Driver is an inner-city

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

of Palmerston. It is 23 km SE of the

Darwin Darwin may refer to: Common meanings * Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection * Darwin, Northern Territory, a territorial capital city i ...

CBD. Its

Local Government Area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

is the City of Palmerston. 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 Arthur Robert Driver (25 November 1909 – 18 May 1981) was an Australian engineer, army officer and public servant. He was the Administrator of the Northern Territory between 1946 and 1951. Early life and education Driver was born on 25 November ...

, an engineer who came from Western Australia and was appointed by the Australian government as Administrator of the Northern Territory 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 Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...

in the centre of the Territory. Fry Court in Driver was named after Mr Charles Fry, a teamster who arrived with

George Goyder George Woodroffe Goyder (24 June 1826 – 2 November 1898) was a surveyor in the Colony of South Australia during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He rose rapidly in the civil service, becoming Assistant Surveyor-General by 1856 ...

'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 SS ''Gothenburg'' was an iron-hulled sail- and steamship that was built in England in 1854 and sailed between England and Sweden until 1862. She then moved to Australia, where she operated across the Tasman Sea to and from New Zealand until 1 ...

sank in February 1875, after striking a section of the Great Barrier Reef 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