In 1882 “Stumpy” Michael Durack led an expedition to explore a then unmapped portion of the Kimberley district before he and others established a pastoral station there.  The expedition,

“Travelled partly south east and on 14th September reached what was at first thought might be the Ord River but after travelling up it for some little distance realised it was not the Ord and named it the DUNHAM River.”

In 1946 M.P. Durack recorded,

“My uncle named this river in memory of the Reverend Father of Brisbane.”

Francis A. Dunham (1836-1905) was born at Hampstead Westminster to Samuel D. and Mary nee Chandley.  He went to Ireland and entered All Hallows College Dublin in 1857 to study for the priesthood.  He was ordained for Liverpool diocese in 1863, working as curate in Liverpool and Formby.  He then moved to Golborne where he was rector from 1864 to 1871.

Dunham immigrated to Australia and was appointed by Bishop Quinn to Roma in 1874.  He worked in the outback for several years and it was during this period he met the Duracks.

He also took up a pastoral station, Dunham Towers, in the area around 1880.

Dunham’s main appointment under Archbishop Dunne when back in Brisbane was as first resident Priest in Wooloowin from 1893 to 1904.

He was privately a wealthy man.  On his death in 1905 he was buried in the Priest’s section of the Nudgee Cemetery, Brisbane.

The Dunham River was incorrectly recorded as Denham River by Melbourne magistrate Joseph Panton in his report on the Kimberley District in 1883.

Others continued this mistake, including government surveyor Chas. Nyulasy in his September 1886 survey from the river’s junction with McPhee Creek to its junction with the Ord River.

Numerous maps showed the river by its incorrect name until officially corrected on 3 July 1946.  However, it was some years before the correct name Dunham River was shown on public plans.

It flows 153 kilometres from the Durack Ranges (110 kilometres south-south-west of Wyndham) into the Ord River at Kununurra.

 

Reference:
Epton, Kim, Rivers of the Kimberley.

 

© Kim Epton 2026
364 words written entirely by the author, not AI.

You are welcome to use any part of this document. Please attribute adventures.net.au — it will help your site’s SEO as well as that of adventures.net.au