HISTORY
LIMBLESS SOLDIERS BOWLING CLUB OPENING 1944
LIMBLESS SOLDIERS BOWLING CLUB
Built next to the Limbless Soldiers’ Club, back in 1944 it was known as the Limbless Soldiers’ Bowling Club, designed as a place for service men and women to socialise and relax along the banks of the Brisbane River.
The Limbless Soldiers Bowling Club was officially opened in 1949 by the Queensland branch of the Returned Limbless Sailors and Soldiers Association (RLSSA) to provide recreational facilities for returned disabled servicemen. The first day of play was in December 1948.
In 1946 Brisbane City Council granted a 30-year lease to the RLSSA of the former United States Navy site. In 1948 the RLSSA opened a bowling green and green-keeper’s shed adjacent to the former US Navy Officers’ Club/Mess, now Riverside Ballroom. Peter Drummond became the founding president.
In the early 1950s the clubhouse building, comprising two ex-army huts, was relocated from Camp Columbia, the United States 6th Army headquarters at Wacol during the Second World War.
The Limbless Soldiers Bowling Club was later renamed the Merthyr Bowls Club. In 1978 the lease was transferred from the RLSSA to the RSL. The RSL, which continues to lease the land from Council, subleases the facilities to the Merthyr Bowls Club.
