Tamborine property

The Wanggeriburra and the yam ground

The Yugembah language, also recorded as Yugumbir, Jugambel, Jugambeir, Jugumbir, Jukam and Jukamba, is one of the Australian Aboriginal languages of this part of south-east Queensland. Its range takes in Beenleigh, Beaudesert, the Gold Coast, Logan and the Scenic Rim. Coolangatta, Coomera, Pimpama and Tamborine are also named, along with the Albert and Logan rivers and the Tweed River Valley. The same language area lies within the local government areas of Gold Coast City, Logan City, the Tweed River Valley and the Scenic Rim Region.

The Wanggeriburra clan of the Yugambeh people lived in this region before British colonisation. The area was known to them as Tamboreen, or Tchambreen, a name that meant "place of yams".

Colonists take land and the name changes

In 1845 two British colonists named Whitting and Hicks took land at Tamboreen and called it Burton Vale. The pastoral property that followed carried the names Tamboreen and then Tambourine, while the settlement that exists today is called Tamborine.

During the 1850s the Native Police raided the region, several times under Sub-Inspector Frederick Wheeler. The raids liquidated most of the Wanggeriburra people in the region.

Store, church and school

Dugald Graham bought the property in the 1850s, and Joseph Delpratt took ownership of it in the 1870s. Closer settlement followed: Thomas Plunkett set up a store in Tambourine in 1872, and a post office began two years later.

St Patrick's Catholic Church dates from the early 1870s. It stood beside a swamp on Michael Yores' property "Spiddle", on the south side of the Albert River. A cemetery lay near it, and flooding led to a decision to move the Catholic cemetery to land Thomas Plunkett donated on Plunkett Road. The church itself was later shifted during the 1960s to where Tamborine's railway station had stood. It was renovated there and dedicated by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane in June 1966. In 2020, a monthly vigil service took place at the church.

Michael Yore and Thomas Plunkett brought about the Tambourine Provisional School, which opened on 24 August 1874 inside St Patrick's Catholic Church. The Queensland Government gave 10 acres for a permanent school building in February 1905, on Waterford Tamborine Road. On 1 January 1909 it became Tambourine State School, and on 29 April 1926 the spelling changed to Tamborine. A larger teacher's residence was built in 1933.

The school closed on 10 July 1970. Its teacher's residence was relocated to Tamrookum, and the school building went to Chambers Flat, to the Beaudesert Shire Council's depot. The school site is now Tamborine School Park, and the former school building stands in the park again, signed as "The Little School House" and available for community meetings.

Railway, hall and a wartime camp

The Canungra railway line opened on 2 July 1915, linking Canungra with the South Coast railway line at Logan Village, and closed on 1 July 1955. Three of its stations stood within what is now the locality of Tamborine: Plunkett, Tamborine and Bromfleet. Tamborine's Memorial Hall dates from 1919.

During World War II, the American Army's 32nd Infantry Division set up a camp at Tamborine in 1942. The camp was first called Camp Tamborine and later Camp Cable, after a soldier who had died. The camp's site is now Logan Village and Yarrabilba.

Tamborine House, at 869 Mundoolun Connection Road, is a heritage-listed site. Tamborine was formerly in the Shire of Beaudesert. After the local government amalgamations of March 2008, the locality was divided between Logan City and the Scenic Rim Region.