The house Santa Barbara in New Farm is well known as one of Brisbane's finest example of the Spanish Mission style of house architecture made popular during the inter war years. The original owner was a woman called Sarah Balls.
Photo of Sarah Balls from The Bribie Historical Society
Sara Balls was a Brisbane business woman who would not have been the norm in the male dominated world of her time. It is not common to find women of business in the first half of the 20th. century but there were some who established themselves in the tough world of business. Sarah Ann's first documented entry into business and management is in 1896 when her husband transfers the license of the Queensland Hotel, North Ipswich to her.
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 - 1908), Saturday 12 September 1896, page 8
NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR TRANS FEBR OF LICENSED VICTUALLER'S OR WINE-SELLER'S LICENSE.
To the Licensing Authority of the Licensing District of Ipswich, acting under the Licensing Act of 1885. I JOHN IRWIN BALLS, of Ipswich, being the holder of a Licensed Victualler's License under the said Act for the Premises known as the Queensland Hotel, and situated at The Terrace, North Ipswich, in the said District, hereby give Notice that I intend to APPLY, at the next Quarterly Meeting of the said Licensing Authority, to TRANSFER the said LICENSE to SARAH BALLS, of North Ipswich, my Wife. JOHN IRWIN BALLS. And I, the said SARAH BALLS, hereby give Notice that it is my intention to APPLY that such Transfer may be GRANTED to me. I am married, having a husband and four children. I have not held a License before. Dated this Tenth day of September, 1896. SARAH BALLS, Applicant F L Cardew Solicitor for both parties.
Sarah continued her hotelier occupation transferring her licences of the Queensland Hotel and taking up the license of the Queens Hotel in Maryborough. In November of 1900 she applied to have the license of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Edward Street, Brisbane transferred to her from John Vincent Mullen. Within a fifteen year timeframe Sarah Balls had now established herself as an experienced licensed victualler and was now the publican of a major hotel in Brisbane City. In 1903 she took over proprietary and management of the Stock Exchange Hotel in Queen Street opposite Eagle Lane. In July of 1904 she tendered for the Refreshment Rooms at Central Station in Brisbane and was successful.
Truth (Brisbane, Qld. : 1900 - 1954), Sunday 24 July 1904, page 8 Central Station Refreshment Rooms. The numerous circle of country friends of Mrs. Sarah Balls, the genial and energetic proprietress of the Stock Exobange Hotel, Queen street, will be no doubt greatly delighted to learn that she has taken over the refreshment rooms at the Central Railway Station, Brisbane. She informs us that it is her intention to so conduct her new venture as to bring it up to a standard of comfort and convenience for the travelling public, as will ensure satisfaction. Knowing the quality of excellence characterising the Stock Exchange hostelery, it may be safely relied upon upon that if anyone can make a success of the Central Railway refreshment rooms it is the lady who has been so fortunate as secure the lease for the next three years. Mrs. Ball announces luneheon daily, 12 30 to 2, also afternoon tea and refreshments at all hours and all at town prices, She purposes to make a specialty of luncheon baskets for traveller and picnic parties.
Sarah also maintained her license of the Stock Exchange Hotel and had a number of altercations with the courts over the serving of alcohol outside of the regulated hours.
Sarah Ann Balls was definitely the business person. She expanded her empire when in 1907 she successfully tendered for all of the refreshment rooms at the major train stations on what was then known as the North Coast Line. In 1913 she expanded this business to include control of the catering on the buffet carriage that had been newly added to the northern bound train.
Truth (Brisbane, Qld. : 1900 - 1954), Sunday 16 June 1907, page 7 RAILWAY REFRESHMENT ROOMS. Railway travellors on the North Coast line, between Brisbane and Gladstone, will no doubt be pleased to hear that Mrs. Sarah Balls, of the Stock Exchange Hotel, Brisbane, and the lessee of the refreshment rooms at the Central Station, has been the successful tenderer for all the refreshment rooms on this line. These include the Central, Landsborough Gympie, Kilkivan, Isis Junction, Bundaberg, and Gladstone, and in the experienced hands of Mrs. Balls, travellers can rely upon their creature comforts being catered for properly. Truth has on more than one occasion complained with regard to the way in which travellers have been treated in some of the refreshment rooms and also with regard the catering. Nothing can be more comforting to weary travellers on a long railway journey than the knowledge that they will be able to get a dainty meal, nicely served, or a good nip as the case may be at the various stopping places and with an enterprising business woman like Mrs. Balls at tho head of affairs they can feel quite sure that they will not have to look in vain. The successful manner in which Mrs. Balls has run the Central Station refreshment rooms during the last three years is tangible proof of this, if it were wanted, and we feel sure that she will be equally successful in her new ventures.
