Rooney Brothers was an architecture and constructions business operated by brothers John, Jacob and Matthew Rooney in Queensland, 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 northern part has been ...

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, which was developing as the port for the Ravenswood and Charters Towers 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. Yongala_(ship,_1903)_-_SLV_H96

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 and cargo ship that sank off Cape Bowling Green, Queensland, Australia on 23 March 1911. En route from Melbourne to Cairns she steamed into a cyclone and sank south of Townsville. All 122 aboard died, and tr ...

, 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 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 St Mary's Church and Convent are heritage-listed Roman Catholic church buildings at 34 Ingham Road, West End, City of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by the Rooney Brothers and built by Cowell & Holt in 1888. It was added to ...

References

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Attribution

This Wikipedia article was originally based o
''"The Queensland heritage register"''
published by the State of Queensland 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 State of Queensland under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 5 September 2014
archived
on 15 October 2014). Architecture firms of Australia