Welcome to Warwick

"The first Town in the State of Queensland"

Warwick is nestled in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range at 453 meters above sea level, the Condamine River meanders through this picturesque City. The City is shrouded in history, as it was the first town to be settled in what is now known as the state of Queensland. The township was proclaimed a municipality in 1861.

In 1840, after the lands on the Darling Downs had been opened up. Although the Darling Downs was discovered and explored by Europeans as early as the 1820s (Allan Cunningham passed through the area in 1823) it wasn't until the 1840s that the New South Wales Government (Queensland did not become a separate colony until 1859) relented and allowed squatters and pastoralists to move onto the rich and fertile plains.

In 1842 Governor Gipps declared that 'all settlers and other free persons shall be at liberty to proceed to the Darling Downs in like manner as to any other part of the Colony. The area was first settled by the Leslie brothers (Patrick and George) who established the Canning Downs run in 1840 and built a home in 1846 (this small slab dwelling still stand to this very day), inevitably the station became an important centre for the region with a blacksmith, a store and accommodation and eating facilities.

In 1847 the New South Wales government gave Patrick Leslie permission to select a site for a town on his Canning Downs station. It was to be known as Canningtown, the name was changed and Warwick was chosen the local Aborigines knew the area as Gooragooby. The town was duly surveyed in 1849 and land was first sold in 1850. This was to be the site of modern day Warwick and it grew to become a municipality in 1861 and to become a city (the second largest on the Darling Downs) in 1936.

The development of the town was rapid. A store was established in 1848 before the town was even surveyed and by 1862 a state school had been completed. Cobb & Co started running a coach to the township in 1865 and by 1871 the railway from Ipswich had reached the town.