Christopher Porter (architect)

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File:StateLibQld 1 115092 Normal School, Brisbane, ca. 1885.jpgChristopher Porter ({{Circa|1801}} – 1874) was an architect who was prominent in Geelong, Victoria in the late 1850s and 1860s, and later in Brisbane, Queensland (now within Australia).

Porter migrated to Victoria with his family in 1851, worked as an architect in Geelong and then Brisbane, where he was appointed City Surveyor, and then turned to farming.{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18332063|title=Gone.|date=8 August 1874|newspaper=The Queenslander|accessdate=5 October 2017|issue=27|volume=IX|page=9|via=National Library of Australia}}

He designed:

• Bell & Son Bakery in Geelong[http://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/19160/download-report Victorian Heritage Database Report, Bell & Son Baker (former)]
• Geelong Chamber of Commerce building in Moorabool Street in 1858[http://www.deakin.edu.au/library/special-collections/collections/geelong-album The "Geelong Album" photographed by E. de Balk, Geelong, 1866]
• Ballarat Chamber of Commerce in 1859{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66053140 |title=THE NEW CHAMBER OF COMMERCE HALL. |newspaper=The Star |volume=IV |issue=118 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=19 May 1859 |accessdate=5 October 2017 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}
• Kedron Lodge in Brisbane 1860{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3718015|title=Local Intelligence.|date=16 October 1860|newspaper=The Moreton Bay Courier|accessdate=5 October 2017|issue=931|location=Queensland, Australia|volume=XV|page=2|via=National Library of Australia}}
• Normal School in Brisbane in 1860, becoming the Queensland Board of Education's first general architect[http://www.bonzle.com/pictures-over-time/pictures-taken-in-1885/page-1/size-3/picture-zg998w17/brisbane/normal-school-brisbane-ca-1885 Normal School, Brisbane, ca. 1885 QldPics http://www.bonzle.com/c/a]
• Ballarat Benevolent Society in 1866[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~carrick/The%20History%20of%20Ballarat.html "The History of Ballarat" by William Bramwell Withers First published in 1870 - this list of over 1400 names has been compiled from the Second Edition 1887]

File:Christopher Porter residence at Doughboy Creek, Murarrie, circa 1872.jpg

The Geelong Chamber of Commerce was built by Boynton and Conway, demolished 1955), described as "...a Barrabool freestone building of two storeys with an elaborate facade which included giant Corinthian order columns".

The design of the Normal School was later thought to have included a subtle joke with "[A]ll doorways and windows had wide key stones and copings forming the shape of the dreaded broad arrow of convict days."{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article201195103 |title=Says Paintings Are Atrocious Too |newspaper=Truth |issue=2832 |location=Brisbane |date=4 July 1954 |accessdate=5 October 2017 |page=42 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Porter also had an interest in a pottery and brickworks for the manufacture of tiles and hollow bricks at Mopoke Gully near Ballarat in the 1860s, which may have been connected to his contracting works.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article113848007 |title=THE LATE MR ROBERT SMITH. |newspaper=The Ballarat Star |volume=XIII |issue=242 |location=Victoria, Australia |date=9 October 1868 |accessdate=5 October 2017 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}

File:Damaged headstone for Christopher Porter, Tingalpa Anglican Cemetery, 2005.jpg

He lived in his final years at Doughboy Creek (now in Hemmant), and died in 1874, and was buried in Tingalpa Church Cemetery.{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1386702|title=Family Notices|date=5 August 1874|newspaper=The Brisbane Courier|access-date=8 April 2020|location=Queensland, Australia|page=1|via=Trove}} He lived in his final years at Doughboy Creek, and died in 1874, and was buried in Tingalpa Church Cemetery.