|
| |
Brighton
First the naming of the hotel,
and then the naming of the area. When David Rowntree Somerset opened an
hotel in 1866 on land he had acquired eight years earlier he named it
after the English seaside resort of Brighton. When Joshua Jeays
subdivided the area in 1881 he cashed in on the growing fame of seaside
resorts in England by marketing his allotments under the name of
Brighton Estate. Earley in the 19th century the name of this English
town was still sometimes being written,
Brighthelmston. It was mentioned in the Doomsday Book as
Bristlemestune.
Brisbane
Sir Thomas Brisbane was
forty-eight years of age when he arrived to take over the governorship
of New South Wales from Governor Lauchlan Macquarie in 1821. He had had
a distinguished career in the army having commanded units in the
Iberian Peninsula, in America, and in France. He had married at the age
of forty-five the daughter of Sir Henry Makdougall of
Makerstoun, Scotland. After his return to Britain, he was to
incorporate his wife's maiden name officially into his own, becoming
Thomas Makdougall Brisbane.
He
didn't mind travelling by sea, but he quickly tired of land
exploration. The extremely energetic John Dunmore Lang said he lacked
energy. While he was himself devout, he tried to be tolerant of all
religious traditions. He has been called amiable and impartial, but
weak. However his great passion was astronomy. He built observatories
in his native Scotland and in Sydney and was highly regarded as an
amateur scientist.
He was following Commissioner Bigge's
recommendations when he sent John Oxley to select a site for another
penal settlement. This was to be a place to which convicts who had been
convicted of a second crime could be sent. At 8 am on Tuesday, 2
December, 1823, the Surveyor-General, having been told by Finnegan and
Pamphlet of a large river in the vicinity, entered the mouth of the
river which was then named after the Governor. In the following
year, Oxley returned to the area, with Lieutenant Henry Miller and a
party of 14 soldiers and about 30 convicts to establish a settlement.
After setting up a temporary settlement at Redcliffe, he explored the
Brisbane River further, recommending several sites as suitable for the
permanent settlement. Later in the year Governor Brisbane came to look
for himself, and they decided on a spot near Breakfast Creek. When,
however, the move was actually made between March and July, 1825, the
site chosen was where William Street in the city is now.
In his
instructions to Lieutenant Miller, Sir Thomas showed himself to be an
administrator with an eye for detail. He ordered Miller himself to
conduct Divine Service for the convicts each Sunday morning. He
prohibited overseers from striking or pushing convicts. He believed
that solitary confinement on a bread and water diet was more effective
than corporal punishment. However the commandant was authorized to
sentence an offender to no more that fifty lashes. 'You will take an
early opportunity of establishing a friendly intercourse with the
neighbouring blacks, but you will not admit them to an imprudent
familiarity,' he wrote. He justified European occupation of Aboriginal
land by arguing that civilization brought with it many comforts to the
local inhabitants.
Miller complained that he was not given
enough convict labour to enable him to do all that was expected of him
in establishing the new settlement, but the Governor was not pleased
with the progress being made and withdrew him from the post after about
twelve months.
At the same time Thomas Brisbane had his own
troubles. He had made enemies among the leading citizens of New South
Wales and through their efforts was recalled after four years in the
colony.
The name first used for the township on the Brisbane
River was that suggested by Chief Justice Forbes,
Edenglassie, but in 1834 the name of Brisbane became official. The
Aboriginal people who lived on the south side of the river called the
area where the Botanical Gardens were established,
Meeanjin, meaning the tulipwood, a tree which grew well in the area
before white settlement, but in the 19th century Brisbane came to be
known to all the Moreton Bay Aboriginal people as
Maginuchin.
Broadbeach
When a new township was subdivided in
1934 south of Surfers Paradise it was given the descriptive name of Broadbeach.
Broadwater
Broadwater in the Stanthorpe
district gained its name from a large water hole there. The original
watercourse had been changed by tin mining.
Brookfield
Lucinda Logan, the daughter of
Thomas Logan, suggested the name which was agreed to by a meeting of
local residents in 1868. It seemed appropriate for an area drained by
streams, but it may have been suggested by Brookfield in the Hunter
Valley District of New South Wales near which her family had lived
before coming to Gold Creek. It was adopted as the school name in 1871.
Lucy Logan became Mrs J. S. Brimblecombe after her marriage. It may
have been a coincidence, but the fact that the early settler who has
been called The Father of Brookfield, Thomas Isaac Jones, had been born
in
Brookfield Cottage, Portsmouth, England, may also have helped in the making of the decision.
Broowena
This
railway station on the Gayndah line was given an Aboriginal word for a crab.
Browns Plains
Like many
areas, Browns Plains was first logged for timber and then settled by
farmers. Being on the Cobb and Co. route from Brisbane to Casino in
Northern NSW helped put it on the map.
Previous page
Next page
Place Names of South East Queensland home page
|