Written by Peter Wilmoth.

The Royal Mail Hotel, on the corner of Poinciana Avenue and Diyan Street in Tewantin, has been at the heart of the town in the Noosa Shire for more than 140 years, a much-loved icon.

The Royal Mail Hotel has had many iterations. The first was a two-storey timber structure built in February 1882 for its first owner Ned Murdoch. He was a driver of Cobb & Co’s coach and constructed a modest four-roomed hotel on the site. From its earliest days the hotel had a strong connection with Cobb and Co and served as the original Cobb and Co State Post Stop when the hotel opened in May 1882.

The Royal Mail is significant in South-East Queensland as most pubs opened to service the rail sidings in this region.

The name of the Royal Mail gives us good clues about it. “Royal” has always been the most popular name for a pub in Australia (beating Commercial, Club and Grand). Pubs likely chose the name for its connotations of quality, link to the Old Country and a desire for a well-heeled clientele.

The many hotels around the country sharing the name The Royal Mail were likely named for another crucial role they played. Hotels were set up on transport routes and before the introduction of rail routes the mail was carried by coaches. The hotels named The Royal Mail were almost certainly official coach stops and therefore a crucial link to the rest of Australia.

Newspaper reports over its long history are windows into the central role The Royal Mail Hotel played in its early days. The hotel welcomed all, hosting governors, high society, Noosa shire locals and visitors from as far away as Melbourne. It was the venue for parties, for celebrations of civic achievements and relaxing after a long day of cricket in the Queensland sun.

An early licensee at the Royal Mail Hotel was John E. Kinmond, a bullock driver who ran the hotel in 1888. In 1889 he sold the hotel to Major J. Myles who in turn sold to Mr John Tait. The Tait family was prominent in Tewantin in those years. Mrs Tait was the widow of Jimmy Miles, a former Cobb and Co manager, another strong connection to the coaching company that connected the bush settlements of Australia from the 1850s to the 1920s (their network of routes crisscrossed the eastern states of Australia, from North Queensland to Melbourne and across to Adelaide).

The Tait and Donovan families, who owned and managed the hotel at different times, were both key figures in the early development of the Noosa River area for tourism. They also were central in the development of transport routes linking the area to the North Coast railway.

This influence naturally benefitted the region greatly and helped the Royal Mail Hotel become an important part of the town of Tewantin’s growth. Indeed, it became a part of the hotel’s attraction. In 1891, when the train line reached nearby Cooroy, the Royal Mail offered horses and buggies for hotel patrons to be transported from the train to the hotel.

The Royal Mail underwent many improvements over its history.

In 1891 the Gympie Times carried a report from “A Correspondent” describing Tewantin as “a thriving little township supporting two hotels, two stores, etc, a constant supply of timber coming in every weekday and two steamers trading between the port and Brisbane, and two running backwards and forwards to Cootharaba”.

The writer noted changes in the town and marvelled at the revamped Royal Mail. “It can truly be said that Mr Myles has converted the hotel into a terrestrial paradise. Improvements have been the order of the day and no expense has been spared to make the place attractive; new and comfortable rooms have been built and in the busiest times ample accommodation will be found by visitors.”

Newspaper reports regularly refer to events in the town, and the Royal Mail’s involvement. In 1892 “A Correspondent” for the Gympie Times reported on a cricket match that took place between the Cootharaba and Tewantin teams with 100 spectators. After the match, the paper noted, “needless to say the dinner was provided by the hostess of the Royal Mail Hotel (and) was, as usual, sumptuous”. The festivities would have continued as “the Royal Mail is at present full up with Brisbane visitors”.

Around 1930, John Donovan, whose father of Lionel Donovan operated a cinema in Tewantin for many years, bought the hotel and undertook major renovations. It became known as Donovan’s’ Royal Mail Hotel.

A newspaper advertisement spruiked the Royal Mail as “the leading hotel on the North Coast line”. It had “electric light throughout, hot and cold water, plunge baths” and a “fish menu was a speciality” as there were “fishing grounds immediately in front of the hotel”. It promised “every attention paid to comfort of visitors”, which included transfers from the train station. By now it was cars rather than horses and coaches that met trains daily to bring guests in.

On 18 July 1930 the Noosa Advocate remarked that “Mr R. Caddell of Cooroy is making good progress with his task of making enlargements to J. Donovan’s Royal Mail Hotel. When completed the structure will be a welcome addition to the business portion of the town.”

