Part 1: Queensland registration history – early cars cause confusion

This is part one of three blogs that outline the history of motor vehicle registration in Queensland. They are based on an essay written by historian Judith Nissen, tracing the history and evolution of motor vehicle registrations in Queensland, including number plates and personalised plates.  

References and bibliography are provided at the end of part 3. 

Queensland's motoring beginnings 

Accounts of Queensland's first motor car, and motorist, vary. On 12 October 1900 the Brisbane Courier announced that the Cleveland Cycle Company, managed by Mr A. Wynyard-Joss, had brought in Brisbane’s first motor vehicle. It was apparently fitted with “the genuine De Dion mechanism” and would be on display at its Queen Street premises.¹

Conversely, many accounts have it that electrical engineer James Trackson became Queensland’s first motorist when he imported his stream-driven “Locomobile” from Scotland in the 1890s, as claimed in a newspaper interview with Mr Trackson in 1933. He went on to say that in 1900 he imported Queensland’s first internal combustion car.²

Mr Trackson and his wife are pictured below in their ‘Locomobile'.³

It did not take long for the authorities to realise that a system of recording these machines was needed. The early attempts were, however, piecemeal and confusing, especially when police were investigating vehicle thefts or hit-and-run accidents. 

Early motor vehicle registration 

Registration (or taxation) of motor cars and motorcycles in the Brisbane area (known as the ‘Metropolitan Traffic Area’), was introduced in 1906 under the 1905 Brisbane Traffic Act. The owner of a “motorcar, motor vehicle or motorcycle” needed to register his or her name and vehicle with the Commissioner of Police, pay ten shillings (a little over $90 today) for a car, or five for a motorcycle, and obtain a paper registration certificate. Breaking these rules could incur a hefty penalty of up to £20 (almost $3,700 today). 

The same regulations limited the speed of “vehicles, velocipedes, tramcars and horses”, prescribed the headlamps required, and provided for the seizure of vehicles and horses “in the care or charge of drunken persons”. Speeds were limited to 8 miles per hour on central Brisbane City and South Brisbane streets, and 15 miles per hour outside the local authority boundaries of Brisbane and South Brisbane.⁴

Outside the Metropolitan Traffic District, registration was not so prescribed. Registration was possible for those vehicles within any of the 13 Police Traffic Districts which were main centres of population, but only if the Local Authorities there chose to do so.⁵ Vehicles passing from one Local Authority area to another could also be subject to another vehicle tax.⁶

Rules for display of registration numbers 

In 1908, detailed rules for displaying registration numbers were introduced in amended “Regulations for General Traffic” issued under the 1905 Brisbane Traffic Act.⁷ Despite its name, the Act would now be applied statewide.  

The registration number was to be painted onto the rear of the vehicle in white on a black ground on a conspicuous part of the back of such motor car or motor vehicle. All such figures must be three and a-half inches high; every part of every figure must be five-eighths of an inch broad; the total width of the space taken by every figure, except in the case of the figure 1, must be two and a-half inches; and the space between adjoining figures must be half an inch. Such figures shall be free from all flourishes or ornamentations so as to be distinctly seen when any such vehicle is being used on any such road. 

Motor cars were also to have a rear light to “show a clear light reflected on the registered number on the back of such motor car”. 

Each district used the same numbering system, issuing licenses to motor vehicles from number one upwards. This caused confusion with duplicated numbers whenever vehicles left their home traffic district.⁸ 

A vehicle photographed in Brisbane in 1912, pictured below, bears the simple registration number 104.⁹

The number plate pictured below, was probably home made and could have been issued in any of the dozen or so Police Traffic Districts.

Other cars boasted more stylish number plates, such as on this c.1912 Itala two-seater, pictured below.¹⁰

Rules also applied to motorcycles, mandating number plates: 

This stylish Douglas motorcycle, pictured below and photographed in 1915, clearly displayed its number plate.¹¹

The requirement to paint a registration number directly on the paintwork of cars was not universally supported. Brisbane’s Telegraph newspaper editorialised: 

The writer clearly did not have much of an idea of the burgeoning popularity of motoring and the resulting increase in motor vehicles needed identification. 

Although number plates were not mandated, manufacturers and retailers saw a ready market for number plates which would save the paintwork. Howard Motor Garage, whose advertisement is pictured below, advertised number plates (at the bargain price, in today's currency, of less than $22), as well as tail lights ($150) to meet the new regulations.¹³ 

No more duplicates 

On 29 May 1914 some order was brought to the registration system when the Traffic Acts were amended to add an initial identification number denoting each Police traffic district. The amended regulations stipulated: 

Such letter shall be painted in red on a black ground free from all flourishes or ornamentations, shall be half an inch less in height than the registered or licensed number of such vehicle, and every part of such letter shall be half an inch broad and be so painted on the left-hand side half an inch from the first numeral of the registered or licensed number, as the case may be, and in base alignment with such number of every motor car, motor omnibus, motor cab, or other motor vehicle. 

