Buderim Historical Society

Through it’s relatively short history, Buderim has endured many changes, one thing that remains is the special nature of this jewel on the Sunshine Coast.

The Buderim Historical Society was formed in 1966 by the Buderim community at the behest of the BWMCC (now BWMCA), at a well-attended meeting in the Buderim Memorial Hall. The Society is a volunteer organisation which is an independent affiliate of the BWMCA. The number one objective was to restore and preserve the original home of the Burnett Family, now known as Pioneer Cottage.

The Pioneer Cottage was given to the community in 1966 by Sybil Vise and is recognised as one of the most significant heritage homes in Queensland, and the only one of its type which survives. The local community offered enormous support in the restoration and establishment of the home as a pioneer museum. The elected committee were instrumental in the management and implementation of many hours of volunteer work, plus goods and money donated by the wider community.

Sybil Vise left the rest of the property and another house to the BWMCA and this is now the home of the Buderim Historical Society. The aim is to develop a resource centre for educational and general information purposes, chronicling the history of the Mountain. A massive amount of work has been undertaken by Olive and John Close, bringing the large number of images and documentation into an electronic form.

You can contact the Buderim Historical Society by calling 07 5450 1966

Buderim’s Early History (the short story)

(For the full story please contact the crew at Buderim Historical Society,
visit them at the Pioneer Cottage or phone 07 5450 1966)

When Pettigrew saw Buderim Mountain for the first time, it was to seek timber resources and farm land. He saw a large stands of Beech and Cedar, indeed some of the trees were so large that they workers had no way of transporting the wood down to the ships! The isolated mountain environment presented a transportation problem was to be the bane of the farmer’s existence through to the early 1900′s.

In 1869 Pettigrew enlisted the help of Tom Petrie, who spoke the local aboriginal dialect. The indigenous people showed Petrie the way to the top of the Mountain and it is possible that he first penned the name “Buderim”.

Beside the lure of the quality forest woods, the pressure was on to find quality farmland to feed the burgeoning demand of the cities.

The Government asked that settlers cleared and fenced their land in a form of covenant, if you didn’t meet the requirements, tenure could be lost.

Once the land was cleared in around 1870 it was opened up for general settlement. One of the first families to move here was that of William Henry Guy, a surveyor who helped draw up the boundaries. The Guy family name is seen in roads around Buderim and the family descendants still live on the Mountain.

The first crops on Buderim were sugarcane, bananas and various small crops ie beans and tomatoes. Peanuts were grown for a while but this was not successful.

A sugar Mill was built in 1876 to service the local canefields.

In that same year the Burnetts built their home which is known these days as “Pioneer Cottage”

Around 1891 Citrus orchards and coffee plantations began to appear around Buderim Mountain. Kanaka labour was used extensively, the people being held as virtual slaves. The only relief for their plight provided by the work of Joseph Dixon, a Quaker who set up a school and Sunday School for Kanak Children.

The quality of the coffee was held in high regard and in 1899, Ernest Burnett won a Gold Certificate for his produce at a trades fair in London.

The image above looks across the track now known as Lindsay Road towards the beginnings of Burnett Street and Ballinger Road. Interestingly the Lindsay track did not go past the creek and terminated very early.

Ginger is the crop for which Buderim is the most famous and this was introduced by William Burnett around World War One. The crop was very successful and once the farming community embraced the exotic tuber, the results were spectacular. In the 1940′s a Ginger Grower’s Cooperative was formed and the Buderim Ginger legend was born!

Buderim became known as the Ginger Capital and was soon home to the largest and most significant ginger factory in the Southern Hemisphere. This was The Place to buy ginger products right up until the factory moved to Yandina in 1978. Nowadays the factory is part of a major tourism complex and one of the “must see” places for the Sunshine Coast tourist.

Although many farmers hired out their trucks to take people down the Mountain (refer to the image at the top of this page), eventually an official bus service was started.

In addition a tram service operated between Palmwoods and Buderim, the original steam loco and the remnants of the track are currently the subject of an ambitious restoration process.

The image at left shows a view from Gloucester Road looking South toward St. Mark’s Anglican Church. The church building visible is now the Church Function Hall.

Buderim has endured the pressures from urban life from the earliest days and when the farmers could make a better life by getting jobs, the farmlands were subdivided and sold off.

This pressure still exists today as the region is one of the hottest growth areas in Queensland.

Drunken Lice – read about medical history in Buderim

Read more on the history of medicine on this Buderim Blog Story