Brisbane Thinkers 1859-2009

How To Use

  1. Select a location within the map to display information on that site.
  2. To move the map around, Select and Drag on the map.
  3. Filter grouping by selecting the Layers icon at the top right of the map. Select and deselect groupings.

Map Legend

Peformance, Visual Art, and Music
Humanities (Ideas Formatted as Ideas) and Social Science (Models)
Natural and Theoretical Sciences
Health
Literature (Fiction)

BRISBANE THINKERS 1859-2009 (MBH STAGE 10; HPQ PROJECT 4)

“…Meanwhile there is room for study and treatment of the problem of the inner life by those who are occupied with the theme in their own way, and are keenly alive to the privilege of being admirers, and perhaps disciples, of great thinkers of our time.

Earnest Northcroft Merrington. The Problem of Personality: A Critical Constructive Study, in the Light of Recent Thought, Macmillan and Co., 1916, p. viii

Since October 2016 research, database design, and database entry was carried out on this Queensland-Brisbane Thinkers Project. In January 2020 the basic project frame and web pages were completed, with 71 Brisbane Thinkers recorded over three epochs. Work will continue on all MBH sub-projects.

The digital mapping in the MBH Project reproduced the landscape in four epochs related to the history of Brisbane, early nineteenth century (1824-1858), late nineteenth century (1859-1900), early twentieth century (1901-1945), and late twentieth century (1946-2000). There is an option to consider the first decade of the early twentieth-first century (2001-2010). The locations indicate the connection of cultural and social transmission from individuals, with their Brisbane communities or organisations, and the space and time of Brisbane’s history. In the Brisbane Thinkers 1859-2009 Sub-Project the three epochs are considered in the long sense, the long nineteenth century and the long early twentieth century. This makes the point that much of Queensland history has been of delayed innovation with backward-looking resistance. The filter on the program enables selection for an epoch.

The colour coding in the program refers to the groupings of Brisbane Thinkers into broad umbrella fields of learning.

‘Thinkers’ were chosen as the best from a larger Queensland list of 350 individuals who made a major mark in their field of learning while in Brisbane. The refined list included a few visitors to Brisbane where there was a connection to Brisbane Society. In the selection, weight was given to the impact on the worldviews of Brisbane residents of the era, and weight little on thinkers who were only limited to narrow technical achievements.

Readers are advised that the project research is ongoing and further additions and editing will occur. Please contact Dr Neville Buch if any information or format raises any concerns for you.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained on this website was researched using the information that was available in 2019. It is, therefore, subject to future amendments should new sources become accessible during the next 12 months to end of December 2020.

The Coopers Plains Local History Group Inc., as a sponsoring member of the Brisbane Southside History Network, had been granted $22,000 in one of the 2016-2017 Brisbane Community History Grants, from the Brisbane City Council’s Brisbane History Grants Program.

The funding and the work of three MBH team members over the next twelve months has produced in one year, 1,000+ heritage and lost Brisbane sites marked and described within 200 words each, thus an asset of possibly 200,000 words professionally researched of Brisbane localities in the form of online historical geography.