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Thulimbah This is an Aboriginal word meaning a place of water and had reference to springs there. In days of good road and rail transport it is hard to appreciate how important the streams were to the early European explorers and settlers. Tiaro, an Aboriginal name meaning the meeting of the waters is at the limit of tidal action on the Mary River. Andrew Petrie and H.S.Russell called it the Wide Bay River when they travelled up it with Mr Joliffe, the Honourable W.Wrottesley, five convicts and Ulappa, an Aboriginal from Brisbane. They found the runaway convict Davis, known also by his Aboriginal name Durramboi. Joliffe took up land on behalf of John Eales who already owned property in the Hunter Valley. Then followed a period of racial conflict in which Aborigines killed sheep and shepherds and in which Aborigines were killed with poisoned flour. Firearms and spears wrecked their toll. Tibberawaccum In the Turrbul language the place name
meant flying squirrel or hungry. This mountain's Kabi name meant the biting or aggressive, grey glider, and in their legend featured as the father of the Glasshouse Mountains family. Matthew Flinders reached the foot of this mountain on the short, overland expedition away from his ship in 1799. Tinbeerwah Place of grasstrees or high hill
climbing up. The name suggests that an
interesting story might lie behind it, but it comes as somewhat of a
disappointment to learn that it is derived from an Aboriginal word
tindhin used for a particular species of mangrove. Robert Herbert, the first Premier of Queensland, held land here in partnership with W.D.White of
Lota House. The name meant place of fat. An early settler
gave the carcass of a fat cow which had been killed by a falling tree
to the local Aboriginal folk to eat. They had never seen so much fat
before. This Aboriginal name was then taken over by the
surveyor. The Aboriginal meaning is given variously as home of the koala or green wattle tree. Tivoli This Ipswich suburb was named after a
coal mine owned by Harry Hooper and John Robinson. John, David and Frederick were
sons of James McConnell who had established a cotton-spinning business
in Manchester, England, in 1790. John went into the silk industry in
England, but David emigrated to Australia at 22 years of age in 1840.
Travelling overland from Sydney with his livestock, he took up land to
which he gave the name of
Cressbrook in 1841. In choosing that name he used the name of
his eldest brother's property in Derbyshire, England. John and
Frederick later followed him to Australia although Frederick returned
to England after a few years. This is an Aboriginal name said to refer to the throwing of a spear. Johannes E. Gossner headed up a Protestant missionary society and missionary training school in Berlin which sent missionaries out to India and other places around the world during the 19th century. He believed that missionaries did not need to have a great deal of academic training. What was needed were practical 'mechanics' who could earn their living in their adopted country and show other people the benefits of civilization while they shared with them the elements of the Christian faith. When the Presbyterians of Sydney headed by Rev. John Dunmore Lang decided to open up a mission to the Aboriginal people, Dr Lang arranged for 12 German Lutheran young men with their wives and children to come from Gossner's mission and for them to go to the Moreton Bay District in 1838. At first they were given the disused huts at Humpybong to use, but then were allocated land which the Aboriginal people called Tumbul, but which they called Zion's Hill. Financial support dried up and they almost starved. The effort to make the station self-supporting took priority over the more difficult task of evangelizing the natives. They no more understood the attitudes and motivation of the Aboriginal people than the Aborigines did of them, and well before the five years had elapsed when it was officially closed they has lost their enthusiasm for the task. Some of the group left, but some remained to farm the area, which continued to be known locally as German Station |