Canon Garland Overpass

A COMMUNITY-BASED campaign to honour the memory of the Queenslander who gave ANZAC Day to the world has culminated in the renaming of a bridge at Toowong.

The Queensland Transport and Main Roads Department (DTMR) rebadged the Toowong Cycle and Pedestrian Overpass to “Canon Garland Overpass” a year after an e-Petition was presented to the Queensland State Parliament in 2018.

It then took until 3 June 2022, however, for standard DTMR signage to finally be affixed to its eastern and western aspects.

From Wednesday morning, 9 October 2019, this major Queensland Government-constructed and controlled flyover across the Western Freeway, between Toowong's Anzac Park and the Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens, assumed a new identity at ground zero of Australia’s most beloved institution: “ANZAC Day”.

Awareness of Canon Garland hopefully will grow exponentially as the years go by and tens of thousands of motorists pass beneath the landmark structure every 24 hours.

The State Member for Ommaney, Ms Jess Pugh MP, was the Master of Ceremonies for the invitation-only, official naming ceremony, convened at the southern end (Anzac Park side) of the imposing structure.

Special guests were Canon Garland’s Grandnephew, David Ratcliff, and Great Grandniece – David’s daughter – Mrs Elizabeth (“Liz”) Binks, both of Hexham, United Kingdom.

Audience members included: the State Member for Maiwar, Dr Michael Berkman MP; the Opposition Transport and Main Roads Minister, the Hon. Steve Minnikin MP; the Brisbane City Council’s Walter Taylor Ward Councillor, James Mackay; the Archdeacon to the Australian Army, Padre the Venerable Rob Sutherland CSC; the Priest-in-Charge of the Kangaroo Point Anglican Parish, the Reverend Canon Gary Harch CGMM and Marie-Claire Harch; Priest-in-Charge of Ithaca-Red Hill Parish, the Reverend Bill Colbrahams; the President of the Friends of Toowong Cemetery Incorporated, Darcy Maddock CGMM; President of the Asia Minor Greek Historical Society Incorporated, Marina Campbell; President of the Naval Association of Australia (Sandgate Sub-Section) and an executive member of the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee Incorporated, Darby Ashton CGMM; Immediate Past Vice-President of Canon Garland Memorial Society Incorporated, Ross Hielscher CGMM; Army Museum South Queensland director and an executive member of the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland Incorporated, CAP Adele Catts; Museum of Brisbane Executive Director, Dr Renai Grace; Past Executive Committee member of Canon Garland Memorial Society Incorporated, Robert Glazebrook CGMM; Transport and Main Roads departmental staffers, Nicole Hole and Andrew Haddock; as well as neighbours of the Overpass.

BACKGROUND

Constructed between July 2008 and March 2009 by contractors engaged by the DTMR on behalf of Queensland Transport, this $9.9 million¹ overpass physically links Toowong’s sprawling Anzac Park and adjacent Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mount Coot-Tha to the Western Freeway Bikeway.

The catalyst for the creation of the bikeway and overpass was local community agitation and consultations that began at least a dozen years ago.

The-then Member for Mount Coot-tha (and Local Government Minister), the Hon. Andrew Fraser MP, lobbied the Beattie Labor Government hard for the project, and on 31 May 2006 he and then Transport and Main Roads Minister, the Hon. Paul Lucas MP, made a joint funding announcement, describing it as “a victory for the local community.”

Mr Fraser continued: “This has been an issue for a generation and today’s announcement is sensational news for the local community and indeed for cyclists from afar.

“The Toowong Roundabout has acted like a giant roadblock for pedestrians and cyclists and this project will greatly enhance safety and link up major local destinations, such as Mount Coot-tha Botanical Gardens, Anzac Park, the Western Freeway Bikeway and Toowong State School.

“I want to thank everyone who has assisted me in putting the case for this project: especially local residents and cycling groups who joined the campaign. It was a genuine community effort and today it has all paid off.”

Roll forward some nine years and extensive work by Brisbane City Council contractors and staff along Mount Coot-tha Road has finally finished the physical foot/bicycle traffic linkages this visually stunning part of the western suburbs warranted.

