Maxwelton is an
outback
The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...
town and
locality
Locality may refer to:
* Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England
* Locality (linguistics)
* Locality (settlement)
* Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...
in the
Shire of Richmond
The Shire of Richmond is a local government area in north western Queensland, Australia.
It covers an area of , and has existed as a local government entity since 1916. It is part of the Gulf Country.
History
'' Wanamarra'' (also known as ...
in central north
Queensland
)
, nickname = Sunshine State
, image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, established_ ...
, Australia.
In the , the locality of Maxwelton had a population of 22 people.
[
]
Geography
The locality is bounded to the north by the Flinders River
The Flinders River is the longest river in Queensland, Australia, at approximately . It was named in honour of the explorer Matthew Flinders. The catchment is sparsely populated and mostly undeveloped. The Flinders rises on the western slopes ...
. The town of Maxwelton is located in the north of the locality.
The Flinders Highway (from Townsville
Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
to Cloncurry
Cloncurry is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Cloncurry had a population of 2,719 people.
Cloncurry is the administrative centre of the Shire of Cloncurry.
Cloncurry is known as ...
) enters the locality from the north-east (Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
), bypasses the town of Maxwelton to the immediate south, and exits to the north-west ( Julia Creek).
The Great Northern railway from Townsville
Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
to Mount Isa
Mount Isa ( ) is a city in the Gulf Country region of Queensland, Australia. It came into existence because of the vast mineral deposits found in the area. Mount Isa Mines (MIM) is one of the most productive single mines in world history, bas ...
runs mostly immediately parallel to the highway, entering from the north-east (Richmond), but passing through the town, and then exiting to the north-west (Julia Creek). The locality is served by three railway stops (from west to east):
* Nonda railway station ()
* Maxwelton railway station, serves the town ()
*Talmoi railway station, east of the town of Maxwelton (approx )
* Gemoka railway station, serves the rural areas in the east of the locality ()
There are other towns and neighbourhoods in the locality (from west to east):
* Nonda, a mostly-abandoned town in the north-west of the locality ()
* Hulbert, an abandoned town in the far north of the locality (), just south of the Fitzroy River
* Talmoi, a neighbourhood around the former Talmoi railway station, east of the town of Maxwelton ()
* Bundock, an abandoned town in the north-east of the locality (), just south of O'Connell Creek (), a tributary of the Fitzoy River
History
In 1863, horser breeder Wellington Cochrane Bundock (1812-1898) formed a partnership with Walter Hayes to graze cattle on the Richmond Downs pastoral run (the origin of the town of Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
).
Before the railway, bullock teams carted wool from Cloncurry
Cloncurry is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Cloncurry had a population of 2,719 people.
Cloncurry is the administrative centre of the Shire of Cloncurry.
Cloncurry is known as ...
to the east coast, and Cobb and Co
Cobb & Co was the name used by many successful sometimes quite independent Australian coaching businesses. The first was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. The name Cobb & Co grew to great prominence in the late 19th ...
stage coaches travelled through with mail in 1871. Several hotels were being built along the Flinders River route, all of which are now in ruins and only recognisable by old stumps or an occasional post here and there. Pastoral holdings were then much larger and in this area, they included Tarbrax, Maxwelton, Clutha and Saxby.
Maxwelton was a small railway siding, west of Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
. It derived its name from Maxwelton Station, one of the original pastoral holdings taken up in the 1800s. This station is just south of the rail siding.
The towns of Bundock and Hulbert were surveyed in 1899 and gazetted in 1900. Bundock is named after Wellington Cochrane Bundock. Bundock was at the midpoint of a stock route
A stock route, also known as travelling stock route (TSR), is an authorised thoroughfare for the walking of domestic livestock such as sheep or cattle from one location to another in Australia. The stock routes across the country are colloquially ...
between the towns of Maxwelton and Richmond.
The town of Nonda first appears on a 1907 survey plan. The name Nonda is an Aboriginal word referring to the "plum" tree, ''Parinari nonda
''Parinari nonda'' is a shrub or small tree in the family Chrysobalanaceae. It occurs in northern Australia and New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua ...
