The Many Red Cliffes of Redcliffe

The area of Redcliffe was named by three separate explorers. But each seemed to have a slight variant on which were their Red Cliffs.

Lieutenant James Cook generally saw the coast in 1770, as he sailed up the coast using base charts from the Portuguese. His Red Cliffes would have been at Scarborough, visible well out to sea. (Cook was later promoted to Captain.)

In 1799, Matthew Flinders called the area at Suttons Beach Park, about opposite the end of Ella St, as the Red Cliffes. (Writers in this period of English nearly always included the “e” in Cliffes.”)

Lieutenant Matthew Flinders’ handwritten diary, 17 July 1799, refers to the red coloured cliffs being slightly west of Red Cliffe Point. However Matthew’s Red Cliffe Point was shown on his maps as the southern point of the peninsula, which we know today as the point at Woody Point. (Map 515 H7 in the Redcliffe Peninsula Pocket Book® edition 9)

He placed his red cliffs at 27°:16’:25”. Satellites still use 360° for the globe but use decimal points for parts of degrees in place of the futher divisions of 60 minutes and further divisions of 60 seconds. So his 27°:16’:25” = 27.273611° South. This places his red cliffs at the southern end of the Suttons Beach Park, about twenty or thirty metres north of the end of Ella St. (Map 515 G2 in the Redcliffe Peninsula Pocket Book® edition 9)

Matthew Flinders seems to have referred to Lieutenant James Cook’s naming of Red Cliffe Point.

Then, Wikipedia has another variant of the story with “The town’s name originates from “Red Cliff Point” named by the explorer John Oxley, referring to the red cliffs at Woody Point.”

Lieut. John Oxley had completed a lot of land exploration in NSW, but this was a boat trip in 1823. This report would also be correct as there are red cliffs here, and much limestone sediments out in the shallows at and near the point. Further, Flinders maps showed this as Redcliffe Point, not the later name of Woody Point.

John Oxley and Lieutenant Henry Miller surveyed the entire peninsula. They recommended to Governor Thomas Brisbane to establish the settlement about 200 metres from the beach near Humpybong Ck.

The following year, 1824, on 12th & 13th September, the first settlers established camp under the command of Lieutenant Henry Miller with 14 soldiers, some with wives and children, and 29 convicts.

Over the next 8 months the convicts constructed the Commandant’s House and store (prefabricated in Sydney), the soldiers barracks, a jail and a range of smaller buildings and huts.

But the peninsula was not quite suitable for this type of settlement. Food and water shortages being cited as a concern. (Later farmers did not seem to have these shortages!) So the group relocated to an area at North Quay on the Brisbane River (Bris Map H 12 in the Redcliffe Peninsula Pocket Book® edition 9).

Of course, about this time, the British were seeking to establish a few extra settlements around the coast of the huge colony of NSW, just in case the Russians or the French were tempted to place a town in the “outreaches of NSW”.

A town clerk has correctly tried to use “Redcliffe - the First Settlement” as a motto, but our Pocket Books wording of “The Redcliffe Peninsula - The Bee Gee’s Coast” probably has a bit more relevance to the “Now Generation” or the “I Generation”.

And, you can take your pick of which cliffs are the Red Cliffes, as Woody Point red cliffs, Redcliffe’s red cliffs and Scarborough red cliffs all appear in the history journals. So, eventually, some town planner read the words, the clues, the hints, correctly and gave us the district name of Redcliffe Peninsula.

Gerry Clarke B.PED.

(That’s Bachelor of Property Economics & Development, not quite history, but of use for Redcliffe’s next stage of development with the council zoning much of eastern Redcliffe as “Next Generation Residential” which means knocking down the houses, and building flocks of bats; ah ahhhh: blocks of flats, with their attendant body corporate disagreements. Separately title terrace houses would be preferable.)