Backhouse, Joseph

BACKHOUSE, Joseph (1830–1884) was born at Ipswich, son of Benjamin Backhouse, a stonemason and builder, and Mary Anne Fuller, and younger brother of Benjamin BACKHOUSE, with whom he migrated in 1852 to the Victorian goldfields. Joseph was a timber merchant in Geelong until his business failed. Later from 1856-1860 he was the Ballarat agent for the firm Backhouse & Reynolds, architects and surveyors of Geelong. By 1862 he was in practice as an architect at Wollongong, New South Wales. He later followed his brother to Queensland, as an architect and surveyor in Ipswich from 1864. In October that year he became his brother’s Ipswich agent, and from 30 December 1865 took over the Ipswich practice. Backhouse was employed by the Ipswich Municipal Council as town Surveyor in 1865-67. He was architect of St Stephen’s Presbyterian Church, though possibly only supervising its erection from designs provided by Benjamin. Following his bankruptcy late in 1866, Joseph Backhouse applied for the position of City Surveyor for Brisbane in 1867, but was runner up to the successful candidate, Joseph FOWLES. In December 1867 Backhouse gave a report as mining surveyor to a meeting of the provisional directors of the Lady Mary Mining and Quartz Crushing Co., Brisbane. Between 1868 and 1869 he was employed by the Maryborough Municipal Council as Town Surveyor. Public criticism of his performance suggests that he devoted more attention to private work. Backhouse was on the committee of the Maryborough School of Arts. He later practised in New South Wales, in Newcastle from 1869 and Bathurst from 1873, again acting as agent for his brother.