Summary

Professional historian Peter Bell graduated with a PhD from James Cook University and is listed in the Directory of Historians. This 1979 interim report he donated in unbound form, with extra bound copies available in the library. He has made the unbound form freely available with no copyright restrictions. The study is concerned with the evolution of house forms and building methods in North Queensland mining areas, 1861-1914. The region is defined as the hinterlands of the east coast ports from Bowen north, and the timespan covers the period from the beginning of European settlement to the First World War; a convenient demarcation because it marks both the decline of the North Queensland mining industry and the commencement of major stylistic changes in domestic architecture which largely ended the contribution of indigenous vernacular evolution. Photographs collected by Peter Bell for this and other publications are held in the NQ Photographic Collection, Peter Bell Albums.

The following is a brief list of Bell's publications: Timber and Iron (1984); "If Anything, Too Safe": the Mount Mulligan Coalmine Disaster of 1921 (1996); Early Bricks and Brickwork in South Australia (1998); AIMS: The First Twenty -five Years (1998); Short History of Thuringowa (2000); The Aramac Tramway (2002), numerous consulting reports, articles in journals, and conference papers on history, industrial and maritime archaeology, and conservation.