Price, Dr Thomas

Thomas Price is the man credited by many with ridding Toowoomba of mosquitoes.

He served as Mayor of the city in 1918 and was also an alderman from 1912 to 1917 and from 1919 to 1921.

Thomas Arthur Price was born in Brisbane in 1871.

He received his early education at the Leichhardt Street State School in Brisbane and received a scholarship from there to the Brisbane Grammar School.

After leaving school, he studied architecture for two years and then travelled to Edinburgh and London to study medicine. He later specialized in treatment of eye, ear, nose and throat disorders.

Dr Price arrived in Toowoomba about 1903 and in 1912, when elected to council, moved for the appointment of a government inspector to conduct an intensive survey in the city and district on ways of eradicating mosquito and rat pests.

(At that time, mosquitoes and other pest were, in the opinion of many citizens, causing the outbreak of infectious diseases.)

The Toowoomba Rat and Mosquito Board was established in 1917 and its services and work began later that year. Designs were obtained from the city’s plumbers for water tank screens and the best designs were made compulsory.

Those who defied the law were summonsed, and this regulation brought much unpopularity.

“For the last year or so the council has been carrying out the beginning of anti-mosquito prevention campaign,” Dr Price told the people who had gathered at the Town Hall to wish him well after his election as Mayor.

“It is early yet to speak of the effect; but the cost of infectious disease to the city was do great that if we can lessen it somewhat, it will be a great life to our finances.”

Dr Price designed and lived in 'Geeumbi', in South Street. He died in 1957 and his name is perpetuated by the Dr Price Memorial Centre, Kindergarten and rest rooms in the Civic Square.