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Cotton Tree When a township was surveyed
here in 1908 it was called the Township of Maroochydore, but over time
it came to be know as Cotton Tree because of the large indigenous
hibiscus tiliaceus trees, commonly known as Cotton Trees, which grew there. This Granite Belt settlement was named after E. Cotton, an early resident. Craigslea David McConnell named his grazing run after the family farm in Derbyshire. Crestmead The Brisbane City Council approved the
naming of the suburb in May 1986 and it was gazetted in June of the following
year. The name was that used by the developer. Owen Jones named his property
Crohamhurst after a village in England. His son, Inigo
Jones, set up the Crohamhurst Observatory on this property in
1935. Whatever the real basis for
calling the town Crows Nest a legend has arisen and has been given an
air of respectability by a statue erected in Centenary Park. This
purports to be of a lone Aboriginal, Jimmy Crow, who use to live in a
hollow tree near the teamsters camp. It is said that the town got
its name from this man. Allan Cunningham, who started
working for the curator of the Royal Gardens at Kew, England, as a
clerk, became a competent botanist and explorer in Australia. After
collecting botanical specimens in Bazil for a couple of years, he came
to New South Wales in 1816. He was a member of Oxley's expedition to
the Lachlan, and went on four voyages to the North and North-west of
Australia with Captain
P.P.King. He also went with King on a trip to Van Diemen's Land. He led
an expedition from Bathurst to the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales
in 1823, and in 1824 came with Oxley on the
Amity when he brought the advance party of convicts and
soldiers to Moreton Bay. On that trip they explored the Brisbane River
up to Mt Crosby. In 1827 on another overland trek of exploration from
the south he discovered the rich and fertile Darling Downs. In 1828,
travelling from Moreton Bay, he reached the gap in the main range which
now bears his name. There is some doubt about whether this was the same
gap which he saw from the west in the previous year, but it has become
the main route for travel between the Southern Darling Downs and
Brisbane. Since the Aboriginal languages
were spoken languages and not written, and since European ears were not
always adjusted to pick up the nuances, there is sometimes confusion
over the original pronunciation of words which now appear as name
places in South East Queensland. Currimundi is a case in point. It
seems that the word was probably
Garamandha, the place of flying foxes. This became Girramundi,
and as such was the name of Sir Leslie Wilson's residence in the area.
It has also been spelt
Curramindi. In 1845 Burveyor Burnett used what he said was the
Aboriginal
name, Crummunda. However the name Currimundi was certainly being used
by 1891. This is the Aboriginal name
for a species of pine tree, but it was not the name by which the creek
was shown on the maps drawn by surveyor Dixon in 1839. He called it
Anson Creek after Admiral George Anson who after serving as private
secretary to Lord Melbourne, the Whig Prime Minister of England, became
the private secretary to Albert, the husband of the young Queen
Victoria. Albert wanted to bring a German retinue with him, but the
leaders of the English parliament would not hear of it. Anson was
appointed
to ensure
that an English viewpoint was expressed to the Prince. However Albert
and Anson became close friends. As Currumbin Creek, the creek gave its
name to the surrounding locality. The Queensland Railways gave the
meaning of the name as "High up, or a place where high trees grow."
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