Place Names of South-East Queensland

  

 

Bunya Mountains

The Aboriginal name for this species of pine tree has given its name to the mountains which used to be an important gathering place for Aboriginal tribes.  See also Mount Mowbullam.

Buranda    

The Brisbane suburb that used to be known simply as Logan Road was given this name derived from the Aboriginal  buran meaning windy. 


Burbank

The area was named in 1976 after the Burbank family. Alf Burbank was a government surveyor when he and his wife settled at what was then known as Upper Tingalpa. He later moved away from the area, but his son, Frank, a timber-getter and breeder of draught horses, stayed on and was a member of the Tingalpa Shire Council. 


Burleigh Heads

Burleigh heads was named by surveyor J. R. Warner in 1840. He originally spelt it Burly Heads. The Aboriginal name for Little Burleigh was Jellurgal and for Big Burleigh, Jabbribillum.

Burghley House was the family seat of the famous Cecil family in England. Lord Burleigh was also the Marquis of Exeter, and in his political involvements upheld the long-standing English discrimination against Roman Catholics as well as resisting other reforms. 

Burncluith

This district north of Chinchilla is named after an early pastoral run. It may have originally been Barncluith.


Burnett River

The river was named by Sir Charles Fitzroy, Governor of New South Wales, 7 September, 1847, in honour of the surveyor, James Charles Burnett (1818-1854). Burnett  was born in the north of England, arrived in Sydney with his father in 1829, joined the Survey Department as a clerk in 1833, become a qualified surveyor in 1836. His years roughing it as an explorer and surveyor took its toll. He suffered badly from rheumatism for some years prior to his death in 1854, only days after he had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. The river has given its name to the Burnett and South Burnett Districts 

Burnside

Patrick and Mary King, from County Clare in Ireland, worked on the Naamba cattle run prior to their selection of an adjacent 314 acre property that they called Burnside. A small burn or creek ran through the property.


Burpengary

The name comes from Burpen-gar, meaning the place of the green wattle tree. This tree, sometimes also called the early black wattle, grows in open forest country. South East Queensland is about as far north as it grows, but it is to be found in all the southern states. Its bark is dark grey, almost black. Its scientific name is Acacia decurrens.  

Burra Burri

This district north-east of Chinchilla means a meeting place.


Burrum River, Burrum Heads, Burrum Shire

The name Burrum comes from an Aboriginal word which could be translated 'big'.

The name Burrum Heads was used early on, but it then went by the name of Traviston after Robert Travis who selected land there in 1871, and as Traveston when subdivided in 1888. Then in 1950 it officially reverted to its original name.

Buruda

Aboriginal for forest oak.



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