WARWICK RESIDENTS HAVE CHANCE TO MAKE THEIR MARK ON THE MAP

Minister for Natural Resources and Water, Craig Wallace, today encouraged Warwick residents to become involved in the creation of their community’s history by suggesting new place names.

Minister Wallace is inviting residents to name a geographic feature or area of land by lodging an application with his department.

“The Department of Natural Resources and Water administers the Place Names Act 1994, which controls the official naming of localities, suburbs and geographical features within local government areas,” Mr Wallace said.

“Queensland has over 40,000 official place names and these are constantly being added to by the community,” Mr Wallace said.

“People have a chance to be part of history by creating a new Queensland place name,” he said.

“We do not accept place names that honour living people, we try to avoid duplicating names and commercial names but otherwise people are free to put their mark on the map.”

Some of Queensland’s more unusual names include Baking Board (Chinchilla Shire), Yorkeys Knob (Cairns), Macaroni (Carpentaria Shire), Hell Hole Gorge National Park (Quilpie Shire), Silver Spur (Inglewood Shire), Beer Creek (Esk Shire) and Ginger Beer Creek (Calliope Shire).

Close to 110 new and amended place names were added to the database over the past year.

The pioneering brothers Patrick and George Leslie had lofty ideals for their new home when they created the township of Warwick in 1847.

The settlement had been named Cannington until 1847 when the region’s leading citizens decided to rename the town after a character in a historical novel by the English writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Perhaps the author’s best novel, The Last of the Barons, explores the role the 16^th Earl of Warwick Richard Neville played in the War of the Roses. The Earl, who was popularly referred to as Warwick the Kingmaker, was the richest man in England and the true power behind the throne.

“After researching the novel and its themes of emerging industrial revolution, reform and examination of Great Britain’s feudalistic past, you can draw many assumptions of why the Leslies chose this name,” said Minister for Natural Resources and Water, Craig Wallace.

“Warwick the Kingmaker fought against the tide of social change which saw the English barons losing their power, and the brothers Leslie saw the irony in this as their own squatters’ principality was being broken up due to changes in the system,” he said.

“Perhaps their suggestion for the name for the village being planned on part of their old Canning Downs station reflected how they viewed their part in the new world order being established in the fledgling colony.”

Mr Wallace said this is just one of the fascinating stories found when you start researching the NRW place names online database.

“Early pioneers have had a lasting effect on the Southern Downs with many of the region’s towns bearing names from their homelands,” he said. “Others reflect Aboriginal culture and language.”

“Searching through the NRW website can reveal many interesting facts about the country we live in, with many of Queensland’s suburb and town names reflecting the fascinating history of the area they occupy.”

Other examples of place name histories around Warwick:

• Allora is associated with an Aboriginal word (language and dialect not recorded) indicating waterhole (Gnallarah) or swamp place, and referred to a local lagoon.

• Goomburra is derived from a local pastoral lease and is an Aboriginal word indicating either: 1. fire black tribe, (a corruption of the word “gooneburra”) or 2. shield (derived from kurrajong tree).

• Tannymorel: Named after a village in Ireland by the early Darling Downs settlers, Patrick Leslie and Ernest Dalrymple, although they both came from Scotland. The name means ‘a bend in the creek’.

• The name of the Granite Belt town Stanthorpe stems from a “made up” word by the visiting Surveyor-General. Formerly known as Quart Pot, Stanthorpe was renamed in the 1870s with the ‘artificial’ word stemming from the Latin “stannum” which means “tin” and English word “thorpe” which means “town”.

• Texas, which is derived from a nearby pastoral run name, used by Donald Norris McDougall from Texas in the United States, which was the subject of conflict between the USA and Mexico. McDougall named his run after the American state because he had to contest ownership of the run after temporarily abandoning it.

• Applethorpe: Derived from railway station name, changed by Railways Department from Roessler to Applethorpe in 1915, in response to local anti-German sentiment.

Minister Wallace said the place names database reflected the diverse and fascinating background of many of the state’s suburbs and towns.

“While many of the names on the database are European in origin, a large number reflect Aboriginal culture and language,” Mr Wallace said.

Mr Wallace said people could look up the name of their suburb or town by visiting: www.nrw.qld.gov.au/property/place_names.html

"The place names website is an evolving document and we are always on the lookout for new information about how a suburb, town or land feature got its name."

Media inquiries: Clare Gillic, Minister's Office, 3896 3688.