Stradbroke Island Timeline

By Grace Floyd

  • James Cook

    James Cook found and named places around Stradbroke such as Point Lookout.

  • Minjerribah people help Matthew Flinders

    Minjerribah people helped Matthew Flinders find water he and his ship came ashore near Cylinder becah. This was possibly the first contact betweeen Aboriginals and Europens.

  • Pamphlett, Finnegan & Parson

    Pamphlett, Finnegan & Parson spent 8 months at Mortean Island after being shipwrecked, Nonnucalls (locals at Amity Point) looked after them and thaught them skills to survive.

  • Naming of Stradbroke Island

    Minjerribah renamed Stradbroke by Govener Darling in honour of Captain Earl Stradbroke. He captained the first ship to enter Mortean Bay.

  • Cotton Plantation

    Cotton Plantation established at Myora but ended shortly after.

  • Converting Aboriginals

    Missionaries set up a project to convert Aboriginals, but broke 3 years later.

  • Quarentine Station

    Dunwich Proclaimed Mortean bays quarentine station. Immagrents arrived with typhus - all 56 died and were burried at Dunwich Cemetry.

  • Closure of Quarentine

    The Dunwich quarentine was closed but it was still continues to be used as it became important as there were many sicknesses going around.

  • Asylum to house elderly and homeless.

    Asylum was created to house Mortean Bays elderly and homeless.

  • Billy North

    Lease for land was granted to Billy North at Point Lookout. He ran cattle and supplied meat to Dunwich asylum. Then converted into a fish cannery at two mile beach.

  • Campus Wallace

    Was wrecked into a narrow point of the island... After strong winds 2 years later and explosives in the ship exploding, it seperated the island, created North and South Stradbroke Island,

  • Tourism at Point lookout

    Tourism began at Point lookout.

  • Lighthouse

    Lighthouse at point lookout was built.

  • Sand Mining

    Sand Mining began by Zinc Corp. on Stradbroke island.

  • Mining

    Consoliated Rutile began mining.

  • Ferries

    Barge Lookout began operating from Cleveland and Stradbroke Ferries began operating firstly the Myora and then the Moongoolba.

  • Dunwich settlement into timber depot.

    November: the fourth Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony, Captain
    James Clunie, requested that the Dunwich settlement be closed. His request was
    granted. After it closed, it became a timber depot.
    • January 1831-December 1832: 10 or more violent clashes occurred between
    Stradbroke Island Aborigines and Europeans stationed at Dunwich and Amity.

  • Deadmans Beach.

    A ship filled with sugar cane machinery sunk off of Point Lookout. 50 years later a skeleton and boot was found in the sand of what is now known as deadmans beach. The belongings believed to be the ships cook.

  • Ben Clayton

    The first postal and telephone services began at Point lookout, which was hand stung by Ben Clayton.