Dunwich

History

Originally known as Goompi (or Koompe) by the Indigenous Nunukul people, it was later renamed Green Point and then Dunwich by British colonists. Large shell middens around Dunwich indicated that semi-permanent Aboriginal settlement in the vicinity has existed for at least the past 40,000 years. The Dunwich area was used as an initiation site and the population lived mostly off the sea, with fish, oysters and dugong (yungon) being important in their diet and culture. Special nets made with twine produced from tree bark were used up until the 1930s to capture dugong. Attractive dillybags (kulai) were made from reeds by the women of the area. The first British establishment at Dunwich was built in 1827 as a cargo depot, military outpost and convict station to service the larger nearby Moreton Bay Penal Settlement. The convicts assigned at Dunwich were put to work cutting and preparing timber from cedar logs which were rafted across the bay from the mainland. They also laboured on a cotton plantation formed there and worked to unload and transfer shipping cargo. Dunwich was named by Sir Ralph Darling on 16 July 1827, in honour of Viscount Dunwich, the Earl of Stradbroke, father of Captain Henry John Rous RN, commander of HMS Rainbow, which carried Governor Darling to Moreton Bay and surveyed the immediate Dunwich area. Aboriginal people were displaced from Dunwich by this British outpost and conflict occurred between the invaders and the Nunukul around 1830. In 1832, the convict station and outpost at Dunwich was closed, however it was still used as a timber depot until 1837. The Benevolent Asylum itself was moved to Sandgate in 1946. The main cemetery on the island contains the graves of over 10,000 people, most of which are unmarked. Other small cemeteries were…

Most-observed species

• koala

  Phascolarctos cinereus (Goldfuss, 1817) · Mammalia
  4,401
• Rainbow Lorikeet

  Trichoglossus haematodus (Linnaeus, 1771) · Aves
  3,263
• Australian Ibis

  Threskiornis molucca (Cuvier, 1829) · Aves
  3,118
• Torresian Crow

  Corvus orru Bonaparte, 1850 · Aves
  3,060
• Noisy Miner

  Manorina melanocephala (Latham, 1801) · Aves
  2,991
• Masked Lapwing

  Vanellus miles (Boddaert, 1783) · Aves
  2,982
• Australian Magpie

  Gymnorhina tibicen (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  2,926
• Welcome Swallow

  Hirundo neoxena Gould, 1842 · Aves
  2,917