people

Millmerran - Our People

Take a walk through the grounds of the library and Domville Place to Campbell Street, where you will pass by four columns paying homage to Millmerran's historic heroes.

Millmerran

INDUSTRY HERO

Doug Hall began his poultry business in 1958 with just 200 chooks. From these humble beginnings, DA Hall & Co has become a large and successful integrated rural enterprise. The company has steadily expanded over the years to include intensive pig production, egg production, stockfeed milling and cereal crop production.

Although successful in business, Doug's character never changed, continuing his zest for life and his interest in people, community and family. His generosity lives on through the Doug Hall Foundation, providing support for the Millmerran community and educational scholarships.

Millmerran

FOUNDING FAMILIES

The Gore family of Yandilla were the founders of a pastoral empire. Ralph and St George Gore were the first permanent white persons to take up this stretch of country on the Darling Downs in 1841. They called the place Grass Tree Creek and then Yandilla. The Gore brothers and the ensuing generations expanded Yandilla to cover 688 square miles. The family developed Yandilla and retained occupancy until 1911.

The family were devout Anglicans and had a paternalistic sense of responsibility towards the welfare of their workers, there being a considerable number of people living on Yandilla apart from the Gores. All Saints Church is a timber church erected at Yandilla Station by the Gore family about 1878.

Millmerran

WOMEN OF CHARACTER

Bridget (Ettie) O'Leary was the first person to open a hospital in Millmerran in 1934. She was born in Clifton in 1907, trained at Toowoomba General Hospital from 1926 - 1931. Sr O'Leary obtained the licence to operate the CWA Emergency Home in Charlotte Street with two well equipped rooms. It was later renamed St Margaret's Hospital. Sr O'Leary went on to complete her Obstetrics Certificate and returned in 1935, recovering from a serious burns accident. In 1942 she joined the Australia Army Nursing Service and became part of a specialised Burns Team in Mt Isa, sucessfully treating Allied Airmen. St Margaret's Hospital closed in 1943.

Sarah Boyd, the first teacher of the Yandilla Provisional School in 1882, is another woman of character in Millmerran's History. You can read more about these women on the signs in Domville Place.