In 1908 Sarah Ann Balls moved into the world of entrepreneurship when she applied for a grant of land on Bribie Island to establish a fish canning business. In July of 1916 Sarah Balls was fined for a traffic infringement for not having the lights on her vehicle properly trimmed and lighted. She definitely was a women for her times. As the Sarah Balls business empire expanded so did her venture into other areas. In July of 1925 the premises of the Acme Engineering Works in Toowoomba were broken into and the safe blown open. The owner of the premises was Sarah Ann Balls.
Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 - 1908), Tuesday 17 March 1908, page 9 FISH CANNING.
The Governor-in?Ccuncil has approved of the granting of a special lease over an area of eight acres on Bribie Island, and fronting Bribie Passage, to Sarah Balls, as a site for fish canning works. The lease extends over a period of 10 years, at £2 per acre for the first five years, the rent for the second period to be determined by the Land Court. The Government retain the right to resume the land at any time upon compensating the lessee for the improvements.
Sarah Ann died at the age of 68 in 1932 leaving a son and daughter.
Evening News (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1924 - 1941), Tuesday 14 June 1932, page 10
MRS. SARAH BALLS. BRISBANE, Monday The death occured early this morning after a short illness of Mrs. Sarah M. Balls, a well-known Bris-bane business woman. aged 68. Mrs. Balls will be remembered by railway travellers In connection with various refreshment rooms which she leased. Her daughter was in charge at Emerald and one of the first buffet cars on the Central Line.
The Sarah Ann Balls legacy should be the role she played in forging a path for women to be leaders and managers in business. For those who pass the house Santa Barbara in Moray Street, New Farm they may comment upon the architecture and the originality of its almost 100 year preservation. Sadly they will not know the story behind the person who spent her life creating a business empire to allow the house Santa Barbara to be built.
The Santa Barbara - Sarah Ann Balls Legacy
Eric Trewern during the decades of the 1920 and 1930 became one of Queensland's leading architects. He was a pioneer in the use of brick and the Spanish mission and California bungalow style. He was sought after by those who wanted to have an individual home compared to the timber and tin "Queenslander" home styles that proliferated the Brisbane landscape. One of his creations still has that individual look. "Santa Barbara" was built for Brisbane business woman Mrs. Sarah Balls. Built in 1929 and 1930 by D. F. Roberts and showing signs of weathered age it still provides a picture worth taking.
Sarah Balls’ Cannery Business on Bribie ~ 1910
By Barry Clark – Bribie Island Historical Society
The early pioneers who made a living around Bribie Island did so mainly from the sea. By 1897 the last of the aboriginal people of Bribie was gone, the timber getters had taken most of the big trees, and Fishing and Oysters were as the major industries.
In 1910 there were less than 30 residents on Bribie Island. Into this rough and tumble man’s world came a lady who would set up and operate the islands major business… a Fish Cannery. Mrs Sarah Balls operated a fish cannery at Bribie Island between 1910 and 1914. Earlier attempts to can fish initially at Godwin Beach, and then at the northern end of the island, had proved unsuccessful.
The area was isolated at that time, but fish were plentiful and people were few. Who was Sarah Balls, who had the nickname of “Mum”, and what sort of character did she have, and what challenges confronted her? The footprints left behind by Mrs Sarah Balls (nee Blasdale) initially seemed to be few.
She had arrived in Moreton Bay on the barque “Diana” as an 18-year-old girl with her parents in 1881. Her father Samuel Blasdale was a bootmaker and with his wife, Ann Meats, lived in Radford, Nottinghamshire, England when Sarah was born in 1863. She was an only child and was sufficiently bright to be a pupil-teacher A month after their arrival her parents announced the wedding of their only daughter to John Irwin Balls, a joiner from Glasgow, in South Brisbane.
