Lockhart River is a town in the

Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River The Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia. In the , the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River had a population of 640 people. Geography It is on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula ...

and a coastal

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 ...

split between the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River and the

Shire of Cook The Shire of Cook (The Shire) is a local government area in Far North Queensland, Australia. The Shire covers most of the eastern and central parts of Cape York Peninsula, the most northerly section of the Australian mainland. It covers an area ...

, on the

Cape York Peninsula The Cape York Peninsula is a peninsula located in Far North Queensland, Australia. It is the largest wilderness in northern Australia.Mittermeier, R.E. et al. (2002). Wilderness: Earth's last wild places. Mexico City: Agrupación Sierra Madre, ...

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. The town is an Aboriginal community. From 1924 to 1967, the Lockhart River Mission was run by the

Anglican Church 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 ...

. In the , the locality of Lockhart River had a population of 640 people.

Geography

Lockhart River is a coastal Aboriginal community situated on the eastern coast of the

in Queensland, Australia. The population consists mostly of Aboriginal and

Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders ( ) are the Indigenous Melanesians, Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal peoples of the res ...

, whose ancestors were forcibly moved to the area beginning in 1924. The locality includes a number of islands off the east coast: Chapman Island,

Lloyd Island Lloyd Island is an island in the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River, Queensland, Australia. Geography Lloyd Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Lloyd Bay between Lockhart River, Queensland, Lockhart River and Cape Directi ...

, Rocky Island,

Sherrard Island Sherrard Island is an island in the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River in Queensland, Australia. Geography It is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park north-west of Cape Melville, Queensland and north-east of Coen between the first op ...

, and

Sunter Island Sunter Island is an island in the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River, Queensland, Australia. Geography It is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Lloyd Bay between Lockhart River and Cape Direction, Queensland Queensland ( , ...

(all of which are in the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River). It is north by road from

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 ...

and approximately by road north of

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 ...

. Lockhart River is the northernmost town on the east coast of Australia. The community is also located approximately inland from Quintell Beach and within the Kutini-Payamu National Park.

History

Early European history

Lockhart River takes its name from the river located south of the community. The river was named by explorer Robert Logan Jack in January 1880, after a close friend, Hugh Lockhart. Non-

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

people first arrived in 1848, when the explorer

Edmund Kennedy Edmund Besley Court Kennedy J. P. (5 September 1818 – December 1848) was an explorer in Australia in the mid-19th century. He was the Assistant-Surveyor of New South Wales, working with Thomas Mitchell (explorer), Sir Thomas Mitchell. Kenned ...

set up a base camp near the mouth of the Pascoe River at Weymouth Bay. Kennedy left eight men at the camp but by the time they were located by the supply ship, only two remained alive, the other six having died from disease and starvation. By the 1870s, fishermen with

lugger A lugger is a sailing vessel defined by its rig, using the lug sail on all of its one or more masts. Luggers were widely used as working craft, particularly off the coasts of France, England, Ireland and Scotland. Luggers varied extensively ...

s looking for trepang, pearl shell, and trochus were in the coastal areas. Miners in search of tin and gold, along with timber cutters, were in the hills around Gordon Creek and the country inland around the

Wenlock River The Wenlock River is a river located on the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia. Course and features The river rises on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range below Jacks Knob, west of Nundah homestead. The river ...

Lockhart River Mission (1924–1967)

The

established a

mission Mission (from Latin 'the act of sending out'), Missions or The Mission may refer to: Geography Australia *Mission River (Queensland) Canada *Mission, British Columbia, a district municipality * Mission, Calgary, Alberta, a neighbourhood * ...

at Orchid Point near the Lockhart River in 1924, at a location that had been a centre of a

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods. Sanda ...

trade.

Aboriginal people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

came and were collected from parts of the

and placed at the mission, known as the Lockhart River Mission, Old Lockhart River Mission, or just Lockhart Mission. Six months later, the mission was relocated to Bare Hill, south of Cape Direction. In the 1930s, Lamalama people were forcibly relocated to the mission from the Port Stewart area, but they later returned. In 1939, many people who had earlier been removed from Coen to the mission, returned to the Coen area. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

broke out, the European superintendent went on furlough in 1942, and the Aboriginal people were told to go to several bush camps and fend for themselves. After six months, in July 1942, the

was reopened but with poor resources and a lack of funding. Things improved under superintendent John Warby in the 1950s. A

cooperative society A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democra ...

was created in 1954 by the Rev.

