council calls this the oldest of them. Fire gutted it on 27 July 2008; it was rebuilt close to its old form and reopened on 9 March 2009. What the licence of 1855 did not have behind it was a record of the trade continuing, and the State Library of Queensland's index of licensed victuallers supplies one for the years it covers. The index transcribes the lists of licence holders printed in the Queensland Government Gazette between July 1900 and July 1914, with the volume, number, date and page of each entry, and a Prince of Wales Hotel in the Brisbane licence district holds a licence in every list from the one gazetted on 29 January 1901 to the one gazetted on 5 November 1913. That first list carries two names for a Prince of Wales in the district, Michael Hartigan and J. V. Mullen; from 1903 the index labels Hartigan's house as the one at Nundah. The licensees of the unlabelled house run Sarah Balls from 1902 to 1904, Archibald Hill Robertson in 1905, Thomas O'Brien in 1906 and 1907, Frederick W. Coupland in 1908, Edward Flynn from 1909 to 1911 and Anna Underhill from 1911 to November 1913. Five of those entries note that the house had two bars, which is the arrangement the council's citation describes. Two cautions on reading it. The index records the licence district and not the street, so this is the city house rather than another of the name on the index's own distinction — a second Prince of Wales at Nundah is entered under that locality throughout — and not on an address. And the index begins in July 1900 and ends in July 1914, so it is silent about the years on either side rather than empty of them.

Dated evidence for Victory Hotel, earliest first
Year	What	Source
1855	Claimed founding	Its listing
c.1855	Present building	https://heritage.brisbane.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/citation/victory-hotel_1990.pdf
1855	First record of a drinking house here	Queensland heritage register

What to look for inside

The publican's licence was granted to Michael Costello on 4 September 1855
Stood in Frogs Hollow, the marshy quarter by the old wharves
Gutted by fire in July 2008 and rebuilt to its earlier form

Visiting

Victory Hotel is in Brisbane, Australia, at 127 Edward Street, Brisbane, Queensland. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

facebook.com Directions in your maps app