Thornborough is a rural town and

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 ...

in the

Shire of Mareeba The Shire of Mareeba is a Local government in Australia, local government area at the base of Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, inland from Cairns, Queensland, Cairns. The shire, administered from the town of Mareeba, Queensland, Mare ...

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 , the locality of Thornborough had a population of 21 people. The town rose to prominence in the 1870s as a gold mining town in the Hodgkinson Minerals Area. Today, there are very few buildings remaining in the town.

Geography

The town of Kingsborough, another former mining town, is located to the north-east of the town of Thornborough (). Beaconsfield is a neighbourhood within the east of the locality (). Thornborough has the following mountains: * Bulls Pinnacles in the east of the locality () * Mount Mcleod in the south-east of the locality () * Mount Roberts in the north-west of the locality () Mount Mulligan Road enters the locality from the south ( Dimbulah), passes the town of Thornborough to the south-east, and then exits to the north-west ( Mount Mulligan). The Thornborough Kingsborough Road commences from Mount Mulligan Road as it passes the town of Thornborough and provides access to the towns of Thornborough and Kingsborough. The Hodgkinson River rises in Glen Russell to the east and then flows through the locality through the town of Thornborough before exiting to the north-west (Mount Mulligan). It ultimately becomes a tributary of the

Mitchell River Mitchell River may refer to: Australia *Mitchell River (Queensland) *Mitchell River (Victoria) *Mitchell River (Western Australia) *Mann River (New South Wales) is sometimes referred to as Mitchell River. Canada *Mitchell River (Cross River) *Mit ...

, which flows into the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...

. The land use is

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...

on native vegetation, but there are many former gold mines in and around the towns of Thornborough and Kingsborough.

History

Thornborough was named in 1876 after George Henry Thorn, the then

Queensland Premier The premier of Queensland is the head of government in the Australian state of Queensland. By convention the premier is the leader of the party with a parliamentary majority in the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. The premier is appointed ...

. By May 1877, the streets were laid out and named after pioneers of north Queensland, such as James Venture Mulligan and William (Billy) McLeod and Muirson. Thornborough Provisional School opened circa 1878. In 1909, it became Thornborough State School. It operated as a half-time school in conjunction with Dimbulah School (meaning the schools shared a single teacher) in 1918 and then closed. It reopened in 1920 and closed on 1925. Kingsborough State School opened circa 1882 and closed in 1924. Wolfram Camp Provisional School opened in 1905. On 1 January 1909, it became Wolfram Camp State School and was renamed that year to be Wolfram State School. It closed in 1930, reopened in 1938 and then closed finally circa 1940.

Demographics

In the , the locality of Thornborough had a population of 9 people. In the , the locality of Thornborough had a population of 21 people.

Heritage listings

Thorborough 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: * General Grant Mine, off Dimbulah–Mount Mulligan Road, Kingsborough () * Kingsborough Battery, off former East Street (now Kingsborough–Thornborough Road), Kingsborough () * Tyrconnel Mine and Battery, Kingsborough–Thornborough Road ()

Education

There are no schools in the locality of Thornborough. The nearest government primary school is Dimbulah State School in neighbouring Dimbulah to the south. The nearest government secondary schools are Dimbulah State School (to Year 10) and Mareeba State High School (to Year 12) in

Mareeba Mareeba is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia. Between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Region. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning ''meeting of the water ...

to the east. However, students in some parts of the locality may be too distant to attend either of these schools; 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. There is a Catholic primary school in Dimbulah, while Mareeba has both a Catholic primary and secondary schools.

References

External links

{{authority control Towns in Queensland Shire of Mareeba Mining towns in Queensland Localities in Queensland