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Local History

Discover the rich history of Townsville and the surrounding region online and in the Local Collection Room at Citylibraries Flinders Street.

Make an appointment with our Local History staff by calling 07 4727 9667 or emailing us at historyandheritage@townsville.qld.gov.au.

Local History staff are able to provide a one-hour research standard per query, collection tours and guidance as well as inductions to our free digitisation equipment and family history research computer service.

Our usual desk hours are 9am - 5pm Monday to Friday however this may vary due to staff availability.

Watch a Townsville Local History Video

Digitise it, Preserve it, Share it
Townsville Voices
Working With Wood
Memories for a New Generation
Open for Business: Influential business families of Townsville's past.

Read about the History of Townsville in an eBook

Lecture Series - Sir Robert Philp (PDF, 878.9 KB)
Lecture Series - Lectures in Queensland History (PDF, 7.4 MB)
Looking Back... Memories of Townsville project
Serving Thuringowa: Chairman and Mayors 1897-2004 (PDF, 8.5 MB)
Paluma: The First Eighty Years (PDF, 15.1 MB)
A Short History of Thuringowa (PDF, 11.1 MB)
Thuringowa Past and Present (PDF, 13.7 MB)
A History of the Bohle Plains (PDF, 3.1 MB)
In the Shadow of Castle Hill (PDF, 11.9 MB)
Minutes Through the Years
Paluma, The First Eighty Years (PDF, 14.5 MB)
Highways and Byways: The meanings behind street names in Townsville (PDF, 471.6 KB)

Other resources for Teachers, Home School Parents and Students

T150 Education Kit

A comprehensive collection of information featuring 150 years of Townsville's history; neatly organised and presented for your use.

Teacher information kit - information and activities to help students appreciate Townsville's diverse history. (PDF, 7.3 MB)

Download the account of James Morrill mentioned in the year 4 activities.

T150 Education - Activity Kits

The following are zip files for downloading to complement the above T150 Education Kit.

Year 2 (ZIP, 10.3 MB)
Year 3 (ZIP, 901.5 KB)
Year 4 (ZIP, 23.2 KB)
Year 5 (ZIP, 1.7 MB)
Year 6 (ZIP, 4.3 MB)

Heritage Information Sheets

These Heritage Information Sheets are a really valuable local history resource and are particularly useful for school assignments. Learn something new about our city's history.

Visit our Heritage Information Sheets page to view.

World War 1 Education Kit

The World War 1 Education Kit has two aims, first to illustrate the relevance of Citylibraries Townsville's Local History Collection to the Australian History Curriculum and second to assist teachers in creating a meaningful and interesting history unit relevant to Anzac Day.

The kit includes a range of activities with relevant sources for Year 2, 3 and 6 which align with the relevant aspects of the Australian History Curriculum.

Whilst the pack has been made with specific activities attached to specific sources it is hoped that teachers look upon the pack as a flexible teaching tool which they can utilise in a variety of ways.

The teachers guide for the World War 1 Education Kit can be downloaded below. Please visit our For Schools page to access additional kit resources.

Download a copy of the WW1 Education Kit (PDF, 12.4 MB)

From Selection to Discovery - T150 Minutes Through the Years

Funding was made available to support council's Minutes Through the Years: T150 Townsville City Council Minutes Online pilot project to begin the digitisation and cataloguing of Townsville’s historic minute books and to make them available online. Through the From Selection to Discovery pilot project, one set of minutes is now online and was also made available for the commencement of the 150th anniversary year of Townsville City Council from January 2016.

From Selection to Discovery was funded by the Queensland Government through the State Library of Queensland, and provided five councils with a grant and training to support the completion of a digitisation project of their choice. It aimed to increase the presence and accessibility of Queensland’s heritage collections online, and to build the capacity of councils and communities to continue selecting digitising and making collections accessible online into the future.

As part of ongoing Townsville City Council library work, further historical minute books will be digitised and made available during the anniversary year of 2016 building on the process established through the From Selection to Discovery project.