Moreton Bay by F.W. Mole — Read

Though Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales, with his Chief Justice, Sir Thomas Forbes, visited the settlement in Moreton Bay in 1825, their visit of inspection did not in any way alleviate the lot of the convicts. All that they did was to confirm the choice of Lieutenant-Surveyor General Oxley in selecting the site for the settlement in the new territory--not at Umpie Bong, on the shores of the Bay, but twelve miles up the river from its mouth. In the fondness of his conceit Chief Justice Forbes named the settlement Edenglassie, after his own birthplace, but his conceit was not perpetuated, and the settlement soon began to be known as Brisbane Town and the magnificent river on which it was situated the Brisbane. The name was a fitting tribute to the Governor who first ordered the establishment of a convict settlement in the region to the north of Port Macquarie.

Soon after his return to Sydney Sir Thomas Brisbane was recalled by Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonies, because he was too peace-loving, too prone to rely on subordinates, and too much of an onlooker. He was succeeded by Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Darling, who immediately after his arrival in New South Wales tightened the bonds of both military and convict discipline. He also took a keen interest in the settlement at Moreton Bay. He disliked, however, the site twelve miles up the river because of the tediousness and difficulty of the access. He therefore promised to make a new settlement on Stradbroke Island, which, with Gnourganpin (Moreton Island), almost land-locked Moreton Bay. The proposed new settlement was at a place called by the blacks Goompie, but afterwards changed to Dunwich.