Local Toponymy

Toponymy is the study of place-names.  The original Weipa North township area was developed on Alngith land during the mid-1960s, however the place-name Weipa refers to the location of the original Weipa Presbyterian Mission situated on the upper reaches of the Embley River, over 30 kilometres east-south-east of Weipa.  Weipa is a word in the Anathangayth language (pronounced Waypa or Waypenden) meaning ‘fighting ground’ – a ceremonial place where cultural lore and social interaction of surrounding tribes was conducted.

When the Weipa Mission moved downstream to Jessica Point on the Embley River in 1932-1933, the community’s name continued at the new site.  After formation of the mining town in the mid-1960s, the Queensland Government renamed the two communities Weipa North and Weipa South.  Today Weipa South is named Napranum (meeting place of the people) and Weipa North is just known as Weipa.  Weipa North township was created as separate town area from the Cook Shire in 1967 and progressively expanded as suburbs developed.

Streets and roads at Weipa North were named progressively as the town developed and expanded.  Every Tuesday of the month, historian Geoff Wharton will be providing the origins of Weipa place-names for our Facebook site.

From the first houses constructed in 1965, the early streets west of Central Avenue were named courts.  Architect Don Fulton (1925-2018) wrote that to ‘help give a sense of identity the houses are grouped into alternating courts of eight and sixteen units, served by access lanes, thus eliminating through traffic’.

The Weipa Town Plan published in 1967.

As the areas east of Central Avenue and the suburbs of Trunding, Nanum and Golf Links Estate developed, the layout concepts varied from Fulton’s original principles.  The Evans Landing industrial suburb commenced in the early 1960s as a construction camp.  Street names were added there in later years as more permanent light industrial facilities were developed by local contracting firms.

Street names in the original Weipa North township and the Trunding suburb were selected by Comalco staff.  The names were derived from local and non-local Aboriginal names, botanical, historical and regional place-names.  In what would be culturally insensitive today, the non-local Aboriginal names in the original township were chosen from a list published in Australian Home Beautiful magazine in 1964!

The author has utilised archival and published resources in the Cape York Collection, Hibberd Library, operated by the Weipa Town Authority.  He thanks the many people in the Napranum and Weipa communities who have assisted with local knowledge of place-names over the past four decades.  He also gratefully acknowledges advice over many years from Bill Kitson PSM and Kaye Nardella, Museum of Lands, Mapping and Surveying, Brisbane.

An aerial oblique view looking west, of the developing town in about 1966.  On the right side are the single men’s quarters and mess in the foreground, with the minimarket, wet canteen and snack bar / post office buildings in the background.
Courtesy Ray Roberts slide collection, Cape York Collection, Hibberd Library.

Awonga Court 

Awonga Court was the location of the first houses constructed in 1965 in Weipa North.  The court name is derived from the place-name Awonga Point on the south side of the Mission River.  The correct linguistic spelling of the name should be Uwang.  The name Awonga Point first appeared on a survey plan of the Weipa Peninsula by John Embley in 1897.

Footings for the first house being prepared in the future Awonga Court site, May 1965.
Commonwealth Aluminium Corporation Limited. Weipa Bauxite Mining Expansion 1964-1967 Album, Cape York Collection.

Duyfken Crescent, Trunding.

Situated in Trunding (also known as Neighbourhood 2) – the second suburb developed at Weipa North during the mid-1970s – Duyfken Crescent probably takes its name from the local coastal feature, Duyfken Point.  The Point was named on 8 November 1802 by Commander Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) during the circumnavigation of Australia by the crew of HMS Investigator.  Flinders noted in his published journal ‘This point is one of the very few remarkable projections to be found on this low coast, but it is not noticed in the Dutch chart; there is little doubt, however, that it was seen in 1606, in the yacht Duyfhen, the first vessel which discovered any part of Carpentaria; and that the remembrance may not be lost, I gave the name of the vessel to the point’.

