Mayes, Alexander

Few people could have become as involved in Toowoomba as Alexander Mayes, Mayor four times between 1896 and 1917.

A noted builder who constructed many prominent buildings in Toowoomba, Alexander Mayes spent 35 years in Toowoomba. He was Mayor in 1896, 1903, 1917 and was a council alderman for seven years.

His youngest son, Mr Charles Mayes, who still lives in Toowoomba, recently outlined his father’s life.

Alexander Mayes was born at Largo in Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1859.

He came to Queensland at the age of 26 and arrived in Toowoomba in June 1886. His first job after coming to Toowoomba was to put a roof on a small church at Drayton.

He subsequently purchased several allotments of land opposite the main Post Office in Margaret Street. The block extended north to Bell Street and had a frontage from the present-day Crown Hotel to the Church of Christ.

Here Mayes built shops for rental and established his workyards. Among buildings he erected in Toowoomba and on the Downs are the present Town hall, which he completed during 1900; the Technical College on the corner of Margaret and Hume Streets (1911); G.G. Cory’s “Vacy” in Russell Street; the first buildings at Baillie Henderson Hospital; the original Toowoomba Fire Station (then located between the Old Court House and the Police Station in Neil Street; and the Warwick Post Office.

He was also awarded the contract to build the Ladies’ Presbyterian College (now Fairholme) which opened on August 12, 1918. Besides being a prominent builder, he also found time to be involved with numerous groups on the Downs.

He was superintendent of the Toowoomba Fire Brigade for 23 yars and chairman of Council’s Works Committee for the first time in 1895. With the then City Engineer, Mr J. McLeod, Alexander Mayes instituted the bitumening of Toowoomba’s roads.

Among the other positions he held were president of the city’s School of Arts committee and Technical College and president three times of the Toowoomba Bowling Club and twice president of the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce.

For several years ne was also chairman of the Fairholme College Council and chieftain of the Toowoomba Caledonian Society.

“Largo”, the Mayes’ family home, still stands. Built after the Toowoomba Town Hall in 1900, it is located on the corner of Mary and Arthur Streets and is now “Gowrie House”, a hostel for girls.

Alexander Mayes left Toowoomba in 1922 and moved to Bilinga in northern New South Wales. He returned to Scotland in 1927 and died in 1941, aged 82.