Rooney Brothers was an architecture and constructions business operated by brothers John, Jacob and Matthew Rooney in

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. They dominated the

North Queensland North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its Tropical North Queensland, trop ...

building industry until the early years of the 20th century.

History

In the late 1860s, Irish immigrants John and Jacob Rooney had established a building and timber-milling business at Maryborough, where later they were joined by their brother Matthew. In the late 1870s John and Matthew established a branch of J & J Rooney, builders, at

Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...

, which was developing as the port for the Ravenswood and

Charters Towers Charters Towers is a rural town in the Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It is by road south-west from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the town boomed as the rich gold deposits und ...

goldfields. In 1882 John and Matthew established their own business interests at Townsville, setting up the firms of Rooney Bros (architects, builders and contractors) and, in partnership with James Harvey, the timber-milling enterprise of Rooney & Co. By the mid-1880s they were operating their own fleet of small vessels to bring timber from Maryborough and other Queensland ports to their mill and factory on Ross Creek. By controlling every stage of the building process - logging, milling, prefabrication, design, construction, hardware supply, and later furniture manufacture and paint sales -and by adopting highly mechanised production techniques and large volume turnovers, Rooneys' dominated the

building industry until the early years of the 20th century. Matthew Rooney was a prominent Townsville citizen, first chairman of the Townsville Harbour Board, 1896–97, and a strong supporter of the Catholic Church. On 23 March 1911 he, his wife and his youngest daughter were drowned in the wreck of the

SS Yongala SS ''Yongala'' was a Passenger ship, passenger steamship that was built in England in 1903 for the Adelaide Steamship Company. She sank in a cyclone off the coast of Queensland on 23 March 1911, with the loss of all 122 passengers and crew aboa ...

, south of Townsville. The Rooney firms were already losing their pre-eminence in the North Queensland building industry, and after Matthew's death, declined rapidly. The heirs reconstructed as Rooneys Limited, concentrating on building prefabrication initially, then furniture manufacture and retail trading, until winding up the firm in 1946.

Significant works

Yongala Lodge Yongala Lodge is a heritage-listed detached house at 11 Fryer Street, North Ward, City of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Rooney Brothers and was built by the Rooney Brothers from to 1930s. It is also known as Lister Pr ...

: Matthew Rooney's home in Fryer Street exhibits decorative finishes typical of a Rooney building - including the distinctive cast-iron

balustrading A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its c ...

and the remnant timber moulding of the lower verandah frieze - and was one of few two-storeyed, timber residences erected in Townsville before the turn-of-the-century. * St Mary's Church & Convent, Townsville

References

{{reflist

Attribution

This Wikipedia article was originally based o
''"The Queensland heritage register"''
published by the

State of Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, ...

under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 7 July 2014
archived
on 8 October 2014). The geo-coordinates were originally computed from th
''"Queensland heritage register boundaries"''
published by the

under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 5 September 2014
archived
on 15 October 2014). Architecture firms of Australia