Jimbour - Culture and History

In 1848 the Government Gazette listed it as an area of 200 000 acres owned by Thomas Bell and prior to that (it had been reduced in size in 1844) it had stretched from the Bunya Mountains to the Condamine and from the present site of Dalby to Jandowae.

Jimbour has two major claims to fame. Firstly it was the property from which Ludwig Leichhardt commenced his journey across western Queensland which eventually arrived at Port Essington in the Northern Territory. And secondly, in 1874 the owner, Thomas Bell, built one of the largest and most prestigious houses in rural Australia. It may be a small settlement but the claims it makes in the history of early Queensland are large.

Jimbour Station came into existence in 1842 when Henry Scougall settled in the area. Scougall's stay at Jimbour was brief. In 1845 an Irishman, Thomas Bell, purchased the property including all sheep and cattle, for £3 000. It was registered at this time as 'Gimba' or 'Jimba'. Both words were said to be the local Aboriginal word for 'good pastures'. A few years later the spelling was changed to Jimbour.

It was to this property that Ludwig Leichhardt came in August 1844.

Leichhardt had been in Australia for two years when he heard of plans for an expedition from Sydney to Port Essington - an outpost on the coast of the Northern Territory. The expedition was to be led by Sir Thomas Mitchell but governor of the time, Governor Gipps, declared that it was 'an expedition of so hazardous and expensive a nature, without the knowledge and consent of the Colonial Office.' Irritated by this delay Leichhardt organised his own expedition. With a party of six he left Sydney on 13 August 1844. They were joined by another four people in Moreton Bay. They then rode to Jimbour which, at the time was the last outpost of settlement. On 1 October they left Jimbour and for the next fifteen months they traversed western Queensland and the northeastern section of the Northern Territory (a distance of nearly 5000 km) arriving at Port Essington exhausted on 17 December 1845. When they finally returned to Sydney on 25 March 1846 Leichhardt was greeted as a hero and hailed as the 'Prince of Explorers'. By this time people in Sydney had assumed that the party had perished so much of their delight was based on surprise as much as an acknowledgement of Leichhardt's achievements. As a result of Leichhardt's glowing reports on the land beyond Jimbour there was a push for settlement of the Darling Downs, the Dawson River area and the Central Western region of Queensland.

Leichhardt's life was the subject of Patrick White's novel Voss. In the novel White describes Voss' (Leichhardt's) arrival at Jimbour in a wonderfully evocative passage which conjurs the riches that the Darling Downs still have to offer: 'By now the tall grass was almost dry, so that there issued from it a sharper sighing when the wind blew. The wind bent the grass into tawny waves, on the crests of which floated the last survivors of flowers, which shrivelled and were sucked under by the swell.'

The house in which Leichhardt stayed was a primitive slab hut which sadly burnt down in 1867. There is now a small timber cottage on the site which probably approximates to what the original dwelling was like.