Driver
suburb
CityDarwin
Statent
Coordinates12.485085°S 130.973005°E
Zoom12
LgaCity of Palmerston
Postcode0830
Est1990's
Pop2,884
Area1.72
StategovDrysdale
FedgovSolomon
Near-nwElrundle
Near-nDurack
Near-nePalmerston City
Near-wMarlow Lagoon
Near-eGray
Near-swMarlow Lagoon
Near-sMoulden
Near-seWoodroffe
Dist 123.4
Location 1Darwin
Dist 21.8
Location 2Palmerston

Driver is an inner-city suburb of Palmerston. It is 23 km SE of the Darwin CBD. Its Local Government Area is the City of Palmerston. Durack is bounded to the north by University Ave, to the west Elrundie Avenue, to the east Temple Terrace and to the south Tilston Avenue. The suburb is mostly composed of developments from the early 1980s.

History

Driver was named after Arthur Driver, an engineer who came from Western Australia and was appointed by the Australian government as Administrator of the Northern Territory in 1946. The highlights of his five-year term include the rescue in 1947 of Bas Wie upon his stowaway arrival in Darwin from Indonesia and his term as the first President of the Legislative Council which begun in 1948. By this time, Driver had embarked on the decentralisation process of establishing Elliott as the focal point between Darwin and Alice Springs in the centre of the Territory.[1]

Fry Court in Driver was named after Mr Charles Fry, a teamster who arrived with George Goyder's survey expedition in 1869 to found the colony of Port Darwin. His wife and family arrived with the first European women in January 1870. Fry drowned off the north Queensland coast when the SS Gothenburg sank in February 1875, after striking a section of the Great Barrier Reef in cyclonic conditions.[2]

References

  1. ^ NT Government (2007). Archived 23 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine The Origin of Suburbs, Localities, Towns and Hundreds in the Greater Darwin area: Driver. Retrieved 6 February 2008.
  2. ^ NT Government (2008). NT Place Names Register: Fry Court. Retrieved 6 February 2008.