''.
The site for the Maxwelton township was chosen in 1908, at the junction of the new railway line and the road from McKinlay to the Camp Hotel on the Flinders River
The Flinders River is the longest river in Queensland, Australia, at approximately . It was named in honour of the explorer Matthew Flinders. The catchment is sparsely populated and mostly undeveloped. The Flinders rises on the western slopes ...
.
The first sod was turned to begin work on this Great Northern Railway in Townsville
Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...
in 1879, and by February 1908 it had reached Julia Creek.[From Wyangarie to Richmond A Historic record of the Richmond District of North West Queensland. Compiled by Julie ann Authurs. 1995 Richmond Shire Council . Page 181-186]
The original Post Office began as a receiving office in 1880. It closed and opened many times firstly in 1885, reopening in 1891 and closing again in 1895. It was again reopened in 1907 when the Chatfield Creek receiving office some twelve miles away closed. It was elevated to a Post Office at the Railway Station in February 1910. It became an official post office in 1915. It was moved to its later position in 1928. In 1970 the Post Office was run in conjunction with Telecom as one of the last manual telephone exchanges
telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syste ...
in Australia. On 1 September 1970 the post office was downgraded to a Post Office Agency. On 6 April 1990 the Post Office Agency ceased. A Community Mail Bag was then put into operation.
The neighbourhood of Talmoi takes its name from the former Talmoi railway station. The name was chosen by the Queensland Railways Department
Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long-distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining approximately 6,600 kilometres of track and relate ...
in 1912 and is an Aboriginal word meaning a ''place to camp''.![Maxwelton school](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Maxwelton_school.jpg)
Maxwelton Provisional School opened on 15 November 1923, becoming Maxwelton State School on 23 April 1925. It closed in 1926 but reopened in July 1927. It closed permanently in 1989. The school was in School Road (). The school building is now used as a house.
Nonda State School opened on 14 April 1925 and closed on 25 July 1975. It was in Corella Street ().
Gemoka railway siding was named by the Queensland Railways Department
Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long-distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining approximately 6,600 kilometres of track and relate ...
on18 September 1925. ''Gemoka'' is an Aboriginal word meaning ''cattle camp.''
Maxwelton is situated on a low flood plain and its biggest flood on record was in 1917. Waters back up for miles, from the Flinders and Alick Creek. A bridge was completed in 1926 called Hulberts Bridge. The Camp Hotel was known locally as the "one-eye" after one of its owners who had one eye, a one eyed horse and a one eyed dog.
Before the artesian bore was put down in 1929 to a depth of , water was carted from the bore at the Talmoi Wool Scour, a couple of miles east of Maxwelton.
During World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, chemical weapon
A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...
s were stored at Talmoi. On 31 July 1943, it was decided by the Royal Australian Air Force
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
, colours =
, colours_label =
, march =
, mascot =
, anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...
(RAAF) to store 40% of the chemical weapons stocks in north-east Queensland. Talmoi wool scour was subsequently chosen as the specific location for RAAF No.4 Central Explosives Reserve (), because it had a bore
Bore or Bores often refer to:
*Boredom
* Drill
Relating to holes
* Boring (manufacturing), a machining process that enlarges a hole
** Bore (engine), the diameter of a cylinder in a piston engine or a steam locomotive
** Bore (wind instruments), ...
with running water in addition to storage sheds and living quarters, it had a railway siding on the Great Northern railway line to Townsville (a major military site during the War of the Pacific
The War of the Pacific ( es, link=no, Guerra del Pacífico), also known as the Saltpeter War ( es, link=no, Guerra del salitre) and by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought ...