John had arrived in Australia two years earlier. Sarah and John Balls went on to have had six children, including Eveline and Henry who both died in infancy. In 1890 the population of Brisbane was increasing rapidly and there was a great need for new buildings. John Irwin Balls was a well known and respected businessman as he constructed many prominent Brisbane city buildings during the building boom. The company he had established was Smith & Balls Engineering, in Margaret Street, Brisbane.
In 1893 the great Brisbane flood caused much devastation. John’s business was liquidated during the depression of the early 1890s and in 1896 he went to Kalgoorlie. He died two years later while still in Kalgoorlie in 1898. Their four children were then about 14, 12, 10 and 7 years at the time of their father’s death.
Sarah travelled the great distance to Kalgoorlie so she could be with him at the end. From 1892 Sarah had started to use her considerable management and social skills to independently run a series of hotels in Ipswich, Maryborough, Rockhampton, Ravenshead and in Brisbane.
She became well known as the proprietress of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Edward Street and the Stock Exchange Hotel in Queen Street. There were no limits to Sarah’s entrepreneurial skills. Although few people lived on Bribie Island at that time she became aware that the Brisbane Tug and Steamship Company planned to run trips there.
In 1908 Sarah obtained a special ten-year lease of eight acres on Bribie Island as a site for a fish canning works. The cost was two pounds per year. Two years later she bought a fish cannery at the northern end of Bribie Island from Lionel Landsborough, son of the explorer, William Landsborough.
She relocated the Fish cannery operation to Bongaree and made many improvements. Sarah then became a major employer of the few men living at Bongaree immediately prior to Bongaree being serviced by steamships to a new jetty. Nothing remains of the Fish Cannery which stood on the site of Cornetts IGA Supermarket on Welsby parade.
Ted Crouch was the manager, Bill Wright the foreman, Peter Rich (known as Peter the Gutter and also as the Groper King), Hoppy Dixon who had one leg shorter than the other, and Harry Gotch who boiled down fish heads and bones to extract oil and gathered the residue to make fertilizer.
The cannery building was 45m X 15m and a 12m jetty extended into the passage where fisherman delivered their catch of mullet, snapper, squire, bream and flathead. Fish were scaled cleaned and filleted and pieces arranged in 450-gram tins with a pinch of salt before being sealed and labelled as “Diver Brand”. 48 tins were packed into each case and 24 cases were produced each day which were transported by boat to Brisbane markets. Sarah spent much time on Bribie developing the business, but when conditions changed after World War I broke out, the business was forced to close and most of the equipment was sold to a jam factory in Brisbane.
Nothing remains visible today, but a bronze plaque beside the waterfront pathway opposite Liquorland where a jetty once stood, commemorates this pioneer Fish Cannery on Bribie Island that was run by Sarah Balls between 1910 and 1914. Sarah then saw a new business opportunity when railways started to open up the State. She tendered for the lease of railway refreshment rooms in Brisbane, Isis Junction, Helidon and from Glen Innes to Rockhampton.
It appears that Sarah had formed sound business relationships with capable business people throughout the State. She operated the refreshment rooms successfully until the State Government took over the running of these facilities in 1917. Sarah also retired from hotel work that year and lived in Brisbane. At 54 years of age, Sarah had the time and money to reflect upon her life.
No doubt she mourned the loss of her husband when she was only 35 years of age and remembered the effects of the depression on their lives. Nevertheless she had been spurred on to gather all her courage and strength as well as her wits and natural abilities to take care of her remaining four children. Sarah liked to live in attractive surroundings and built her beautiful Spanish Mission style home, “Santa Barbara” at New Farm which was completed by 1930 Sarah Beatrix Meats Balls died just two years later on 13 June 1932 and was buried at Toowong Cemetery.
After Sarah’s death in 1932, the house was transferred to Sarah’s daughter, Eva, and subsequently to Eva’s son, Jack Ernest Lissner who had the house heritage listed. If Sarah’s home for two short years had not been one of Brisbane’s finest and, if it had not been heritage listed, we would probably know very little about its owner.
But sufficient light has now been shone on the owner and her work with several colourful characters at Bribie Islands Fish cannery in 1910, that she deserves a special place of recognition in our local history.
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