This two-storey masonry building addressing Gill Street also has a number of additions to the rear which demonstrate the evolution of the banking industry in the town over time.

[1] Charters Towers' gold was first discovered in December 1871, by an Aboriginal boy named Jupiter who tended the horses for prospectors Hugh Mosman, George Clarke and John Fraser.

A storm frightened the horses into a gap in the hills, and while retrieving them, Jupiter found a rich vein of gold laden quartz.

[1][5] In the meantime, it had become evident that the procurement of gold from the deep seams of Charter Towers required substantial machinery to crush quartz and sink shafts.

By 1864 there was Bowen branch of the Bank of NSW, followed by one in Townsville in March 1866, where Towns and his partner John Melton Black had established a boiling down works.

The Cooktown branch, servicing the Palmer River fields opened in 1876, then Thornborough in 1877 on the Hodgkinson goldfields, followed by Cairns and Port Douglas.

[1][10] In Millchester, land on the northern corner of Jardine and Macdonald Streets was formally transferred to the Bank of NSW in April 1875, but the actual sale is likely to have occurred prior to the title documentation.

The Bank of NSW purchased an allotment in February 1887, diagonally opposite the post office in Gill Street, on which to erect a new substantial brick building.

[22] The Charters Towers office was run by William Henry Allan Munro, who had been previously employed in Townsville by architects and builders Rooney Brothers.

The Eyre and Munro partnership designed many north Queensland buildings including the 1889 Holy Trinity Church of England in Herberton, the 1890 Bank of North Queensland in Cooktown, the 1890-1 Townsville School of Arts, and the 1892 Burns Philp Building, later part of Bartlam's Store in Charters Towers (now Zara Clark Museum).

They also designed the building on the corner of Deane and Gill Streets for auctioneers Ackers, Wilson, Ayton and Ryan, built in 1888 which later housed the Royal Bank of Queensland.

It opened for business on Monday 13 May 1889,[24] and was described as "handsome and very pleasing, an imposing structure, superior to anything north of Brisbane" and overshadowing the adjacent Bank of Australasia (no longer extant).

To the left of the main entrance to the public hall is the manager's room, ...and opening out of that is the accountant's office... which has a raised floor, so that the official, by simply standing up, can get a good view of all that is going on.

There is a passage leading from the manager's room to the dining-room, which, with the exception of the kitchen and servants' offices is the only one of the private apartments on the ground floor.

The servants' quarters on the ground floor comprise kitchen, pantry, wash-house and sleeping apartment, and are furnished with the usual appurtenances for cooking and washing.

According to Government Geologist Robert Logan Jack, Charters Towers was the third largest gold producing area in Australia, after Ballarat and Sandhurst (Bendigo).

[1][36] Despite Charters Towers being declared a city in 1909, the downturn in mining from 1914 and its virtual cessation by 1917 contributed to a steady decrease in population during this time.

[41] A post-1900 photograph of the rear of the bank shows rendering to the face-brick walls of the bank core and service wing; lattice panels fixed to the western verandahs of the manager's apartment and service wing; horizontal battens on the wash house and stables and a lavatory in the far south- western corner.

It is likely that the female toilets attached to the northern western corner of the bank were built during WWI when women were employed to make up for the shortfall of men.

[1] The Charters Towers Bank of NSW played an important role in the Pacific Campaign of World War II, as the New Guinean Bank of NSW branches in the towns of Wau, Samarai, Rabaul and Port Moresby were successively evacuated in January and early February 1942, due to bombing or threat of bombing.

[1][43] The Charters Towers City Council acquired the Queensland National Bank building in 1949 and relocated its administrative operations there.

[1] The former Bank of New South Wales is a substantial building in the heart of the commercial district of Charters Towers and is an important element in a largely late 19th century townscape.

[1] The rendered brick building with timber framed floors and large hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting has an elaborate, classically detailed two-storey masonry arcade fronting Gill Street.

Behind, timber verandahs on the east and west sides of the first floor shelter the core of the building and provide access lanes at ground level to the rear of the site.

The former Bank of New South Wales retains a large proportion of its early fabric and displays a high standard of craftsmanship and detail.

A rendered brick building with hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting, it comprises two rooms (originally a servant's bedroom and kitchen) separated by a pantry with verandahs on its eastern and western sides.

The Bank of New South Wales in Charters Towers is important in demonstrating the history of gold mining, a major contributor to Queensland's wealth.

Designed by prominent North Queensland architects Eyre and Munro, the bank building is an important example of their major commercial work.

Highly intact, it is an exceptional demonstration of a substantial, regional 19th century bank - its two-storey masonry construction; elaborate classical styling make it a prominent element in the streetscape of the central business district and its large elaborate banking chamber; strong room; offices; discreet, commodious manager's residence; and semi-detached service wing are key features.

[1] It is notable for the variety of high quality decorative treatments and interior joinery illustrating the hierarchy of the former functions within the building and demonstrating the tastes of the nineteenth century.