Talk:Kents Lagoon, Queensland

origin of the name

I am somewhat dubious of the 1930s claim that this location was "named by Ludwig Leichhardt after F. Kent, the then owner of Fassifern station". First the owner of Fassifern Station was John Cameron and we know he advertised it for sale in August 1847.Sometime prior to May 1848, Cameron sells it to William Kent. Leichhardt is last seen alive on 3 April 1848. F. Kent refers to Fassifern Kent (son of William Kent) who wasn't born until 29 July 1857. So if it was named by Leichhardt, it could only have been named after William Kent and that has to occur in the narrow window between Kent's purchase of the property (the exact date of which is unclear but 1847-1838 and Leichhardt's disappearance, a time when Leichhardt did not appear to be exploring the Fassifern area -- that was earlier). But there is a Kent's Lagoon named by the Leichhardt Expedition in 1844 , "This camp (called Disaster Camp or Kent's Lagoon, from the circumstance of some excellent chocolate kindly given us by Mr. Kent of Moreton Bay, being for ten days our meat and almost sole food; therefore a name we unanimously assented to)". Thanks to various geographic references in the expedition's reports, we know that this Kent's Lagoon is 70 miles from Jimba (now Jimbour Homestead) and they then travelled north to Dogwood Creek (now Miles) and that the expedition was following the Condamine River, all of which pinpoints the location of the campsite as present day Condamine, Queensland or thereabouts, nowhere near Fassifern Station or the locality currently known as Kent's Lagoon. So whichever way you look at it, the claim "named by Ludwig Leichhardt after F. Kent, the then owner of Fassifern station" doesn't stack up. So I think all we can probably say that is the William Kent owned Fassifern Station and the lagoon was most likely on his land, hence it was Kent's Lagoon. Kerry (talk) 02:21, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

References