Alf Clint William Alfred Clint (8 January 1906 – 21 April 1980) was an Australian priest in the Church of England in Australia (as the Anglican Church of Australia was then called). He established a number of Aboriginal co-operatives on behalf of the ...

for the management of the trochus shell industry, until the market failed. New houses were built and a village was created on the ocean side. In 1967, the church handed over the mission to 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, ...

, which tried to relocate the people to

Bamaga Bamaga ( , ) is an Indigneous town and locality about from the northern tip of Cape York in the north of Queensland, Australia. It is within the Northern Peninsula Area Region. It is one of the northernmost settlements in continental Australi ...

. Most of the people refused to go. In 1968–1969, the people were relocated from the traditional area of the Uutaalnganu people on the coast to a new site in Kuuku Ya'u country, further north and inland from Quintel Beach. This move and the assimilation policy of the new administration resulted in much discontent and friction. The Lockhart River Community was given

Deed of Grant in Trust A Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) is the name for a system of community-level land trust established in Queensland to administer former Aboriginal reserves and missions. They came about through the enactment by the Queensland Government of the '' ...

(DOGIT) title to the lands in 1987. Locally elected councillors now provide administration for the Lockhart River DOGIT.

Other 20th-century history

Lockhart State School opened on January 1, 1924. During World War II,

Lockhart River Airport Lockhart River Airport (also known as Iron Range Airport) is an airport in Lockhart River, Queensland, Australia, located approximately north of Cairns on the eastern coast of Cape York Peninsula. Being so remote with the road to Lockhart R ...

was constructed as a large American bomber base with three airstrips operating. The US bombers flew to

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

and were met by their fighter escorts based at

and Horn Island further north. Many thousands of troops, both US and Australian, passed through as part of their jungle training before being shipped to

southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

, and many sorties from the base were flown against Japanese forces during the critical

Battle of the Coral Sea The Battle of the Coral Sea, from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia. Taking place in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the battle ...

, May 4–8, 1942. Portland Roads community, north of Lockhart River, was the supply port for the war effort with a large

jetty A jetty is a man-made structure that protrudes from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater (structure), breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French la ...

. This jetty has since been removed. Many old bunkers and rusting

44 gallon drum A drum (also called a barrel) is a cylindrical shipping container used for shipping bulk cargo. Drums can be made of steel, dense paperboard (commonly called a fiber drum), or plastic, and are generally used for the transportation and storage of ...

s can still be found in bush areas. Iron Range Post Office opened on November 5, 1936, closed in 1942, reopened in 1950, and was renamed Lockhart River in 1978. On May 7, 2005, a

Fairchild Aircraft Fairchild was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company based at various times in Farmingdale, New York; Hagerstown, Maryland; and San Antonio, Texas. History Early aircraft The company was founded by Sherman Fairchild in 19 ...

Inc. SA227-DC Metro 23 aircraft, registered VH-TFU, with two pilots and 13 passengers, was being operated by Transair on an instrument flight rules regular public transport service from Bamaga to Cairns, with an intermediate stop at Lockhart River, Queensland. At 1143:39 Eastern Standard Time, the aircraft impacted terrain in the Kutini-Payamu National Park on the north-western slope of South Pap, a heavily timbered ridge, approximately north-west of the Lockhart River aerodrome. At the time of the accident, the crew was conducting an area navigation global navigation satellite system (

GNSS A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geopositioning. A satellite navigation system with global coverage is termed global navigation satellite system (GNSS). , four global systems are op ...

) nonprecision approach to runway 12. The aircraft was destroyed by the impact forces and an intense, fuel-fed, post-impact fire. There were no survivors. On April 11, 2014, the former locality of Lockhart was split into two new localities:

Iron Range The Iron Range is collectively or individually a number of elongated iron-ore mining districts around Lake Superior in the United States and Canada. Much of the ore-bearing region lies alongside the range of granite hills formed by the Giants ...

and Lockhart River.

