Oaklands Sugar Mill Remnants

Oaklands sugar plantation was established in 1865 on the south bank of the Caboolture River at Morayfield. The bridge over the river honours the plantation’s owner Captain Claudius Buchanan Whish; a pioneer of Queensland’s sugar industry. A small park in Captain Whish Avenue has been set aside to conserve what remains of this former significant plantation. There are remnant brick foundations on the site, mounds and depressions in the soil, all related to the sugar milling. Whish took on a partner, John Trevilian, who sailed to Melanesia to procure island labourers for the property in December 1865. Oaklands included a large homestead, manager’s house, labourer’s cottages and huts, blacksmith shop, stables, carriage house as well as a rum distillery. It was the first sugar plantation in Queensland to market commercial quantities of sugar and high quality rum. However, the success of the plantation was short-lived. Captain Whish was declared insolvent and the property and equipment were sold in 1873. The property was subsequently used for grazing. Whish and his wife perished in the wreck of the ship Quetta in Torres Strait, in February 1890.