Lockhart River

History

Lockhart River takes its name from the river located south of the community. The river was named by explorer Robert Logan Jack in January 1880, after a close friend, Hugh Lockhart. Non-Indigenous people first arrived in 1848, when the explorer Edmund Kennedy set up a base camp near the mouth of the Pascoe River at Weymouth Bay. By the 1870s, fishermen with luggers looking for trepang, pearl shell, and trochus were in the coastal areas. Miners in search of tin and gold, along with timber cutters, were in the hills around Gordon Creek and the country inland around the Wenlock River. The Anglican Church established a mission at Orchid Point near the Lockhart River in 1924, at a location that had been a centre of a sandalwood trade. Aboriginal people came and were collected from parts of the Cape York Peninsula and placed at the mission, known as the Lockhart River Mission, Old Lockhart River Mission, or just Lockhart Mission. Six months later, the mission was relocated to Bare Hill, south of Cape Direction. In the 1930s, Lamalama people were forcibly relocated to the mission from the Port Stewart area, but they later returned. In 1939, many people who had earlier been removed from Coen to the mission, returned to the Coen area. Lockhart State School opened on 1 January 1924. Iron Range Post Office opened on 5 November 1936, closed in 1942, reopened in 1950, and was renamed Lockhart River in 1978. After the Second World War broke out, the European superintendent went on furlough in 1942, and the Aboriginal people were told to go to several bush camps and fend for themselves. After six months, in July 1942, the mission was reopened but with poor resources and a lack of funding. Things improved under superintendent John Warby in the 1950s. A cooperative society was…

Geography

Lockhart River is a coastal Aboriginal community situated on the eastern coast of the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. The population consists mostly of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, whose ancestors were forcibly moved to the area beginning in 1924. The locality includes a number of islands off the east coast: Chapman Island, Lloyd Island, Rocky Island, Sherrard Island, and Sunter Island (all of which are in the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River).

Most-observed species

• Yellow-spotted Honeyeater

  Meliphaga notata (Gould, 1867) · Aves
  2,465
• Eclectus Parrot

  Eclectus roratus (Statius Muller, 1776) · Aves
  2,179
• Rufous Shrikethrush

  Colluricincla rufogaster Gould, 1845 · Aves
  2,094
• Magnificent Riflebird

  Ptiloris magnificus (Vieillot, 1819) · Aves
  2,056
• Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

  Cacatua galerita (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  1,948
• Graceful Honeyeater

  Microptilotis gracilis (Gould, 1866) · Aves
  1,930
• Australian Brushturkey

  Alectura lathami J.E.Gray, 1831 · Aves
  1,892
• Green Oriole

  Oriolus flavocinctus (King, 1826) · Aves
  1,844

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2025-10-29
  149 km ESE of Mission River, Australia
• M 4.5 — 2025-10-27
  138 km E of Mission River, Australia
• M 4.8 — 2007-11-19
  195 km E of Mission River, Australia