Based on a copy of the Duyfken chart held in the Austrian National Archives – of which Flinders was not aware – the Duyfken crew did record the point on the chart, but that was on their journey southwards from the river we now know as the Pennefather.  Various writers have mistakenly stated that Duyfken Point was the place of first contact between Indigenous Australians and Europeans, but in fact the accepted place was somewhere near today’s Mapoon community.  An aluminium silhouette of the Duyfken is a prominent feature of the First Contact Memorial at Mapoon.  In 2000, a replica of the Duyfken vessel visited Weipa.

The Duyfken replica vessel anchored south of the Pennefather River, August 2000.
Image courtesy of Dave Donald.

Hibberd Drive

Probably named in 1983 to mark the opening of the Hibberd Centre, this road commemorates Sir Donald James Hibberd (1916-1982), one of the founders of Comalco Limited (now Rio Tinto Aluminium).  Don Hibberd was first employed by Commonwealth Aluminium Corporation Pty Limited in 1957.  Appointed Managing Director of Comalco from 1960 to 1969 and Chairman from 1969 to 1978, Hibberd was a leading contributor to the development of the integrated aluminium industry in Australia.

The Hibberd Centre – which includes the Weipa Town Authority offices, the Hibberd Library and other facilities – was formerly the Comalco mini-market until the Nanum shopping centre opened in 1981.

Sir Donald Hibberd, 1978.

 

Acacia Court

Constructed in 1974, this court was one of many Weipa streets named after botanical genera.  The word Acacia is derived from the Greek akis, a sharp point.  There are several Acacia species in the Weipa area, for example Acacia rothii, which is named after the Queensland Northern Protector of Aboriginals, Dr Walter Edmund Roth (1861-1933), who collected the type specimen at Mapoon, probably in 1899.

Towards the end of the wet season, Acacia rothii trees present a lovely display with a profusion of white flowers.  The language name for this tree at both Mapoon and Weipa / Napranum is la.  The heartwood is hard and was used traditionally to manufacture digging sticks and spear points.

Acacia rothii in flower.

The type specimen of Acacia rothii held by the Queensland Herbarium in Brisbane, recording the plant collection at the mouth of the Batavia River (now Wenlock River), by W.E. Roth.
Image courtesy: Queensland Herbarium and Biodiversity Science.

Dr Walter Roth photographed during a visit to Mapoon in May 1902.
Ward / Hey photo album, Cape York Collection.

Embley Street

Named in 1974, Embley Street commemorates the licensed surveyor, John Thomas Embley (1858-1937). Born at Castlemaine, Victoria, Embley was engaged under contract by the Queensland Department of Public Lands to survey cattle station boundaries on Cape York Peninsula during the 1880s and 1890s. He also surveyed the boundary of the Weipa Aboriginal Reserve, including the Weipa Peninsula, in 1897. Embley reported with considerable foresight on the area: ‘The Reserve consists of fairly grassed forest country, chiefly on a ferruginous sandstone formation. The soil in parts is of a red loamy description and although not so good as that higher up the river, it is of a fair agricultural character’. Referring to Urquhart Point [Mbang Point], Embley wrote that the point ‘in the future will be very useful as a shipping site for deep sea boats’.

The Embley River was named by Hon. John Douglas in December 1895 following a brief hydrographic survey on the Queensland Government Steamer Albatross. Embley had surveyed the York Downs runs in 1885 and he later purchased a share of the property, which he held from 1898 to about 1914. During the early years of Weipa Mission, Embley befriended the missionaries and was invited to lay the corner stone of the new church in 1904. He moved to Victoria in 1914 and little is known of his subsequent life until his passing in Melbourne on 30 September 1937.

J.T. Embley. 1887. (Source: R.L. Jack, Northmost Australia, 1921, opposite page 632.)

Lest We Forget.

John and Heather Tonkin at Weipa airport prior to John’s retirement, October 1980.
Bauxite Bulletin photographic collection, Cape York Collection.

