Moreton Central Sugar Mill Honour Board

About

Timber panelled Honour Board, dedicated to the war service of 95 individuals employees of the Moreton Central Sugar Mill. The board displays gold lettering and a stylised image of the Mill, with a Rsing Sun backdrop. This is the 1939 1945 Honor Board from the local sugar mill in Nambour. The mill closed in 2003, but the board had been in storage since the 1960s and had fallen into disrepair. It was restored by Clive Plater in 1987 and hung in the Nambour RSL. After a further period of storage the board was reclaimed and is now displayed in a private collection of Moreton Mill artefacts at Eudlo. Additional Information From the commencement of settlement of the Maroochy district, sugar cane growing was seen as a cash crop eminently suited to the area. The first cane had been planted at Bli Bli as early as 1867. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, cane was beginning to be grown in quantity all along the coastal areas of Queensland and northern New South Wales, and mills needed to be built to crush the crop and extract the sugar. In the Sunshine Coast hinterland, one of the areas most favoured for the crop was the district of Dulong, eight kilometres west of Nambour. The area was largely covered with dense vine scrub and some dense rain forest, but most of the heavy timbers had gone by 1890. The loggers had left the area crisscrossed with access tracks for the area had been logged in the previous decade. A government survey in 1894 claimed that about seven square miles or eighteen square kilometres of land were suitable for the growing of cane. The idea that Dulong was a good cane-growing area persisted for a decade or more before rapid soil degradation and poor crops proved it wrong. In the light of this new Sugar Works Guarantee Act, local farmers began to discuss construction of sugar mills at Yandina, Petrie's Creek and Dulong. It was thought that cane would be particularly suitable for growing in the Perwillowen, Burnside, Rosemount, Woombye, Palmwoods, Image Flat, Yandina, and Eumundi districts, so on 19th August 1894, a meeting of 120 persons decided to form the Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company Limited, in order to construct a mill to crush sugar cane locally. Because of its central position, the Mill would be built in the little town of Nambour (population 200 at the time), this site having an added advantage in that it was served by the North Coast Railway, which had reached the town four years previously. This would enable cane from as far north as Cooran and as far south as Landsborough to be transported to the mill by the Queensland Railways. The mill was estimated to cost 36 000 pounds, and three provisional directors, John Currie (Chairman), George L. Bury (Secretary) and John A. Low were appointed to expedite the project. (Source: www.starfieldobservatory.com)