Drayton was the first township established on the Darling Downs. The township was named after a local house owned by Thomas Alford who in turn named his house after a village in England. Drayton Police Station was established prior to the inauguration of the Queensland Police Force on 1 January, 1864 which makes it one of the oldest stations in the area. In 1860, the station had a salaried Chief Constable, William Murphy and by 1864 an Inspector, a Sub-Inspector and two Constables were added to the station.
Drayton Police District first appears in the Government Gazette in 1850. In the 1860s and 1870s Drayton and Toowoomba operated as one unit. In 1884, nearly a decade after its boundaries were first drawn up, Drayton was added to the Darling Downs District.
Image PM3259 Courtesy of the Queensland Police Museum.
In 1858 the Police Station building comprised of a courtroom, a lockup and the prisoner’s cells immediately adjoining the courtroom – an arrangement that was considered objectionable. The lockup was described to be in such a state of disrepair, that a number of prisoners managed to escape between 1857 and 1858.
According to the station correspondence, the entire building was in a continuous state of disrepair. The 1904 report showed that one of the cells had a three square foot hole in its roof and the front verandah was falling away from the main building. By 1913 the station building was falling apart. In 1915 a new station plan was approved by the Department of Public Works with costs estimated at £689. The new building was completed in December, 1915 and at the much lower cost of £455. It contained three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom and an office.
The Drayton Station was closed and reopened a number of times over the years. It was closed in 1880 and reopened in 1884, then closed and reopened again in 1894. During an inspection in 1925, the inspecting officer made a note of the watch-house book, which showed there had been no arrests made since 1919. Unsurprisingly, the station closed on 31 December, 1925 yet again.
In 1929 a number of petitions and complaints of rowdyism and theft had been forwarded to the Head Station in Toowoomba; a request for police presence followed. The station re-opened on 11 March, 1930 and it remains open to this day.
The new Drayton Police Station was built in 1981 on the original site of the old station at 35-37 Brisbane Street, and the building erected in 1915 was moved from Brisbane Street to the north-western corner of Rudd and Glennie Streets.
The modern building contains six small rooms, including the office of the Officer in Charge, a kitchen and an interview room. There are no cells included in the latest station.
In 2012 the front counter was upgraded to increase security, it replaced a simple wooden bench original to the station.
This information has been supplied by the Queensland Police Museum from the best resources available at the time of writing.
The Police Museum is open 9am to 4pm Monday to Thursday and 10am to 3pm on the last Sunday of the month (Feb-Nov) and is located on the Ground Floor of Police Headquarters at 200 Roma Street, Brisbane. Contact: E: museum@police.qld.gov.au
“FROM the VAULT: Drayton Police Station” by Museum Volunteer and Researcher Dr Anastasia Dukova is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 2.5 Australia Licence. Permissions may be available beyond the scope of this licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/legalcode