Duchess, Queensland

Duchess - Destination Information - Queensland

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Duchess is a town and a locality in the Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia.

Video Duchess, Queensland

Geography

The town is in the east of the locality. The Cloncurry Duchess Road passes through the locality from south to east, passing through the town. The Great Northern railway passes through the locality from east to north-west, passing through the town which is served by the Duchess railway station. The area has a train platform which leads to Cloncurry and Mount Isa. Duchess is surrounded by a series of stations including Mayfield station and Stradbroke station.

In the north of the locality, there is a watershed separating into three drainage basins. The Leichhardt River and its east branch rise in the north of the locality and flows north into the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Malbon River rises in the north-east of the locality and flows north-east into the Cloncurry River and ultimately into the Flinders River and into the Gulf of Carpentaria. While the Wills Creek, Green Creek and Pigrim Creek which rise in the south of the locality flow south and into the Bourke River and ultimately into the Georgina River which theoretically flows into Lake Eyre, but only rarely is there sufficient water for this occur.

Maps Duchess, Queensland

History

The town's name was derived from the name of the mine, which was named by pastoralist Alexander Kennedy when his son John Peter Kennedy discovered a deposit of copper there in 1897 and led to the founding of the town. (Alexander Kennedy would later be the first passenger on a Qantas plane from Cloncurry.) Duchess was the name or nickname of the Aboriginal consort of pastoralist St John de Satge (who was nicknamed "The Duke", who had run away and sought refuge at Kennedy's Calton Downs station. A 1987 map indicates that Duchess was previously named Mairindi.

In the 1911 census, the town had a population of 397. By 1915 the population boomed to over 1000. By the 1920s, the town's population dropped. At its peak and for a while afterwards, Duchess was home to four pubs, a school, a post office, a train station, and four automobile garages.