Place Names of South-East Queensland

  

 

 

Cotton Tree

When a township was surveyed here in 1908 it was called the Township of Maroochydore, but over time it came to be know as Cotton Tree because of the large indigenous hibiscus tiliaceus trees, commonly known as Cotton Trees, which grew there.  

Cottonvale

This Granite Belt settlement was named after E. Cotton, an early resident.  

Craigslea

This promotional name for a sub-division in Chermside West was suggested by a large house overlooking the area, Ravenscraig.  The name is used of the state schools in the area, but is not a recognized suburb name.  

Cressbrook

David McConnell named his grazing run after the family farm in Derbyshire.  

Crestmead

The Brisbane City Council approved the naming of the suburb in May 1986 and it was gazetted in June of the following year.  The name was that used by the developer. 

Crohamhurst

Owen Jones named his property Crohamhurst  after a village in England. His son, Inigo Jones, set up the Crohamhurst Observatory on this property in 1935.  

Crows Nest

Whatever the real basis for calling the town Crows Nest a legend has arisen and has been given an air of respectability by a statue erected in Centenary Park.  This purports to be of a lone Aboriginal, Jimmy Crow, who use to live in a hollow tree near the teamsters camp.  It is said that the town got its name from this man.

Cunningham's Gap

Allan Cunningham, who started working for the curator of the Royal Gardens at Kew, England, as a clerk, became a competent botanist and explorer in Australia. After collecting botanical specimens in Bazil for a couple of years, he came to New South Wales in 1816. He was a member of Oxley's expedition to the Lachlan, and went on four voyages to the North and North-west of Australia with Captain P.P.King. He also went with King on a trip to Van Diemen's Land. He led an expedition from Bathurst to the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales in 1823, and in 1824 came with Oxley on the Amity when he brought the advance party of convicts and soldiers to Moreton Bay. On that trip they explored the Brisbane River up to Mt Crosby. In 1827 on another overland trek of exploration from the south he discovered the rich and fertile Darling Downs. In 1828, travelling from Moreton Bay, he reached the gap in the main range which now bears his name. There is some doubt about whether this was the same gap which he saw from the west in the previous year, but it has become the main route for travel between the Southern Darling Downs and Brisbane.

He returned to England in 1831, and when the Colonial Botanist, Charles Fraser, died in 1832 he turned down the offer of the position in favour of his brother, Richard. When Richard was killed by Aboriginals in 1835, he was again offered this position and returned to Australia 1837. He hated the job and soon resigned, complaining that all he was expected to do was to look after the Governor's cabbage patch. He went to New Zealand for several months in 1838, but died of tuberculosis back in Sydney in the following year, two weeks before his 48th birthday.   

Currimundi

Since the Aboriginal languages were spoken languages and not written, and since European ears were not always adjusted to pick up the nuances, there is sometimes confusion over the original pronunciation of words which now appear as name places in South East Queensland. Currimundi is a case in point. It seems that the word was probably Garamandha, the place of flying foxes. This became Girramundi, and as such was the name of Sir Leslie Wilson's residence in the area. It has also been spelt Curramindi.  In 1845 Burveyor Burnett used what he said was the Aboriginal name, Crummunda. However the name Currimundi was certainly being used by 1891.

The large fruit bat, or flying fox, was a highly regarded food item for tribal Aboriginal people. Its flesh, when roasted whole on the coals, is said to be a bit like chicken.   

Currumbin

This is the Aboriginal name for a species of pine tree, but it was not the name by which the creek was shown on the maps drawn by surveyor Dixon in 1839. He called it Anson Creek after Admiral George Anson who after serving as private secretary to Lord Melbourne, the Whig Prime Minister of England, became the private secretary to Albert, the husband of the young Queen Victoria. Albert wanted to bring a German retinue with him, but the leaders of the English parliament would not hear of it. Anson was appointed  to ensure that an English viewpoint was expressed to the Prince. However Albert and Anson became close friends. As Currumbin Creek, the creek gave its name to the surrounding locality. The Queensland Railways gave the meaning of the name as "High up, or a place where high trees grow."   

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