By 1892 it was felt that the town hall was too small and an extension was designed by well-known architect George Brockwell Gill who is responsible for many beautiful and heritage listed buildings in Ipswich.

The Old Ipswich Town Hall is a two-storeyed painted rendered masonry building with a clock tower and a hipped corrugated iron roof at the rear.

[1] A Deed of Grant for the original land content, allotments 10 and 23 of section 5, was issued on 7 September 1861 for School of Arts purposes to the trustees Benjamin Cribb, Charles Gray, Frederick Forbes, George Thorn and Henry Challinor.

[1] Schools of Arts were synonymous with mechanics' institutes, established in Britain early in the 19th century, and transplanted throughout the British Empire during the colonial era.

The call for popular education in turn can be contextualised within the broader liberal, laissez-faire, non-interventionist philosophy which dominated British social, economic and political ideologies in the 19th century.

The provision of reading rooms, museums, lectures and classes were still important, but the Australian schools were also more likely to include a social programme in their calendar of events.

[1] The Ipswich Literary Institution was formed at a public meeting held on 31 July 1850, with its aim being to provide a news room and library.

In one or other sense all men in Ipswich are working men.The first stage section, set back from the Brisbane Street frontage, housed a library and meeting rooms which were used for civic events, evening classes and for entertainment purposes.

[1] The Ipswich Municipal Council had applied to the Government for a grant of land on the southeast corner of East and Roderick Streets for the purposes of building a town hall and a depot for tools and other equipment.

This was granted early in 1861 but a further request for money to build the town hall was refused and the Council continued to use a small room in the old Courthouse on a temporary basis.

The Council explored a number of options for more permanent premises against a background of opposition from ratepayers who at one time submitted a petition objecting to the erection of a town hall.

In August 1889 a residence (no longer extant) was built for the School of Arts librarian fronting Limestone Street at the rear of the hall.

The clock was illuminated by gas flame, and the tower was designed by Queensland Colonial Architect Francis Drummond Greville Stanley.

[1] By 1917 the Ipswich Council had outgrown its premises, and plans were drawn up by architect George Brockwell Gill for a second storey, but at £1,200 the idea was abandoned.

A compromise solution involved the council purchasing the adjacent St Paul's Young Men's Club in June 1938, and major renovation works to the town hall were completed by builders Harper and Vincent in 1941.

A new Ipswich Civic Centre was opened in July 1975 at the corner of Limestone and Nicholas Streets by the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

[1] The Old Town Hall, a two-storeyed painted rendered masonry building with a hipped corrugated iron roof to the rear, is located in the centre of Ipswich fronting Brisbane Street to the north.

[1] The building consists of three stages, with the original 1861 hall at the rear, the 1864 section fronting Brisbane Street, and a clock tower added in 1879.

A cantilevered awning has been added to the central section above the ground level, and slightly projects from the building with an edging which mimics the base of the pilasters, but which obscures the former loggia's open balustrade details.

The building has a corrugated iron hipped roof with ridge ventilators, expressed banding at ground floor and mezzanine level and tall arched windows along the east and west elevations.

Walls are rendered, and an arched opening leads into the hall at the rear with a timber ramp accommodating a change in floor level.

It demonstrates the architecture considered appropriate for a municipal building of the 1860s, and is associated with two important early Queensland architects; James Cowlishaw and Francis Drummond Greville Stanley.

It demonstrates the architecture considered appropriate for a municipal building of the 1860s, and is associated with two important early Queensland architects; James Cowlishaw and Francis Drummond Greville Stanley.