Community
18 October, 2022
Harvey G. Draper
SOON after arriving in Cairns in 1908, Harvey G. Draper received his first important commission - new offices and printing premises for the Cairns Post newspaper.
His classical three bay design featured four bold Ionic columns which stood in relief from the main building providing a colonnade nine feet deep. A pediment and entablature adorned the façade with “Morning Post” emblazoned across the frieze.
It was reminiscent of many buildings of the classical style Draper had designed in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. The building would be significantly and sympathetically extended by C. D. Lynch and Richard Hill in 1922.
Draper used the nom de plume of “Viking” on his winning design for the new Cairns District Hospital. The result replicated Draper’s experience in 1892 when he, as a young architect, won a design competition for a six-bed hospital in his hometown of Williamstown, Victoria. His design for the £8,000 Cairns hospital was in the Queen Anne style and much larger.
The red brick building with cement facings featured deep verandahs and accommodation included numerous medical wards with sanitary facilities, an operating theatre, separate wards for infectious diseases and aliens, a dedicated outpatients’ section, and a centrally located kitchen or domestic block accessed by a covered walkway. J. T. Bulcock won the tender to build the first stage for £3,097/4.
Draper’s next big project would be offices for the Adelaide Steamship Company on the corner of Lake and Spence Streets in 1909. Local contractors, Wilson and Baillie, won the contract to build the steamship company offices for £2,970. The unusual arts and crafts style building features a roughrendered façade and with five arcades along Lake Street and three on Spence Street.
The company’s name appears in relief with a sculpture of one of its vessels above. Decorative elements include scroll details, shallow ogre shaped gablets, and tapering piers. The offices were officially opened on December 12, 1910.
Draper also designed the Palace Theatre in Lake Street (1914), Maritime House on Abbott Street for the Howard Smith Shipping Company (1914), the “new” Strand Hotel on the Esplanade (1915), and the Ambulance Building in Sachs (Grafton) Street (1921-22).
Harvey Draper died of bubonic plague on December 8, 1922. By Maria Larkins
Sources: TROVE, Queensland Heritage Register, State Library of Queensland (SLQ).
