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Leichhardt The birth of a sixth child to a small-time farmer and peat cutter in the small Prussian town of Trebatsch in the year of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, 1813, might not seem to have much to do with modern Australia, but the name of that child, Ludwig Leichhardt, is written large across the Australian story. He has fascinated writers and painters, poets and historians, musicians and botanists, and his name is known to every Australian school child as one of the great explorers of this continent. His name lingers around South East Queensland in Leichhardt Terrace, Brisbane, and in a suburb of Ipswich. Yet he was only in Australia for seven years. His full name was Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt, and he proved to be a clever although erratic scholar. He suffered from depression and was short-sighted, yet he had a forceful personality and was given to great enthusiasms. For some years he sponged off a wealthy young Englishman by the name of William Nicholson with whom he travelled around Europe, and he it was who financed his trip to Australia in 1841 to do research into the strange flora and fauna of that distant land. If he had gone home, he would have been in trouble with the authorities for he had neglected to do the year’s compulsory military training required by young Prussian men. In Australia, Leichhardt traveled around the country staying with hospitable settlers and collecting botanical specimens. For over a year he was in Brisbane and surrounding districts cutting a strange figure with his chimney-pot hat adorned with creepers and leaves and beetles. He heard talk about Sir Thomas Mitchell’s proposal for an overland exploratory expedition to Port Essington and touted for financial support so that he could mount an expedition himself. He was thirty-one years of age when he led his nine companions off from Jimbour station on the Darling Downs singing God Save the Queen. Two of them turned back, but the rest pressed on. His fellow botanist, John Gilbert, was killed by an Aboriginal spear in the Gulf Country, but Leichhardt and party arrived at their destination sixteen months after leaving Brisbane. Some say it was more luck than good management, but they got there, and it brought him fame and financial reward. After an abortive expedition in 1847 he set out in the following year on his attempt to cross the continent from east to west. His disappearance led to several expeditions but the fate of his party has never been resolved. The Ipswich City Council named the suburb of that city after the explorer, 20 July, 1953. Leslie Dam Patrick Leslie was the first of the squatters to take up land on the Darling Downs following their discovery by Alan Cunningham. He was later joined by his brothers Walter and George. They called their run Toolburra,, meaning quivering spears in an Aboriginal language. From an Aberdeenshire family of some standing, Patrick arrived in Sydney, May 1835, and immediately became part of the colonial in-group. He married Kate Macarthur. Leyburn This township derives it name from Leyburn in the Yorkshire Dales. It grew up when gold was discovered in the area in the 1860s. Lindum This was an abbreviation of Lindum colonia, the old Roman name for Lincoln, England. The Romans took over a Celtic name which meant a pool or lake when they settled their veteran legionary soldiers near the marshy pools and fens of what was to become Lincolnshire in the East of England. The name was given to his farm in the area by Edward Kekl and later adopted by the Railway Department as the name for the railway station. Linville When Colinton run was in the hands of the Balfour brothers a small private township grew up at a place called Nine Mile Yards. When it came to be properly surveyed the locals suggested the name of Linton for the town. This simply involved dropping the first two letters of Colinton., but since there was another town of that name in Victoria it was not approved. Linville was accepted as a compromise, 1905. Place Names of South East Queensland home page
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