Kookaburra Court, Golf Links Estate.

There are two species of Kookaburra in the Weipa area.  They are the Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae) and the Blue-winged Kookaburra (Dacelo leachii).  The raucous cackling call of the Blue-winged Kookaburra can be startling to those unacquainted with the sound!

A Blue-winged Kookaburra (Dacelo leachii) perched on a Messmate tree (Eucalyptus tetrodonta) at Weipa.
Image courtesy of Bronwyn Sisson Photography.

Flinders Street, Trunding.

Situated in Trunding (also known as Neighbourhood 2), the second suburb developed at Weipa North during the mid-1970s, Flinders Street commemorates Commander Matthew Flinders RN (1774-1814), who commanded HMS Investigator during the circumnavigation of Australia in 1802-1803.

On 7 November 1802, Flinders, with several members of his crew and botanist Robert Brown, made the expedition’s only examination of western Cape York Peninsula on the northern shore of a river which he called Coen River. That Coen River was renamed Pennefather River in 1894 to avoid confusion with the river which flows into the Archer River.

Brown collected at least 56 plant specimens on that day.   During the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland scientific expedition to the Pennefather River in November 2002, remarkably many of the same plants were found by botanists John Clarkson and David Mabberley.

Portrait of Captain Matthew Flinders, RN, 1774-1814
by Toussaint Antoine De Chazal De Chamarel (1770-1822)
Mauritius, 1806-1807, oil on canvas 64.5 x 50.0 cm
Gift of David Roche in memory of his father, J.D.K. Roche, and the South Australian Government 2000, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 20005P22.

Kerr Point Drive

Kerr Point was named after George Kerr (1853-1935), the master of the Queensland Government Steamer (QGS) Albatross. In December 1895, Kerr brought the QGS Albatross down from Thursday Island to investigate the bay, soon to be named Albatross, and its associated rivers. On board were the Government Resident from TI, Hon John Douglas CMG and Police Inspector F.C. Urquhart. Urquhart later wrote a paper in which he noted: ‘Leaving the Moravian Mission Station, Batavia River, on the morning of 17th December, 1895, the Albatross steamed south about 40 miles, arriving off Duyfken Point, a fairly bold headland for this coast, about noon. Our navigator, Captain George Kerr, decided that probably a deep channel would be found further south, so we steamed on a southerly course…’.

Following the expedition, Douglas sent a lengthy report to the Queensland Home Secretary. He noted that the ‘northern head of the Hey [actually the Mission River] I propose to name Kerr Point…’ and the sketch map sent with his report shows Kerr Pt.

While the sketch map published with Urquhart’s paper did not show Kerr Point, the name was in use by 1897 when surveyor J.T. Embley marked Pt. Kerr on his plan of the Weipa Aboriginal Reserve (C153.471).

According to his obituaries published in March 1935, George Kerr was born at Greenock, Scotland. Kerr was an experienced merchant seaman, who also served on the London Missionary Society’s steamer John Williams, later working as pearler in Torres Strait. In 1890, Kerr was licensed by the Marine Board of Queensland as a Coast Pilot for sailing vessels, then he joined the Queensland Government service in 1894 as master of the QGS Albatross. From 1908 until his retirement on 12 March 1920, he was master of the QGS John Douglas. George Kerr passed away in Brisbane on 1 March 1935.

Grateful acknowledgement to historian Dr Jonathan Richards, to David Jones at the Queensland Maritime Museum Library and State Library of Queensland staff for assistance with the research for this post.

Captain George Kerr (on the right) seated on board H.M.A.S. Suva anchored near Cairns, 28 July 1919.  The officer seated on Kerr’s right was the British Admiral of the Fleet, Viscount Jellicoe G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., R.N.  Photograph by A.L. Taylor, Cairns.  Image courtesy Queensland Maritime Museum, Brisbane.