The route stretches beyond Moggill Road and straddles the Western Freeway, surges eastwards and northwards into historic Toowong Cemetery, and binds with other citybound civic bike and pedestrian pathways.

Right at the base where the imposing, 60m-long, 6.2m-high freeway crossing lands is the Brisbane World Expo ’88 Rainforest Grove.

SO WHAT’S IN A NAME?

CANON GARLAND MEMORIAL., since 2018, called on the Queensland State Government to synthesise, in a tangible way, themes of “Remembrance of The Fallen” in the local built environment.

David Garland [1864-1939], a Great Queenslander, 103 years ago (as of March 2022) championed the take up of “ANZAC Day” as the nation's “All Souls’ Day” every 25th day of April, between 1916 and 1939. His son, also a David [1896-1970], happened to be one of DTMR’s most accomplished bridge engineers.

Within Canon Garland’s lifetime, ANZAC Day was legislated as a “close public holiday” throughout Australia and New Zealand, with both nations adhering to his original format for solemn civic observances in every city, town and village square.

His own observances on 25 April were centred on Toowong Cemetery, the final resting place for at least 275 World War I and some 120 World War II veterans.

After a lifetime of service to the community, in 1939 Fr. David was laid to rest in Toowong Cemetery, not far from The Stone of Remembrance and The Sword of Sacrifice — Australia’s first “national” ANZAC Memorials — conceived and delivered by ANZAC Day 1924, thanks to his relentless lobbying.

In November 2015 the immediate surrounds of The Cross and The Stone, starting at the Cemetery’s main gates, was officially dubbed “Canon Garland Place” by Brisbane City Council, at the instigation of the-then Lord Mayor, Councillor Graham Quirk.

Soon after the Legacy Way tunnel — named in honour of the organisation founded after World War I to care for the children of deceased service personnel — was located adjacent to the cyclist and pedestrian overpass across the Western Freeway and beneath Toowong Cemetery.

The signs were all there...or were they?

From 2019 onwards, Canon Garland Memorial. (CGM) began pressing Queenslanders to lobby their local State Member of Parliament to see the magnificent, but tone-deaf Toowong Cycle and Pedestrian Overpass given a more memorable moniker.

CGM argued the exceptional national, cultural and historical significance of the three landmarks the Overpass physically and symbolically connected — Canon Garland Place, Legacy Way and Anzac Park — self-evidently deserved better.

There was was scope for Queensland motorists, cyclists and pedestrians to return the salute of a legendary soldier whose foresight and passion ensured Brisbane give ANZAC Day to the world, according to CGM founder and convenor, Peter Collins.

“All who parked their submissions with DTMR steered this novel renaming campaign across the finish line,” Mr. Collins said.

“Naming this Overpass after the bloke who, more than any other Australian, blazed the path for ANZAC Day to attain national holiday status and provided the template for the observance itself, acknowledges a debt of honour due the estimated 58,000 men and women who enlisted, from this State, to serve in the First Australian Imperial Force throughout World War I.

“As the years go by, Canon Garland Overpass will foster interest in the life and works of a remarkable military chaplain who dedicated some 39 of his 50 years in Holy Orders to the spiritual and material wellbeing of thousands of Australian Defence Service personnel, between the outbreak of the Boer War and the outbreak of World War II.

“All credit to State Transport and Main Roads Minister, the Hon. Mark Bailey MP, who – on behalf of the Parliament and people of Queensland – agreed this previously nameless, visually-stunning example of modern road, pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure across a National Highway should forever be associated with the ‘Architect of ANZAC Day’.”

STOP PRESS: In late October 2021, further to a representation made by Canon Garland Memorial. to the office of the State Member for Mount Ommaney, Ms Jess Pugh MP, DTMR confirmed typical signage “was programmed” for installation on Canon Garland Overpass in due course. DTMR RoadTek staff early on Monday, 30 May 2022, finally installed same. A typographical error resulted in both signs being taken down and scrapped. The present replacements were affixed before dawn on Friday, 3 June 2022 (see image below).