September 20, 2022
Did you know prefabricated houses used to be manufactured in Cherbourg and exported all over Queensland?
An exhibition that chronicles the saga opened recently at the University Of Queensland’s Anthropology Museum at the St Lucia campus in Brisbane.
“Camps, Cottages And Homes” has been researched by Professor Paul Memmott and Dr Tim O’Rourke from the UQ’s School of Architecture.
The exhibition explores the ways Queensland’s First Nations communities have made homes in the 20th century.
It also exposes the way the State Government wilfully destroyed Cherbourg’s industries in 1986, a decision that threw many of the community’s residents out of work.
The exhibition draws on 50 years of research by Prof Memmott and Dr O’Rourke.
In the 1950s Cherbourg had a productive sawmill, joinery workshop and carpentry gangs which made buildings and household furniture for the settlement.
In 1967, the Department of Aboriginal and Island Affairs launched a program to use these industries to prefabricate homes for Cherbourg, as well as other towns and communities across Queensland.
Prefab houses were made in Cherbourg and transported to the site where they were to be assembled, with the sawmill supplying the timber frames; the joinery the window and door frames; and the workshop supplying wall panels.
Cherbourg prefab houses were soon being shipped as far away as Erub Island (Darnley) in the Torres Strait and the Lockhart River and Hopevale communities on Cape York, as well as to Mt Isa, Gladstone, Bluff, Dingo, Eidsvold and Bribie Island.
Cherbourg sawyers, joiners and carpenters fabricated components for the prefab houses, which were packaged up and ready to ship in six weeks.
During its operation, many Cherbourg men were trained in the different trades required to make the house components and cabinets.
But the industry came to an abrupt halt in the mid-80s just before the State handed over administration of the settlement to Cherbourg Council.
The Department of Aboriginal and Islander Advancement stripped the workshops of machinery, destroying any chance the unique venture could continue.
“Camps, Cottages And Homes” was officially launched on August 19 in front of an audience of 90 guests.
The exhibition will remain on display to the public Mondays to Fridays from 11:00am to 3:00pm until October 28.
More information about the exhibition can be found online
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The End Of Cherbourg Prefab Housing
“We had all the timber lined up from the forestry, we stacked it up in the sheds and then the joinery would take some of the wood and the pre-fab would take some – the pine.
“This used to be the lifeline of this community that kept everyone in work.
“That was until 1986 when the government took away everything that made money – just prior to the handover to the community – the sawmill, the dairy and the beef cattle industry, the piggery, boomerang factory, the koala bear factory and the retail shop.
“Everybody used to do their shopping here – and they shut that place down and leased it out to private enterprise. Wouldn’t give it to Council.
“If they had left all the enterprises here, we wouldn’t have had to depend on government funding – we would have made our own money.
“That infrastructure was sent up to other places – Woorabinda, Yarrabah – places like that. I was on Council at the time of the hand over when the government handed the community over to the Council.
“That was real hard – we were forced to rely on DAA for funding. We could have made our own money with those enterprises.”
– The late Uncle Rory Boney, September 2011 [Source: Cherbourg Memory]
