Hotels - Club Hotel, Linville

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Linville, Queensland , Australia
Surname/tag: McCallum O_Reilly_Hotels

The Club Hotel Linville brings together a number of threads in the family histories of the McCallums, and the O'Reillys with ties back to Ipswich through the Thorns.

Some History

Ronald Charles Simon Thorn, ... became the first proprietor of the Moorabool Hotel at Yimbun outside Toogoolawah that was the railway terminus for the Brisbane Valley branch line for many years. Its second proprietor, Alex McCallum [his father-in-law] had mail contracts from the rail terminus to Nanango until the line reached Linville in 1913.^[1] ...

R.C.S. Thorn was the grandson of George Thorn, first publican in Ipswich with Palais Royal and son of Mrs. Benjamin Markwell of Esk. He had married Alex McCallum's daughter Ann Rebecca Jeanett on 12 February, 1896. His license for the Moorabool Hotel was transferred in December, 1904 to his mother-in-law Elizabeth (Betsy) McCallum, (n72) a license she was to hold until 1911. Her husband, Alex McCallum is recorded in John Oxley Library as becoming the licensee of the "Royal Mail", location unspecified, in 1905 but there is no further record of this hotel or his involvement with it, and it is clear that Alex & Betsy McCallum jointly managed the Moorabool Hotel, first hotel in the Toogoolawah district. The township of Moorabool was obliged to change its name to Kannangur and finally Yimbun because of confusion with postal addresses elsewhere and Horace Flowers had previously referred to "old man McCallum, host of the Kannangur Hotel."(n73 ).^[2]

Local Historian Elizabeth De Lacey, author of the previous comments adds elsewhere:

At this time [January 1911] she successfully applied to have her license transferred to Robert McConkey and at the same meeting of the licensing court her husband, Alex McCallum, was granted a new license for premises to be known as the Club Hotel, at Linville. The name Robert McConkey does not appear as a publican in the Esk district again before Alex McCallum's death. There is norecord of a building permit for the Club Hotel and there is significant family history about the relocation of the Moorabool Hotel to Linville. Alex McCallum's address at the time of his death on 12 May 1913 was the Club Hotel and the informant on his death certificate was his son Walter McCallum who described himself then as a Hotel Manager. The hotel passed out of the McCallum hands in 1913.^[3]

...

Local history has it that the intention was to take the hotel over the Blackbutt Range to Benarkin to join the new railway terminus that opened there on 8 May, 1911, but the Range defeated the bullock teams and it was relocated to Linville instead. In 1911 Alex McCallum is recorded as the licensee of theClub Hotel, Linville (n74) and he remained there with his wife and son Wally until his death on 12 May, 1913.^[2] ...

[At the time the hotel was established] the mail was now delivered by train to the Linville Railway Station and thence to Nanango by McCallum's Royal Mail Coach now stationed at the foot of the Blackbutt Range. The staging stop at Stonehouse was no longer required.^[2] ...

Alex and Betsy McCallum's Club Hotel was the second hotel in Linville. The Club Hotel changed its name in the 1960's to the Pioneer Hotel and later to the Linville Hotel and remains as the only hotel in Linville today.^[2]

Betsy McCallum Selling Up WANTED to sell, the lease, license, goodwill, and furniture of the Club Hotel, Linville. For further Particulars apply to Mrs. B. McCallum, Club Hotel, Linville. ^[4]

Ted and Doris O'Reilly Subsequently, Ted O'Reilly the brother of Molly McCallum would be the licencee of the Club Hotel, Linville during an extended period including the 1970's. Molly's husband Col McCallum is the Grandson of Patrick McCallum the brother of Alexander McCallum.

Ted and Molly's families had houses side by side in Mein Street, Scarborough and the cousins would spend time at the Club Hotel, while Ted and Doris ran the pub.

O'Reilly family members will recognise that Pop O'Reilly held the licence for a later version of the Palais Royal Hotel in Ipswich in the 1940's. In the 1840's, a hotel of that name was licensed to George Thorn, the father of R. C. S. Thorn who was the husband of Alex McCallum's daughter Jeanett. Another odd coincidence.

2020 The Linville Pub has been serving beer since 1887. Its current owners claim. It just may not always have been in Linville.

"The Linville Hotel is a historic country pub located on the 161km Brisbane Valley Rail Trail. We serve great pub meals 7 days a week for lunch and meals every night except Sunday night. We offer a range of accommodation, full bar, pool table and lounge. We welcome cyclists, hikers and horse riders traveling on the trail and can offer hot showers and laundry facilities. Trail riders, road bikers, car clubs always welcome. Across the road from The Linville Hotel is the old disused railway station and museum plus a popular free camping area with public toilets. The hotel has a rich history dating back to 1887. The hotel and region are beautiful, real Australian cattle country with great birdlife, deer, the Brisbane River and the Rail Trail. ^[5]

A good deal of that history has to do with the McCallum and O'Reilly families.

Sources

1. ↑ De Lacey, E 2014, Lost Coach Routes of the Brisbane River Valley. pp. 23, <https://brisbanevalleyheritage.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2014_lost__coach_routes.pdf>
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3}
3. ↑ Transcription of a torn off piece of a publication by Elizabeth Delacey on a poster board at the Linville Hotel. Transcribed by Pat McCallum.
4. ↑ The Brisbane Courier, Thu 31 Jul 1913, p. 2.
5. ↑ <https://thelinvillehotel.com.au/>