Farleigh
Rural town and sugar mill north-west of Mackay named after a farm selection purchased by Francis Tyssen Amhurst from Eliza the widow of Emilius Hifling in 1873. Amhurst named Farleigh after an area inside the Greater London boundary. Farleigh, along with several other properties, was acquired by English agricultural investor, Sir John Bennett Laws, who planned to consolidate them into a single sugar estate. In 1883 he built the Farleigh mill, one of ten mills built in the area that year, at a cost of between £25,000 and £30,000w. hich over the next decade absorbed the operations of the nearby Ashburton mill. A tram-line carried Ashburton cane to Farleigh but the hilly country that supplied Farleigh with cane soon had its soil depleted resulting in depleted production that brought about the mill's closure in 1900.
Lawes' Farleigh estate was sold off at a low price, to Farleigh Estate Sugar Company who cleared fresh land and re-opened the mill in 1904, switching from estate farming to small-farm leaseholds. Farleigh Estate Sugar Co also made arrangements to crush cane from several other mills - Ashburton, The Cedars, Coningsby, Pioneer, Richmond, Nindaroo, Habana and Dumbleton.
In 1921, Farleigh assumed responsibility for crushing cane from Rosella, south of the Pioneer River, after the CSR Company discontinued operations at Homebush Mill. The extra cost and commitments involved in this transaction, together with poor seasons, forced the company into liquidation in 1926. The mill was then purchased by its growers and operated on co-operative arrangement.
In 1927, the Homebush suppliers were transferred to the Racecourse Mill and Farleigh's crops were enhanced by rich scrublands in the Kolijo-Calen district, and other areas to the north served by the state-run North Coast railway. In 1956 work began on the mill's own rail line to the northern areas, aiming to increase throughput and reduce the cost of using the government-owned rail line. The line was completed in 1961.
Farleigh Mill growers voted to merge with other Mackay district mills to form the Mackay Sugar Co-operative Association Ltd in November 1987.
Finch Hatton
Rural locality 60 km west of Mackay, toward the western end of the Pioneer valley, originally known as Hatton, named after Harold and Henry Finch-Hatton, local land owners and gold miners. Harold Finch-Hatton was the author of a popular travel book, Advance Australia (1885). Because of the confusion with Hatton Vale, south Queensland, the full Finch Hatton surname was adopted in 1906 for the township and railway station.
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