Poole Island
Poole Island in Port Denison is named after Benjamin Poole, who accompanied Henry Daniel Sinclair in the nine-ton ketch Santa Barbara on an investigation of the North Queensland coast. There was — reputedly — a reward for finding a suitable location to serve as a port for the new Kennedy Pastoral District.
In the early 1880s, Robert Christison of Lammermoor, impressed by an Australian firm’s success in exporting mutton by freezing, interested British capitalists in establishing freezing works in North Queensland. They chose a site at Poole Island, and Christison persuaded local pastoralists to invest 15,000 shares and supply 6,000 cattle annually for five years. By October 1883, the works were ready. In the first three months, they purchased 3,250 cattle for freezing at £4 to £6 a head. However, in January 1884, a cyclone destroyed the works. Despite plans to rebuild, no capital was available, and parts of the plant were used to build a new freezing works at Alligator Creek.
Sources:
G.C. Bolton. A Thousand Miles Away, pp.17, 101-2.
