Place Names of South-East Queensland

Dumeresq River

This river was named by Allan Cunningham after Mr Henry Dumaresq, Governor Darling's brother-in-law and private secretary.    

Dundathu

This name, derived from Aboriginal words meaning place of dead trees, applied originally only to the sawmill set up by William Pettigrew and William Sim in the latter 1850s to early 1860s.  

Dunethin Rock

The name has its origin in the Aboriginal Dhu-Yungathin  meaning trees swim., and came from the period when  James Low had a timber depot there, 1867.  There was a time when the name was spelt with an 'm' - Dunethim, but in the 1970s it came to be spelt officially as Dunethin.

Dunwich

It used to be called Goompee, meaning round or spherical, then Green Point, but Governor Darling decreed that it should be called Dunwich. Viscount Dunwich was another title held by the Earl of Stradbroke.

It was used as a stores depot in the early years of the Moreton Bay settlement. To prevent unwanted contact between ships crews and convicts, Captain Logan made all ships load or unload their cargo there. It then had to be transferred to Brisbane by boat. It was next used as a quarantine station, then as a Benevolent Asylum for the elderly and infirm. This continued until the inmates were transferred to Eventide at Sandgate in 1947. From 1892 to 1907 there was a leprosarium there.    

Durack

The present suburb of Durack was part of the old Archerfield  property hurriedly purchased in 1881 by Michael 'Stumpy' Durack and his wife Kate from Mary Elizabeth Murphy just prior to his departure for the Kimberleys where he spent almost all the remainder of his life in the pioneering enterprises of the family. But he lost most of the assets he had accumulated, and when he died in 1894 his widow and children were left to face some very difficult and struggling years.

The youngest of seven children, he had come to Australia from Ireland at the age of seven. At the age of twenty-seven he married his sister's best friend, Catherine McInnes, in Goulburn. They lived on Thylungra Station on Cooper's Creek before moving to Archerfield. He was called Stumpy not only because he was short but to distinguish him from other Michaels in the family.

The name Durack has been used for the area only since 1976.     

Durandur

The name of the old, Archer Brothers station set up in the Woodford area means witchetty grub.

Dutton Park

The area was named after Charles Boydell Dutton, a native-born Australian who acquired extensive property and grazing interests in Queensland and was a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 1883 to 1888 during which time he served successively as Minister for Lands, Minister for Mines and Works, and Minister for Railways. In spite of his pastoral interests, he gained the reputation  of being a humanitarian liberal. When he married in 1865 he was 31 years of age and his wife, Martha, was 17.

Before being given this name, the area was known at Boggo. The cemetery was known as Dutton's Park from its inception.       



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