Machans Beach
Coastal settlement north of Cairns flanked by the Barron River on its south and Barr Creek to the north. The area was surveyed in 1885, but the area neglected for nearly 40 years passed until Richard and Cristina Machan and their family purchased the leasehold of about 100 hectares, becoming the first permanent white settlers. Machan was something of an entrepreneur, using a Model T Ford to carry firewood and visitors to and from the beach. As the beach became a popular destination for day trippers and tourist boats started calling, Machan built a jetty.
By the 1940s, the community had a mixture of permanent and holiday homes, and although Machans Beach was occupied for defence purposes through the war years and petrol rationing continued after the end of the war Machans Beach provided an accessible holiday spot and the esplanade was a holiday camping area. A shark-proof swimming enclosure was built in 1946, and by 1952, there were three stores, a service station and a school. The airport on the other side of the Barron River has kept out high-rise development, but low-level air creates noise problems.
Mackay
Electorate created by the Electoral Districts Act of 1878 from the Bowen electorate. Became a dual member constituency (1888-1912) and has remained centred around the city of Mackay.
Regional city midway between Rockhampton and Townsville named after the explorer John Mackay who led an expedition from Armidale in search of northern grazing lands. In May 1860, Mackay reached the Pioneer River, named the river after himself, and returned in 1862 to take up a pastoral run at Greenmount. Later that year Governor Bowen and Commodore Burnett visited the area and changed the name of the river to Pioneer, after the vessel in which they travelled to avoid confusion with a Mackay River at Rockingham Bay (since renamed Tully River). The following year, to placate the explorer, they named the newly established township laid out a grid of streets on the south bank of the river after him.
By 1866, Mackay was connected by telegraph to Brisbane and Bowen, and within a few years the first plantings of sugar cane were producing promising results. John Spiller had been involved in sugar production in Java and established a small plantation in 1865. A home-made mill followed two years later. By 1874, the district had sixteen mills, 5000 acres of cane and produced more than one-third of Queensland's sugar with the labour provided by indentured South Sea Islander labour and the township's population tripled during the 1870s. Sugar acreage trebled between 1879 and 1883, mostly paid for by Melbourne investors.
Outrages concerning the traffic in indentured labour prompted Sir Samuel Walker Griffiths to introduce legislation to abolish it, a move that prompted an upsurge in northern separation movements. In 1885 Griffith proposed a system of central sugar mills, financed by the government and run on co-operative lines, which would favour selectors over the plantocracy. North Eton and Racecourse were among the earliest central mills.
With Pacific Island labourers largely repatriated after Federation, sugar producers attempted to cut the costs of European labour, and in 1910, the Sugar Workers Union amalgamated with the Australian Workers Association. The result was the arrival of experienced union leaders from the mining sector, a sugar strike, supported by union funds from southern states war chest, new industrial standards and the rise of Labor politics and Labor politicians in Mackay. At the forefront was Scotsman William Forgan Smith, who defeated the non-labour forces in 1915, represented Mackay continuously until 1942 and went on to become Premier of Queensland.
A severe cyclone in 1918 raged for three days, with thirty lives lost, 75% of Mackay's buildings damaged, and sugar crops ruined. Rail connections to Rockhampton went through in 1921, and the link to Townsville followed in 1923 as Mackay enjoyed healthy growth, largely through the efforts of Forgan Smith, who pushed through finance for Mackay's outer harbour, laid the foundation stone in 1935 and presided over the official opening in 1939.
Sugar rationing during World War Two slowed growth with labour shortages curtailing sugar production, and while economic activity revived after the War Mackay remained a low-rise city, with the Mater Hospital boasting the city's only lift until the early 1970s. Mackay's outer harbour began converting to bulk handling in 1957 when the sugar terminal was opened, followed by bulk storage for fertilizer and chemicals in the 1960s, and bulk grains from Clermont and Capella in 1982.
