D'Aguilar

In 1827, Sir Thomas Mitchell, the Surveyor-General for the Colony of New South Wales, named the D'Aguilar Range after Sir George D'Aguilar, a military officer who wrote the army textbook in use at the time, Regulations and Punishments of the British Army. He was probably known personally to the Governor, Lieutenant General Ralph Darling; the Moreton Bay Commandant, Captain Patrick Logan; as well as to Major Mitchell, for they all served in the Peninsula Wars under the Duke of Wellington. It is not clear which of these three originally suggested the name. 

Dagun

The name was given to the railway station, 22 January, 1914, and is thought to derive from Aboriginal word meaning home camp.

Daisy Hill

A name like Daisy Hill invites legends one of which is that there was once a woman called Daisy who operated a brothel there, but this is probably nothing more than legend. The other traditional story is that the daughter of the Dennis family suggested the name because of the daisies that were growing there. This is more probable.    

Dakabin

This was an Aboriginal name for the grasstree, a plant of the genus Xanthorrhoea, commonly called the black boy.     

Dalby

The Myall Creek settlement was declared a township in 1854 with the name of Dalby. When Captain Samuel Perry, the Deputy Surveyor General, asked the locals to suggest a name for the village that was to be surveyed the name of Dalby was suggested, the name coming either  from the town of that name on tbe Isle of Man, or from a town in Leicestershire.

Dalveen

This Granite Belt township was named after a pass in Scotland linking Dumfriesshire with Lanarkshire.     

Darling Downs

Sir Ralph Darling, after whom Allan Cunningham named this area, succeeded Sir Thomas Brisbane as the seventh Governor of the colony of New South Wales, 1825-1831. He was born of English parents in Ireland, 1775. His father was a sergeant in the British army and he followed in his father's footsteps by joining the army, but  rapidly  outstripped his father in rank. His reforms in NSW met resistance and  led to conflict with W.C.Wentworth and Chief Justice Forbes and other leading colonists so that the Colonial Office in England recalled him, but a British parliamentary inquiry later exonerated him. He died in Brighton, England, 1858.    

Darra

The naming of the house Darra which used to stand on the corner of Ann and Wickham Streets in Brisbane, the home of William Augustine Duncan, may provide the clue to the origin of the suburb's name, but it probably came from Darra in Scotland, north of Aberdeen. The name was chosen by the Railway Department.      

Dawson River

Flowing northwards as part of the Fitzroy basin, most of this river is outside of South East Queensland. Leichhardt named the river in acknowledgement of the support given to his expedition by Robert Dawson of Black River in the Hunter Valley, a Yorkshireman who came to Australia (1825) as the first manager of the Australian Agricultural Company and stayed on to become a landowner, magistrate and explorer. He died in England about 1866.         

Dayboro

The district used to be called Terror's Creek. The creek acquired this name from a horse. The horse was a prized grey Arab stallion belonging to Captain Griffin of Whiteside station. Its name was Terah, named after the father of Abraham in the Bible. But the spelling got changed, some say because the high-spirited horse instilled terror into the local inhabitants.

Early on, the postal address for the district was Hamilton's or Hamilton because Hugh Hamilton, a farmer who took up land in the area when the big runs were broken up, ran the first post office from his house. But eventually another of the early land owners was honoured by having the township named after him. This was William Henry Day, born in Bath, Somerset, England, 1828, and arrived in Moreton Bay, 1855. He became Clerk of Petty Sessions and later Police Magistrate in Brisbane. But he acquired extensive holdings in the Terror's Creek district, land on which he tried growing sugarcane. When this venture failed, however, the land was subdivided, and the township of Terror's Creek sprang up. The name was changed by the postal authorities, 24 May, 1919, to Dayboro.         

Deagon

William Deagon was an old identity of the area, and his name was used for the locality when the railway line went through in 1887. He owned the Sandgate Hotel, a stopping place for the Cobb & Co. coaches.    

Deception Bay

The bay got its name from Deception River, the name given to Pine River when John Finnegan mistakenly took John Oxley up it thinking it was the big river which later became the Brisbane River.

Delaney’s Creek (See Wamuran)

Diddillibah

Dhilla means coarse grass and ba means place.  Another suggestion is that the name referred to a snake, either black or carpet.

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