Pittsworth, Queensland

Pittsworth is a town and locality in Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. The Toowoomba Regional Council reported the population of Pittsworth was 5503 in 2013.GeographyPittsworth township is 169km south-west of Brisbane via the Warrego Highway, 41km south-west of Toowoomba and is a service centre for the surrounding agricultural area. It is situated on the basalt upland section of the Darling Downs of southern Queensland which is undulating in nature and hosts mixed farming and intensive animal industries. Nearby is an alluvial flood plain, mostly leading directly to the North Branch of the Condamine River. This flood plain provides some of the best quality grains and cotton in Australia and utilises overland flood flows for irrigation purposes. Climate of the Pittsworth district is temperate with large variations between summer and winter due to it being some 150km inland and 520 metres above sea level. Average rainfall for Pittsworth is 695 mm per annum, with the higher falls occurring in the summer months.HistorySituated on the Darling Downs, Pittsworth owes its existence to that great explorer and botanist Allan Cunningham who in early June 1827 discovered and named the area around Warwick and to the north, the Darling Downs. It was not until 1840 that the Leslie Brothers arrived on the Darling Downs with stock for pastoral settlement and on the second arrival camped on the banks of the Condamine River close to which is now Leslie Crossing.Early settlement was driven by the taking up of land for the Beauaraba pastoral station. Pittsworth grew up around a wayside hotel, named the Beauaraba, which attracted itinerant rural workers and local landholders. The town was originally known as Beauaraba but the name was changed in 1915 in honour of a prominent local family who took up land at Goombungee in 1854. However, contemporary gazettes record 'Pittsworth, formerly Beauarba' as early as 1903, and newspaper articles about the town refer to it as Pittsworth from the late 19th century onwards. An 1887 newspaper article discussing the district is titled. Pittsworth (late Beuaraba).