Ipswich according to The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld,: 1866-1939), Thursday 18 January 1934, Page 13 was tribally known as Coodjirar meaning place of the Red Stemmed Gum Tree in the Yugararpul language.

Jagara (also known as Jagera, Yagara, and Yuggara) and Yugarabul (also known as Ugarapul and Yuggerabul) are Australian Aboriginal languages of South-East Queensland. There is some uncertainty over the status of Jagara as a language, dialect or perhaps a group or clan within the local government boundaries of Ipswich City Council, Lockyer Regional Council and the Somerset Regional Council.[5][6] The languages of Greater Brisbane are related - there is uncertainty over which dialects belong to which language.The Yugarabul language region includes the landscape within the local government boundaries of Brisbane City Council, Ipswich City Council and the Scenic Rim Regional Council.[7]

Prior to the arrival of European settlers, what is now called Ipswich was home to many indigenous language groups, including the Warpai tribe,[8] Yuggera and Ugarapul Indigenous Australian groups.[9] The area was first explored by European colonists in 1826, when Captain Patrick Logan, Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal colony, sailed up the Brisbane River and discovered large deposits of limestone and other minerals.[10]

Settlement

Lands Office, erected 1877

St Paul's and Blackall Memorial Fountain in 1885
The town began in 1827 as a limestone mining settlement and grew rapidly as a major inland port. Ipswich was initially named "The Limestone Hills" and later shortened to "Limestone", however in 1843 it was renamed after the town of Ipswich in England.[11] The population was 932 in 1851 and had risen to 2459 by 1856.[12] It became a municipality in 1858. Ipswich had been a prime candidate for becoming the capital of Queensland from about 1847 when the Rev. John Dunmore Lang had toured both Ipswich and Brisbane, and noted the strength of Ipswich as a port town with access to the wool suppliers of the Darling Downs, but Brisbane was instead chosen due to its mercantile and colonial interests.[13][14] Brisbane was declared the capital of the new Crown Colony of Queensland in 1859. It was proclaimed a city in 1904.[15]

The city became a major coal-mining area in the early 19th Century, contributing to the development of railways in the region as a means of transport. The first recorded coal mines in the central Ipswich area started at Woodend in 1848.[16] Triassic aged dinosaur footprints were found in underground coal mines in the vicinity of the suburbs of Ebbw Vale and New Chum[17] while large numbers of Jurassic aged dinosaur footprints have been reported from the suburb of Rosewood.[18]

From the 1840s onward, Ipswich was becoming an important river port for growing local industries such as coal and wool from the Darling Downs and a regular paddlesteamer service from Brisbane Town, The Experiment, was established in 1846.[19] This, and other steamer services,[20] remained the primary form of mass/bulk transport between the two cities until 1876, when the construction of the original Albert Bridge, spanning the Brisbane River at Indooroopilly, completed the railway line begun between Ipswich and Brisbane in 1873.[21]

Ipswich was proclaimed a municipality on 2 March 1860 and became a city in 1904.[citation needed]

On 26 May 1872 a Primitive Methodist Church opened in East Street.[22][23][24]

By April 1873 there were numerous churches in Ipswich: Anglican, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Primitive Methodist, German Lutheran, and Wesleyan Methodist.[25]

A United Methodist Free Church opened in Brisbane Street in July 1873, having relocated from the "comparative obscurity" of North Ipswich.[26]

In March 1888, 239 allotments of the "Liverpool Estate" were advertised to be auctioned by E. Bostock in conjunction with Arthur Martin & Co.[27] A map advertising the auction shows the proximity of the estate to the railway workshops and the Bremer