"A" is for Alice, Alma and Anderssen - street naming in the Hinchinbrook Shire

 

In the Hinchinbrook Shire there are 608 roads/lanes/streets. When I started out on the project to discover the reason why each of those were named I didn’t anticipate the scale of the task I was taking on. While the reason for the naming of some were obvious, many were not and there were those that could only be guessed at or at worst not able to be explained at all.

Let’s take a look at those streets of HALIFAX that begin with the letter A.

The first land taken up for agricultural crops, including sugar, was in the low coastal reaches of the Herbert River. Because of the river’s length it was demarcated into two areas, upper and lower. The Lower Herbert’s major business centre became Halifax. Land along the lower Herbert that had been surveyed for a town selection was sold off in the 1881 ‘land rush’ for agriculture to small selectors who hoped to grow sugar cane. The few remaining blocks were later sold as township blocks but unfortunately in a flood the riverbank gave way and these blocks were washed into the river.

After that catastrophe, one of those who had purchased land in the ‘rush’ was August Anderssen who offered some of his land for sale as township allotments. Anderssen engaged a surveyor and auctioneer and a Government land auction was held in 1886 and so the town of Halifax was born, taking its name from the neighbouring Halifax Bay, which Captain Janes Cook had named in 1770. 

So, starting with A.

Firstly, we first have ACACIA ROAD. There are many roads and streets named for flora or fauna in the district and this is one of them. Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae. More commonly this genus is known as acacia, mimosa, thorn tree or wattle.

ALICE STREET. The street was named for the mother of artist John Coburn. His mother Alice Biggs married Edgar Cockburn in Halifax in 1922. John was born in Ingham in 1925. Edgar was a bank accountant and so with his transfer to the Darling Downs, the family moved there. Edgar passed away in 1936, so Alice returned to Halifax to live with her mother Christina Biggs (nee Beatts).

Alice and her sister Jess opened a clothing store in Halifax and this business continued until Alice remarried in 1939 to Walter Beatts. They had two sons, Geoffrey and Barry.

Source: Herbert River Express September 1973

ALMA STREET was possibly named for Alma Uliana Anderssen, eighth child of August and Eva Anderssen (nee Johannesdotter). Alma married Charles Otto Randell in 1906 in Halifax. She died in Tully in 1928. Her parents, August and Eva, were pioneering small farmers.

ANDERSSEN STREET is named for August and Eva Anderssen who are variously described as Swedish or Norwegian because when they immigrated to Australia Sweden and Norway were a single political entity known as the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway (1814–1905). Foreign nations categorized Swedish and Norwegian citizens together, commonly referring to them in immigration records as Scandinavians. August was a carpenter and wheelwright who first worked for Arthur and Frank Neame of Macknade Plantation. He took up land in 1880 in lower Herbert.  His family home was called Riverview (the original house was relocated to become the Halifax Hotel). He was the inaugural chairman of the Herbert River Farmers' Association which was founded in 1882 to negotiate for small farmers to supply cane to Victoria Plantation Mill for crushing.

Terry Lyons, A little of the story of August Anderssen “The Father of Halifax”.

ARGAET STREET. Many streets are named for former Hinchinbrook Shire Councillors. Argaet Street was named for Joseph William Argaet who was a Hinchinbrook Shire Councillor from 1947 to 1955. He was born in Charters Towers and served in World War 1 on the Western Front as a Private with the 1st Australian Machine Gun Battalion. He returned to Australia in 1919 and came to the Hinchinbrook district in1920 as a locomotive driver at Macknade Mill. He was the President of the Halifax Australian Labour Party until he left the party and joined the Democratic Labour Party after the split in 1955. In that same year he took up farming at Abergowrie. The street name was approved in 1974.

Another instalment of Halifax streets and the origins of their names to follow!

Sources include:

‘John Coburn (1925 – 2006)’. Blog entry researched by Christopher and Vivienne Parry for blog Interpreting Ingham History.

HSC Box 195 Naming of Roads, Streets and Parks etc.

Terry Lyons, A little of the story of August Anderssen “The Father of Halifax”.

Janice Wegner, Hinchinbrook: A History of local government in the Hinchinbrook Shire, M.A. thesis, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1984.

Wikipedia