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Croydon is an outback town and locality within the Shire of Croydon in
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. It is a terminus for the Normanton to Croydon railway line, which operates the Gulflander tourist train. In the , the locality of Croydon had a population of 215 people.


Geography

National Highway 1 runs through from east to west. The Richmond–Croydon Road runs along part of the eastern boundary.


Climate

Croydon has a hot
semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...
( Köppen: BSh), with a short
wet season The wet season (sometimes called the rainy season or monsoon season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Generally, the season lasts at least one month. The term ''green season'' is also sometimes used a ...
from December to March, and a long
dry season The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The t ...
from April to November. Although average daily maxima remain high year-round- exceeding in all months; average minima have greater variation: from in July to in December. Average annual rainfall is , and the highest daily rainfall recorded was on 29 January 1908. The town is extremely sunny, averaging 201.9 clear days and only 48.6 cloudy days annually. Extreme temperatures have ranged from on 10 July 1983 to on 7 November 1965.


History

The historic goldrush town of Croydon is located in the heart of the
Gulf Savannah The Gulf Country or North West Queensland is the region of woodland and savanna grassland surrounding the Gulf of Carpentaria in north western Queensland and eastern Northern Territory on the north coast of Australia. The region is also c ...
, west of
Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...
. Mining in the area quickly drove out the Tagalaka people indigenous to the area. Croydon was a large pastoral holding owned by Alexander Brown and Margaret Chalmers that covered an area of approximately , when first settled in the 1880s. The town's name is derived from a pastoral run name, that was used by their sons, Alexander Brown and William Chalmers Brown, pastoralists; William Chalmers Brown was born in
Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...
, England in 1841 and is buried at
Toowong cemetery Toowong Cemetery is a heritage-listed cemetery on the corner of Frederick Street and Mt Coot-tha Road, Toowong, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was established in 1866 and formally opened in 1875. It is Queensland, Queensland's lar ...
in
Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...
. Gold was discovered in 1885 and by 1887, the town's population had reached 7,000. Croydon Post Office opened on 20 March 1886. Croydon State School was established on 12 September 1889 but did not open until 7 July 1890. Gold was to be the main economic production of the area for four decades. The Mining Warden left in 1926 as there were too few miners left on the field. During its heyday, Croydon was the fourth largest town in the colony of Queensland. Chinese settlers moved into the Croydon area soon after the gold discovery was reported in 1885. From the earliest days of settlement they played a significant role in the viability of the isolated field by supplying fresh vegetables and fruit. They also supported the work of the miners as cooks, carriers and by working on tribute. The Chinese settlement at Croydon developed on the north west fringe of the town. This was a similar pattern to other mining towns in north Queensland. The community constructed a temple, houses and associated facilities such as pig ovens, with the temple as the central focus of the settlement. In 1917, Dr. Elkington, Director of the Division of Tropical Hygiene, Commonwealth Department of Health, was concerned about health and hygiene of its growing population, contemplated conducting a statistical and social survey of the town, which did not eventuate. Elkington's interest in sociological surveys of gathering social and economic details on a population later developed into the 1924 Sociological Survey of White Women conducted from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in
Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...
. Currently, Croydon has a much smaller population, having greatly decreased following the end of the gold rush. The population is now a few hundred people. The town is one of the termini for the Gulflander railway, opened for the gold rush in 1891 but now a tourist railway operated by Traveltrain. In early 2009, the close proximity of a receding cyclone ex- Cyclone Charlotte, caused torrential rain and Croydon to be flooded. An estimated $5 million of damage was made to town infrastructure.


Demographics

In the , the locality of Croydon and surrounding areas had a population of 312 people. In the , the locality of Croydon had a population of 258 people. In the , the locality of Croydon had a population of 215 people.


Heritage listings

Croydon has a number of
heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and human-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In ma ...
sites, including: * Croydon: Homeward Bound Battery and Dam * Gulf Developmental Road: Content Mine * Gulf Developmental Road: Richmond Mine and Battery * Helen Street: Croydon railway station * Julia Creek Road: Croydon Cemetery * Normanton (Gulf Developmental) Road: Golden Gate Mining and Town Complex * Normanton Road: Station Creek Cemetery * Normanton to Croydon: Normanton to Croydon railway line * Off Gulf Developmental Road: Chinese Temple and Settlement Site * Samwell Street: Court House * Samwell Street: Croydon Shire Hall (formerly Croydon Town Hall) * Samwell Street:
Police Station A police station is a facility operated by police or a similar law enforcement agency that serves to accommodate police officers and other law enforcement personnel. The role served by a police station varies by agency, type, and jurisdiction, ...
* Sircom Street: Croydon Hospital Ward * Tabletop Cemetery * West of the railway station: Old Croydon Cemetery


Education

Croydon State School is a government primary (Early Childhood to Year 6) school for boys and girls at 22–30 Brown Street (). In 2014, the school had 42 students enrolled with 2 classes (years P–3 and years 4–6) with 3 teachers. In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 36 students with 3 teachers and 7 non-teaching staff (3 full-time equivalent). There are no secondary schools nearby. The alternatives are
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 ...
and boarding school.


Facilities

Croydon has a swimming pool, golf course, lawn bowls, a museum, a tourist information centre, caravan park and a primary school. The Croydon Shire Council operates a public library at 63 Samwell Street. Water supply is sourced from Lake Belmore. St Margaret's Church at Lot 9, Alldridge Street is shared by the Anglican and Catholic congregations. It is within the Gulf Savannah Parish of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cairns.


In popular culture

Croydon was mentioned in the 1950 novel ''
A Town Like Alice ''A Town Like Alice'' (United States title: ''The Legacy'') is a romance novel by Nevil Shute, published in 1950 when Shute had newly settled in Australia. Jean Paget, a young Englishwoman, becomes romantically interested in a fellow prisoner ...
'' by Nevil Shute, as an example of a largely abandoned
gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...
town.


References


External links


University of Queensland: Queensland Places: Croydon and Croydon Shire
*
Croydon Oral Histories and Report on the Cairns Timber Mill at Yungaburra 2001
State Library of Queensland State Library of Queensland (State Library) is the state public reference and research library of Queensland, Australia, operated by the Government of Queensland, state government. The Library is governed by the Library Board of Queensland, whi ...
{{authority control Towns in Queensland North West Queensland Shire of Croydon Localities in Queensland