Westwood, Queensland

Westwood is 50 kilometres (31 mi) south west of the city of Rockhampton. The Capricorn Highway passes through the town, and the intersection with the Leichhardt Highway is a few kilometres to the southwest. The town of Westwood consists of a handful of houses, a hotel, and a police station. The major industry of the area is cattle grazing. The northern half of the locality of Westwood is in Rockhampton region while the southern part is in the Shire of Banana.[5]

Old Westwood railway station

Westwood School, claimed to be the oldest schoolhouse in Central Queensland, 1930

Front and rear views of the new state sanitorium at Westwood, June 1919

Although towns such as Brisbane, Maryborough and Rockhampton had been gazetted by the New South Wales Government prior to the separation of Queensland, Westwood was the first town to be gazetted by the newly established Queensland Government on 23 May 1860. Although the area was named Prestone on the original survey plan, Queensland Governor George Bowen decided to name the town Westwood after Westwood House, the home of Sir John Pakington, the Secretary of State for the Colonies and War in 1852.[2][6]

In 1867, the Great Northern Railway (now known as the Central Western Line) reached the area from Rockhampton, and Westwood became the railhead.[7] The first load of wool was railed from the town on 23 August.

Westwood State School opened on 26 August 1872.[8][9]

The town was meant to be the railhead for only a short time. However, bureaucracy and financial difficulties for the state meant that the next section of the line did not commence construction until 1873. The significance of Westwood declined when the railhead moved further west.

In 1919, a 64-bed sanitorium was opened in Westwood to treat miner's phthisis, a lung disease suffered by miners from working in dusty conditions. Later, it treated patients with tuberculous. In 1953, a ¾ mile bitumen road was built from the Huxham railway siding (just to the north of Westwood) to the sanitorium and named Haigh Drive in memory of Leonard Garfield Haigh, the former chairman of the Rockhampton Hospitals Board from 2 June 1933, to 16 February 1953. Commencing with a tiled-roof waiting shed at the siding with a plaque commemorating Haigh, the drive to the sanitorium was flanked with peltophorum trees and was officially opened by James Larcombe (MLA for Rockhampton) in the presence of Haigh's widow on Sunday 1 November 1953.[10][11] More effective medical treatments for tuberculous resulted in the closure of the sanitorium in 1959, but the building continued to be used as a nursing home until the 1980s. The sanitorium buildings were then relocated or demolished; one is in use as a private home in Emerald.[12]

At the 2006 census, Westwood and the surrounding area had a population of 253.[13]

At the 2011 census, Westwood had a population of 240.[14]

Westwood has the following heritage-listed sites:

• remains of the Adolphus William Copper Smelter [15]

Westwood State School is a government primary (Prep-6) school for boys and girls at 108 Herbert Street (23.6173°S 150.1545°E / -23.6173; 150.1545 (Westwood State School)).[16][17] In 2017, the school had an enrolment of 13 students with 2 teachers (1 full-time equivalent) and 4 non-teaching staff (2 full-time equivalent).[18]

• Hansen, Ronald James (1971), The geology of the Westwood Intrusion, Central Eastern Queensland, Brisbane
• Hanrahan, Gail Marguerite (1997), Westwood State School : 125 years, 26 August 1872-1997, Westwood State School
• Hoch, Isabel (2009), Medical care at Westwood 1919-1984, Rockhampton & District Historical Society, retrieved 27 December 2015

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Westwood, Queensland.

• "Westwood". Central Queensland Family History Association Inc. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
• Town map of Westwood, 1973