Driver, Northern Territory
Encyclopedia
Driver is an inner-city suburb
Suburb
The word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...

 of Palmerston
Palmerston, Northern Territory
Palmerston is a planned satellite city of Darwin, the capital and largest city in Australia's Northern Territory. Palmerston is situated near Darwin Harbour and has an urban population of 23,614 on the 2006 Census night and making it the second largest city in the territory...

. It is 23 km SE of the Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...

 CBD
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...

. Its Local Government Area
Local Government Area
A local government area is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a state, province, division, or territory....

 is the City of Palmerston
City of Palmerston
The City of Palmerston is a Local Government Area of the Northern Territory. It contains the suburbs of Darwin's satellite city, Palmerston, and is situated between the outer industrial areas of Darwin and the rural areas of Howard Springs. The City covers an area of 56.3 km² and has a...

. Durack is bounded to the north by University Ave, to the west Elrundle Avenue, to the east Temple Terrace and to the south Tilston Avenue. The suburb is mostly composed of developments from the early 1980s.

History

Driver was named after Mr Arthur Robert Driver, an engineer who came from Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 and was appointed by the Federal Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...

 Government]] as Administrator in 1946. The highlights of his five year term include the rescue in 1947 of Bas Wie upon his stowaway arrival in Darwin from Indonesia and his term as the first President of the Legislative Council which begun in 1948. By this time Driver had embarked on the decentralisation process of establishing Elliott as the focal point between Darwin and Alice Springs in the centre of the Territory.

Driver was succeeded in 1951 by another Western Australian, Mr F J S Wise. Driver died in May 1981.

Fry Court in Driver was named after Mr Charles Fry, a teamster who arrived with George Goyder
George Goyder
George Woodroffe Goyder was a surveyor in South Australia during the latter half of the nineteenth century....

's survey expedition in 1869 to found the colony of Port Darwin. His wife and family arrived with the first European women in January 1870. Fry drowned off the north Queensland coast when the SS Gothenburg
SS Gothenburg
The SS Gothenburg was a steamship that operated along the British and then later the Australian and New Zealand coastlines. In February 1875, she left Darwin, Australia en route to Adelaide when she encountered a cyclone-strength storm off the north Queensland coast. The ship was wrecked on the...

 sank in February 1875, after striking a section of the Great Barrier Reef
Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world'slargest reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 2,600 kilometres over an area of approximately...

in cyclonic conditions.

External links

  • http://www.nt.gov.au/lands/lis/placenames/origins/greaterdarwin.shtml#d
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