The Duporth Tavern - About Us
The Story of the Duporth Tavern
'Morouchidor', the River of Swans, later to be known as Maroochie and finally Maroochy, had not seen such gaiety, style and socialisation on a grand scale until November 1911, when Yorkshire-born merchant George Land Bury opened his newly built Club Hotel for business.
The Club, with its picturesque two storeys in the traditional Queensland style commanding a prime riverfront position, was this region’s first coastal hotel.
George had arrived in Australia from Leeds in 1868 and to the Maroochy district by 1870, at the age of 19. He worked as a builder for Cobb & Co. and on Samwell’s grazing property at Nambour.
In 1873 he married Jane Ann Trail of Aberdeen, Scotland who had come to Australia at age six to live with her pioneer parents at Landsborough’s Mellum Creek. The family lived for a time at Mooloolah where Bury operated a hotel, butchery and a general store.
George’s son Jack Bury, the licensee, announced the opening of The Club pub on the Maroochy River on November 11, 1911, with an ad in the Nambour Chronicle:
A Champion Place for a Holiday
Now open for the accommodation of visitors to the above attractive seaside resort. The house and all its furnishings are BRAND NEW and fills a long felt want. Regular communication with Nambour will be maintained and everything connected with the establishment kept up to date.
But the licence for the hotel was not gazetted until July 1912, and then with much celebration and long cold drinks, the official opening took place in 1913.
The Club quickly became the fashionable mecca of the riverfront, with a popular social calendar of aquatic carnivals, regattas and New Year’s parties – and always the sounds of the cheerful singing and the new fad jazz bands wafting across the water to the quieter North Shore communities, today known as Twin Waters and Mudjimba.
The Club became Maroochydore’s first brick building in 1937, following refurbishment, and soon the pub became known as the Maroochydore Hotel and was revamped to face the street, rather than the river. With the advent of the motorcar Duporth Avenue had become the new hub of Maroochydore and the once thriving river trade had given way to the delicious mysteries of recreational fishing.
In the 1950s M.V. Coulson maintained a service between Yandina and The Club wharf to ensure locals had a reliable transport service and welcome liquid refreshment when they landed. The service continued until 1969. |
