It was designed by Francis Drummond Greville Stanley and built in 1877 by John Thomas Annear for the Queensland Government.

In about 1856 a permanent courthouse and lockup for Maryborough were designed by Alexander Dawson, Colonial Architect of New South Wales.

By 1857 the New South Wales Government voted that the sum of £1000 be spent on the erection of a courthouse and lockup, but it seems this was not completed until after the Separation of Queensland in the early 1860s and seems to be unattributable to Alexander Dawson.

Stanley conceived the Maryborough Courthouse as a double-storeyed arcaded pavilion with towers at each corner, sited between Queens Park and the adjacent street.

The footprint of the building was set well back from Wharf Street providing space for a garden forecourt with Jacaranda trees enhancing the principal entrance.

Stanley write a memo about his proposal for the Courthouse in September 1875:[1]the design has been arranged so as to place offices of the Department of Roads, Public Lands and Survey on the ground floor as being more readily accessible from the street, and the courts and offices associated therewith on the upper floor as being removed from noise and as being in a better position as regards ventilation.

The material to be employed is brick on stone foundations faced in cement when not covered by verandahs; the roof to be slated and the internal finishings of a plain substantial character.The necessity of segregating the top and bottom floors caused Stanley to provide two separate stair halls at each end of the pavilion within the two corner towers nearest the park, at the rear of the building, to which access was provided from the north eastern verandah.

The former courthouse was retained at its original site and became used as a quarters for police and was demolished to make way for the construction of the new Town Hall in 1908.

This was in line with government policy for encouraging capital works in the 1930s to overcome the effect of the Great Depression.

The Government Offices Building was designed by the Department of Public Works and two staff members seem to have been involved on the project.

Also new stairs were constructed in three of the four corners of the building and a stables was demolished to make way for an air raid shelter.

Lining the facades of the building are double-storeyed verandahs, or loggias, which are recessed between rusticated corner pavilion towers.

Regularly throughout the open section of the floor are substantial square planed stop-chamfered rendered masonry columns.

The rear offices are formed with plaster rendered walls and feature similar coffered ceiling framing.

An open balcony on the first floor acts as an entrance vestibule to the courtroom which is entered via a double timber door.

The room is naturally lit with a number of large windows and French lights opening onto the adjacent verandahs.

The building forms an integral component of a civic precinct with the adjacent State Government Offices, which although later are clearly designed to harmonise with the Courthouse.

[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.