Place Names of South-East Queensland

Witta

The name meaning dingo was given to the area in 1916 when German names were being removed. It had previously been Teutenberg.

Wivenhoe

The property was named after a maritime town in Essex, England, on the River Colne, near Colchester. It had been taken up by the Uhr brothers, one of whom was killed by the Aboriginals while working sheep in a yard near the present Lake Manchester. The surviving brother, together with a retired naval man, J.S.Ferriter, held the property for some time. It was bought by the North family in 1849. Wivenhoe Inn nearby became a popular stopping place. The name has been given to the dam built to augment Brisbane's water supply. 

Wolston

Poor Stephen Simpson waited nearly twenty years to marry his fiance, Sophia Anne Simpson, a relative of his. But when they married and migrated to Sydney, she died after only twenty months of marriage, and the child she bore also died. Earlier he had served in the British army during the Napoleonic wars and had studied at Edinburgh to become a doctor, but the homeopathic treatment he learnt on the Continent while trying to earn enough money to get married earned for him the hostility of his fellow medicos in England.

Dr Simpson took a job as Land Commissioner at the Moreton Bay Settlement which it was anticipated would soon be thrown open to free settlers. For a while (about 1840-41) he lived out at Eagle Farm in the palisaded enclosure once used by the female prisoners. His smoking arrangement there was to have a large, long-stemmed pipe protruding through a small hole in the wall of his room so that he could recline on his sofa on the inside while the cook lit up the bowl with a live coal on the outside, but he was
better known for his cigar smoking. He gained the reputation of being very clever at curing diseases.

He took up land half-way between Brisbane and Limestone, near what was called Woogaroo Creek, establishing there a horse stud. He built Wolston House, or as it was first known, Woolston House, in 1852, hoping it might be inherited by his sister's grandson, J.M.Ommaney, but the lad was killed in a fall from a horse on the property, and after that the doctor sold up and went back to England where he died on the 13th anniversary of his grandnephew's death, Wolston House was named after Simpson's birthplace in Coventry, Warwickshire.  

Wolvi

Young kangaroo almost weaned.

Wondai

The name comes from an Aboriginal word meaning howling dog. It started to grow when the railway line was put through from Kilkivan in 1902 and the old selection of Mondure station was cut up for closer, agricultural settlement. Before that there had been a collection of humpies at this spot on the road used as a resting point by drovers and teamsters travelling between Nanango and Mondure. Mondure had been taken up by Richard Jones in 1844. 

Wongawallen

The Gold Coast Council Heritage Tour indicates that Wongawallen was the name of an Aboriginal man in the Coomera area in the 1870s. It says that the name might be composed of two words, wonga, pigeon and wallan water or wangum wulam cut or scarred face. It was originally named Mt Goulburn after the English politician who served as Secretary for the Colonies in the 1830s and 1840s.

Wonglepong

The name of the railway station was changed from Sarah Vale to Wonglepong, 11 July, 1927. The name is of Aboriginal derivation but there is some uncertainty about its meaning; possibly forgotten sound or maybe a feature on Tamborine Mountain. Before being given the name of Wonglepong the state school was called Canungra Lower.

Woodend

The property, which eventually was broken up for closer settlement, was taken up by J.Hay, N.Hay and T.Holk in March, 1854.  

Woodford

When it came time for naming the new town to be developed here several possibilities were canvassed and the names of several local settlers were advocated, but out of the bitter controversy the name of H.C.Wood won out. To his name was added the word for a river crossing and so the name of Woodford was proclaimed in 1885.

Durandur was the first run selected in the area, but the Archers sold it in 1848 to David and John McConnel. Thirty years later it was broken up under government pressure into smaller holdings, but by this time that partnership had been replaced by the partnership of John McConnel and Henry Conwell Wood. Henry Wood was born near Madras in India, the son of a British army colonel, and was educated at Cheltenham before going into business working for his uncles in London and farming an estate in Hertfordshire. He came to Queensland at the age of 24 and immediately bought a horse and rode off to Durandur for he had letters of introduction from David and John McConnel's brother in England. He too later became a member of the Queensland Legislative Council. It was Henry Wood who employed Goerge Mason to manage the Conondale section of the run, and with Mason and John McConnel formed a partnership to harvest red cedar from those ranges. When Durandur was broken up, he took up a block fronting Stanley River and Stoney Creek.

The house at Durandur burnt down in 1893 when in a dispute between two domestics the housemaid set fire to the cook's room. From there it spread to the whole house. 

Woodleigh

The Woodleigh district, northern Downs, prior to 1919 was called Cattle Gully. 

Woodridge

Octavius Stubbs gave it this name when he subdivided land there in 1914. The timber man called his subdivision 'wood' because of the timber grown in the district and milled at his sawmill, and 'ridge' because it was on a ridge along which the Brisbane to Southport railway line ran. The area had been a timber reserve from the 1870s. The original township surveyed there was named Booran. Prior to gaining the Woodridge name the railway siding had been known as 15 Miles Siding and Graham's Siding,  the locality as Devar. 

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