The Royal Mail Hotel from its earliest days contributed significantly to the area’s sense of civic pride. Over its many years as a meeting spot, the hotel served an important community service as a place friends could meet for a drink or meal, and for visitors it offered excellent accommodation.

In 1912 it was the centre of Tewantin’s New Years Eve celebrations, as the Gympie Times reported. “As usual the host of the Royal Mail Hotel (J. Tait) careered for all on New Year’s morning by supplying refreshments (liquid and otherwise) to a huge gathering who assembled in front of his hotel.” Music was supplied and members of the band “struck up appropriate music as the clock struck 12. The large ring formed by linking hands must have been quite 200 yards around when singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

“The genial ‘Dandy’ Liddy acted as barman in the Royal and Mr Wilson (late of Gympie) did likewise at the Tewantin Hotel, and each seemed to be doing a roaring business.”

The Royal Mail was also much loved for its architectural style which was, for its time, at the edge of modernity. Newspaper reports of the time often remarked on the hotel as modern and stylish. In January 1931 the Noosa Advocate noted that “those who have not visited Tewantin and its environs since last year marvelled at the progress in buildings in the last twelve months, Mr J. Donovan having rebuilt the Royal Mail Hotel with two stories of the most modern design.”

The Royal Mail Hotel was clearly highly valued as a centrepiece and gathering place for Tewantin locals who, reading newspaper reports of the time, seem as though they knew how to have fun. The Noosa Advocate noted the area was popular with locals and holiday makers, attracted to the bathing, fishing, even wood chopping when a “program of sports” was organised. The festivities in the town included music played by orchestras “at meal times, which helped to give the place a distinct city atmosphere, while at other (hotels) the musicians concentrated on tunes for dancing which was carried on along the spacious verandahs of the hotels with the greatest of ease and comfort”.

In 1933 the Brisbane Courier reported the death of another licensee of the Royal Mail, John Tait, “one of the oldest and most respected Tewantin residents, who had been ailing for some time”. He died in the Gympie General Hospital on April 13 aged 80.

We learn a little more about John Tait in the newspaper’s obituary. “The late Mr Tait was a native of Kirkintuloch, Scotland, and was only eight years old when he came to Queensland with his parents in 1861. Mr Tait, the paper said, “conducted” the Royal Mail Hotel for “a long time”. “Of late years Mr Tait interested himself in farming properties in the Noosa Shire and, being a lover of horses, judged them and the ring events, at many shows.”

Two years later local identity and Royal Mail Hotel licensee John Donovan, who held the licence for the hotel for decades, died in 1935 and in 1936 his widow sold the business to the Queensland Brewery.

The pub’s improvements were noted enthusiastically in the newspapers. In 1938 a newspaper report noted that Mr J.L. Bennett, a Cooroy building contractor, was making “large additions to the Royal Mail Hotel Tewantin to enable the licensee Mr W.K. Thompson to cater more adequately for the patronage of holiday makers and visitors”.

But sadly these much-anticipated improvements would not last long because in 1938 tragedy struck. In March a devastating fire – described by The Telegraph newspaper in Brisbane as Tewantin’s “most disastrous fire in its history” – destroyed the hotel. The Tweed Daily reported: “When the outbreak was first discovered the fire had so great a hold on the hotel that a bucket brigade had to concentrate on saving the adjoining buildings, and for a while the whole block in Main Street was in danger. John Stewart, aged 80, who has been boarding at the hotel for 50 years, had to be carried from the building by rescuers.”

Newspaper reports revealed that the hotel had “contained 60 rooms, including a billiard room and a hairdressing salon”.

Fire fighters were praised for their efforts. The Telegraph noted their “magnificent work” which meant they also saved “Messrs W. J. Ross butcher shop, Mrs J.W.R. Godber’s café, R.T. Read’s store and building and Thompson’s bakery and dwelling”.

In 1940 the current Royal Mail Hotel was constructed, this time in brick, in what could be described as an inter-war functionalist style, which had its background in European modernism of the 1920s and 1930s. The style embraced functionalism, technology and the elimination of applied historical ornamentation. There were also Art Deco touches.

With many improvements since, the Royal Mail Hotel stands today as a proud and important part of South-East Queensland and Australia’s story, as loved today as it was when it was opened 141 years ago.