Foundation Building

The Spirit has a face

It’s August 22, 1896. A single stump is set in a paddock, and history is born. Today, this stump still supports the Foundation Building.

July 9, 1897, the Foundation Building waits in anticipation to meet her first students as a train pulls into Lawes Railway Siding carrying twenty three young men. But it’s work before pleasure and ploughing needs to be done. At lunchtime they finally meet. For the next forty five years, students will sleep, eat and study within her walls. The verandah is their classroom, their dorm is underneath and the Principal worked above.

Then it’s March 1942, and the US Army requisitions the Campus to be a Field Hospital. The Foundation Building becomes the Headquarters. Students and staff are given one day to pack up and move out. Even though the Americans only stay until July 1944, the students and the Foundation Building are never reunited. It is administration staff who move back in and stay until 1976.

Today, standing as a testament to the vision of her creators, her legacy continues as an elegant conference and function centre. If the spirit of The University of Queensland
Gatton has a face: it is the Foundation Building.

The Foundation Building 1899
(Photo courtesy John Oxley Library)

 
Students in class on the verandah of the Foundation Building circa 1900.
(Photo courtesy of Bob Taylor gradson of Photographer J.C. Brunnich)
 

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