AustLit

During the nineteenth century, building in Queensland was often dynastic, with the Petrie family being the most successful of the local building contractors. Unlike their competitors, their business was multi-faceted, with specialist departments for quarrying, masonry and brickmaking, carpentry and joinery. This arrangement was similar to Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin's use of day labour to construct the first stage of Parliament House, with on-site workshops established for masonry, carpentry and joinery, and a quarry leased at Woogaroo. Following the colony's financial crisis of July 1866, construction work on Parliament House slowed and by mid-1867 the unfinished building was moth-balled. The cessation was brief, with preparations made within months to resume work, but this time by contract...' (Introduction)