Regional Council, established in 2008 by amalgamating of Mackay City, Mirani Shire and Sarina Shire. Mackay City extended from the Laguna Quays resort to the Sandringham Bay inlet. Sarina Shire lay to its south. West of Mackay City Mirani Shire's population was concentrated along the valleys of the Pioneer River and Cattle Creek, as far west as the Eungella National Park.
Macknade
Rural township based around the Macknade sugar mill, north-east of Ingham named after the Macknade Sugar Company which in turn took the name of the house in Kent, England, where the mill's owners had lived. Macknade mill commenced crushing in 1874 and was acquired by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company in 1896. Large plantations were in the process of being superseded by smallholder cane farmers and by 1922 Italian families owned 86 of the 159 farms supplying cane to Macknade mill.
McKinlay
Shire, local government area created on 9 December 1891 out of parts of Boulia and Cloncurry under the Divisional Boards Act 1887. Under the Local Authorities Act 1902, Mackinlay Division became Mackinlay Shire on 31 March 1903, with the spelling changed to McKinlay, in 1932 since the shire was named after the explorer John McKinlay. The former McKinlay Shire was abolished on 24 July 1930, with a replacement formed from parts of Cloncurry, Mckinlay, Winton and Wyangarie (Richmond).
Magnetic
Island offshore from Townsville, originally named Magnetical Island in 1770 when James Cook believed the island was affecting his compass. As Townsville developed though the in the 1870s, Magnetic Island became a valuable location for harvesting hoop pine and quarrying the granite used to reclaim land for the Port of Townsville, and the construction of Townsville's Customs House.
The first permanent European resident is thought to have been Harry Butler, whose daughter Ellen, born 1872 and known as Nellie, managed a guest house at Nelly Bay. Robert Hayles, proprietor of Hayles launch and cruising service built a hotel at Picnic Bay in 1899, adding a jetty and a dance hall. Hayles was so impressed by the island's potential that he sold his other interests to build the resort. In 1901, he started a regular ferry service to the island. His first ferry was wrecked at Picnic Bay twelve months later, but his sons built the Phoenix to replace the vessel and Hayles company continued to operate operating services to the island until the 1970s.
By the 1920s, residents were engaged in mixed farming, fruit growing and dairying and the island was a popular recreational venue. Picnic Bay and Nelly Bay had dance pavilions, and Arcadia's Alma Bay was a favourite swimming spot. All three bays had jetties, and there were schools at Picnic and Nelly Bay.
Magnetic Island became an important defensive position during World War II due to its proximity to Townsville and its views over Cleveland Bay, a significant anchorage and assembly point for fleets and convoys. The Magnetic Battery (a.k.a. 'The Forts'), an artillery battery and observation post, was built in the hinterland of Florence, Horseshoe and Arthur Bays. Picnic Bay became a rest camp following the commandeering of a resort in the bay in 1939.
The island slowly expanded following the end of the Second World War, with 54% of the island as National Park, Residential areas have increasingly become an effective suburb of Townsville, though low key tourism remains important with access from Townsville Breakwater to Nelly Bay Harbour by ferry.
Over the years, Nelly Bay has gradually emerged as the principal township, with the rights for a substantial commercial and residential development on sold several times. Work started on Magnetic Keys (later known as Magnetic Quay), an ambitious 30 ha tourist/commercial complex in 1986 with breakwaters and a dredged marina basin but the promoter went into receivership with the breakwaters almost completed. It took years for the project to be finished. Following the completion of work on the harbour at Nelly Bay in 2003 there has been a surge in waterfront property prices. With 70% of Magnetic Island being World-Heritage listed National Park freehold land is, understandably, at a premium.
Manifold
Cape, named by James Cook on 27 May 1770 from the Number of high Hills over it.
Manoora
Residential suburb of Cairns, formally named in 1975 after MV Manoora (1935-72), a prewar coastal trader and an armed merchant cruiser during World War Two.
