Canberra Hotel, Brisbane

The Canberra Hotel was a temperance hotel on the western corner of Ann and Edward Streets, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

The site had long been associated with the temperance movement, having formerly been occupied by the Temperance Hall operated by the Brisbane Total Abstinence Society and located directly opposite the People's Palace (another temperance hotel operated by the Salvation Army). The foundation stone for the Temperance Hall was laid on 28 March 1864 by the Queensland Governor George Bowen, at which time the site was criticised as scarcely so central as one might desire. However, the Temperance Hall itself was not built until 5 years later at a cost of £716.

The Canberra Hotel was built by the Queensland Prohibition League (later the Queensland Temperance League). The foundation stone was laid on Saturday 30 July 1927 by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane William Jolly with the intention to build a 5-storey building at a cost of £95,000; coins found buried under the foundation stone of the old Temperance Hall were reburied under the Canberra's foundation stone along with current newspapers and documents relating to the affairs of the Queensland Prohibition League. The architect was Arnold Edwin Brooks. The building was financed by private benefactors, particularly William Robert Black and George Marchant, and through a low-interest loan from the Independent Order of Rechabites (a friendly society committed to temperance). There was ill-feeling that Black and Marchant were levied for gift tax by the Queensland Government in relation to their donations, but in July 1929 as the building neared completion, an act of parliament was passed to exempt these donations from gift tax.

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