Warwick Post Office (Early days and later Expansion)
This information was taken from "An Australian Post Office History", courtesy of the Public Relations Section, P.M.G Department, Brisbane, June 1967, M N Rea, Historical Officer.
The inauguration of the railway in Queensland, between Ipswich and Biggers Camp (Grandchester) on 31st July 1865 was the beginning of radical changes in the postal operating from Brisbane and Ipswich to the Darling Downs. From the 1st of January, 1867 mail was carried by rail between Ipswich and Toowoomba twice a day, between Toowoomba and Warwick three times a week by four horse drawn Cobb & Co coaches. The Railway spur from the Main Southern Railway to Warwick was not operating for traffic until January 1871.
The first Warwick postmaster's name is unknown, but the annual salary was about 60 pounds for the period 1860 to 1862.
Mr F B Woods was paid 108 pounds per year in 1867 as a Letter Carrier. He is the first documented name of any person directly associated with the Post Office up to that time.
Mr W H Brown had been Post Master for some time in his store at the corner of Albion and Albert Streets and prior to that it was located at the Horse and Jockey Inn.
In 1867 Mr A S Heathcote became Post Master and remained in this position until 1869.
About 1869 the Post Office was transferred to a large two story building in Albion Street. It was in Albion Street that the electric telegraph office was situated, but it is not known whether the two functions were carried out under the same roof.
On the 1st of January 1887 a mail coach service was brought into operation between Warwick and Goondiwindi for the first time. It operated once a week and replaced the Leyburn-Goondiwindi run.
A new Post and Telegraph building was completed in 1891 with Mr G H Knowles as Postmaster. He had a staff of seven.
In 1898 the first telephone exchange commenced with a trunk line from Ipswich to Brisbane and soon after to Toowoomba and Warwick.
In 1900 the telephone exchange came to Warwick, but in 1898 a special instrument called a phonophore telephone instrument was operated in the telegraph line between Pratten, Leyburn and Warwick.
In the early days, horses carried mail between Brisbane, Ipswich and the Darling Downs carried mail. This was being done as early as 1846.
The 1st of November 1860 was the date of the issue of Queensland's first postage stamps and it was on this date that the appointment of Queensland's first non-political Postmaster General, Thomas Lodge Murray Prior took place.
The first telegraph line in Queensland was completed the 13th of April 1861 and progressively link the inland to the coast. The Warwick office was opened on the 22nd of October 1861 and Warwick was linked to the capital (Sydney) on the 2nd of November 1861.
The mail service between Warwick and Ipswich was increased from weekly to twice weekly in 1861. The Cobb & Co Coach service commenced in Queensland between Ipswich and Brisbane on the 12th of February 1860 and first carried mail into Warwick in 1866.
Since the very early days Warwick has been an important repeater station in major trunk routes to the south. In 1958 sixty-seven interstate trunk lines connecting Queensland to the southern states passed through Warwick. A new telephone exchange costing $600,000 commenced operation in Warwick in June 1967.
In addition to this there is more than $100,000 worth of trunk line switching equipment exists at the post office building.
Telephonist Maureen Bougoure put through the first trunk call originating from the Warwick automatic telephone exchange. The subscriber was a Mr George Clark. This created history in Warwick at 6.38 am on the 4th of June 1967 when the district telephone manager Mr J M Broderick made the first official automatic call on the new exchange to the Mayor, Aldermen O A Evans.
The first trunk line call through the new manual trunk exchange was made to Brisbane by Mr C C Clark from his telephone at 7.22 a.m. The first telephonists were Miss Maureen Bougoure and Miss Margret Morrison.
This new exchange was the largest in the state and was officially opened by the Hon C E Barnes, M P, Minister for Territories and the Federal Member for McPherson on Monday the 19th of June 1967.
Work on a micro-wave radio route between Toowoomba and Warwick was commenced in 1965. The principal of this system was a high freguency radio beam from hilltop to hilltop in a line of sight direction between Toowoomba and Warwick. The project was commenced was completed in 1966 and provided a path for micro wave signals carrying TV programmes from the National Studio A B J Channel 2 at Toowong.