Baptists history

From its inception as a free settlement in 1842, Ipswich was important as a port on the Bremer River located at the intersection of routes to the Darling Downs and Upper Brisbane Valley.

Initially the colony's first Baptists met in Brisbane as part of a United Evangelical Church formed in 1849 under the leadership of Reverend Charles Stewart, a Baptist minister, and including Presbyterians and Congregationalists.

They commenced meeting independently in June 1859 in a hired bowling alley, and in January the following year officially formed a Baptist church with 7 members.

The congregation built its first church in August 1860: a small chapel constructed in the West Street garden of the church's first pastor, Rev.

Born in Ireland, Gailey trained to be an architect in Derry before travelling to Queensland in 1864 and deciding to settle here.

Queensland had experienced severe economic depression in 1866 with only gradual improvement occurring over the following decade.

He set up as an architect the following year and by 1868 was prospering to a degree that enabled him to marry a woman from Belfast.

Tenders for the new church were invited in The Queensland Times on 7 October 1876.

The church was officially opened just over 6 months later on 17 June 1877.

His later churches, most notably the City Tabernacle and the Baptist Church on Flinders Parade at Sandgate (1887), are more complex, reflecting the increased strength of the church and the capacity of the congregations they served.

For most of the work he did for the Baptists, he gave his services for free; the grandest monument he created for them being the Baptist City Tabernacle on the corner of Wickham Terrace and Upper Edward Street in Brisbane, built in 1889-90.

During 1900 a timber hall for that purpose was built facing Limestone Street on land acquired by the church.

In 1924 a manse was opened next to the hall and to the rear of the church.

Early in 1937, the year in which the church refurbishment was being planned, Walter Burley Griffin died unexpectedly aged 60 years while working in India.

Dedication of the renovated church took place on 19 June 1938, when a number of pieces of church furniture were donated: a pulpit table, Communion chair, 2 pulpit chairs, oak hymn-board, crystal vases, pedestal and pulpit hymn book.

The memorial plaque bore the words "A tribute of remembrance to the men and women of this church who fought, suffered and died during the 1939-45 war" and was mounted on the front gable.

A gateway comprising a gable roof supported on barley-twist columns was opened by the church in 1954 to honour those from the church who fought, suffered and died during World War II, and to provide an entrance to memorial grounds established next to the church on Brisbane Street.

With a view to the approaching centenary of the Ipswich Baptist congregation, renovations were again undertaken in 1958.

The refurbished church was reopened on 15 February 1959.

In 2004, the Baptists sold the church complex and built a new place of worship in the Ipswich suburb of Brassall.

In 2009, McDonald's demolished the hall and manse, and built a retaining wall between that site and the memorial ground and church, in order to construct a restaurant and car park on Limestone Street.