Croydon Currajong Cumberland

Croydon

Electorate created by the 1892 redistribution which divided the electorate of Burke in half, giving the name Croydon to the western portion. In the 1911 redistribution it was absorbed into Burke and Flinders.

Historic goldrush town located in the heart of the Gulf Savannah, 170 km inland from Karumba in the south-east corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria, named after the Croydon Downs pastoral station. The town was settled in the wake of a gold rush in 1885 and by 1886 batteries had been brought in and substantial buildings, including two storey hotels erected. Goldfield towns around Croydon included Tabletop to the north; True Blue and Golden Gate, to the north-west and Croydon King to the west. All had local schools, and Croydon's first school was opened in 1890. By 1899 the estimated population in the district was about 6000, and during its heyday, Croydon was the fourth largest town in Queensland. By 1915 the output of gold was beginning to decline and within ten years it had virtually ended. 

Local government area originally created on 31 December 1887 under the Divisional Boards Act 1887. At one stage own of Croydon was responsible for the town, this was merged into the Shire on 1 January 1909. Like other local government areas in the region, Croydon was not affected by amalgamations in 2008, mainly because of the size and remoteness of the shire. 

Station, a large pastoral holding covering approximately 5,000 square kilometres, first settled in the 1880s by Alexander Brown and William Chalmers Brown.

Currajong

Residential and industrial suburb of Townsville named after a house in Fulham Road, owned by Edward Hunt, who planted Currajong trees in the grounds in 1888. 

Cumberland 

Islands, a group of group of more than seventy islands off the coast north of Mackay, discovered by Cook in 1770. On  Monday 4 June he recorded that he named the body of water through which he had just sailed Whitsunday’s Passage “… as it was discovered on the day the Church commemorates that Festival” and called the islands in the area “Cumberland Isles in honour of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland” (Henry Frederick, brother of King George III). The name would seem to cover islands as far south as St Bees/Keswick through to Hayman in the north and equate to the present-day Whitsunday Islands.

© Ian Hughes 2013