Musgrave Park is a park in

South Brisbane, Queensland South Brisbane is an inner southern suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , South Brisbane had a population of 7,196 people. Geography The suburb is on the southern bank of the Brisbane River, bounded to the north-west ...

, Australia. The park is bordered by Edmonstone, Russell, and Cordelia Streets, and

Brisbane State High School , motto_translation = Knowledge is Power , city = South Brisbane , state = Queensland , country = Australia , coordinates = , type = Public, selective, co-educational, secondary, ...

, and has an area of . The park is of cultural significance to

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait ...

. The park and the former bowls clubhouse (now used as a community centre) are listed on the

Brisbane Heritage Register The Brisbane Heritage Register is a heritage register containing a list of culturally-significant places within the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comp ...

History

Musgrave Park is a remnant of the former Kurilpa (South Brisbane) Aboriginal camping ground that stretched from "Highgate Hill and on (to) the slanting slopes of Cumboomeya (

Somerville House Somerville House is an independent, boarding and day school for girls, located in South Brisbane, an inner-city suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Established in 1899 as the Brisbane High School for Girls, the School was eventually nam ...

)" and additionally "sometimes they made a camp in the little scrub then situated on the river bank near the recent entrance to the Dry Dock". From here and

Woolloongabba Woolloongabba is a suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Woolloongabba had a population of 5,631 people. Geography Woolloongabba is located south of the CBD. It contains the Brisbane Cricket Ground ('the Gabba') and t ...

, Aboriginal people in the 1840s and 1850s would go into South Brisbane to work chopping wood, carrying water, and selling fish. The South Brisbane Recreation Reserve (as it was originally known) was created in 1856. In 1867, it was proposed to build a public grammar school (

) adjacent to the reserve. In 1884, it was renamed Musgrave Park after the then

Governor of Queensland The governor of Queensland is the representative in the state of Queensland of the monarch of Australia. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governor performs constitutional and ceremonial func ...

Sir Anthony Musgrave Sir Anthony Musgrave (31 August 1828 – 9 October 1888) was a colonial administrator and governor. He died in office as Governor of Queensland in 1888. Early life He was born at St John's, Antigua, the third of 11 children of Anthony Musg ...

. An effort to collect documents related to the Aboriginal historical links to the park was spearheaded by Bob Weatherall in 1983. In 1985, the Musgrave Park Report was released, identifying Indigenous links to the area. In 1998, the

Brisbane City Council Brisbane City Council (BCC) is the democratic executive local government authority for the City of Brisbane, the capital city of the state of Queensland, Australia. The largest City Council in Australia by population and area, BCC's jurisd ...

allocated part of the park for the establishment of an Indigenous cultural centre. The council has described the park as a place for holding feasts,

ceremonies A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin '' caerimonia''. Church and civil (secula ...

and dispute resolution.

Current use

Musgrave Park is home to the Jagera Arts Centre (formerly the lawn bowls clubhouse) and is one of the few remaining green spaces left in Brisbane's inner city. On 24 August 1998, after twenty years of legal struggles with the Queensland state government, the Musgrave Park Aboriginal Corporation (MPAC) secured a lease to build a

cultural centre A cultural center or cultural centre is an organization, building or complex that promotes culture and arts. Cultural centers can be neighborhood community arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored, or activist-run. Asia * Ce ...

on portions of the park.FAIRA: Historic handover at Musgrave Park
/ref> The park holds special significance to the local indigenous population due to a past restriction barring Aborigines from crossing the park and entering the city of Brisbane. Notably, being the site of a buried

bora ring Bora is an initiation ceremony of the Aboriginal people of Eastern Australia. The word "bora" also refers to the site on which the initiation is performed. At such a site, boys, having reached puberty, achieve the status of men. The initiation c ...

, it has historically been a sacred site to the native Murri people. Each year, the park hosts the

Paniyiri Greek Festival The Paniyiri Greek Festival is usually held in May each year in Musgrave Park, Brisbane, Australia. In 2022 the May dates have been changed to October 15-16 due to the wet weather. The festival was started in 1976, and is the longest running cul ...

, the National Aboriginal and Islander Day of Celebration ( NAIDOC) Park Day, and the Lesbian and Gay Brisbane Pride Festival Fair Day. In 2020, the last day of

National Reconciliation Week National Reconciliation Week is intended to celebrate Indigenous history and culture in Australia and foster reconciliation discussion and activities. It started as the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation in 1993, developing into National Reconcil ...

was marked by a candlelight vigil in Musgrave Park on 3 June 2020, with 432 candles lit for the each of the Aboriginal deaths in custody since the 1991 end of the

Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) (1987–1991), also known as the Muirhead Commission, was a Royal Commission appointed by the Australian Government in October 1987 to Federal Court judge James Henry Muirhead, ...

, and an extra one for

George Floyd George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit tw ...

, an

Afro-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...

man killed by a police officer.

References

External links

Musgrave Park Cultural CentreThe Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA)
{{coord, -27.4790, 153.0166, type:landmark_region:AU, display=title Parks in Brisbane South Brisbane, Queensland Pre-Separation Queensland Brisbane Local Heritage Register

History

Current use

See also

References

External links