page_title: Cardwell Divisional Board Hall
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cardwell Divisional Board Hall / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cardwell Roll of Honour, Cardwell Divisional Board Hall, 2016
context_page_description: Cardwell Divisional Board Hall is a heritage-listed former town hall at 51 Victoria Street, Cardwell, Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as the Cardwell Shire Chambers, Cardwell Shire Hall, JC Hubinger Memorial Museum, JC Hubinger Museum, and JC Hubinger Memorial Hall. The hall and its World War I honour roll were added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 March 2013.
context_section_description: The Cardwell Divisional Board Hall was originally constructed in 1892 and is located within an early government precinct on Victoria Street, Cardwell. Very few purpose-built divisional board halls or offices survive in Queensland. The timber building became the Cardwell Shire Hall in 1903, and a marble honour board was added in 1922. After the Cardwell Shire Council's administrative functions moved to Tully in 1929 the hall was used by the Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) and later the Returned Sailors' Soldiers' and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia (RSSAILA) before becoming a library from 1989-2008. It is now part of the Cardwell Bush Telegraph Heritage Centre and is called the JC Hubinger Museum.
  European settlement of the Cardwell district began in January 1864 when a small party landed at Rockingham Bay. The expedition was a private initiative led by George Elphinstone Dalrymple and backed by the Queensland Government. Dalrymple hoped to establish the first Queensland port north of Bowen, which he had helped establish in 1861, and a viable route between the coast and his pastoral run Valley of Lagoons, which was taken up in 1863. Between February and April 1864 Dalrymple journeyed to Valley of Lagoons and returned to the coast, establishing a dray road later called the Dalrymple Gap Track. Initially known as Port Hinchinbrook, the new town was declared a port of entry in May 1864, but Governor Bowen later changed the name to Cardwell, in honour of Edward Cardwell, the then British Secretary of State for the Colonies.
  Section 42 of the new town, between Victoria, Balliol, Bowen and Clitheroe Streets, was set aside for government purposes, and included the school, a police reserve, the Post and Telegraph Office, and later the Divisional Board Hall. The district was promoted by both Governor Bowen and Dalrymple, and initially it began to prosper. Money was provided for upgrading the Dalrymple Gap Track in 1864-65 and in the early 1870s a large jetty and a courthouse were built at Cardwell. However, Cardwell's potential as a sheltered, deep water port was never realised. The presence of the Cardwell Range behind the town hindered access to the interior and offshore shallows hampered larger ships. Cardwell was soon overshadowed by Townsville, which was declared a port of entry in 1865. From 1869 the goldfields of the counties of Gilbert and Etheridge provided a stimulus for several years, as Cardwell became the terminus for the gold escort, but there was little shipping trade. By 1876 Cardwell's population was still only 150.
  Despite the lack of development, the government established a number of services in Cardwell, thereby becoming the main industry in the town and guaranteeing its continued existence. By the mid 1870s a pilot's quarters, police barracks and lock-up, a Lands Office, combined Court/Customs House, Telegraph Office (now the Cardwell Bush Telegraph), sub-collector's (of customs) residence and provisional school existed at Cardwell.
  The town also became the centre of local government for the district when the Cardwell Divisional Board was created in 1884, breaking away from the Hinchinbrook Divisional Board. Local government in Queensland evolved in several phases. The first phase, 1859–79, was a system of permissive municipal incorporation, where local residents could petition for the establishment of a local authority, under the Municipalities Act 1858, (NSW), and later the Queensland Municipal Institutions Act 1864 and Provincial Councils Act 1864. By 1878, 18 towns and cities had been incorporated in Queensland. Regional areas were serviced only in part by a system of Road Boards, which had been established under the Department of Works. Consequently, the central government was regularly required to legislate on local community issues. The subsequent pressure on members of the Queensland Legislative Assembly to secure resources for their electorate led to widespread accusations of corruption.
  The second phase of local government was shaped by the Local Government Act 1878, and the Divi
caption: Cardwell Roll of Honour, 2016
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