Gormanston is a town in
Tasmania
Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
on the slopes of
Mount Owen, above the town of
Queenstown in Tasmania's
West Coast. In the 2016 census, Gormanston had a population of 17.
[Australian Bureau of Statistics, "2016 Census Quickstats: Gormanston", published 23 October 2017, retrieved 28 May 2019 https://quickstats.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2016/quickstat/SSC60238]
It lies at the shoulder between
Mount Lyell and
Mount Owen and is south or "up the hill" from an equally abandoned community, the remains of the townsite of
Linda which is at the northern side of the
Linda Valley
Linda Valley is a valley in the West Coast Range (Tasmania), West Coast Range of Tasmania. It was earlier known as the Vale of Chamouni. It is located between Mount Owen, Tasmania, Mount Owen and Mount Lyell, Tasmania, Mount Lyell.
Human settle ...
.
History
It was built as the company town for the
Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company operations at the
Iron Blow open cut copper mine and later also became the location of the short lived terminus of the
North Mount Lyell Railway at
Gormanston railway station before it closed.
It may have been named in honour of
Jenico Preston, 14th Viscount Gormanston,
Governor of Tasmania
The governor of Tasmania is the representative in the Australian state of Tasmania of the monarch, currently King Charles III. The incumbent governor is Barbara Baker, who was appointed in June 2021. The official residence of the governor is Gov ...
1893–1900.
Mount Lyell Post Office opened on 1 January 1891, was renamed ''Gormanston'' in 1894 and closed in 1979.
It is the only remaining townsite that lies in effect 'in' the
West Coast Range
The West Coast Range is a mountain range located in the West Coast, Tasmania, West Coast region of Tasmania, Australia.
The range lies to the west and north of the main parts of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park.
The range has h ...
.
It was a major settlement of employees of the
Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, especially of those who were employed at parts of its workings that were located in the North Lyell and open cut areas.
At the peak of its population and importance, Gormanston had its own local government authority, of which mine manager
R. M. Murray was the long-standing Warden.
The company also had a daily bus to take workers down to the mine and plant in Queenstown.
It was the nearest community to the
1912 North Mount Lyell Disaster and was used as a base by company officials attending to this disaster.
[* (Available at Galley Museum Queenstown)]
Considerable numbers of buildings have been removed to other locations, and the local government authority was absorbed into the new '
West Coast Council' and the adjacent Mount Lyell workings have been closed down.
It is the closest settlement to
Lake Burbury, a hydro created lake from the damming of the
King River.
There are currently no other settlement or other buildings on the
Lyell Highway towards
Hobart
Hobart ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent, it is the southernmost capital city in Australia. Despite containing nearly hal ...
until
Derwent Bridge.
There are booklets available in the
Galley Museum in Queenstown, that give historical information about the town in its heyday, and in particular lists of registered inhabitants in the early 1900s.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
* http://www.rootsweb.com/~austas/gormans.htm - for residents in 1910
Mining towns in Tasmania
Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company
West Coast Range
North Mount Lyell Railway
Localities of West Coast Council
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