Place Names of South-East Queensland

  

 

Beauaraba

Beauaraba on the Darling Downs means place of dry bushes

 Beaudesert

The name Beaudesert comes from Beau Desert, the name Edward Hawkins gave to his property in commemoration of his birthplace, Beau Desert Park, Staffordshire, England. He had already used it of a property further south.  Beau Desert Park, in turn, gained its name from a Cistercian monastery nearby, Beau Desir, meaning beautiful wish.

Beau Desert Station was leased by Joseph Phelps Robinson and later by William Duckett White who made it the headquarters for his extensive grazing interests along the south coast of Queensland.


Beechmont


The early timbergetters seem to have given it this name after the beech trees growing there in abundance. This was probably Pennantia cunninghamii or brown beech, although what is known as white beech, Gmelina leichardtii was also in the area.


Beenleigh

Beenleigh is often associated with rum, and that is not surprising because John Davey and Frank Gooding who began to grow sugarcane there about 1865, opening their sugar mill five years later, in 1884 started the beginnings of the Beenleigh Rum Distilliary. These men were brother-in-law and they named their plantation Beenleigh after the name of Davey's family estate in Devonshire, England. The town got its name from the plantation.

The area has had other names. As a result of the efforts of J. C. Heussler, a number of German settlers moved into the area so that it came to be known as German Pocket. The Aboriginal name for the area was Woabbummarjo, meaning boggy clay.


Beerburrum


Beerburrum was an Aboriginal word (Undambi language) meaning parrot, apparently arrived at by imitating the sound made by the parrot's wings in flight. It is the name of one of the Glasshouse Mountains, and the district gained its name from the mountain. This mountain was climbed by Matthew Flinders way back in 1799 when he made an overland expedition away from his sloop, the Norfolk, left moored in Pumistone Passage. He commented on the extensive view of the bay and the neighbouring country from the summit, and described the country they walked through to get there as 'low, swampy and brushy, and in the latter part of the way somewhat uneven.' He described the mountain as 'a pile of stones of all sizes, mostly loose near the surface.' 


Beerwah


Mount Beerwah was climbed by Andrew Petrie and his son John, and years later John named his Brisbane residence Beerwah in memory of that occasion. But in Aboriginal legend Beerwah was the pregnant mother left by her cowardly son to fend for herself as floodwaters rushed across the coastal plain. In the Turrbal language the name meant up in the sky. The mountain gave its name to the nearby township. 

Bell

Bell, on the Darling Downs, is named after Sir Joshua Bell  of Jimbour station who served in several Queensland cabinet positions and was President of the Legislative Council. 


Bellbowrie


In early years, Aboriginal names were borrowed or adapted from the local dialects, but of later years developers wanting to give their subdivision an Aboriginal name have had to rely on books of Aboriginal words. This is what J.D.Booker did when he chose this Aboriginal word, not of local origin, supposed to mean a red flowering tree. Is has been a recognized place name since 1972.

Belli Park

When his favourite horse died in 1867, the surveyor Jardine gave its name to this district.

Bells Creek

Bells Creek was named after Mary Alice Bell, a governess for William Landsborough's children.  She took up land in this area south of Caloundra.

 
Belmont


Belmont House stood on land where the big and bustling Carindale Shopping Centre now stands. It was built and named by by Colonel Carl  Berneker (1876), but later became the home of Colonel W. Mackenzie. Belmont, in its English and Scottish origins, derives from the French and means beautiful mountain. It is a name to be found throughout the British Isles. 


Benarkin


Benarkin is an Aboriginal word for the blackbutt tree, and this name was officially recognized in April, 1912, when the township which had grown up at the Well Hole was so named by the Railway Department. 

Benobble

When the railway station was given this name, 28 January, 1915, it was borrowed from an already existing sawmill. It is claimed to be derived from bunahba gurara, the place of the tall bloodwood trees, in the Bunjalung Aboriginal  language.


Benowa


The original Benowa post office was at Muir's sugar plantation where there was also a sugar mill and a sawmill. In 1875 it was moved to Bundall.  The name is derived from the Aboriginal word boonow which referred to the bloodwood tree.

Bergin Creek

Named after J. D. Bergin, holder of the original title deed for Pors 31 and 58, Parish of Bunya.


Bergin's Hill

Thomas Bergin was a bailiff in Ipswich around 1868. 


Berrinba

Adopted by the Queensland Place Names Board in 1971 the name means to the south, although it is not known from which Aboriginal dialect it comes.  


Bethania


Some of the German families who arrived in the young colony of Queensland in 1864 settled at Bethanien from which the present Bethania has emerged. 

Biddaddaba

The district gained its name from the creek, which was given the Aboriginal name of burubu-da meaning the place of koalas.    There have been many different attempts to spell and to pronounce this name, but it was so named by the Minister for Natural Resources 24 April 1997.

Biddeston

John Little named his property after a town in Wiltshire, England, and the Darling Downs locality gained its name from that property.

Biggera Waters

The area was named after the creek, which derived its name from the Yugambeh language word bigera referring to the red iron eucalypt (eucalyptus sideroploia).


Bilinga


Bilinga on the Gold Coast was named by the Surveyor General, 17 October, 1918. The name is Aboriginal and means the place of bats, or maybe parrots. 


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