Croydon
Postcode: 4871
Croydon is a town in Queensland, Australia. It is one of the termini for The Gulflander tourist railway operated by TravelTrain.
The Shire of Croydon website shows that the historic goldrush town of Croydon is located in the heart of the Gulf Savannah, 562 km west of Cairns. When first settled in the 1880s Croydon was a large pastoral holding covering an area of approximately 5,000 km². Gold was discovered in 1885 and by 1887, the town’s population had reached a staggering 7,000. Gold was to be the mainstay of the district for four decades. The Mining Warden left in 1926 as there were too few miners left on the field. During its heyday, Croydon was the fourth largest town in the colony of Queensland.
In 1917, Dr. Elkington, Director of the Division of Tropical Hygiene, Commonwealth Department of Health, concerned about health and hygiene there because of its growing population, contemplated conducting a statistical and social survey of the town. Although this did not eventuate, it reflects Croydon’s rapid growth. Elkington’s interest in sociological surveys as a means of gathering social and economic details on a population later developed into the 1924 Sociological Survey of White Women conducted from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville.
Currently, Croydon is a much smaller place, its population having greatly decreased following the end of the gold rush. The population now amounts to a few hundred people.