Ballow Chambers

At the time Ballow Chambers was was built in 1924-26, Wickham Tce was in the throes of establishing itself as Medical Row with doctor’s rooms popping up everywhere. And these stand as a fine example of a purpose built interwar specialist medical building, designed by Brisbane architect Lange Powell who had already shown his medical design prowess with St Martin’s Hospital down on Ann St. In an unusual touch, the Georgian style building’s first two floors were built in 1924 and the third storey added in 1926.

Named after the colonial doctor David Ballow, the first doctor to have a private practice in Brisbane and who suffered an unfortunate death after catching typhus from emigrants he was treating, the building later became associated with the tragic deaths of another two doctors.

In 1955 aggrieved patient, German immigrant Karl Kast went on a rampage on Wickham Terrace against the medical profession who would not support his back injury claim. Having already set off a bomb and shot a doctor down at Wickham House only minutes earlier, Kast burst into the respective medical suites of Dr Murray and Dr Meehan and shot them dead at point blank range.

When he entered the third doctor John Lahz’s rooms (where startled patients sat in the waiting room), his attempt to barge into the surgery and shoot the doctor was thwarted by two nurses and the doctor escaped. Kast concluded his attack by blowing himself up at the doctor’s desk with some more bombs from his satchel and, while ripped to shreds but still alive, managed to fatally shoot himself in the head.