Place Names of South-East Queensland

Chermside

The district first gained its name from the creek which ran through the area, Downfall Creek, and was opened up for closer settlement in the 1860s in an attempt by the Queensland Government to get itself out of financial difficulties. The Downfall Creek State School commenced July 1900. The first principal, James Youatt, did not like the name given to the district and led a move which resulted in a change of name to Chermside in honour of Sir Herbert Chermside who commenced his term as Governor of Queensland in 1902.

Herbert Chermside had gained rapid promotion in his career in the army engineers. He  married twice, but had no children. While he has been called a capable administrator, he was not a happy man. His wife complained that, in Queensland, she was not treated with the respect that she thought was her due. He wanted to resign after only six months in the position because he thought that the Queensland Government was not keeping him according to the standards that he and Lady Chermside expected. She returned to Britain after two years. He served out his full three-year term. He died 1929 

Chevallum

It is believed by some that the name comes from local Aboriginal words meaning flat place.

Childers

Hugh and Emily Childers lived in Melbourne from 1850 to 1858, but they made quite an impression on Victoria in those eight years. She was known for her beauty, and he for his involvement in the founding of the University of Melbourne as well as for his work in supervising the school system, as Auditor-General and as Collector of Customs. He was an elected member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for two years. When they returned to England he entered the House of Commons and continued there as a member and as a minister from 1860 to 1892. Among the leading roles which he played were those of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Secretary of State for War, Chancellor of the Exchequor and Home Secretary. His first wife died in 1875 and he re-married in 1879, this time to Katherine, who was, like himself, the offspring of an Anglican clergyman. She pre-deceased him by a few months when he died in 1896 at the age of 69.

The town of Childers, north-west of Maryborough, was named after this same Hugh Culling Eardley Childers.  

Chinchilla

Ludwig Leighhardt borrowed the Aboriginal word, jinchilla, when referring to the cypress pine that grows well in the area, and when, in 1848, Matthew Goggs applied for a lease in this name additional to his Woonongera property it seems that the people in the Syndey Lands Office wrote Chinchilla instead.  

Chingee

The Aboriginal people called this mountain Bong Bong or Bung Bung. White settlers thought that it might have referred to the place of the dead.

Clagiraba

Clagiraba Creek, which flows into the Coomera River, derived its name from the aboriginal kalagareebah, a place where the young men assemble as part of their initiation ceremony.

Clayfield

The Petries had a quarry at Albion, but the area further out came to be dotted with clay pits as brickmaking went on in the area too. From these clay fields the area got its name. The railway station's name was changed in 1886 from Sandgate Road Crossing to Clayfield thus stamping the name on the suburb for ever.    

Clear Mountain

An early settler in the area, W.L.Gordon, referred to the mountain as Tongi, which he said was the Aboriginal name for it, a name meaning plenty of wind.    

Cleveland

Surveyor Warner suggested the name in honour of the Duke of Cleveland, and it was declared a township in the Government Gazette, 13 December, 1851. To the Aboriginal people the area was Nandeebie.

Argument for and against the continuing transportation of convicts to Moreton Bay was raging at the time, and many thought that this town should become the port for the free settlers in the Moreton Bay region. Henry Stuart Russell says that Governor Sir George Gipps decided to visit Cleveland before proceeding to Brisbane to make a decision about the port but had to wade through extensive mud flats to get ashore. 'Floundering and flopping through such a hundred years of deep nastiness was quite enough to settle the question between Brisbane and its rival.'

It is said of William Harry Vane, Duke of Cleveland and Earl of Darlington, that he seldom spoke in the House of Lords and that when he did his manner was better than his matter. His main interests were fox hunting and horse racing. He owned Raby Castle and went to great lengths to ensure that he could be assured of good hunting in the area. Since none of his three sins had heirs the title became extinct with the death of his youngest son.    

Clifton

Francis Forbes, son of the Chief Justice of New South Wales,  took up the Clifton grazing run in 1843. He was later joined by his brother, David.  The first manager was a cousin, John Milbourne Marsh. Clifton was the home town of Lady ForbesHowever the town really owes its existence to James Mowen who settled in the area in 1869 as a storekeeper and publican.  

Clintonvale

Either named after Lady Morgan whose maiden name was Clinton or her father, Captain Clinton, builder of the Spicer's Gap Road.

Clontarf

The Clontarf after which the area of the Redcliffe Peninsula is named features prominently in Irish history. It was at Clontarf, Cluain Tarbh,  in the gaelic, literally pasture of bulls, on the north shore of Dublin Bay that the Irish under Brian Boru, in 1014, defeated the Vikings, who had been invading and colonising their island for two hundred years, although this King of Munster was himself killed in the battle.   


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