Kidman's Tree of Knowledge
| Kidman's Tree of Knowledge | |
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Kidman's Tree of Knowledge, 2005
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| Location | Glengyle Station, Bedourie, Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 24°47′06″S 139°35′33″E / 24.785°S 139.5925°ECoordinates: 24°47′06″S 139°35′33″E / 24.785°S 139.5925°E |
| Design period | 1900 - 1914 (early 20th century) |
| Official name: Kidman's Tree of Knowledge, Tree of Knowledge | |
| Type | state heritage (landscape) |
| Designated | 21 October 1992 |
| Reference no. | 600462 |
| Significant period | 1910s (historical) 1910s - (social) |
| Significant components | trees of social, historic or special significance |
 Location of Kidman's Tree of Knowledge in Queensland
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Kidman's Tree of Knowledge is a heritage-listed tree at Glengyle Station, Bedourie, Shire of Diamantina, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Tree of Knowledge. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
Kidman's Tree of Knowledge is located on Glengyle Station in Queensland's Diamantina district and has become associated with Sir Sidney Kidman and the vast pastoral empire he established in the Australian interior in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The mature coolibah (Eucalyptus coolibah) is reputedly the tree under which Sidney Kidman camped when contemplating the development of his pastoral empire in Western Queensland. Glengyle Station on which the tree is situated subsequently proved to be the most important in Kidman's chain of properties that eventually stretched from the Barkly Tableland through to the Barrier Range in South Australia. However, while Kidman visited and purchased stock from Glengyle he did not acquire the leasehold until 1913.
Although European explorers had passed through the Diamantina district in the 1840s and early 1860s, pastoralists did not occupy this semi-arid region until the mid-1870s. In 1876 Patrick Drinan took up Annandale Station and Duncan McGregor took up Glengyle. Also taken up at this period were Sandringham and Carcory in 1877 and Dubbo Downs in 1878. The towns of Birdsville and Bedourie developed in the late 1870s/early 1880s to service these newly established Channel Country runs. The Diamantina and Georgina rivers, Cooper and Eyre creeks are part of a network of western Queensland waterways known as the Channel Country. They draw water from an area of 566,000 square kilometres. These systems contain innumerable of various depth and length that generally last throughout the dry season, however, after rain, the network of rivers, creeks and channels links together, stretching out over a vast floodplain like fingers, hence the name Channel Country. While some of the properties such as Glengyle border the Simpson Desert and have many square kilometres of sand dunes, the natural irrigation following the tropical north wet season means the land is ideal for grazing cattle.
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