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Ellen
The work of bringing the court house back to its original site for public inspection was undertaken by: Douglas Shire Council. Restoration has resulted from the community's perseverance over a thirty year period and this effort was recognized in 1997 when the project was awarded a John Herbert Award for Excellence in Heritage Conservation by the National Trust of Queensland. |
Visit the Port Douglas Court House Museum |
We need your help! If you can supply any
history, stories or pictures click
here Visit Port Douglas Court House Museum. Wharf Street, Port Douglas. Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 1pm. Admission $2 Children Free. (Children no charge! Kids are welcome...) This museum is staffed by volunteer attendants. Read about 'Port's People
here
1887 Ellen Thomson became the only woman legally hanged in Queensland. She was sentenced over the murder of her husband, William Thomson, 24 years her senior, after increasingly violent confrontations. She proclaimed her innocence but her young handsome English ex-marine lover, John Harrison, was also convicted for the same crime. They were hanged in Boggo Road jail, Brisbane, and buried there. Ellen, 11 years of age and her sister Mary,
9, arrived in Australia on the 6th of April 1858 on board the ship
"Joshua". The ship's manifest lists their widowed mother Mary Lynch as a
native of County Cork, Ireland. They would join her sister residing in
Goulburn, N.S.W. By 1886 life was difficult. The marriage was strained, the children sent away. The friendship of Ellen with a young marine deserter on the adjoining "Bonnie Doon" selection caused conflict. That conflict would explode into murder and the execution of Ellen Thomson and John Harrison at Boggo Road Gaol, Brisbane on the 13th of June 1887. On the eve of execution, Harrison confessed he alone shot and killed William Thomson in self-defence. The admission came too late - the double execution proceeded! The name of Ellen Thomson was written into history as the only woman ever hanged in Queensland. |
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Step Back in time!
Visit the Port Douglas
Court House Museum
Please pop in and feel free to chat to our knowledgeable staff. This timber building was constructed on the police reserve adjacent to the waterfront at Port Douglas in 1879. It is identified as the second oldest surviving timber court house to be commissioned by the Queensland Government. The design typifies the simple architecture which was applied, not only to regional court houses, but to other public use buildings as well. Official police use ceased in 1957 and it was unoccupied by 1961. In 1963 the Department of Works considered the expense of repair uneconomical and the 1968 disposal of this building forced its removal from the police reserve. The Douglas Shire Council and the Port Douglas Restoration Society took on the mantle of trusteeship and responsibility for the project after a Queensland Government decision to excise the original site from the police reserve in May of 1993. In October of 1993 the project scope was extended to include sensitive end use of the court house by allowing the Douglas Shire Historical Society to create a local history museum. It is due to a large measure of community self-help combined with a large stroke of luck that this building remains in existence and was returned to its original site in 1993. In Fully restored, in 1997 it was opened by the newly formed Douglas Shire Historical Society as a museum. Today the murder trial of the only woman to be officially hanged in Queensland is featured in the same room where the case first came before a court. Police and supreme court hearings which led to execution by hanging for Ellen Thomson are now revisited through audio-visual and graphic displays produced by the Douglas Shire Historical Society. The case, which was highly controversial last century remains so to this day. Some of the Museum exhibits include: CHINESE COMMUNITY ROAD CONSTRUCTION The
Court House is the second oldest building in Port Douglas after the
privately owned school house. It is listed on
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