[1] Roma Street is the main north-west road connecting the Brisbane central business district to the inner north-western suburbs of Milton, Petrie Terrace and beyond.

In the 1840s the Roma Street area was used for a major gathering of Aboriginal groups from south-east Queensland, consisting of several hundred people at which the Ipswich group performed a new corrobboree.

It is thought to be the last time Aboriginal groups used the area for major gatherings due to the urban growth of Brisbane.

In the 1915 Queensland state election, T. J. Ryan's Labor government won office in wartime Queensland on the strength of promises to improve living standards, principally by addressing the problems of high commodity prices, price-fixing and the emergence of monopolies.

They believed in public ownership of key economic activities, in competition with private enterprise, but at fair prices.