Palmerston, Christie   (1850 - 1897)

He claimed to have been baptized Cristofero Palmerston Carandini in Melbourne, and to be the son of Jerome Carandini and his wife Marie, née Burgess.

Christie is said to have left Hobart as a youth to work on a station in the Broad Sound area of Queensland and thence to the Palmer gold rush in 1873-74. He was certainly at the Hodgkinson rush of 1876, where he first made his name as a pathfinder.

Cooktown merchants backed Palmerston and W. C. Little to cut a track in April 1877 from the goldfield to an even more convenient port at Island Point. Palmerston discovered a route along the Mowbray River, and this led to the founding of Port Douglas.

Palmerston was often employed to cut tracks between the Atherton Tableland and the coast, mostly through difficult, precipitous and scrub-covered country. In July 1880 he connected Port Douglas with the newly-discovered Herberton tinfields. Late in 1882 he cut a track from Mourilyan Harbour (near Innisfail) to Herberton. In December 1884 he blazed a route from Herberton to the new South Johnstone diggings and in 1886 found gold on the upper Russell River but in no great quantity.

Respected as a consummate bushman, Palmerston was on unusually close terms with the Aboriginals whose allegiance he won by his firmness and skill as a shot. He hated the Chinese alluvial diggers, with whom he carried on a running feud.

After 1887 he settled down in Townsville, where at St Joseph's Church on 6 December 1886 he married Teresa Rooney, an architect's daughter and violinist; they had one daughter.

After a brief spell as a Townsville publican, moved to Borneo and then to Malaya where he worked for the Straits Development Co. He contracted fever in the jungle and died at Kuala Pilah on 15 January 1897.

He collected plant specimens for Mueller at Russell River, Johnstone River, and Mt Bartle Frere in 1888, these specimens are in MEL.

Source: Extracted from: Bolton, G.C. (2006) ADB https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/palmerston-christie-4361
George, A.S. (2009) Australian Botanist's Companion, Four Gables Press, WA. [consult for source references]
Portrait Photo: Extracted from: http://www.bonzle.com/pictures-over-time/pictures-taken-in-1850/page-1/size-3/picture-2heys469/queensland/portrait-of-christie-palmerston-1850-1893. (obviously not taken in 1850 !)

Collecting localities for 'Palmerston, C.' from AVH (2022)

Data from 116 specimens