| Binna Burra A Brisbane businessman, W.M.L'Estrange, suggested the Aboriginal name Binna Burra for what had previously become known as Mt Roberts in the McPherson Range. F.E.Roberts was one of the two surveyors who surveyed the border between New South Wales and Queensland after it was decided that the border should run along the top of the range. The Aboriginal people used the term Binna Burra in a general way to refer to the high plateau where white beech trees (Gmelina Leichardtii) grew in abundance. Birkdale In England, Birkdale is a contraction of Valley of the Birches. It is said that the name was given to this area in Queensland because the tea trees growing there were a bit like the English birches in appearance. Birnam There are two localities of this name in South East Queensland. One within the Beaudesert Shire, the other in the Crows Nest Shire. The origin of both seems to go back to Charles Fraser, the Colonial Botanist. He mentions Birnam Hill in his journal for 31 July, 1828, and J. G. Steel points out that Fraser was born at Blair Atholl near Birnam and Dunsinane in Perthshire, Scotland. Birnam Hill is now known as Mt Dunsinane. Birnam near Crows Nest was first of all the name given to the railway station. It then became the name for the locality.
Bishop island was named after Captain A.G.F.Bishop of the Harbours and Marine Department.
Samuel Wesley Blackall became Governor of Queensland at the age of 59 after serving some years as governor in West Africa. This kindly and quietly spoken former member of the House of Commons was popular in Queensland where he refused to get embroiled in the local political crises of the time. He died in 1870 after only three years in office. The range was named a few years after his death, 1874, by surveyor C. S. Bradbury while surveying a timber reserve there.
The town of Blackbutt occupies part of what was once Taromeo run. Simon Scott who had come to Australia two years earlier and had overlanded several thousand sheep to Cressbrook in the Brisbane Valley during the previous year, selected Taromeo in 1842. After building his slab hut and other buildings, he returned to the south to bring his wife and two young children with him in 1847.
This is one of the oldest suburbs of Ipswich, and it derives its name from the coal deposits which Lewis Thomas and his fellow Welshmen mined here. Blanchview It is said that the name was based on that of Ernest Blanchard who owned property in the locality.
Believed to be derived from billai billai meaning swamp oak. Casuarina glauca, or swamp oak, grows well in open forest near saltwater estuaries, the sort of country Bli Bli was.
Much has been said about European expansion in Australia being at the cost of Aboriginals as it undoubtedly was, but what is not always recognized is that white exploration would not have progressed as rapidly and successfully as it did without the assistance of Aboriginal people. Many of the explorers took with them a native Australian to assist in establishing contact with tribes they might meet along the way.
In its Aboriginal use it referred to a box forest. Bonogin Valley The origins of the name are not clear, but appear to derive from the Aboriginal boonow meaning red bloodwood. |