Aura Holdings’ retirement community Somerset Indooroopilly is named after the original homestead, Somerset, that was built around 1900 by district pioneer Henry Thomas on a site that is now part of the Indooroopilly Golf Course.
Henry Thomas was born in Somerset, England, and arrived in Brisbane in September 1883, aged 19. He travelled to NSW where he worked as a groom and trained racehorses before returning to Brisbane by 1889 when he married his first wife, who died soon after. He married again in 1894. From 1897 until 1909, Mr Thomas operated a livery stable in Adelaide St, Brisbane, and trained his horses on the Indooroopilly property.
Mr Thomas built Somerset on his 3ha property on the banks of the Brisbane River. It was a typical Queenslander-style house built of timber with wide verandas.
He was a famed horticulturalist whose bougainvillea gardens surrounding Somerset were a major tourist attraction for four decades. The colourful gardens were recognised in 1926 as a “sight of Brisbane’’ and a popular venue for garden parties, with one fundraiser in 1933 attracting nearly 3000 people.
Often referred to as “Mr Bougainvillea’’ and “the Bougainvillea King’’, Mr Thomas’s most well-known cultivar is Bougainvillea spectabilis Thomasii. The cultivar has been sent around the world, including London’s Kew Gardens and many of the bougainvillea plants around Brisbane claim this plant as its parent. Mr Thomas influenced garden plantings in Brisbane, Queensland and across the globe.
In 1947 the Queensland government purchased several properties, including Mr Thomas’s home and his bougainvillea gardens, to become part of the Long Pocket Park. Under terms of the sale, Mr Thomas could stay on the property’s caretaker for as long as he desired.
Henry Thomas died aged 93 in April 1958, ending his 60-year curatorship of the gardens.
In 1962 when the Indooroopilly Golf Club expanded, Mr Thomas’s gardens were included in the 65ha lease. The original plan was for the club to use Somerset as a club house but in 1964 the dilapidated homestead was demolished by the city council.
A section of Mr Thomas’ original property reverted back to parklands and the Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens were created on Harts Road, Indooroopilly. The gardens are now the responsibility of the Brisbane City Council Parks Department and contain an original bougainvillea planted by Mr Thomas around 1904.
Deemed culturally significant as an example of a large urban-residential garden from the Federation period, the Thomas Park Bougainvillea Gardens were listed on the Queensland Heritage Register in 2014.
Mr Thomas’ horticultural legacy lives on in Thomas Park and in the naming of the retirement community, Somerset Indooroopilly.