Governance

Lockhart River is both a town located in the

and a coastal locality split between the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River and the

Climate

Lockhart River has a

tropical savannah climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry "winter") and ''As'' (for a dry "summer"). The driest month has less than ...

( Köppen: Aw), with an oppressive

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 ...

between November and May and a

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 June and October with somewhat cooler temperatures and lower humidity. Temperatures remain warm to hot year-round, with average maxima varying from in July to in December. Due to its average annual rainfall of , Lockhart River only has 36.4 clear days annually. Extreme temperatures have ranged from on 19 November 1990 to on 20 July 1965.

Demographics

A mix of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders live in the community. The population is 650–700, with most being Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Approximately 30 are contract workers, including teachers, nurses, police, shop employees, council administration, council workshops, carpenters, and plumbers. The Lockhart River 'local' population consists of five different clan groups: the Wuthathi from the north of the Olive River; the Kuuku Ya'u from Lloyd Bay and Weymouth Bay; the Uutaalnganu from the Lockhart River south to Friendly Point; the Umpila from Friendly Point to the Massey River; and the Kaanju from the inland mountain areas behind the coast. Most of the population lives in the community town area. There are two Outstations." The first is at 'Old Site' and is normally used only during the dry season when vehicles can drive to that location on a rough inland road. It is sometimes used as a "weekender" by some local families during the calm weather over the Christmas-January period. The second Outstation is at Chilli Beach and is normally occupied all year by the Hobson family group. It remains accessible by road and water most of the time. A number of smaller communities also exist: Wattle Hills Station, Pascoe River 'Farm', Chili Beach, Packer's Bay and Portland Roads. Wattle Hills Station is located just inside the mouth of the Pascoe River, north of Lockhart River. It is a share arrangement for persons opting out of mainstream society. Approximately 30 persons live in open-plan style houses. This station has its own airstrip and mail service once a week. Some of the houses have telephones connected and all are linked by their own private

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

radio network under the Rural Fires scheme. The Pascoe River 'farm' is located on the banks of the Pascoe River quite some distance inland. Access to the farm is from the main Lockhart River to

Archer River The Archer River is a river located on the Cape York Peninsula, Far North Queensland, Australia. Course and features The headwaters of the river rise in the McIlwraith Range and it flows west, traversing tropical savanna plains and wetlands ...

road, from the Lockhart River community. A track leads a further to the farm. It is occupied by the Fyfe extended family group. Approximately 10 to 15 people live on the farm. Chilli Beach has a number of dwellings squatting along the secluded beaches and headlands. Approximately 10–20 people live there. Packer's Bay also has a number of open-plan and full residential style houses occupied by people opting out of mainstream society. Approximately 10 people live there. The Portland Roads community is a standard housing area with some open-plan style houses and no power, water, or sewerage facilities. It was predominantly a fishing community until the recent changes to the Fisheries Regulations. Many prawn trawlers, crab boats, and yachts use this sheltered anchorage. Approximately 10 people live here. In the , the town of Lockhart River had a population of 542 people. In the , the town of Lockhart River had a population 642 people. In the , the locality of Lockhart River had a population of 724 people. In the , the locality of Lockhart River had a population of 640 people.

Education

Lockhart State School is a government primary and secondary (Early Childhood-12) school for boys and girls at Puchewoo Street (). In 2017, the school had an enrolment of 97 students with 14 teachers and 1 non-teaching staff. It includes a

special education Special education (also known as special-needs education, aided education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, and SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates their individual di ...

programme.

Amenities

The Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Council operates an Indigenous Knowledge Centre, which includes a library, on Poucheewee Street.

Notable people

* Rosella Namok, artist

References

External links

Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Council - Official WebsiteUniversity of Queensland: Queensland Places: Lockhart RiverState of Queensland's Department of Communities webpage "Lockhart River"
small> Accessed 1 August 2009 {{authority control Towns in Queensland Populated places in Far North Queensland Aboriginal communities in Queensland Queensland in World War II Shire of Cook Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River Coastline of Queensland Localities in Queensland