Beaufort is a former rural

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...

in the

Barcaldine Region The Barcaldine Region is a local government area in Central West Queensland, Australia. Established in 2008, it was preceded by three previous local government areas which had existed for over a century. It has an estimated operating budget of ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. In the , Beaufort had a population of 46 people. On 22 November 2019, the

Queensland Government The Queensland Government is the state government of Queensland, Australia, a Parliament, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Government is formed by the party or coalition that has gained a majority in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, ...

decided to amalgamate the localities in the Barcaldine Region, resulting in five expanded localities based on the larger towns:

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

Aramac Aramac is a rural town and Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Aramac had a population of 372 people. Geography Aramac is located north of Barcaldine, Queensl ...

, Barcaldine,

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

and

Muttaburra Muttaburra is an outback town and Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality in the Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia. Muttaburra was the discovery site of the ''Muttaburrasaurus'', one of Australia's most famous dinosaurs. In the , t ...

. Beaufort was incorporated into Alpha.

Geography

The southern boundary of the locality is the

Central Western railway line The Central Western railway line is a railway line in Queensland, Australia. It was opened in a series of sections between 1867 and 1928. It commences at Rockhampton and extends west to Winton. History Following the separation of Queensl ...

and, to its immediate south, the

Capricorn Highway The Capricorn Highway is located in Central Queensland, Australia, and links the city of Rockhampton with western Queensland. The highway is long, and joins the Landsborough Highway at Barcaldine. Formerly National Route 66, Queensland began ...

. The Mamboo railway station () services the locality and

Sedgeford Sedgeford is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, about 5 miles south of the North Sea and east of the Wash. It is 36 miles northwest of Norwich. Its area of had a population, including Fring, of 613 at the 2011 Ce ...

to the north. The

Belyando River The Belyando River, including the Belyando River (Western Branch), is a river system in Central Queensland, Australia. At in length and with a catchment area of , the Belyando River system is one of the longest rivers in Queensland. It is pro ...

flows through the locality from the south-east (

Port Wine Port wine (, ; ), or simply port, is a Portuguese wine, Portuguese fortified wine produced in the Douro, Douro Valley of Norte, Portugal, northern Portugal. It is typically a sweetness of wine, sweet red wine, often served with dessert wine, ...

) to the north-west (

Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the Historic counties of England, historic county of ...

Quetta Quetta is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Balochistan. It is the ninth largest city in Pakistan, with an estimated population of over 1.6 million in 2024. It is situated in the south-west of the country, lying in a ...

). Being east of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...

, the river is part of the

North East Coast drainage basin The north-east coast drainage division or north-east coast basin is the area of Queensland between the Great Dividing Range and the Pacific Ocean. It lies between Torres Strait and an arbitrary line drawn along the Queensland - New South Wales bo ...

. It is a tributary of the

Suttor River The Suttor River is a river in Central Queensland, Australia. The Belyando River is its main tributary. The river has its origins in the Leichhardt Range, north west of Glenden. It flows into Lake Dalrymple, becoming a tributary of the Burdek ...

, which in turn is a tributary of the

Burdekin River The Burdekin River is a river in North and Far North Queensland, Australia. The river rises on the northern slopes of Boulder Mountain at Valley of Lagoons, part of the western slope of the Seaview Range, and flows into the Coral Sea at Upsta ...

, which flows into the

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...

at Rita Island in the

Shire of Burdekin The Shire of Burdekin is a local government area located in North Queensland, Australia in the Dry Tropics region. The district is located between Townsville and Bowen in the delta of the Burdekin River. The shire covers an area of . It has e ...

. The principal land use is

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

on native vegetation.

History

The locality presumably takes its name from the county, which in turn is named after Mount Beaufort, which in turn is named 20 July 1846 by Sir Thomas Mitchell after Rear-Admiral Sir Frances Beaufort, creator of the

Beaufort Scale The Beaufort scale ( ) is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land. Its full name is the Beaufort wind force scale. It was devised in 1805 by Francis Beaufort a hydrographer in the Royal Navy. It ...

for indicating wind force. In 1863

Arthur Hunter Palmer Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer (28 December 1819 – 20 March 1898) was an Australian politician who served as the fifth Premier of Queensland, in office from 1870 to 1874. He later held ministerial office in Thomas McIlwraith's ministry from 1879 ...

(

Premier of Queensland The premier of Queensland is the head of government in the Australian state of Queensland. By convention the premier is the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The premier is appointed ...

from 1870 to 1874) leased nine pastoral runs in the Belyando Valley which he collectively called Beaufort Station. Over the years, he expanded or reduced the size of station, selling it finally in 1897. Mamboo railway station was established in 1954.

Queensland Railways Department Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Queensland Rail is owned by the Queensland Government, and operates both suburban and interurban rail services in South East Queensland, as well as long-distance passenger t ...

assigned the name Mamboo on 5 July 1954. It is an Aboriginal word in the

Kabi language Gubbi Gubbi, also spelt Kabi Kabi, is a language of Queensland in Australia, formerly spoken by the Kabi Kabi people of South-east Queensland. The main dialect, Gubbi Gubbi, is extinct, but there are still 24 people with knowledge of the Butc ...

, meaning ''dogwood tree''. However this is not an Indigenous language used in the area.

Education

There are no schools in Beaufort. The nearest primary school is in

which also has the nearest secondary school, but only to Year 10. The nearest secondary schools to Year 12 are in Barcaldine to the west and

Emerald Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium.Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Jr., and Kammerling, Robert C. (1991). ''Gemology'', John Wiley & Sons, New York ...

to the east. Other options are boarding schools and

distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance; today, it usually involves online ...

Notable residents

, Premier of Queensland, owned Beaufort Station

References

{{Barcaldine Region Barcaldine Region Former localities in Queensland