Place Names of South-East Queensland

Newmarket

The original stockyards for Brisbane were near the Normanby, but when they were relocated a little further out to an area known then as the Three Mile Scrub they were called the New Market. Hence, with English precedents, the name was given to the suburb that developed there.  

Newstead

The Aboriginal name for the area where Newstead House stands was Karakaran-pinbilli (Petrie), and for the whole district Burudabin (Booroodabin), place of oaks, but the suburb derives its name from the house built for Patrick Leslie, who with his brothers, Walter and George, was an early settler on the Southern Darling Downs.

Patrick Leslie, son of a Scottish laird, married into the famous Macarthur family of New South Wales. He might have been a good bushman, but was not the best at looking after financial affairs, and this saw him in difficulties more than once. Politically he was an archconservative and was, for a short time, a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly just before separation. He was pugnacious and argumentative, a vigorous critic of Rev. John Dunmore Lang and others. He took up breeding racehorses.

Captain John Wickham RN, Patrick Leslie's brother-in-law, who owned land nearby bought the property in 1847, and since he was the Government Resident in the years leading up to separation Newstead House was like a Government House during those years. The track, which Wickham established by riding his horse to and from Brisbane Town, eventually became Wickham Street. He left Australia and retired to the South of France when both the New South Wales and Queensland governments refused his application for a pension.  

Newtown
John Rankin put allotments belonging to the Newtown Estate,  subdivision in Ipswich on the market around 1865. 

Ngungun

In the Undanbi language this one of the Glasshouse Mountains had a name meaning charcoal.

Ningi  (See Toorbul)

Nobby

There are several theories as to how Nobby on the Darling Downs got its name. One is that it was the name of a racehorse, another that it was the name of the lead bullock of an early bullock team or that it derives from the nob of a hill. Take your pick.

Nobbies

According to the excelled website of the Gold Coast City Council these hillocks gained their name from the head bullock in Frederick Fowler's bullock team. This timber getter and bullocky is said to have grazed his lead bullock along these headlands.

Noosa

The Abpriginal people called Noosa Head, Wantima, meaning rising up or climbing up (Petrie). The name first used by white people was Bracefield's Head or Cape Bracefield. This was as a result of an exploratory party involving Andrew Petrie and others finding the runaway convict, Bracefield, living with the Kabi Kabi people in the area in 1842. However it came to be given a permanent name of Aboriginal derivation meaning shade
or shadow. Forget about any silly stories which have been current claiming that the name Noosa originated with an Aboriginal's attempt to say, 'No, sir!'  The village which grew up at The Spit was known as Noosa Heads as far back as 1905 when there were five houses there, two of them guest houses. The road was put through to Laguna Bay Bean and Noosa Heads village in 1929.

Another holiday resort area developed on the southern shores of the Noosa River at what came to be called Noosaville. At one time so many mine managers from the Gympie goldfields had holiday houses there that the road along by the river came to be called Gympie Terrace. It was in 1972 that approval was given for the canal development on Hays Island in the river, but the development of Noosa Sound was delayed for some years as a result of the collapse of Cambridge Credit in 1974.

The area south of Noosa Headlands was known, early on, as Golden Beach, but was rarely visited prior to the 1920s. W.Pilcher, J. Woodrow and others had land there. In 1928 Thomas Marcus Burke did a deal with the Noosa Shire Council whereby he gained land in exchange for building roads and bridges from Tewantin, and he started marketing the new town of Noosa. It had to wait though until after the Depression and the Second World War for these blocks to sell, and then it was then marketed by T.M.Burke's son, Marcus, as Sunshine Beach.  

Norman Creek

The Aboriginal name was Kulpureen. At one time it was named Gorman's Creek in honour of Lieutenant Gorman, the last Commandant of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, but even earlier, 1825, it appears on Major Edmund Lockyer's map of the Brisbane River as Norman's Creek although it is not know to whom this name refers. 

Norman Park

Norman Park was named after General Sir Henry Norman, Governor of Queensland, 1 May, 1889 to 31 December, 1895. He arrived in Brisbane at the age of 63, having spent over forty years in India, although just prior to coming to Queensland he had been Governor of Jamaica for six years.  His third wife, Alice, accompanied him. His previous wives had died.  He died 1904, by this time having been awarded the rank of Field Marshall in the British Army. 

North Arm                                                                                                  

Originally called North Maroochy, the district gained its name from the north arm of the Maroochy River  about 1890.

Northgate                                                                                               

Northgate is a railway name. When a name had to be coined for the junction of the North Coast Line with the Sandgate line the first part of North Coast was combined with the second part of Sandgate to become Northgate.  

Norwell

This is another of those places which gained its name from a local property. Norwell plantation was operated by William Pidd in the 1870s.

Norwin                                                                                                     

When the westerly winds are blowing across the plains anyone in Norwin would think it aptly named, �Windy place�.  

Nudgee                                                                                               

Aboriginal in origin, it seems that this is a corrupt form of Nar-dha, meaning the place of black ducks (anas superciliosa).  

Numinbah                                                                                                       

In the 1880s Frank Nixon selected land in what he called Numinbah Valley. He got the name from one of his Aboriginal tree-fellers they called Numinbah Johnnie. Numin in the Aboriginal language referred to the walking stick palm tree. 

Nundah                                                                                               

When the Railway Department called the station Nundah in 1884 they made use of the Aboriginal name for the area, a name meaning mouth or waterhole. See also Toombul. 

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