Lucinda is a coastal town in North Queensland, located at the southern entrance to Hinchinbrook Channel near the town of Ingham. A sugar-exporting town, Lucinda is noted for its 6 km-long sugar jetty, the world's largest bulk sugar loading facility. Lucinda is also used as a port for a supply barge to Palm Island.
Lucinda is 24km north of the north Queensland town of Ingham, 120km north of Townsville and 270km south of Cairns. The town is positioned opposite the southern end of Hinchinbrook Island - Australia s largest national park island and the region is patronised by locals and international visitors alike. The Thorsborne Trail , 32km, 5 day hike along the eastern edge of the island is internationally rated in the top 10 walks on the planet.
The Hinchinbrook Channel and its extensive estuary system is also regarded as one of Australia s sports fishing meccas , famous for its Barramundi , Mangrove Jack, Fingermark and of course Queensland Mud crabs. The island, some 36kms long, is world heritage listed and regarded by the state government as the 'jewel in the crown' of Queensland.
Lucinda is in the heart of sugar cane country, providing a thriving backdrop for visitors to observe as the season progresses. The cane country scenery is forever changing and is a hive of activity for 6 months of the year. The landscape of cane fields is magnificent with a sparkling array of fabulous greens and natural beauty that takes your breath away, unique in its own right.
As a tourist attraction Lucinda has the longest loading jetty in the southern hemisphere, 5.8km that actually curves with the earth. It services the sugar industry by loading raw sugar onto approximately 20 international ships per year. This facility and the large storage faculties is a tourist attraction, fascinating many visitors. Lucinda is serviced by a convenience store and post office on Dennis Parade and a hotel on Lucinda Point Road. It is also frequently serviced by Ingham and the nearby town of Halifax.
Lucinda is named for Lady Jeanne Lucinda Musgrave, the second wife of Sir Anthony Musgrave (July 1883-88), the colonial governor of Queensland, 1873-1877. Lucindale was proclaimed in 1877, a few months before they returned to the Caribbean to begin Sir Anthony's second term as governor of Jamaica. American-born Jeanne Lucinda Field was the daughter of American lawyer and law reformer David Dudley Field II of New York. She married Sir Anthony in San Francisco in 1864 and was his second wife, succeeding Christiana Elizabeth Byam (daughter of Sir William Byam of Antigua), whom he had married in 1853, and who had died in 1858. Sir Anthony died in 1888 and Lady Musgrave died on the 12th August, 1920 in England.
She has become a controversial figure due to an unsubstantiated claim that brands her a racist. It is said that while assigned to Jamaica, she demanded that the road, now known as Lady Musgrave Road, be built because she was so offended that a coloured man, George Stiebel, Esquire, Jamaica's first black millionaire, had the audacity to build a mansion at Devon Pen in 1881. She did not want to pass his house. During her time in Jamaica, Lucinda would accompany her husband in performing the same sort of social and ceremonial functions she had performed in Adelaide. However, her most notable achievement would be as the founder of what would become known as the Lady Musgrave Women’s Self-help Society.
Lucinda beach
The Ingham area was first settled by Henry Stone in 1865, but unlike many other regional settlements, sugar and not cattle was established as the primary produce of the area from the beginning. The Gairloch Sugar Mill was established in 1872. The sugar plantations were worked by Kanakas brought in from the South Pacific Islands. When Australia's immigration policy was changed around the turn of the 20th century, an influx of Italian migrants began and continued until the beginning of World War II. Tobacco growing began in the 1930s. Agriculture diversified, and the Catholic Church established an agriculture college at Abergowrie (the only one in north Queensland) in 1934. Vegetable crops were grown for southern winter markets.
A town in the Shire of Hinchinbrook, on the Herbert River, 15 km northeast of Ingham. Motorists must pass through Halifax to reach Lucinda. The town began when August Anderssen, a blacksmith, purchased the land in 1880, after which time the land was turned into sugar plantations.
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