Drayton is a rural locality in the

Toowoomba Region The Toowoomba Region is a Local government in Australia, local government area (LGA) on the border of Darling Downs and South East Queensland regions of Queensland, Australia. Established in 2008, the LGA was preceded by several other local go ...

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 , Drayton had a population of 1,813 people. Drayton is at the outer southwestern edge of

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...

. It was first substantial settlement on the

Darling Downs The Darling Downs is a farming region on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, Australia. The Downs are to the west of South East Queensland and are one of the major regions of Queensland. The name was generally ...

, initially being established in 1842. The nearby township of Toowoomba expanded more rapidly than Drayton, and in the 1860s the centre of population shifted to Toowoomba, leaving Drayton as a southwestern suburb.

Geography

The South Western railway line forms the south-western boundary of the locality, which is served by Drayton railway station (). Mount Peel is in the north-west of the locality () rising to . To the west of Drayton, the southern part of ANZAC Avenue forms the axis of a growing industrial and commercial district extending west and north towards Glenvale. Drayton has a core of homes dating to the 19th century and a substantial number of homes and commercial premises dating from the mid years of the 20th century. More recently a large number of detached homes and growing numbers of multi-unit dwellings were built in the 1990s and 2000s, mostly targeted at students from the nearby

University of Southern Queensland The University of Southern Queensland is a public research university based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, the sixth largest city in the Australian state of Queensland Founded in 1967 after a successful campaign by the local Darling Down ...

History

The Drayton area was known as The Springs from around 1840 to 1847. In August 1842, Thomas Alford established a store at Drayton. He also built his home and established a post office. He is believed to have named the area Drayton after Drayton,

Somersetshire Somerset ( , ), archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to ...

, England, where his father Charles Alford was the vicar. StateLibQld 1 236915 Toowoomba and Drayton prior to 1887

Drayton continued to be the primary settlement in the region until the town of Toowoomba was established four miles to the north-east, whereupon the centre of population rapidly moved to the newer settlement owing to its better access to water and favourable growing conditions. By 1905, the ''Australian Handbook'' stated that the town "''may now almost be considered a suburb of Toowoomba''". The Drayton National School (later Drayton State School) established on 16 August 1851. It is one of the oldest state primary schools in Queensland. One of the oldest buildings in the Drayton area is the Royal Bull's Head Inn. The town also saw the area's first newspaper, the Darling Downs Gazette, in 1858. From 1887 to 1949, Drayton had its own local government, the Shire of Drayton. On Sunday 31 March 1940, 500 people attended a ceremony to place a cairn to mark the site of the first church on the Darling Downs in memory of its founder Canon Glennie. The Anglican church was on the corner of Rudd Street and Cambooya Street ().

Demographics

In the , Drayton had a population of 1,710 people. In the , Drayton had a population of 1,813 people.

Heritage listings

Drayton 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: * St Matthew's Anglican Church, 45–49 Glennie Street () * Royal Bull's Head Inn, 47–59 Brisbane Street () * Drayton State School, 71–89 Brisbane Street () * O'Shea's Drayton Cottage, 56 Gwynne Street ()

Education

Drayton State School is a government primary (Prep-6) school for boys and girls at 71–89 Brisbane Street (). In 2017, the school had an enrolment of 321 students with 36 teachers (29 full-time equivalent) and 16 non-teaching staff (10 full-time equivalent). It includes a special education program.

Facilities

Drayton Police Station is at 35 Brisbane Street ().

Amenities

St Matthew's Anglican Church is at Glennie Street.

Royal Bull's Head Inn

* 1847-48: Inn first built; founded by William Horton, an English convict * 1858: Currently extant brick and plastered timber structure substantially complete * 1879: No longer in use as an inn, became a private home * 1973: Purchased by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

* 1976: Ongoing restoration began The building now serves as a show-case of life in the 1870s. Some rooms have been maintained in their original state.

Notable residents

* Thomas Alford, pioneer of Drayton and Toowoomba * Arthur Hoey Davis, better known as author

Steele Rudd Steele Rudd was the pen name of Arthur Hoey Davis (14 November 1868 – 11 October 1935) an Australian author, best known for his short story collection ''On Our Selection''. In 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, Rudd was named one of the ...

, was born in Drayton in 1868. * Reverend

Benjamin Glennie The Reverend Benjamin Glennie (29 January 1812 – 30 April 1900) was a pioneer Anglican clergyman in the Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia. Early life Benjamin Glennie was born on 29 January 1812 in Dulwich, Surrey, England; his parents were ...

, pioneer

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

clergyman served the Darling Downs for many years and was resident in Drayton from 1850 to 1860 and from 1872 to 1876 * James Purcell, an important figure in the Queensland

dairy industry A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...

in the early 20th century, was born in Drayton.

References

External links

University of Queensland: Queensland Places: Drayton and Drayton ShireNational Trust Queensland - Bulls Head Inn
on Drayton State School's webpage
Drayton State SchoolQueensland Place Histories - Drayton, Queensland
- John Oxley Library Blog, State Library of Queensland {{Toowoomba Region Towns in the Darling Downs 1842 establishments in Australia Populated places established in 1842 Localities in Queensland