), and it was a safe distance from any other settlement. Further buildings, roadworks and other earthworks were undertaken. In September 1944, a total of 2,550 phosgene
Phosgene is the organic chemical compound with the formula COCl2. It is a toxic, colorless gas; in low concentrations, its musty odor resembles that of freshly cut hay or grass. Phosgene is a valued and important industrial building block, espe ...
bombs were transported by rail from Lithgow, New South Wales
Lithgow is a town in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia and is the administrative center of the City of Lithgow local government area. It is located in a mountain valley named Lithgow's Valley by John Oxley in honour of Wil ...
to Talmoi. Each bomb was . The bombs were stored in reinforced concrete igloo-like structures, while a corrugated iron shed was used to store mustard gas
Mustard gas or sulfur mustard is a chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents. The name ''mustard gas'' is technically incorrect: the substance, when dispersed, is often not actually a gas, b ...
canisters. After the war in January 1946, the RAAF destroyed all the chemical weapons at Talmoi (then estimated as 28,000 phosgen bombs) by shooting each bomb with a bullet, releasing the gas. The RAAF formally decommissioned the facility in February 1946. The bomb casings were then used by local people as building materials until December 1948 when the McKinlay Shire Council reported that mustard gas was still in some of the bomb casings. The RAAF initially denied this could be so stating that the weapons had all been destroyed, but nonetheless initiated an investigation. In September 1949, the public was advised to notify the RAAF in Townsville if they had any "empty bombs" in their possession. A number of the igloo-shaped bomb storage structures remain on the site.
In days gone by, the little township had a café, butchers shop, a dance hall, a pub, a post office and a school.
In 1960 the town itself had a population of 72 and the one-teacher school had 17 students from grade 1 to grade 8. The teachers (who boarded at the hotel) at that time were Harry Thomas followed by Henry Crowther (arguably one of the best of outback teachers). Art and dress-making were taught by Mrs Edith Pick (wife of the Postal Clerk) who was also instrumental in organising the annual Maxwelton Gymkhana (Maxwelton Races). The hotel was owned by Mrs Dawson (who had one eye) and was often visited by Cecil Hickmott and his horse 'Dick'. Dick was well known for drinking in the bar and putting on a drunken walk home over the railway line. Apart from the hotel, school, railway station and post office, the only other public building in town was the public shower. Built of corrugated iron next to the bore head and sporting the best shower rose in Australia it was fed by hot water direct from the untapped artesian bore. Also in 1960 the swimming pool was built by locals led by Les Pick (postal clerk) and Gilbert Skennerton (rail ganger). It was nothing more than an earthen dam with a sand base (trucked from the Flinders River near Hulberts Bridge) but it was a magnet for everyone in town as it was no longer necessary to drive out to the river to cool down in summer.
The main occupants of the town were rail workers who had a row of fettlers cottages along the southern side of the rail track which carried two trains a day - The 44 up to Mt Isa and the 19 down to Townsville. These trains brought in most supplies. With the road trip to Richmond taking up to one and a half hours each way, the shopping trip to Weekly's store in Richmond was a full day outing.
The Maxwelton School was closed due to lack of children, but has had as many as 35 pupils enrolled in the past. The school first began in the old butchers shop in 1923, and the teacher was given board and lodging at the North Star Hotel for one pound per week. The first official school building was built on five acres of land south of the railway line in 1925 where it still stands today.
For the last 61 years the annual Maxwelton races have occurred at the town's racecourse on the southern side of the Flinders Highway. The future of the race is currently in doubt, but there has been a recent revival in public interest.
The town received national media attention in 1989 when a chemical weapon stockpile was found in the town, similar to the 1,000 pound phosgene bombs found at Embi Airfield, part of the Dobodura Airfield Complex
Girua Airport is an airport serving Popondetta, a city in the Oro (or Northern) province in Papua New Guinea.
History
Girua Airport is located near Dobodura, to the north-east of the Embi Lakes, north-east of Inonda. To the south is Mt. Laming ...
in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
.
In the , the locality of Maxwelton had a population of 22 people.
Education
There are no schools in Maxwelton. The nearest government school is Richmond State School in neighbouring Richmond offers primary schooling and secondary schooling to Year 10 only. There are no nearby options for schooling to Year 12. Also, due to the distances involved, Richmond State School would not be accessible to students outside the north-east part of Maxwelton. Distance education
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
and boarding schools are other options.
References
External links
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{{authority control
Towns in Queensland
Shire of Richmond
Localities in Queensland