Lockhart River is a town in the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River and a coastal locality split between the Aboriginal Shire of Lockhart River and the Shire of Cook, on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. The town is an Aboriginal community. In the , Lockhart River had a population of 724 people.
From 1924 to 1967, the Lockhart River Mission was run by the Anglican Church.
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).
It is north by road from Cairns and approximately by road north of Brisbane. Lockhart River is the northernmost town on the east coast of Australia. The community is also located approximately inland from Quintell Beach and within the Kutini-Payamu National Park.
History
Early European 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. Kennedy left eight men at the camp but by the time they were located by the supply ship, only two remained alive, the other six having died from disease and starvation.
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.
Lockhart River Mission (1924–1967) 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.
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 created in 1954 by the Rev. Alf Clint for the management of the trochus shell industry, until the market failed. New houses were built and a village was created on the ocean side.
In 1967, the church handed over the mission to the Queensland government, which tried to relocate the people to Bamaga. Most of the people refused to go. In 1968–1969, the people were relocated from the traditional area of the Uutaalnganu people on the coast to a new site in Kuuku Ya'u country, further north and inland from Quintel Beach. This move and the assimilation policy of the new administration resulted in much discontent and friction.
The Lockhart River Community was given Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) title to the lands in 1987. Locally elected councillors now provide administration for the Lockhart River DOGIT.
Other 20th-century history
Lockhart State School opened on January 1, 1924.
During World War II, Lockhart River Airport was constructed as a large American bomber base with three airstrips operating. The US bombers flew to Papua New Guinea and were met by their fighter escorts based at Bamaga and Horn Island further north. Many thousands of troops, both US and Australian, passed through as part of their jungle training before being shipped to southeast Asia, and many sorties from the base were flown against Japanese forces during the critical Battle of the Coral Sea, May 4–8, 1942. Portland Roads community, north of Lockhart River, was the supply port for the war effort with a large jetty. This jetty has since been removed. Many old bunkers and rusting 44 gallon drums can still be found in bush areas.