Driver is an inner-city
suburb of
Palmerston Palmerston may refer to:
People
* Christie Palmerston (c. 1851–1897), Australian explorer
* Several prominent people have borne the title of Viscount Palmerston
** Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston (c. 1673–1757), Irish nobleman an ...
. It is 23 km SE of the
Darwin CBD. Its
Local Government Area is the
City of Palmerston
The City of Palmerston is a local government area of the Northern Territory of Australia. It contains the suburbs of Darwin's satellite city, Palmerston, and is situated between the outer industrial areas of Darwin and the rural areas of Howa ...
. Durack is bounded to the north by University Ave, to the west Elrundie Avenue, to the east Temple Terrace and to the south Tilston Avenue. The suburb is mostly composed of developments from the early 1980s.
History
Driver was named after
Arthur Driver, an engineer who came from
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
and was appointed by the Australian government as
Administrator of the Northern Territory
The Administrator of the Northern Territory is an official appointed by the Governor-General of Australia to represent the government of the Commonwealth in the Northern Territory, Australia. They perform functions similar to those of a state gov ...
in 1946. The highlights of his five-year term include the rescue in 1947 of Bas Wie upon his stowaway arrival in Darwin from Indonesia and his term as the first President of the Legislative Council which begun in 1948. By this time, Driver had embarked on the decentralisation process of establishing
Elliott as the focal point between Darwin and
Alice Springs in the centre of the Territory.
Fry Court in Driver was named after Mr Charles Fry, a teamster who arrived with
George Goyder's survey expedition in 1869 to found the colony of Port Darwin. His wife and family arrived with the first European women in January 1870. Fry drowned off the north Queensland coast when the
SS Gothenburg sank in February 1875, after striking a section of the
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...
in cyclonic conditions.
NT Government (2008).
NT Place Names Register: Fry Court. Retrieved 6 February 2008.
References
External links
*https://web.archive.org/web/20080123190745/http://www.nt.gov.au/lands/lis/placenames/origins/greaterdarwin.shtml#d
{{City of Palmerston suburbs
Suburbs of Darwin, Northern Territory