Place Names of South-East Queensland

Herston

Queensland's first Premier was a young English aristocrat who with his smooth, quietly spoken urbane manner, keen dress sense and use of an eye-glass really looked the part. He was suspicious of democratic ideas, believing that the gentry were by breeding and upbringing the only ones fitted to rule.

Although he became involved in colonial politics he was essentially a public servant. A little man with a large head, he lacked the  vigorous expression and popular charisma which really makes a politician. But he had a clear, logical mind, and was on his way toward a distinguished career in the British civil service.  

What's all that to do with the Brisbane inner-city suburb of Herston? Well, twelve months after his arrival as Private Secretary to Governor George Bowen, and in collaboration with his friend John Bramston, Robert G.W.Herbert built an imposing stone house with wide verandahs on the outskirts of Brisbane Town to which he gave the name Herston, and, in time, this estate gave its name to the suburb where the Royal Brisbane Hospital stands.

He loved his country estate with its Breton cows and Arabian bull, prize poultry, peacocks, aviary, horses, cats and dogs, miniature deer, pet wallaby, Devonshire cream making machine and an ice making machine, peach trees, orange trees and figs, vegetable garden, shrubs and flowering plants. But it was a bachelor's establishment.

Robert George Wyndham Herbert, educated at Eton and Oxford and trained in the law, came to the new colony at the age of 28 and stayed here for seven years during which time he served in the administrative role of Colonial Secretary and became Premier in the first Queensland Parliament.  He had links, through his family, to the English peerage, and, through his old house master at Eton ( Rev. Edward Coleridge) to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,and, through short-term employment, with the famous British Prime Minister, W.E. Gladstone.

Bramston, like Herbert, was a lawyer, served as Private Secretary to Governor Bowen, entered Queensland politics, went on to a career in the British Colonial Office and was knighted, but, unlike Herbert, he married. He married a neice of the Marchioness of Normanby, whose husband the Marquis succeeded Bowen as Governor of Queensland.

Hervey Bay

James Cook named Hervey Bay in honour of Augustus John Hervey, later the 3rd Earl of Bristol, who became a lord of the Admiralty in the year of the Endeavour's return to England. He was a parliamentarian as well as a naval officer, but gained popular attention as the husband, for a time, of the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh. She scandalized Europe by the way she flunted her sexuality, disregarding the mores of the day.

Highgate Hill

Surveyor James Warner gave this densely wooded range the name of Sierra Madre, but it never took on. The Wilson family who settled there in the mid 1860s seem to have been the first to use the name of Highgate Hill. It's Aboriginal name was Beenung-urrung, frilled lizard.

Highvale

The name of Highvale, near Mt Nebo, came into use in 1943. It was suggested by The Highlands station from which the area had been subdivided into soldier settlement blocks after the First World War. The Highlands was a model dairy farm, at one time owned by the McWhirters of Fortitude Valley.

Highworth

This area near Nambour is supposed to have been named after a township in England.

Hillcrest

Gazetted as a place name, June, 1987.

Hill End

The area of Brisbane was once known as Coombes' Swamp after William Coombe who held land there.

Hillgrove

The holding was taken up by C. Allingham, 1 July, 1861.

Hivesville

This place on the old Murgon-Proston line was named after an early resident.

Hodgson Vale

Hodgson Vale was names after Sir Arthur Hodgson, an early settler in the area.

Holland Park

Julius Holland came to Australia from London at the age of 18 and shortly afterwards set up business in Brisbane in partnership with James Mort of the well-known Sydney family. This led to 20 years of energetic and enterprising commercial involvement in South East Queensland where he became  involved in stock and station agency, wine and spirits merchandising, plantation ownership, tin mining and land speculation. He and his wife had ten children. They lived first at Springvale, Stones Corner, and then at Ashley, Kangaroo Point.  He died of hepatitis in 1884 at the age of 39. When 60 hectares of scrub which he had bought in the 1870s was subdivided in 1882 as the Holland Estate his name was given to the emerging suburb.

Hollywell 

Joseph Wood Proud, local councillor and mayor,  named his house near Labrador Hollywell after his home in England 

Holmview

Holm is Old English for river flats. It was supposedly given this name because it gave excellent views of the old ferry crossing  at Loganholme.

Howard

The township was named after William Howard, born in Tasmania 1839, who after his arrival in Maryborough 1857 explored the district for minerals.

Howell's Knob

This hill in the Reesville district near Maleny is named after Robert Howell who settled in the area.

Humpybong

When the German missionaries, Eipper and Hausemann, visited the abandoned site of the first European settlement at Moreton Bay its flimsy and derelict buildings were described by their Aboriginal acquaintances as  Umpieboang - dead houses.  

Hunchy

This is a shortening of the earlier name, Hunchback, for the area at the foothills of the Blackall Range near Montville.

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