Millchester
Residential suburb of Charters Towers was a mining site and, in the early stages of mining in the Towers the preferred residential location in the 1870s because of its watercourses, Buchanans, Millchester and Aberdeen Creeks. For a short time in the 1870s Millchester ahosted the district's court house and there were also market gardens supplying fresh vegetables to Charters Towers. As mining leads petered out, Charters Towers overtook Millchester in importance.
Millungera
Gulf country station taken up in 1865 by Gibson.
Mirani
Electorate created by the 1911 redistribution as a rural electorate surrounding Mackay, taking in portions of the former Bowen, Clermont and Normanby. Part of the electorate went to the new seat of Fitzroy in the 1991 redistribution with sections of the abolished seat of Broadsound added.
Mitchell
River named after T.L. Mitchell, the Surveyor-General of New South Wales by Leichhardt on 16 June 1845, rising near Rumula on the Atherton Tableland northwest of Cairns, and flowing northwest across Cape York Peninsula to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Mitchell may be the Vereenighde River named in 1623 by Jan Carstenz. Tributaries to the Mitchell include the Tate, Lynd, Walsh Palmer and Alice Rivers.
Mooroobool
Residential suburb of Cairns, formally named in 1973 after Mooroobool Peak (625m) in the Whitfield Range, just west of the suburb.
Mosman Park
Residential suburb of Charters Towers that takes its name from parkland at the headwaters of Millchester Creek named after Hugh Mosman, Charters Towers' foremost mining entrepreneur.
Montalbion
Former mining town in the Herberton Minerals Area that developed after 1883 discoveries of silver and tin lodes along Gibbs Creek by the Prentice brothers, who sold their interest to George Young and John Moffat of Irvinebank. Young and Moffat erected smelters at the mine site, named Montalbion and within a year of the smelters being fired an English company, Mount Albion Silver Mining and Smelting, was brought in. The discovery of Albion West silver ore lode (1889) added to the profits. The 1891 census recorded 485 people, but by 1900 the estimated population was 120. In that year Moffat dismantled the smelter, transferring it to Mount Garnet, and three years later the hospital and school buildings were transferred to Irvinebank.
Mount Isa
Electorate centred on the city of Mount Isa created in the 1971 redistribution from the previous electorate of Burke. In 1991 it was extended north to the Gulf of Carpentaria (formerly part of Cook), eastwards to Cloncurry (formerly in Flinders) and southwards to Boulia (formerly inGregory). The 2008 redistribution transferred areas from Gregory and Charters Towers electorate to enlarge the seat.
Mount Sheridan
Residential suburb of Cairns, formally named after the peak in the southern Whitfield Range, named by George Dalrymple in 1873 after Brinsley Sheridan, Police Magistrate in Cardwell, in 2001.
Mourilyan
Electorate created by the 1949 redistribution from Herbert, the seat was based on the town of Mourilyan and the area to the west and south before it was abolished in 1991 divided between Hinchinbrook and partly in Tablelands.
Mulgrave
Electorate created by the 1872 redistribution around Bundaberg, with the name dropped in the 1888 redistribution but revived in 1949 for a seat based on the coastal strip from Gordonvale to Innisfail. The 1991 redistribution moved part of it into Tablelands.
Mundingburra
Electorate created by the 1911 redistribution encompassing rural areas outside Townsville that were formerly parts of Herbert and Bowen. It became a Townsville based seat in 1949 and disappeared in the 1959 redistribution, incorporated into Townsville South. Revived in the 1991 redistribution.
Musgrave
Electorate created by the Additional Members Act of 1885 which divided Townsville into Townsville and Musgrave. The name was changed to Herbert in 1888 with another Musgrave (which became Burrum in 1923) appearing in the Bundaberg district.
Mystic Sands
Residential development, incorporating a golf course and country club launched at Balgal Beach in 1985.