A similar provision was made regarding motorcycles. A prohibition was also added against the display of any additional letters, numerals or symbols on the rear of motor vehicles.¹⁵

Number plates were not mandated, but it seems that by this time, most cars were using number plates attached to their vehicles, rather than painting the numbers the car bodies. 

The identification letters used were:¹⁶

A - Brisbane
B - Rockhampton
C - Toowoomba
D - Townsville
E - Ipswich
F - Maryborough
G - Warwick
H - Cairns
J - Bundaberg
K - Mackay
M - Clermont
N - Gympie
P - Hughenden
R - Dalby/Redcliffe
S - Sandgate

Registration number A1 was issued on 10 September 1906. Plates were either home made, or manufactured by local suppliers. The materials used varied – metal, timber or leather among them.¹⁷

Registration A2, pictured below, was the second issued in Brisbane, in 1906. 

This USA-made Overland tourer, pictured below, with number plate A8 was registered in Brisbane in early 1906 to builder Victor Campbell of Albion.¹⁸

The J registration numbers on these Indian Scout motorcycles, pictured below, would have been issued in Bundaberg.¹⁹

Home-made plates were constructed using aluminium figures attached to a plate. This practice would continue for many years, as shown by this Q plate, pictured below. The figures are attached to the metal plate with rivets.²⁰

The top plate shown in the photograph below looks clearly home made. Presumably it originally had a ‘Q’ attached.²¹

After the First World War, motor vehicle ownership in Australia boomed. The war had stimulated technical improvements in motorised vehicles, materials for the manufacture of motor cars became freed up from military purposes, and many young men had learned to drive during their military service. By 1915 an estimated 8,000 cars and trucks, as well as several thousand motorcycles, were on the road in Queensland.²² 

This ambulance, pictured below, with number plate 205 claims to have been photographed in the 1920s and seems to bear a special number plate. It shows no leading letter or “Q”.²³ It may, of course, have been registered earlier than the 1914 requirement for the addition of letters denoting place of registration. 

Parts 2 and 3 of this blog series can be viewed here.

Our exhibition, Driven: every car has a story will be on show at State Library of Queensland until 8 February 2026.

Footnotes

1. “A Motor-Car in Brisbane”, Brisbane Courier, 12 October 1900, p. 3
2. “Queensland’s First Motorist”, Brisbane Courier, 7 March 1933, p. 3
3. SLQ APA-003-01-0004, https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/11l3i0/alma99183853678302061. NB – other sources say that the first Locomobile was not constructed until 1897, when the “Stanley Steamer” was built. The design was later sold and the company named “Locomobile”. Some future work may be able to ascertain the accuracy of this and other stories about Queensland’s first motor vehicles. Stories include Trackson’s importation of a steam car in 1892
4. Queensland Government Gazette, 6 April 1906, p. 1211: Regulations for General Traffic, Section XXV.
5. Queensland Roads, vol. 2 no. 3 June 1963, p. 16.
6. Main Roads Commission, Annual Report, 30 June 1922, p. 4.
7. Queensland Government Gazette, 15 August 1908, pp. 332-333
8. “Numbering of Motor Vehicles”, Brisbane Courier, 30 May 1914, p. 6
9. SLQ image 10113-0001-0008, https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/1dejkfd/alma99183800176102061.
10. SLQ neg. 87006
11. SLQ neg, 185809,  https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/tqqf2h/alma99183507634902061 (original published in Steering Wheel, June 1915, p. 54)
12. “Pointed Pars”, Telegraph, 9 May 1908, p. 6. NB – image of newspaper article may be used instead of transcript.
13. Brisbane Courier, 16 May 1908, p. 3.
14. SLQ neg. 87012.
15. Queensland Government Gazette, 20 June 1914, p. 1638; “Numbering of Motor Vehicles”, Brisbane Courier, 30 May 1914, p. 6.
16. Memorandum c. 1940-1941 in QSA ITM367310 Police Department, Administration file, 1933-1975; Main Roads Department, Motor vehicle number plates 1906-1985, SLQ m/s. Apparently the duplication of R was an error. The omission of I and O is understandable; no explanation has been found for the omission of L or Q
17. Main Roads Department, Motor vehicle number plates 1906-1985, SLQ m/s
18. Information accompanying SLQ image (no image number; accession 88-5-9).
19. SLQ no image or accession number.
20. Number plates”, Daily Standard, 28 February 1925, p. 1; Transport & Main Roads Heritage Centre, object T-232-0, MOTOR VEHICLE REGISTRATION PLATE; T-232-0 | eHive.
21. SLQ no image number (accession D6-10-86)
22. “Cycle and Motor”, Queenslander, 20 February 1915, p. 18.
23. Ambulance c. 1920-1930, SLQ neg. 22280, https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/11l3i0/alma99183513691602061. The “usual” registration number Q205 was issued to a private individual.