Drayton, Queensland

Drayton is an outer southwestern suburb of Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. Its local government area is the Toowoomba Region. At the 2011 Australian Census the suburb recorded a population of 1,609. It was first substantial settlement on the Darling Downs, initially being established in 1842. The nearby township of Toowoomba expanded more rapidly than Drayton, and in the 1860s the centre of population shifted to Toowoomba, leaving Drayton as a southwestern suburb.HistoryDrayton started out as a settlement near a number of pastoral properties in the Eastern Downs in the early half of the 1840s. Thomas Alford, an early settler in the area who built a house, general store, and post office in the area, named the town after his home village in Somerset. Drayton continued to be the primary settlement in the region until the town of Toowoomba was established four miles to the north-east, whereupon the centre of population rapidly moved to the newer settlement owing to its better access to water and favourable growing conditions. By 1905, the Australian Handbook stated that the town "may now almost be considered a suburb of Toowoomba".One of the oldest buildings in the Drayton area is the Royal Bull's Head Inn. The town also saw the area's first newspaper, the Darling Downs Gazette, in 1858. The National School (later Drayton State School) established in 1851, was one of the first in Queensland.